Angry Planet - How the Military Is (Quietly) Defying Trump by Battling Climate Change

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

Barack Obama ordered the U.S. military to directly prepare for climate change. Donald Trump’s White House reversed that policy.So what’s a general to do?Tara Copp, Pentagon bureau chief for Military Times, takes us deep into the five-sided box to tell us what the military is doing to fight what they see as a real threat, not just a political football. With more and more civilians in need of rescue, shipyards sinking below sea level, and Arctic ice breaking up, top brass is taking action now and leaving labels for another day.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. These are some of the most instable parts of the world, and it's where they have seen things like the Islamic State rise. So, yes, the military is 100% looking at it in that, you know, from that point of view. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast. that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts, Matthew Galt and Jason Fields. Hello and welcome to War College. I'm Jason Fields. And I'm Matthew Galt.

The military tends to be fairly practical. Typically, if it sees a threat, leaders prepare to deal with it. But what if the enemy is the planet itself? Terakop, Pentagon Bureau Chief for Military Times, joins us today to talk about the military's response to climate change and also what's happened since Donald Trump took office. So, Tara, can you give us some insight into how generals and admirals tend to view climate change?

Well, from day one, Secretary Mattis came into the Pentagon treating the climate and every other threat as something that the Pentagon needed to improve its readiness against. And the Pentagon has not stopped since, despite what the president has done in his months in office. I'll give you a perfect example. In March, the president ordered that DOD and every other federal agency stop preparing for climate change.

The Pentagon is not going to do that. It can't put its ships and its people and its aircraft at risk. So it found a way, it found a workaround. It's just not going to deal with climate change. It's going to treat the weapons. the effects of climate change as a threat to continue to prepare against. And what's your view of Secretary Mattis? So you know how the president loves to call him Mad Dog.

And Mattis is not a fan of the Mad Dog nickname. But, you know, again, he's now Mad Dog Mattis, so we'll just go with that. But his actual nickname is Chaos. And to someone that doesn't know, they're like, oh, cool, chaos is just as cool. you know, obviously they're thinking of somebody coming in just messing things up, but it actually means the exact opposite. When he was a younger officer in his career, I guess he would frequently offer his opinion to all of the men and women he was leading.

And one day he walked in and they were deployed and on this big whiteboard chaos was written. And he goes, well, what's that? And nobody would say anything. so of course you got more curious. And finally with some pestering, they told him, the colonel has another outstanding suggestion. So that is Mattis.

And, you know, he's intellectually curious. And he's described as a warrior monk. Exactly. And the fastest reader you probably ever meet. I had the privilege a little bit ago to, show him the book I had recently written. And I'm pretty sure he read it in the very short duration that we were on the last trip that we went on, which was Mexico and U.S. Strategic Command.

And, you know, that can be intimidating and awesome, but just the fact that he takes the time to do these things and to read and expand his mind and to know, you know, I bet you he knows about everybody that he's dealing with in the White House pretty well. He's studied them because that's this is what he's trained for his whole life. Similarly, the Pentagon's been training for climate change for decades now, too. They've been talking about it for a long time. Really came to the forefront under the Obama administration. And most recently in 2014, as part of his overall approach to look at climate change.

And at the time, you know, the climate, so to speak, was, getting to the Paris Agreement. And so he was getting all of these federal agencies to start lining up to address climate change to see what they could do to improve energy efficiency. That energy efficiency part was really what President Trump was going after because he saw it as a threat to domestic energy production. But the way that the order came out, it was so umbrella in its approach that it like wrapped up everything that DOD had also been doing to prepare for the threats of

of climate change. So to walk you back a step, when Obama directed all the agencies to prepare for climate change, they were all supposed to basically put out roadmaps. You know, what's vulnerable? Are Navy bases like Norfolk, which is looking at changing sea states, the Navy bases in Florida, which, you know, repeatedly have to keep a wary eye out for hurricanes? What do they need to do to really fortify their installation? so that they're not vulnerable, so their aircraft hangers aren't vulnerable, so their ships aren't in harm's way.

