Climate change scenario a case for precaution

摘要

On 22 february, much of the world's press had a new plaything. Britain's The Observer ran a headline: "Now the Pentagon tells Bush: Climate change will destroy us". Other European papers picked it up. One US paper said: "Pentagon warning of a New Ice Age". It attracted little notice in Australia. Soon the Pentagon backed off, though did not withdraw. The cause was a slender report - "An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for US national security" (www. ems. org/climate/pentagon_climate_change. html) commissioned, according to The Observer, by a senior, longtime and very influential Pentagon adviser. Prepared by two highly credentialled business strategists, it reviews evidence both from history, on the incidence of sudden shifts in climate, and from recent times, on the possibility that conditions are developing which could precipitate such changes. The analysis covered a range of effects that could impact upon global and regional climates and human economic, social and security relationships. It uses well established, but necessarily frail, methods of scenario development. The modelled impacts included food shortages, decreased availability and quality of fresh water in key regions, and disrupted access to energy supplies.