The Pentagon's strategic planners have for years viewed climate change as a "threat multiplier"—worsening old conflicts and potentially provoking new clashes over migration and shortages of food and water in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and opening up new military challenges in a melting Arctic.
However, a new report by the Pentagon just raised the priority from a "potential threat to an immediate factor in a wide range of operational and budgeting decisions."
In other words, what still exists as something of a disputed topic in the public discourse—one successfully encouraged by GOP and industrial disinformation efforts—is uncontroversial for such unsentimental entities as the Defense Department (see also May 16, 2014, blog post). Likewise, many large corporations, especially the major petroleum firms, anticipate impending penalties from Washington for carbon emissions (see Dec. 10, 2013, blog post). Power has seen the future.
Though two-thirds of Americans say there is evidence of warming over the last few decades, less than half attribute climate change to human activity (Pew Research). Moreover, the public in general tends to be apathetic on the subject; on a list of twenty policy issues, Pew reported in January that the population placed global warming at number 19.
That being said, a two-thirds majority supports measures to reduce CO2 emissions. And most support a global treaty on greenhouse gases. So despite being under-informed and under-concerned, the public still very much approves the policies and actions required to prevent the likely disastrous effects of a 4C increase in the planet's temperature. Another cause for optimism is that the younger generations (ages 18-29) tend to be more concerned about global warming than their parents and grandparents. After that, causes for optimism start to run thin, a fact of which the Pentagon seems to be aware.
