British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that climate change, and pandemic disease threaten, international security as much as terrorism and that Britain must radically improve its defenses.
The fact is, in my opinion, that “Climate Change”, previously known as and called “Global Warming”, is much more a threat to us, in this country and worldwide, than is terrorism. Even though suicide bombers are hard to combat there is a target that can be seen and probably overcome. Climate change, on the other hand, is something that, especially if it is NOT man-made, as I believe that it is not, we will have to learn to live with and have to prepare for in a completely different way and by different methods.
This will mean that (1) we must look at what we can do about probable flooding, (2) what we can do about the probable droughts, and so on. We must, therefore, develop seeds that are more drought resistant in the same way as we may have to change our agriculture to a more drought resilient one.
The biggest problem is that if the climate change that we are being faced with, and I am certain that something is happening to the climate, is not man-made, and as I said, I do not believe that it is man-made, though the way man is destroying habitat we are certainly not helping, then our efforts to “combat climate change” are in vain. While nothing is wasted by reducing our waste and all that, we must look at “climate change” with different eyes and we must look to live with it if we cannot, as I believe, change it in any way, shape or form. The Earth has been going through cycles of extreme climates every 1,000 years or thereabouts and we are just climbing to one of those high spots in temperatures presently.
As far as can be seen we the temperatures have, in fact, plateaued out and are no longer, at least at present, on the up – regardless what we are being told by some people with a hidden agenda. Even the head of the IPCC has agreed to this, and all the eminent scientists do in more-or-less closed session. So why does no one admit it. In fact they have admitted it when they began calling it “Climate Change” instead of “Global Warming”. But I digressed a little here, as this shall be dealt with in another article (probably on another place).
We must prepare for the inevitable, namely that we, while we, that is to say, mankind, may have contributed and are contributing still to climate change by means of pollution of the environment and we are creating a dangerous living space for ourselves, may not be able to reverse this change in climate simple because it is a natural phenomenon of the Earth, a cycle She goes through every so many centuries. We must make provisions to live with this instead. This is where the challenge lies.
Brown listed the greatest threats to Britain's peace as "war, terrorism and now climate change, disease and poverty — threats which redefine national security."
As I have said already, we can forget the “war & terrorism” bit more or less though we must be vigilant, obviously. We must, however, concentrate on the “climate change” and also on the “pandemic” possibilities, and not just pandemic flu.
Only the other day we have learned that a visitor/immigrant from Somalia is in an isolation ward in a hospital in Scotland with a drug-resistant strain – a completely new strain, apparently – of tuberculosis.
Our way of travel, nowadays, where we can get from one end of the world to the next literally in hours is also bringing new threats in the form of diseases and insect plagues with it.
Some years back already we learned that a bark beetle – I know this is but a forest disease, but – that was never known in Canada before has arrived there and, apparently, a pair or more had hitched a lift in a plane from Scotland, for this beetles has been traced back to there. If this can happen with a couple of pairs of bark beetles I am sure it can happen with other insects carrying pathogens, or whatever.
"The nature of the threats and the risks we face have — in recent decades — changed beyond recognition and confound all the old assumptions about national defense and international security," Brown told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
A classified list of threats to national security will be released to the public later this year, he said.
"Climate change is potentially the greatest challenge to global stability and security," a report commissioned by Brown to outline the new strategy said.
British officials estimate a flu-type pandemic in the U.K. could cost as many as 750,000 lives, the report said. It also claimed major coastal floods would likely need a military evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.
Terrorism minister Adm. Alan West, a former head of defense intelligence, said a new focus on climate change and disease comes as the threat of terrorism in Britain eases somewhat.
But staff numbers at MI5, Britain's domestic spy agency, will increase to combat an estimated 2,000 aspiring terrorists in the U.K., Brown said.
Resources and technology at the government's secret eavesdropping center also will be enhanced, in part to respond to a new threat from cyber attacks, he said.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), March 2008
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