And so when President Trump undid all of that, he also told the Pentagon, you can't do any more of this planning. You can't do this roadmap that you had been doing. And a really critical part of that roadmap had been to identify all the vulnerabilities across the military where the installations are weak. we still have not seen the results of that study yet. I assume that we probably won't for a while, but it doesn't mean that those bases aren't already taking action. They know where they need to fortify or where they need to dig deeper or where they need to raise their walls and they're doing that.

Are there people in the military at the senior level who have doubts about climate change or have tried to block any efforts to protect against it? So I have never heard a senior military official deny climate change. Since President Trump took office, you do not hear a whole lot of senior military officials outwardly saying, yes, there is climate change. It puts them in direct opposition to their boss. They will go around it and say, weather is a threat.

However, the Air Force 4-Star, who is in charge of all of the National Guard troops, And we're talking about 400,000 troops nationwide, of which a huge chunk has been deployed in the last month and a half responding to Harvey and to Irma and to Maria. He met with us right before he headed out to Puerto Rico, a whole table of reporters, and said point blank, I do think the climate is changing. I think storms are becoming bigger, larger, and more violent. And he was talking to us in the terms of what it means for his forces, who are the ones that head out there. there when they're activated to, you know, be first responders, to deliver aid, to drive those high water trucks, to get in those helicopters and lift people off roofs. And it does put a lot of pressure on them. And it's something they have to be ready for and they have to look at long term

that they are looking at more aggressive, longer, deadlier storm seasons. Climate change is like a suite of problems, right? It's not just climate change. It creates a whole bunch of other things. So I'm wondering what are the particular threats that the various agencies are looking at? Well, I can only speak to DOD. And of course, DOD is home of the meal ready to eat, which is a vacuum-sealed plastic package of about 3,000 calories in various highly preserved formats. I'm talking cardboard pizza, you know, peanut butter that has 500 calories. They're experts at this. They're experts at getting these meals ready to eat out, especially.

to a place that's already been hit by a storm, but they've been pre-positioning these things because they know that it takes time to, you know, generate the number of meals that are needed to get them in position when a storm hits, and that's been part of the preparing. I think that another side effect that you would probably find interesting,

and actually CNN was reporting on this tonight, is that the hurricane deployments for the Guard and for active duty have been so extensive this season that it's actually, starting to impact regular troop rotations to Afghanistan into the Pacific. They, you know, there's so much pressure on the forces right now. We've got 10,000 in Puerto Rico. We had 17,000 in Texas.

We had upwards of 20,000 more dealing with Irma. And that means that troops aren't training to deploy. It's messing with schedules. The ships that have been responding to Hurricane Maria, the USS WOSP, it's an amphibious assault ship. it was supposed to deploy to the Pacific at the end of August. Instead, it was rightly sent into help with Puerto Rico. First it helped with Florida, then it helped with Puerto Rico. And it has not left yet because it can't.

There's so much need in Puerto Rico. It actually just got 13 additional helicopters. And for the long, you know, for the short term, it doesn't look like it's going anywhere. That affects everyone who's downrange because it's supposed to replace the bond home Richard. And that ship and those sailors on that ship, I'm sure, probably ready to come home. But they can't right now because all of our resources are tasked right now dealing with the cleanup from these storms. Does the military view this kind of operation as core to the overall mission? Absolutely. It's part of their role in defending the nation. And they, in their previous

roadmap that they now can't follow but still exist on the web if you want to look it up. It's the 2014 DOD climate change roadmap. They talk about how they have to be ready to deal with more aggressive storms and how they will be the ones that will be needed to respond and to save people and to get guard troops out and to do, you know, do these high water rescues. We've seen this image again and again this season. And you have actually, it's not just hurricanes. You have guard forces out in California babbling wildfires. Every time there's a massive weather event, like a massive tornado, those are guard troops that get activated to help people in need. How is this changing the equipment that they're using? What kind of buys are they making now that

these are problems that they have to deal with? They have bought more high water trucks, and of course, those things are getting a good wear and tear this season. One of the things that they bought that has really come into play in Puerto Rico is this joint integrated, and it's a DOD acronym, but call it a GESC. It is essentially a big, tented communications trailer that allows the military to talk to just normal everyday people on their cell phones because the military normally talks on encrypted networks or they have DSN. And that's not a telephone system. system that you and I can just call and say, okay, we need help. Instead, they have found a way to deliver these kind of pods out into stricken areas to enable that communication so that not only

