It’s About Our National Security, Stupid!

Protecting our nation means getting smart about our energy supply.

By Kim Teplitzky, Temple University

Americans account for 5% of the world’s population but use 25% of the world’s energy. Ninety-eight percent of this energy comes from fossil fuels – oil, coal and natural gas. Environmentalists have long decried fossil fuels because they poison and pollute our people, air and water, but, in broader terms, continued reliance on fossil fuels genuinely pose a tremendous threat to our national security.

Global warming putting the world at risk

While the current administration is failing to address these problems, even the Pentagon commissioned a report on the serious threats of global warming to safety and peace in our nation and around the world.

Their report released in 2003 asserts that, “with inadequate preparation, the result [of climate change] could be a significant drop in the human carrying capacity of the Earth’s environment.” Which means, in non-Pentagonese, that it would hard for people to live on this planet.

Global warming is caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, primarily from power plants, which get stuck in the atmosphere and create a heat-trapping blanket over the earth. Increases in carbon dioxide emissions over the past few centuries have been correlated with the earth’s rising temperature, with peaks in the 1990’s.

The Pentagon report affirms worldwide scientific consensus that this warming is likely to cause extremes in weather due to changes in thermal ocean currents that carry warm water and temperatures around the globe. This results in higher temperatures in tropical regions with drops in temperatures in northern areas such as North America and Europe.

Such changes can lead to decreases in soil moisture, droughts, floods and even land loss due to rising sea levels. All of these pose major threats to food sources and, according to the report “could potentially de-stabilize the geo-political environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource constraints.”

And this is no joke. Resource battles over access to water have been prevalent throughout the Middle East and securing access to oil in Africa has spurred violence in countries like Nigeria where American companies like Chevron-Texaco have vested oil interests. Such altercations and unreliable access to resources create the conditions that can lead to failed states, according to Ken Gude, Associate Director of the International Rights and Responsibility Program at the Center for American Progress.

Addiction to oil and undemocratic regimes

Today’s security concerns aren’t just a matter of the pollution released by energy production, but the actual sources and transmission of energy around our country.

America’s addiction to oil keeps us dependent on unreliable sources and unstable nations, ultimately influencing our foreign policy decisions in order to maintain sufficient oil supplies. The Persian Gulf alone supplies one fifth of U.S. oil imports with prices set by the Saudi Arabian-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Bush entered office claiming he would be tough on OPEC and work to keep prices down, but kept silent as prices rose refusing to lobby the organization and continues to call Saudi Arabia “our friend,” even though the country may have ties to 9/11 terrorists.

Meanwhile, countries like China and India are growing rapidly, consuming more and more energy and raising demand, which, as any Econ 101 student can tell you, drives up prices. But, there is something to learn from these nations, who unlike the U.S. have strategic and long-term energy plans guiding their energy decisions.

Chinese oil company CNOOC’s bid for the U.S. company Unocal shot off a number of security concerns from all sectors, highlighting the fact that China is actively pursuing their own resource security and will increasingly compete with the United States for energy resources.

With almost 60 percent of American used oil imported, our country is left at the whim of the cartel that is OPEC, forcing us to compromise and negotiate with hostile authoritarian regimes, and often bending our values to ensure continued access to oil sources controlled by undemocratic leaders who in some cases even help to fund, or, through their misrule, spur terrorist networks.

Our vulnerable energy infrastructure

Our internal energy structure is also exposed. The U.S. electrical power grid and distribution system is inefficient, old, fragile and vulnerable to terrorist attacks in many places. In today’s “digital age” where communication increasingly depends on a power source – think life without Facebook messages and late night AIM convos – our power grid is an essential part of society’s functioning.

Remember the 2003 blackout that affected millions from New York to Ohio and up into Canada and cost more six billion dollars in services, business losses and more? It was simply due to the frailness of the complex, out of date system that demands immediate repair and reorganization.

We don’t have to be doomed

But there is a glimmer of shining solar light at the end of the tunnel. All of our energy related problems are exacerbated by our sky-rocketing demand, but if this demand is reigned in, it decreases our dependence on oil and coal, the chief perpetrators of energy-related security and health woes.

The nice thing about energy efficiency is that it actually saves people money on energy bills, but this government just isn’t into that. Building more efficient vehicles, appliances and buildings is ultimately in the consumers’ best interest, but industries have been reluctant to change and update their products, or even invest in the research and design necessary to improve them.

As a result, companies such as Ford, who refuse to update, are seeing profits drop in the face of more high-tech and improved efficiency competitors such as Toyota and Honda, who lead the market in hybrid innovation and marketing, particularly as gas prices continue their astronomical upward march. In the face of this, Ford’s current CEO Bill Ford Jr. said producing more fuel efficient cars is essential.

"I think the world is headed this way, it just surprised us a little bit that it shifted so quickly because of the spike in oil, but this is not a sea change that we didn’t anticipate," he said.

Whether the impetus comes from government incentives, Ford and GM shareholders or activists, retooling their fleets will save consumers money, preserve our air, slow global warming and protect our homeland.

Besides simply using less energy, we can move towards clean, renewable, homegrown energy sources just like the rest of the industrialized world, including Japan, Germany, and India, who are rushing forward with wind and solar technologies. Though this would require a greater initial investment in the building and infrastructure, renewables such as wind and solar offer steady, predictable prices into the future as opposed to the constantly spiking oil market. The Group of Eight nations have understood this and prioritized carbon reductions and investments into cleaner sources immediately.

According to the G8 Renewable Energy Task Force, adopting renewables “… over the period to 2030 will prove less expensive than taking a ‘business as usual’ approach within any realistic range of discount rates.”

To help reduce the destabilizing ecological, economic and sociological impacts of climate change, the U.S. government must act immediately and forcefully. Climate change cannot be effectively controlled worldwide without U.S. support, as was demonstrated at G8 where the U.S. successfully derailed all talk about reducing global carbon. While there is some positive action at the state level, including a recent wave of clean car policies in California, Washington and the northeast, those states alone are not enough to halt the potential national security and environmental nightmare we are confronting and that the Bush administration is not taking seriously.

If the U.S. reengages in international climate negotiations and becomes a worldwide leader in emissions reduction, we can remerge as global leaders of conscience and protect global citizens.

 
Illustration: August J. Pollak

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