It's always eyebrow-raising to see liberals denounce Team Bush for blatant "fear-mongering" about the terror threat from al-Qaeda or Iran, then watch them turn around and do blatant "fear-mongering" about global warming. A new report from Arthur Max of the Associated Press helpfully relays a crystal-ball report from several think tanks:
At the very least, the report said, the U.S. can expect more population migrations, both internally and from across its borders; a proliferation of diseases; greater conflict in weak states, especially in Africa where climates will change most drastically; and a restructuring in global power in line with the accessibility of natural resources.
Left unchecked, "the collapse and chaos associated with extreme climate change futures would destabilize virtually every aspect of modern life," said the report, comparing the potential outcome with the Cold War doomsday scenarios of a nuclear holocaust.
The report was issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (often characterized by liberals as a conservative think tank, but in reality a haven for former government officials of all stripes) and the Center for a New American Security (a brand new bipartisan tank). Max explained:
Among its contributors were former CIA director James Woolsey, Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling, National Academy of Sciences President Ralph Cicerone, President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff John Podesta and former Vice President Al Gore's security adviser Leon Fuerth.
So there are Clinton-Gore vets behind this "fear-mongering" report, like Podesta, the boss of the Center for American Progress, whose blog Think Progress, well, bashes Bush for fear-mongering.
But it could be argued that making these face-slapping predictions of doom to "wake up" the people and spur them to draft Al Gore for president or buy a hybrid are nothing new. Jeff Poor of our Business and Media Institute found the same forecast of extremely nasty weather in September:
"Climate change could have global security implications on a par with nuclear war unless urgent action is taken, a report said on Wednesday," Jeremy Lovell of Reuters wrote on September 12. Lovell didn’t include any expert skeptical about climate change or its near-nuclear impact on the globe.
The report is from the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think tank that focuses on "better public policy in the fields of international relations and international security," according to its Web site.
This was actually a regular emphasis of Clinton-Gore security policy, which put more emphasis on the national security threat of environmental change than it did on al-Qaeda, even as al-Qaeda kept bombing American targets. After all, Al Gore wasn't writing books on the terror threat.
