Republicans in Congress may be focused on denying climate change and dismantling the EPA's authority to fight it, but the military apparently doesn't want to waste time denying reality. A new report commissioned by the U.S. Navy and conducted by the National Research Council suggests that the Navy should get started right away in preparing for the effects of climate change.

"Even the most moderate predicted trends in climate change will present new national security challenges for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard," said retired Navy admiral Frank L. Bowman, co-chair of the committee that wrote the report, in a press release. "Naval forces need to monitor more closely and start preparing now for projected challenges climate change will present in the future."

Among the things to expect, the report concludes, are increased humanitarian missions, open Arctic shipping lanes that need monitoring, and rising sea levels that could render seaside bases vulnerable to storm surges and other problems.

The military has found itself out in front of other parts of the U.S. government on climate-related issues before. In OnEarth's recent interview with Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment, she said the Navy aims to run its entire fleet on non-fossil fuels by 2016. (See "Naval Intelligence," Spring 2011.) Army-related publications have been noting climate change's potential threats since 2007 and earlier, and last year the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review discussed warming as a "destabilizing agent" to the geopolitical landscape.

And while the Republicans in Congress dither and deny science, it is just that detached viewpoint that lets the military move on climate change: reports such as this new one accurately portray warming as a threat to national security, a completely non-partisan fact. As Pfannenstiel said, "It doesn't matter whether [military personnel] believe in being green or whether they believe in climate change, but they do understand the strategic issues around fuel and our dependence on imported fuel."

Photo: The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln departs Everett, Washington. Courtesy of U.S. Navy.