To the Editor:
In Tuesday night’s G.O.P. presidential debate, no candidate mentioned climate change as a threat to national security, even though it portends human suffering and conflict on a scale unprecedented in human history. Climate change is widely blamed for a severe five-year drought in Syria that the Defense Department believes contributed to “massive agriculture failures and population displacements,” and that helped precipitate the civil war there.
American military leaders describe the effects of climate change as “threat multipliers” that will aggravate poverty and political instability around the world, creating conditions that foment terrorist activity and other forms of violence. The continued Republican denial of this threat is itself a threat to national security.
STEPHEN DYCUS
New York
The writer teaches national security law at Vermont Law School.
Note from KBJ: This man is delusional. Nobody mentioned climate change as a threat to national security because climate change is not a threat to national security.
