The Pentagon & Climate Change The leaders of our armed forces know what’s coming next: melting ice caps, rising sea levels, and mass migrations that will take a toll on much of our military infrastructure and create countless new threats. But climate deniers in Congress are ignoring the warnings and putting our national security at risk By JEFF GOODELL Illustration by MATT MAHURIN 48 | Rolling Stone | RollingStone.com The Pentagon aval station norfolk is the seven feet of sea-level rise by 2100. In 25 headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Atlan- years, operations at most of these bases are likely to be severely compromised. With- tic fleet, an awesome collection of mil- in 50 years, most of them could be goners. itary power that is in a terrible way the If the region gets slammed by a big hurri- crowning glory of American civiliza- cane, the reckoning could come even soon- tion. Seventy-five thousand sailors and er. “You could move some of the ships to other bases or build new, smaller bases in civilians work here, their job the daily more protected places,” says retired Navy business of keeping an armada spit- Capt. Joe Bouchard, a former command- shined and ready for deployment at any er of Naval Station Norfolk. “But the costs would be enormous. We’re talking hun- moment. When I visited in December, dreds of billions of dollars.” the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roos- Rear Adm. Jonathan White, the Na- evelt was in port, a 1,000-foot-long floating war machine that was central to U.S. vy’s chief oceanographer and head of its military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cranes loaded equipment onto the climate-change task force, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the military deck;N sailors rushed up and down the gangplanks. Navy helicopters hovered about what’s actually happening on our overhead. Security was tight everywhere. While I was checking out one of the rapidly heating planet. Whenever another base’s massive new double-decker concrete piers that’s nearly as big as a shop- officer or a congressperson corners White ping-mall parking lot, I wandered over to have a closer look at the USS Grave- and presses him about why he spends so much time thinking about climate change, ly, a guided-missile destroyer that has spent a lot of hours on watch in the Med- he doesn’t even try to explain thermal ex- iterranean. Armed men on the deck watched me warily – even my official escort pansion of the oceans or ice dynamics in seemed jittery (“I think we should step back a bit,” he said, grabbing my arm). the Arctic. “I just take them down to Nor- folk,” White says. “When you see what’s You can’t spend 10 minutes in this part many of them are in just as much trouble. going on down there, it gives you a sense of Virginia without feeling the deep sense At nearby Langley Air Force base, home to of what climate change means to the Navy of history. The Battle of Hampton Roads, two fighter wings and headquarters for the – and to America. And you can see why a famous naval showdown between two Air Combat Command, base command- we’re concerned.” Civil War ironclads, occurred just off- ers keep 30,000 sandbags ready to stack shore. The base was a key departure point around buildings when a big storm comes hose who talk most for thousands of sailors during World War in. At Dam Neck, another Navy base, they about climate change – sci- II, many of whom never returned. Their pile old Christmas trees on the beach to entists, politicians, envi- ghosts still haunt the place. Everyone’s keep it from eroding. At NASA Wallops ronmental activists – tend aunt or uncle has a story to tell about a Flight Facility, NASA armored the shore- to frame the discussion night in a port in Brisbane or Barcelona line with 3 million cubic yards of sand inT economic and moral terms. But last or about the way their ears rang the first to protect its launchpads from sea surg- month, in a dramatic turn, President time they heard a cannon firing from the es. “Military readiness is already being Obama talked about climate change in deck of a ship. impacted by sea-level rise,” says Virginia an explicitly military context: “The Pen- But within the lifetime of a child grow- Sen. Tim Kaine, who mentions that with tagon says that climate change poses im- ing up here, all this could vanish into the all the flooding, it’s becoming difficult to mediate risks to our national security,” he Atlantic Ocean. The land that the base is sell a house in some parts of Norfolk. If the said in his State of the Union address. “We built upon is literally sinking, meaning sea melting of Greenland and West Antarcti- should act like it.” levels are rising in Norfolk roughly twice ca continues to accelerate at current rates, On one level, this is just shrewd poli- as fast as the global average. There is no scientists say Norfolk could see more than tics, a way of talking about climate change high ground, nowhere to retreat. It feels to people who don’t care about extinc- like a swamp that has been dredged and tion rates among reptiles or food pric- paved over – and that’s pretty much what es in eastern Africa. But it’s also a way of it is. All it takes is a rainstorm and a big The future of boxing in all the deniers in Congress who tide and the Atlantic invades the base – have blocked climate action – many of roads are submerged, entry gates impass- crucial military whom, it turns out, are big supporters of able. A nor’easter had moved through the the military. The Senate Armed Services area the day before my visit. On Craney Is- bases, many Committee is made up of characters like land, the base’s main refueling depot, mil- James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Ted Cruz of itary vehicles were up to their axles in sea- of them Texas and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and is water. Water pooled in a long, flat grassy headed by John McCain of Arizona, who, area near Admiral’s Row, where naval irreplaceable before he ran for president in 2008, had commanders live in magnificent houses been an outspoken advocate for climate built for the 1907 Jamestown Exposition. due to their action, but has been silent on the issue in “It’s the biggest Navy base in the world, recent years. The House Armed Services and it’s going to have to be relocated,” says geography Committee is now chaired by Rep. Mac former Vice President Al Gore. “It’s just a Thornberry of Texas, who argued in a 2011 question of when.” or strategic op-ed that prayer is a better response to There are 29 other military bases, ship- heat waves and drought than cutting car- yards and installations in the area, and location, is in bon pollution. Any official who draws a link between Jeff Goodell is writing a book about question. climate change and national security is the impact of global sea-level rise. guaranteed a rabid reaction from right- 50 | Rolling Stone | RollingStone.com February 26, 2015 wingers. Outgoing Secretary of Defense Port in a Storm undermine any connection between cli- Chuck Hagel recently called climate mate and national security. Case in point: Aircraft carriers in port at Naval change “a threat multiplier” that “has the Station Norfolk, America’s largest In 2009, then-CIA director Leon Pa- potential to exacerbate many of the chal- naval base (above). Below: As sea netta quietly started the Center on Cli- lenges we are dealing with today – from levels rise, floods have become more mate Change and National Security. It infectious disease to terrorism.” In re- common on the base. was a straightforward attempt by the in- sponse, The Wall Street Journal editori- telligence community to gather a better al page blasted Hagel as a delusional tree- understanding of the changes to come. hugger: “Americans who might die at the Among other things, the Center funded a hands of the Islamic State won’t care that major study of the relationships between Mr. Hagel is mobilizing against melting climate change and social stress, under the glaciers.” In a speech in Jakarta last year auspices of the National Academy of Sci- – a city of almost 30 million that is sink- ences, one of the most respected scientific ing rapidly – Secretary of State John Kerry organizations in the country. Climate de- called climate change “perhaps the world’s niers in Congress didn’t like it, especially most fearsome weapon of mass destruc- Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming, a tion” and likened it to terrorism, epidem- Big Coal state. By the time the report was ics and poverty. McCain immediately dis- completed, Panetta had left the CIA and missed Kerry’s concerns and accused him warned that threats to global stability his successor, Gen. David Petraeus, let it of “butterflying around the world, say- posed by rapid warming vastly eclipse that wither. “We felt constant pressure to water ing all kinds of things”; former Republi- of terrorism. Some of the climate science down our conclusions,” says one of the co- can leader Newt Gingrich tweeted, “Every in the report was flawed, but the broad- authors of the National Academy report. American who cares about national secu- er conclusions were not.