Climate change ‘a bigger threat than terrorism’
CLIMATE change, not terrorism, will be the main security issue of the century, with potential to cause death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, Australia’s top policeman believes.
In a surprise foray into the politics of global warming, Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty described how climate refugees “in their millions” could create a national security emergency for Australia.
His provocative comments, made in a speech in Adelaide last night, are likely to be diplomatically sensitive after he described a scenario in which China was unable to feed its vast population.
Law enforcement agencies would struggle to cope with global warming’s “potential to wreak havoc, cause more deaths and pose national security issues like we’ve never seen before”, Mr Keelty said.
“It is anticipated the world will experience severe extremes in weather patterns, from rising global temperatures to rising sea levels,” he warned.
“We could see a catastrophic decline in the availability of fresh water. Crops could fail, disease could be rampant and flooding might be so frequent that people, en masse, would be on the move.
“Even if only some and not all of this occurs, climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century.”
Read more.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Just look at food prices and unfortunately for the sheeple you have not seen anything yet! Dodgy weather = dodgy food supplies
Colloid Chemist Sir David King was the first to make this claim, I believe. Terrorism and climate change are useful government tools for alarming the population in order to justify restrictive laws.
I thought terrorism had already done that?
Paul: It’s a small world.
Two news items today had me dashing back to a receiver, the radio first up then the TV this eve. Reading between the lines, I felt Keelty had inside info on the likely pace of climate change. His statement was until tonight the most uncommon of the Canberra heads.
Count Prof Doherty now despite his absence from this scene. See ABC 7.30 report.
Davey Gam Esq for one seems not to have moved about quite enough yet to catch the exciting cross discipline interplay, namely forensics and medicine jumping onto the climate change bandwagon. See previous thread – US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Assessed
Thinking ahead of the likely security challenge was in a very small way my job too. But what was the science that triggered Keelty’s comments? Doherty has answered that Question tonight by saying he was drawn in by the recent changes in ice and sea level
Davey; that’s how I drifted into it, sea and ice versus big holes in the ground. My path was via the technical side of mining, ANU med science and the AFP. Science however was by far the more remote discipline
Peter Doherty the 1996 Nobel Prize winner comments on making “unusual connections” in advance of his new book on science, climate change and a host of other challenges. Peter Doherty was often referred to in my all too few days at the John Curtin School of Medical Science as the master of looking beyond mere piles of data.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2042802.htm
For notes on JCSMR as “a triumph for curiosity-led experimental research”
http://jcsmr.anu.edu.au/about/nobelprize/doherty.php
After T cells another immunology story starts with Rolf Zinkernagel & Kevin Lafferty regarding ANU mice. Bits of mice also tell us something about ourselves.
http://info.anu.edu.au/mac/Newsletters_and_Journals/ANU_Reporter/_pdf/vol_28_no_06/Zinkernagel.html
There is another yarn about how our thinking drives the brain connections one way or another. That private web becomes fixed when we stop thinking.
Interesting 2006 interview
“According to Professor Doherty, global warming is a hot topic with a lot of books, including his own, are about to flood the market.
“I am trying to understand what is going on with global warming. Carbon dioxide levels are rising and the ice caps are melting. How much is due to human destruction, I don’t know. I am trying to find the evidence,” he said.
At a recent conference in Cairo, Professor Doherty began talking to a Ugandan diplomat. She was worried about malaria in her country.
“She told me temperatures were rising and malaria was slowly moving up into the highlands, where it never used to go. If it is true or not, I don’t know. I am getting a lot of opinion, and I am trying to get the best position
http://www.festivalnews.uts.edu.au/archive/2006/news/explaining_science_with_orange.html
I wish Prof Doherty luck with any ‘objective’ investigation.
“The complex ecology and transmission dynamics of the disease, as well as accounts of its early history, refute such predictions. Until the second half of the 20th century, malaria was endemic and widespread in many temperate regions, with major epidemics as far north as the Arctic Circle. From 1564 to the 1730s—the coldest period of the Little Ice Age—malaria was an important cause of illness and death in several parts of England. Transmission began to decline only in the 19th century, when the present warming trend was well under way. The history of the disease in England underscores the role of factors other than temperature in malaria transmission.”
Keelty has outed himself as a messianic warmer. He has declared himself unfit for his job.
You better send him a copy of that E&E paper of yours, David. No doubt he’ll be instantly converted by your incisive thinking and strikingly original research.
Keelty has simply weighed up the evidence (science vs. denial) and seeks to plan for future contingencies. Smart man.
Gavin,
Why pick on me? I watch telly too, and I am well aware of Mick Keelty and Peter Docherty making statements on climate. They are allowed to – freedom of speech and all that. At the same time we are all entitled to assess their expertise on the subject.
On malaria, I got it in central Africa in the 1960s. I was living at over 4,000 feet altitude. No shortage of mosquitoes, even in the dry, cool winter. Certainly not in the warm, wet summer. The local cemetery had a number of graves, going back to the early 1900s. Most died young, some from buffaloes and lions, others from Black Water Fever (cerebral malaria). As Paul says, malaria (ague) was once well known in the British Isles. Some say Oliver Cromwell suffered from it. What’s new?
Dave: “In assessing a scientist’s reliability it can be interesting to look at pedigree”
A cynic would say we had an agency head on air seeking funds and an old writer selling his latest book however, I see two well known science types telling us something is wrong. Do they need to be climate experts to use their wits again in review of the available evidence for say sea level rise? I think not!
Dave; on the Global Warming and Karri Forest thread “Nyoongar people have been saying that for years”
One’s powers of observation need to be home grown hey but let’s be consistent around the issue of pedigree. In the end a breakthrough in local knowledge is just hard work.
Well if the IPCC predictions are to believed, Australia is more likely to suffer massive emigration – too hot, not enough water or food! How is that a security threat?
You heard it all from me before, ages ago on this blog. But if Constable Care says so too…. oh oh but hang on, he just wants us to spend more on police & defence. Busted! He can’t be trusted.
Robert & Pinxi both make a lightweight pass.
There are security threats and the most obvious for everyone is arson. ABC ran the latest report from the bushfire CRC late yesterday.
Guess I will need a new fridge magnet.