President Obama Should Appoint Independent Panel to Evaluate Climate Change-National Security Link in Wake of Climate Science Scandals, Former Commander of Pacific Fleet Says in Open Letter
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ahead of the State of the Union address and in the wake of recent and ongoing climate science scandals, President Obama should appoint an independent panel of experts to evaluate the purported climate change-national security link, urged Adm. James A. Lyons, Jr., USN (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Chairman of the Center for Security Policy's Military Committee.
"The supposed relationship between climate change and national security is too important an issue to be driven by unsubstantiated claims, tainted by scandal and to result in counterproductive policies," Adm. Lyons stated in the open letter.
Adm. Lyons' letter points out that both the ongoing Climategate scandal involving senior United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists and the IPCC's recent admission-of-error and retraction of the claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 have rocked confidence in often-repeated assertions that capping emissions of greenhouse gases will improve national security.
"Before we adopt policies that affect military-preparedness and national security, it is imperative that we act on honest assessments of the best available information," Adm. Lyons said. "When it comes to the climate change-national security link and the cap-and-trade legislation now being considered by Congress, any confidence in scientific pronouncements that may have existed in 2009 does not exist in 2010," Adm. Lyons added.
"In light of media reports that President Obama plans to emphasize the climate change-national security link in his State of the Union address, I am asking the President to acknowledge recent developments and to appoint an expert panel whose independence is beyond reproach to sort out fact from fiction," Adm. Lyons concluded.
Adm. Lyons letter is available on the web at: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18296.xml?genre_id=
SOURCE The Center for Security Policy
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