Top 10 Energy and Climate worries

Recently some of the top minds available to the US Military met at John Hopkins to determine the top 10 energy and climate security worries and their impact.

Now I can think of a few good reasons to pay attention to this regardless of any positive or negative feelings about the military.

They likely have the broadest scope geographic scope of any organization. Their resources are unmatched and they have a goal of continuing their existence and fulfilling future missions no matter who is in charge.

So, for those reasons - I think it worthy to pay attention to what they see in the future as the top 10 energy and climate worries.

The military’s top 10 energy, climate worries

Late last month, a group of national security strategists, top researchers and analysts gathered at the Kossiakoff Centre of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, to discuss two big worries that many in the mainstream media might have you believe aren’t causes for concern at all: energy security and climate change.

The best way to sum up the symposium’s conclusions? Don’t listen to the chattering heads on talk radio and television: the military’s top brass know better … and with their knowledge comes considerable nervousness.

1. A severe energy crunch starting as soon as 2012.
2. Security problems made worse by climate change.
3. Petro-dollars being funneled to terrorist organisations.
4. Climate threats to military operations and facilities.
5. Insufficient incentives to ensure future energy security. “
6. Mistaken assumptions about energy in the past.
7. The tendency to want 100 per cent certainty on energy and climate models.
8. An outdated electrical grid.
9. Energy price shocks.
10. Climate changes that are happening faster than predicted.

More info at the link above on each item. Taken together it paints a troubling picture.

Most of these seem to be borne out of laziness, paranoia, made-up or self inflicted, but the whole thing seems to be constructed to justify No's 1 and 9

1. A severe energy crunch starting as soon as 2012.
9. Energy price shocks.

So once again, the bottom feeders (us) will end up paying for THEIR mess through our electricity and gas bills ... ah well nice to see nothing is going to change in the near future

If this source can be trusted, it validates the worries a lot of people have. The US and most other nations around the world have become real gluttons for energy and resources. While I don't know if this resources are at desperately low levels, I do know that our consumption rates aren't getting any lower. For every new energy efficient device that comes around, the sheer number of devices is *outweighing the benefit.

*I have no source for this. Just a guesstimate.

And...with our current cycle of heating (another assumption), our energy use will continue to grow to cool down our fat bottoms as we type away at our computers.

Nice find...if it's true.

reply to post by WickettheRabbit


Thanks - I did some tracking down of some of the sources used in the article I quoted in the OP. These seem to be ones they pull from..

U.S. Joint Forces Command releases environment report

Joint Operating Environment 2010 report (76pg pdf)

Climate and Engery Symposium (22 presentations available for viewing)

I admit - I haven't waded through all the above yet. But digging seems to be revealing the full documents used in making the "top 10".

I just read a article on Harald Lesch (born 28. July 1960 in Gießen) is a German physicist, astronomer, natural philosopher, author, television presenter, and professor of physics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU). and his latest ideas in the warming of the Earth.

He says that we are currently still in an ice age and are at the start of a warm period. it is supposed to get warmer and it is normal that the Earth does not have any ice sheet whatsoever during this time.

It was in Dutch but if you google this guy you should find it.

Link to source ( in Dutch ) with pictures.

reply to post by All_Truth_Soon


Exactly! There is no need to have an "energy crunch" and it is entirely self-inflicted if there is!

The UK want to shut down perfectly good electrical generation plants that are coal fired because of the unproven and much over-hyped issue of CO2, and for no other reason.

exactly... self inflicted by them on us.... not me ... not you... them ... the big corps that polute on a global scale and if caught .. pay a few dollars and all is forgiven .. what a strange world we live in.

peace friends

The UK want to shut down perfectly good electrical generation plants that are coal fired because of the unproven and much over-hyped issue of CO2, and for no other reason.

The UK has built a dependence on natural gas. The north sea natural gas production has peaked and is declining rapidly. Old nuclear plants are closing. Coal plants contribute to global warming, and the mining is extremely environmentally destructive, as is the air pollution that coal causes. Coal plants are closing. The UK is in debt, and has failed to make energy investments in the recent years. There will be an energy crunch, it's already happening. In the short term that means more natural gas imports, more electricity bought from France - greater energy dependence on countries such as RUSSIA. In the long term the UK is going Nuclear.

Ignoring the problem won't help. Blaming it on 'them' isn't going to fix anything either. Demand action so a crunch isn't prolonged... Keeping coal plants open isn't going to solve this... keeping coal plants open isn't going to stop gas from peaking in many areas, and it's not going to build new infrastructure, and it's not going to solve the problems with oil that we have. I agree that it's self inflicted, these problems should of already been figured out because it doesn't take a genius to see them coming.

[edit on 4/5/2010 by C0bzz]