Climate change has left US exposed in Arctic, say military experts

From The Guardian

Political gridlock over climate change has left the US military exposed to Russia’s superior fleets in the Arctic, flooding in its naval bases and a more unstable world, according to high-ranking former military commanders and security advisors.

The comments, published on the Weather Channel on Wednesday, echoed president Barack Obama, who recently lambasted climate sceptic politicians for jeopardising global and national security.

Sherri Goodman, who served as Bill Clinton’s deputy undersecretary of defence and founded the security analysis firm CNA Corporation, said the US climate debate was “stuck in the past” and that climate change was “acting as a threat multiplier in the Arctic”.

The Arctic is the most rapidly warming region on Earth and its sea ice has undergone major declines in recent years and decades. Goodman said the intransigence of US politics had left a technology deficit in the far north – a place where…