your EMS or your first responders can reach in, but the military can reach out and, you know, take advantage of all of the information that is out there, especially in the storm, you know, social media was huge. There would be someone posting on Facebook or Twitter. Please help so-and-so. They're at this address, this phone number. This enables those two entities to get in touch with each other. So aside from the communications equipment,

are they also buying different types of weapons to fight in a changed world? So as far as weapons go, you know, I was thinking more along the lines of response to storm. but a couple of years ago I wrote a story about our destroyers and our cruisers, DDG and CG class ships that have had to have their holes kind of overhauled because of the rising sea states and these holes are getting beaten up faster than they had been planned to because of where they were sailing and the weather they were encountering. It was wearing and aging the ships faster than they thought they should be.

So they actually went in and got overhauled and got reinforced. It sounds like climate change is already costing the military a ton of money. Is that fair to say? Yeah. I think you'll be seeing a supplemental request this year because it's been a more expensive storm response year than I think they anticipated. Now, it's hard to track that money because if you think about it's been a more expensive storm response year than I think they anticipated. Now, it's hard to track that money because if you think about like Hurricane Harvey and Texas, 13,000 of those troops were Texas National Guard.

The state is supposed to pay for that. Now, the state may find that it needs to seek federal funds for its overall storm response to reimburse. And so it may be wrapped into like these huge Hurricane Harvey relief packages that you're seeing. We're just going to, it's just going to take some time to really track that money and see what the true cost to the military has been this year to respond to these storms. And, but it's more broad than that, too, though. If you're talking about destroyers needing to have work done, it sounds like it has to affect many, many things all across the board. It does. I mean, you know, worse weather affects aircraft.

It affects helicopters. There's, you know, when the Humvees are out in the desert, they're just getting beat up by the elements. And if you have similar type weather happening more regularly, you know, in Arizona or in places in, like, kind of the desert, yes, it's going to create a bigger bottom line. What that total bottom line is, though, I think will be very, very difficult to calculate because there's so many different factors that, you know, wrap into things. because, you know, the Air Force could, let's take an example of an aircraft. You know, it's not intended to have to deal with, you know, more extreme conditions, the dust, the heat. All of this stuff does not interact well, usually, with, you know, the sensitive equipment on an aircraft. However, how is that different than just being deployed?

You know, do you blame the climate for that, or do you say it's just the higher pace of deployment and we're out in the middle of Syria, you know, conducting operations against the Islamic State. So I think really trying to tabulate that will be difficult, but not, you know, we'll definitely give it a shot. Let's talk about geopolitics for a little bit, if we can. Does any of this stuff have an effect on the different military partners that the U.S. might seek in various regions? Are they thinking about the way the world's going to change?

I think if pulling out of the Paris Climate Change Accord hasn't affected us, you know, if you think about we still have strong NATO commitments for Afghanistan, I don't know what would. I think that getting into those higher level discussions, there's always more, there's always more at play than just a statement on climate. There's trade agreements. There's, you know, security needs. There's foreign military sales. There's so many things that connect these countries together that they may completely disagree with what President Trump has done on the climate, but that's not going to send any of these nations turning their backs.

Can I ask a complete Mad Max question? And if it's, I'm serious. And if it's a dumb question, just tell me and I won't be heard or anything. But I'm wondering about how far ahead the military is thinking. about things like water running out in places that are already really dry. Syria, which some people have said the drought has had an impact on the Civil War there. Is that the kind of thing that the Pentagon thinks about as well? Is that something they prepare for? Absolutely. That's part of big strategy. There are a lot of different kind of 90,000 foot view, strategic looks that the military

does. One of them is the quadrenial defense review. And, you know, if you look, if you think about it, it's just this gigantic book that every single service puts time and effort into of what are our big ticket problems. And the climate is absolutely one of them. Because it creates, you know, where you have all of these seams, where you have lack of food, where you have lack of water, where you have lack of energy security. These are some of the most unstable parts of the world. And it's where they have seen things like the Islamic State rise. So, yes, the military is 100% looking at it in that, you know, from that point of view. Water security and food security is directly tied to a person's security.

