Climatizing Security: Protecting Americans in the Age of Climate Change

Jan 18, 2021 | Sherri Goodman and Kate Guy
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Beyond the recent attack on the U.S. Capitol and the coronavirus looms the climate crisis.  The Trump-fueled mob attack and climate change have one thing in common in America today:  they depend on the “Big Lie.” They feed off of the lie that the election was stolen; the lie that climate change is either not happening or not caused by human activity.

As President-elect Joe Biden has stated, climate change “poses an existential threat”—disrupting the stability upon which America’s national security has long depended, from increasing the use of military forces for domestic relief from hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, to changing how and when the country must deploy its forces into the melting Arctic and drought-stricken regions in Africa and the Middle East. 

Climate change is set to challenge all systems on which global security, peace, and stability depend. As it does, Americans are rapidly witnessing the climatization of security—a condition in which all other security goals that the United States hopes to pursue become intertwined with the stark realities of a warming planet. In this context, Biden’s nominee for secretary of defense, retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, will be able to elevate attention to climate change and clean energy throughout the Pentagon, from strategy and force plans to technology and infrastructure.