Trillions spent on war to invade the Middle East, but energy research in this country gets next to nothing, comparatively.

I’m old enough to remember when David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget cutting guru, cutting Jimmy Carter’s alternative energy research budget by 90 percent, to save a couple of billion dollars per year. That same administration then went on to spend a trillion 1980’s dollars on Star Wars, and half a trillion on the Savings and Loan Crisis.

I still get the feeling that our financial elites actually believe the climate modeling from a few years ago, and are actually adding up winners and losers from climate change.

Certainly, our financial elites are willing to continue pouring trillions down the Middle East rathole, but continue to resist any substantive action on climate change.

But, there won’t be any winners in the long run, as most of us here reading this blog already know.

The only things we have to look forward to are an escalating series of vicious circle positive feedbacks that ends up destroying the biosphere, unless we stop them from doing so, in my opinion.

If these people would take science seriously they would of course notice the coming climate catastrophe as a fact. Looks like intelligence alone is not necesserily able to build coherent frames for understanding complex questions.

spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/

“Why is the DoD interested in this?”

spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/why-is-the-dod-interested-in-this-security-at-all-levels/

“Immediate military tactical and operational needs:

1. Dramatically reduce the energy logistics train to forward operating bases and reduce the need to secure massive energy convoys and stores in:

1. Disaster relief efforts
2. Nation building efforts
3. Combat zones

2. Beam power directly to vehicles in all operating media for the following reasons

1. Reduce weight of carrying fuel
2. Increase range and loiter time
3. Eliminate need for refueling and reduce the need for refueling vehicles
4. Reduce the need for consuming local energy supplies
5. Reduce size and signature

3. Use SSP for liquifaction of carbon-neutral fuels for current generation of liquid-fueled systems

1. Continue to exploit current liquid fuel infrastructure, using carbon neutral fuels
2. Gain independence from foreign liquid fuel providers

Urgent national security strategic goals:

1. Assist in achieving national energy independence from current liquid fuel providers

1. Reduce level of national interest in unstable regions
2. Reduce national dependence on unfriendly foreign governments
3. Reduce the risk of energy competition wars in the 21st Century

2. Assist allies in achieving their national energy independence

1. Develop and strengthen broad international partnerships
2. Participate in international energy consortia and alliances

3. Economic: Become an energy exporter

1. Increase national ability to influence or avoid geopolitical events
2. Increase GNP, wealth of the nation, and increase tax revenue
3. Use energy earnings to pay off national debt

4. Environmental: Dramatically reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere

1. Prevent food wars which might happen if global warming continues
2. Enhance soft power and green credibility around the world
3. Lead the international clean energy movement by example”

They do realize their part of the solution is not ready for prime time:

http://www.nss.org/ settlement/ ssp/ library/ final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf

“Several major challenges will need to be overcome to make SBSP a reality, including the creation of low-cost space access and a supporting infrastructure system on Earth and in space. … Because DoD would not want to own SBSP satellites, but rather just purchase the delivered energy as it currently does via traditional terrestrial utilities, a repeated review finding is that the commercial sector will need Government to accomplish three major tasks to catalyze SBSP development. The first is to retire a major portion of the early technical risks. … The second challenge is to facilitate the policy, regulatory, legal, and organizational instruments … The final Government contribution is to become a direct early adopter and to incentivize other early adopters much as is accomplished on a regular basis with other renewable energy systems coming on-line today.”

Personally I find the challenges they’d need to solve (like low-cost space access) to be staggeringly difficult (not so much in technical areas, but in political, regulatory, and financial ones) but the point is that they see they problems in a similar light, even if their solution isn’t on the shelf.

It is inevitable as history shows us.

The US will probably go down from the inside rather than from an external enemy.

