Climate change as a national security issue?

  Once the healthcare reform debate is over and the bill is either approved or denied the next big issue that we will have to deal with appears to be the climate change bill. The climate change bill appeared to be a victim of the healthcare reform bill– with so much attention being payed to healthcare reform it looked like the opportunity was missed to pass the climate change bill. That does not seem to be the case any more, the climate change bill has been quietly moving forward hidden under the media coverage of the healthcare reform bill. It was slowed down but it wasn’t stopped and now momentum may be growing in the government to pass the climate change bill once the healthcare issue is decided for better or worse.

  With more and more Americans growing skeptical of the climate change bill and with more and more Americans growing skeptical of the foolish notion that people are causing the earth to warm, supporters of the climate change bill appear to be taking a different angle in order to drum up more support from people who would otherwise never support this legislation.

  Climate change supporters are trying to change the argument from passing this bill in order to save the environment to passing this bill in the interest of national security. That’s right, climate change supporters are trying to link climate change legislation with national security.

  Increasingly violent storms, pandemics, drought and large-scale refugee problems, they say, will destabilize regions and encourage terrorism. And American dependence on foreign energy sources will only exacerbate the threats and increase the likelihood of military action

  Supporters of climate change legislation are now using the very same fear-mongering tactics that they supposedly despised during the Bush administration. But they believe that their cause is righteous and therefor the fear-mongering is justified in order to bring about their ultimate goal.

  This is an attempt to gather support from the center-right to right leaning population. By linking an issue that is so ingrained and important with the left in this country with an issue that is so important to the right in this country, they hope to forge an alliance that will sweep this horrific energy tax into law.

  Take a look at the following quote from the article I linked to above:

Now, with Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry emerging as a key player in the Senate climate debate, Democrats believe national security could emerge as a persuasive argument.

” Democrats believe national security could emerge as a persuasive argument,” is what the article claims, not that Democrats believe that it is a valid point. There is a huge difference here. Democrats don’t necessarily believe that climate change is a national security issue; Democrats simple believe that if they make the arguement correctly that it can be used to persuade that American people that climate change is indeed a national security issue.

  Backlash against conservative Democrats who voted in favor of the climate change legislation is a driving factor in this change of direction. Democrats are trying to provide political to some of their more conservative colleagues.

 Some conservative Democrats who voted for the climate legislation in the House faced a backlash against the bill when they went home to their districts over the July 4 recess. Democratic leaders believe that a national security message could give their vulnerable members another line of defense to explain their vote in next year’s elections.

  There it is again, Democrats are looking for a line of defense to justify their vote with their constituents who disagree with the climate change legislation. Nowhere in that statement does it say that the Democrats believe that this is a legitimate issue, only that it could provide political cover in districts where national security is a major issue with the voters.

“If you talk about climate change in a way that discusses fragile states that are very vulnerable to its impacts, people realize that it’s our troops that will have to respond,” said John Powers, chief operating officer at the progressive Truman National Security Project, a member of Operation Free.

  It is all about framing an argument so that the climate change advocates can gain as much support as possible, the above quote is yet another example of my premise. And according to the article this has to be a credible argument because a leading sponsor of the climate change legislation is John Kerry, and he is a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

  CIA Director Leon Panetta is on board as well:

Decision makers need information and analysis on the effects climate change can have on security,” CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a press release. “The CIA is well-positioned to deliver that intelligence

  The climate change legislation was losing its momentum. The Democrats had already changed the terminology from global warming, which was too narrow of a description to fill their needs, to climate change in an effort to encompass all violent and unpredictable weather. But even the change in terminology was not enough to convince people that climate change was a legislative priority. Once the terminology change was deemed unsuccessful the Democrats had to change tactics once again, this time by changing the argument, from controlling greenhouse gasses and saving the environment from ourselves to saving the country from terrorists.

  We had them on the ropes on this legislation and they have  coming out swinging, they are trying to take back the offensive. They have been playing to the fears of the environmentalists all of these years but that hasn’t been enough to gather widespread support for climate change legislation and so now they are trying to play to the fears of those worried about national security with Barack Obama as commander-in-chief.

  If this isn’t fear-mongering, I just don’t know what is.