And when that suffers, you see, you know, a power struggle and whether it enlarges and becomes something like Rwanda or whether it leads to, you know, smaller things like piracy off the horn of Africa. these things are all driven by a human being's just very human desire for food and for security. We don't typically dive too much into politics on this show, but I've got one that I think ties into this that I'd like to ask if the audience will forgive me. Do you have any sense that the Pentagon and the military may be able to lead a conversation on changing people's opinion of this topic?

I would think that the military would automatically turn around and say that's not our role. They carry out policy and they protect. They don't try to, you know, turn somebody's nose to policy. They'll take, you know, they're going to continue to take their cues from Congress and from the White House. And, yes, obviously, generals and advisors go up to the hill and they go to the hill and they go the White House and they give their best advice. But at the end of the day, they also salute and carry out what they've been told to do. Which I guess is actually the foundation of the American state, right? It is one commander-in-chief, not a five-sided box of commanders and chiefs.

Another threat is to U.S. military bases, right, just from rising sea levels. Are some of them already flooding? They're not flooding, but let's take the example of Norfolk. Norfolk's an old, the Hampton Roads areas, old Navy bases. They've been building ships there for decades. And the first time they built a pier, they just built it like one-story pier, basically not very reinforced. And because the seas have been more aggressive, it has basically worn down that pier way faster than they thought.

So now, as they've expanded, all of their peers are two stories high and like multiple, will reinforce in multiple ways so that as the sea states get even stronger, which they are anticipating, the peers will be able to withstand not only the higher sea level, but more forcible waves, longer storm seasons, you name it. Will the military be brought in to do similar engineering feats elsewhere if the climate really does change substantially? Like the Army Corps of Engineers, or, you know, is that the kind of task that the military, would take on? Well, the Army Corps of Engineers all the time is doing things that they anticipate will help populations better, weather, you know, age better if it for one way to describe it.

You know, they're always digging deeper ports and they're helping redirect rivers to be able to have a greater water supply for a populace. You know, they deal with energy issues all the time. They work on levees. They work on sea walls. And that work hasn't stopped. You know, you've seen the concerns about the different dams and levees in this storm, or in the, I'm sorry, not this storm, but the last three hurricanes. And those are all going to be things that the Army of Corps of Engineers now have to go look at and see what, you know, what needs to be. be reinforced for next year. All right.

What about the Arctic? Because that's an area that's, you know, heating up both in terms of actual heat and interest internationally, right? Russia's really making a drive there. Yeah. And what you're seeing is all the polarized caps melting and there's going to be exposed land and there's going to be a lot more water to sail through. And, yeah, there are several brigades based in Alaska that do.

cold weather drops and practice this regularly because there may be one day where they are looking across something that used to be a big glacier and now isn't and they're looking at Russian forces. They train to that regularly and you know the security concerns about the Arctic and whether the U.S. has the resources like yeah I'm I'm sure you've both seen that right now the U.S. only has two Arctic capable ships like icebreaker ships and the fact that they are going to need more to continue to be able to work through, you know, this growing waterway, this growing very strategic waterway up in the Arctic. But there's so many needs out there in the military that seeing where getting those ice breakers, racks and stacks, compared to,

like, new aircraft and all of the expenses with the war against the Islamic State, you know, there's basically no part of the military right now that couldn't use more funding. So it becomes a matter of priorities. Right. And just for comparison's sake, let the audience know, Russia has 40 icebreakers. One of them is nuclear powered. Stirring the pot of the icebreaker gap. And they also have a lot more coastline around there.

So you could see why they might want to have that. So it really sounds like the problem is global. The U.S. military is global. And this isn't some. that really we're addressing in a systemic way at this point? There was, you know, an attempt to get a whole of government approach that started under the Obama administration, but was pretty much obliterated when President Trump took office, and that's his prerogative, but it is now going to be up to all of these agencies to figure

out, you know, how do they deal with the reality of more extreme weather, even if they don't want to touch, you know, the topic of climate change. Thank you so much for talking to us. Well, thank you guys for your patience. I really appreciate it. No, thank you, talk. Thank you guys for listening to this week's War College. It's me, Matthew.

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