Climate change could be the impetus for future “world war”

by Danny Bloom (not published yet)

Jurgen Scheffran, a research scientist in the Program in Arms Control,
Disarmament and International Security and the Center for Advanced
BioEnergy Research at the University of Ilinois, is among scientists
and military analysts worldwide raising concerns about possible links
between global warming and the frequency and severity of hurricanes,
heat waves and other extreme weather events.
He is also among international-security experts who have started
discussions about how climate change-related damage to global
ecosystems and the resulting competition for natural resources may
increasingly serve as “triggers” for wars and other conflicts in the
future.

The world of 2121 or 2323 might look a lot different from the
relatively peaceful world of today.

Scheffran, in a survey of recent research published earlier this
summer in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, concluded that “the
impact of climate change on human and global security could extend far
beyond the limited scope the world has seen thus far.” Not a pretty
picture.

In a press release from his university in the American midwest,
Scheffran’s review also included a critical analysis of four trends
identified in a report by the German Advisory Council on Global Change
as among those most possibly destabilizing populations and
governments: degradation of freshwater resources, food insecurity,
natural disasters and environmental migration.

In his analysis, Scheffran noted that the number of world regions
vulnerable to drought was expected to rise. Water supplies stored in
glaciers and snow cover in major mountain ranges such as the Andes and
Himalayas also are expected to decrease, he said in a press release.

“Most critical for human survival are water and food, which are
sensitive to changing climatic conditions,” Scheffran added.

The degradation of these critical resources, combined with threats to
populations caused by natural disasters, disease and crumbling
economic and ecosystems, he said, could ultimately have “cascading
effects.”

“Environmental changes caused by global warming will not only affect
human living conditions but may also generate larger societal effects,
by threatening the infrastructures of society or by inducing social
responses that aggravate the problem,” he says. “The associated
socio-economic and political stress can undermine the functioning of
communities, the effectiveness of institutions, and the stability of
societal structures. These degraded conditions could contribute to
civil strife, and, worse, armed conflict.”

“Large areas of Africa are suffering from scarcity of food and fresh
water resources, making them more vulnerable to conflict. An example
is Sudan’s Darfur province where an ongoing conflict was aggravated
since droughts forced Arab herders to move into areas of African
farmers.”

Other regions of the world – including the Middle East, Central Asia
and South America – also are being affected, he said.

With so much at stake, Scheffran recommends multiple strategies for
forestalling otherwise insurmountable consequences. Among the most
critical, he said, is for governments to incorporate measures for
addressing climate change within national policy. Beyond that, he
advocates a cooperative, international approach to addressing
concerns.

“Although climate change bears a significant conflict potential, it
can also transform the international system toward more cooperation if
it is seen as a common threat that requires joint action,” he said.

One of the more hopeful, recent signs on that front, he said, was the
2007 Bali climate summit that brought together more than 10,000
representatives from throughout the world to draft a climate plan.

“The Bali Roadmap has many good ideas, but was criticized as being too
vague to induce a major policy shift,” Scheffran said. “Nevertheless,
the seeming conflict between environment and the economy will be best
overcome with the recognition that protecting the climate in the best
interest of the economy.”

In addition to global cooperation, Scheffran believes that people
living today can learn a lot about the future by studying the past.

“History has shown how dependent our culture is on a narrow window of
climatic conditions for average temperature and precipitation,” he
said. “The great human civilizations began to flourish after the last
ice age, and some disappeared due to droughts and other adverse shifts
in the climate. The so-called ‘Little Ice Age’ in the northern
hemisphere a few hundred years ago was caused by an average drop in
temperature of less than a degree Celsius.

“The consequences were quite severe in parts of Europe, associated
with loss of harvest and population decline,” Scheffran said. “Riots
and military conflicts became more likely, as a recent empirical study
has suggested.”

However, as history has demonstrated, humans are quite capable of
adapting to changing climate conditions as long as those changes are
moderate.

“The challenge is to slow down the dynamics and stabilize the climate
system at levels which are not dangerous,” Scheffran said.

He remains optimistic that this is still possible – in large part,
because public awareness and educational efforts taking place today
are making concerns about climate change a priority.

“Global warming receives now more public and political attention than
a few years ago,” Scheffran said.