Yoda's Apocalyptic Visions

Yoda’s Apocalyptic Visions

They call him Yoda. His report is bringing president Bush into a tight spot by the minute. In a shocking study, one of the most penetrating thinkers in the Pentagon warns that climate changes endanger the security of the US more than terrorists. The Bush administration is silent about the document because it fears pressure on US industry.

By Spiegel Online

[This article on the Pentagon study was published on February 22, 2004 in Spiegel Online and is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,287518,00.html.]

The scenario is both threatening and realistic. The Gulf Stream that pumps billions of liters of tropical water into the North like a huge hot-water heating system loses power, changes direction and suddenly completely collapses. Icy winds roar across northern Europe; disastrous storms and floods devastate the coasts. Forests die off; the surfaces on the North and East Sea freeze into tundra.

The dramatic climate changes bring people and governments into distress. Oil becomes scarce; the peacekeeping alliances erode. Bloody conflicts break out. Wars for raw materials and food devastate the continents. Within a few years, the world falls to the edge of total anarchy.

For years, researchers warned of the consequences of an abrupt change in climate. However the US administration under George W. Bush denied any necessity of changing anything in the land of the world’s greatest energy consumer. Now a news study brings the administration into a tight spot. The study comes from the Defense Department. The president has always listened to counsel from this department accommodated in Washington’s Pentagon.

Wars again determine the fate of humanity

The paper is rated as so explosive by the Bush administration that it hasn’t commented on it. Details from the report were published in the US economic magazine “Fortune” and in the British “Observer”. The researchers concluded: The government should consider climate change as a scientific debate and as a serious threat for the security of the country. “Wars will again determine the life of people” as soon as the climate capsizes. This could happen at any moment.

The authors are above suspicion. The Americans Andrew Marshall and Peter Schwartz proposed the Pentagon study. The 82-year old Marshall is a colorful legend in military circles. His nickname “Yoda” originates from his work on the Star Wars program of the US government. He is regarded as one of its founders. Since 1973 he has directed a secret think-tank that analyzes risks for the security of the United States often far in advance.

Three years ago he received the assignment from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to justify the controversial development of so-called “smart weapons”. As a co-author, Marshall attracted a man from the oil industry into the team. For years, Schwartz directed planning with the oil multinational Shell and worked as an advisor.

Bush will come into a delicate situation if the oppositional democrats in the election campaign take up the Pentagon report. He will be reproached for not taking seriously a study that outlines serious consequences for the security of the country. If he would take the study seriously, he would set drastic conditions for his compatriots and the corporations. The large-scale sport-utility vehicles of the Americans, especially popular among the rural clientele are regarded as the main causal agents of global warming alongside air-conditioning and inefficient machines.

Scientists already took up the theme and attacked the president last week. That the administration ignored the unpleasant report for months is a scandal.

Apocalyptic Visions

The main concern of the scientist is that the change in climate could destabilize the world within the shortest time. The Gulf Stream could lose strength in the next years through the enormous quantities of freshwater released by the melting glaciers and arctic ice. The consequences would be disastrous droughts in the southern US and floods in China. Scandinavia would be transformed into an ice-wilderness while densely settled coastal states like Holland or Bangladesh would be flooded. Millions of starving refugees would leave their homelands and press into the rich countries.

Countries with unstable governments like Pakistan or Russia could be tempted to use their nuclear arsenal to fight for food or raw materials. Some analyses show that abrupt climate fluctuations occurred again and again in the past. As the cause, researchers resumed abrupt change in the gigantic ocean currents. The world could sink into anarchy within the next three decades, not first in a thousand years. That change in climate entails much greater risks than terrorism is a surprising conclusion of the Pentagon report.