Climate change a threat to national security?

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A prominent skeptic of man-made global warming says recent comments from the defense secretary about climate change are "complete nonsense."

Speaking recently to the Environmental Defense Fund, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said climate change has a dramatic impact on national security through "rising sea levels, severe droughts and more frequent and devastating natural disasters."

But Marc Morano of Climate Depot has some thoughts on that.

"This is a movement that's been afoot for several years now. It's even got some retired generals who have been picked up by the environmental movement, and they're out there just spewing utter and complete nonsense," he explains. "They're claiming that because of climate models, which don't cover half the variability in nature and have failed miserably. Well, what they've done now is they've gotten the Pentagon involved. We now have our defense secretary worried about refugees, worried about future wars because of our rising CO2 levels."

Morano argues that, historically, more wars have been fought in periods of cold weather than during warm temperatures. He also points to his organization's report, which includes peer-reviewed studies debunking Panetta's claims about the sea level and droughts. And the incidence of big tornadoes has declined since the 1970s, even taking into account the ones that hit the southeastern U.S. in April 2011.

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