浪花直播

From glacier melt in the Andes and hurricanes in New York and Hawaii, to hybrid disasters, cyber operations, and geoengineering, the US military and intelligence community harnesses the foresight provided by scenarios, simulations, and disaster planning to anticipate environmental and security-related disasters. In their new book, Disaster Security: Using Intelligence and Military Planning for Energy and Environmental Risks, Chad Briggs and Miriam Matejova lead readers through real-life planning scenarios and lessons learned to provide an inside view of how and why government agencies plan for environmental disasters and their potential cascading impacts on global systems.

Authors Briggs and Matejova are joined in discussion with former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security, Sherri Goodman.

Selected Quotes

Chad Briggs

鈥淲hat does climate change mean for security? How do we figure it out and communicate it to policymakers?鈥�

鈥淲e wanted to emphasize that it鈥檚 not just about climate change. That鈥檚 a really important factor but it鈥檚 there in the background. Human actions as well are really important. These aren鈥檛 just natural disasters; these depend upon human actions and human vulnerabilities鈥�

鈥淓veryone was talking about climate security before; this is what brings it home because it鈥檚 not just off in some far off place. It鈥檚 not just people in Syria fighting with one another. It鈥檚 not people we don鈥檛 know on low lying islands in the pacific. These are our islands.鈥�

Miriam Matejova

鈥淲e often have this idea of everything moving in a linear way. And that鈥檚 problematic when we have abrupt environmental changes appearing because they鈥檙e, by definition, not linear.鈥�

鈥淚f we encounter events that we don鈥檛 have historical data on 鈥� that never happened before 鈥� we get frozen by the sudden uncertainty; we don鈥檛 know how to deal with things that we have never had to deal with before.鈥�

鈥淲e are frozen by uncertainty and then we don鈥檛 take actions until we get enough information 鈥� that we can move on. But in many cases, once we actually do get enough information and move on, it鈥檚 too late and then we have to deal with the consequences.鈥�

Sherri Goodman

鈥淲e now live in a world where the historical record of environmental change isn鈥檛 accurate to predict the future.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 very critical to connect the science as its changing with the security and intelligence analysis and I would say this is still really a new and evolving field. 鈥�

鈥淭his whole idea of factoring energy into war planning as a variable is now common but it was not 10 to 15 years ago. We are at that place now with environmental factors which haven鈥檛 yet been regularly included into scenarios and exercises, but you can begin to see the evidence, as Chad and Miriam have recounted, where that鈥檚 happening.鈥�

Continue the conversation on Twitter by following  using the hashtag #disastersecurity. You can also find related coverage on our blog at . 

Photo Credit:  by Tech. Sgt. Joanna Hensley.