Ignoring previous claims by experts, RedState attacks DHS for citing climate change as national security threat

A RedState post -- advanced by the Fox Nation -- cited a recent Department of Homeland Security report noting that "[d]ependence on fossil fuels and the threat of global climate change" threatens “America's national interests” to question whether “DHS is more serious about Homeland Security than they are about advancing Obama Administration policy goals.” However, defense and intelligence experts -- including a National Intelligence Council chair under President Bush -- have previously said that climate change and fossil fuel consumption are relevant to national security.

Citing report, RedState questions whether DHS “is more serious about Homeland Security than they are about advancing” Obama's policy goals

From a February 4 RedState post titled, “DHS: Fossil Fuels and Climate Change are 'National Threats'”:

On February 1, Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security released a 108-page report to Congress, the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report. Subtitled “A Strategic Framework for a Secure Homeland”, a quick glance at the report left me questioning whether the DHS is more serious about Homeland Security than they are about advancing Obama Administration policy goals.

The following item is in a bullet list of threats to America's national interests (p. 7):

Dependence on fossil fuels and the threat of global climate change that can open the United States to disruptions and manipulations in energy supplies and to changes in our natural environment on an unprecedented scale. Climate change is expected to increase the severity and frequency of weather-related hazards, which could, in turn, result in social and political destabilization, international conflict, or mass migrations.

If there's a Smithsonian exhibit on Muddled Thinking and Bureaucratic Gobbledegook, that paragraph belongs in it.

Fox Nation highlighted RedState post: On February 4, the Fox Nation linked to RedState's post. From the Fox Nation:

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However, experts -- including Bush NIC chair -- have previously seen climate change, fossil fuel use as relevant to national security

Bush NIC chair testified on “wide ranging implications for US national security.” In June 25, 2008, testimony, Dr. Thomas Fingar, then-chairman of the National Intelligence Council, stated that “global climate change will have wide ranging implications for US national security interests over the next 20 years,” citing the possible worsening of “existing problems -- such as poverty, social tensions, environment degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions” abroad, as well as the likelihood that “economic migrants will perceive additional reasons to migrate.” The NIC's 2025 Global Trends Report, published in November 2008, further stated that "[c]limate change is likely to exacerbate resource scarcities, particularly water scarcities."

NY Times: Military, intelligence experts considering security impacts of climate change, fossil fuel consumption. An August 8, 2009, New York Times report stated that “military and intelligence analysts” have said that climate change “will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades.” The Times further reported that "[i]f the United States does not lead the world in reducing fossil-fuel consumption and thus emissions of global warming gases, proponents of this view say, a series of global environmental, social, political and possibly military crises loom that the nation will urgently have to address":

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.

[...]

But a growing number of policy makers say that the world's rising temperatures, surging seas and melting glaciers are a direct threat to the national interest.

If the United States does not lead the world in reducing fossil-fuel consumption and thus emissions of global warming gases, proponents of this view say, a series of global environmental, social, political and possibly military crises loom that the nation will urgently have to address.

Bipartisan report identified global warming as potential “threat to our security.” On October 28, 2009, the Associated Press reported that the American Security Project, “an advisory group of high-powered Republicans and Democrats,” affirmed that global warming is relevant to national security:

A recent report by the American Security Project, an advisory group of high-powered Republicans and Democrats, called global warming “not simply about saving polar bears or preserving beautiful mountain glaciers ... (but) a threat to our security.” The group has on its board Republicans such as former Sen. Warren Rudman as well as Democrats including Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the chief author of the Senate climate bill.

Across the globe there exist conflicts and security challenges including ethnic conflicts and emerging radicalism and often “these are also the parts of the world where we will see the most severe consequences from climate change,” Bernard Finel, a co-author of the American Security Project report, said in an interview. “The intelligence community, CIA, (military) commanders, they're all looking at these issues.”

Former Republican Sen. John Warner, a longtime chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a close ally of the military, has been touring the country to talk about climate change and national security.

“We are talking about energy insecurity, water and food shortages, and climate-driven social instability,” says Warner. “We ignore these threats at the peril of our national security and at great risk to those in uniform.”