The Pentagon and Climate Change

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/0Vs_njo0TcA

About the Event: The U.S. Department of Defense has been ahead of the curve on climate change.  They worry that the military’s likely use in responding to natural disasters is a potential distraction and strain on their resources and primary missions, and they are concerned that sea level rise and flooding put many of its installations at risk. Further, they see climate change increasing the competition for natural resources such as fresh water and arable land, in already volatile regions, and as “threat multiplier,” potentially leading to increased armed conflict.  What they haven’t addressed, even as they green the services, is the enormous scale of their own greenhouse gas emissions — larger than the annual emissions of most of the world’s countries.

Click to view draft paper

About the Speaker: Neta C. Crawford is Professor and Chair of Political Science at Boston University.  She is the author of more than two dozen peer reviewed articles on issues of war and peace and the author of three books, Soviet Military Aircraft (1987); Argument and Change in World Politics (2002), named Best Book in International History and Politics by the American Political Science Association, and Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for America’s Post-9/11 Wars (2013).  Crawford has served on the governing boards of American Political Science Association and of the Academic Council of the United Nations System, and is a co-director of the Costs of War Project based at Brown and Boston Universities.  In 2018, the International Ethics Section of the International Studies Association gave her a Distinguished Scholar Award.