"From a defence planning perspective, we don't know how quickly these changes will occur, exactly what their impact will be, or how states and societies will react.  Nevertheless, climate change may affect security by increasing stress on fragile states, state and societal competition for resources, environmental threats to ADF infrastructure and increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events."

So says an Australian Defence Force (ADF) analysis, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.  According to the report, climate change may lead to "failed states across the Pacific and require extra naval deployments to deal with increases in illegal migration and fishing..."

ADF is not the first military to express concerns about climate change.  The Pentagion began expressing concern about the security effects of climate change as early as 2004.  In their scenario, described as "plausible" but not a prediction,

"A century of cold, dry, windy weather across the Northern Hemisphere... At first the changes are easily mistaken for normal weather variation—allowing skeptics to dismiss them as a "blip" of little importance and leaving policymakers and the public paralyzed with uncertainty. But by 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is happening. The average temperature has fallen by up to five degrees Fahrenheit in some regions of North America and Asia and up to six degrees in parts of Europe... Massive droughts have begun in key agricultural regions. The average annual rainfall has dropped by nearly 30% in northern Europe, and its climate has become more like Siberia's."

As food supplies drop, new alliances and conflicts begin... The rest sounds a lot like a Hollywood disaster movie. But we may get to see it for free.

Last year, the Pentagon called climate change a "serious national security threat," warning that some military facilities and even nuclear power plants could be flooded by huge storms and rising sea levels.  And a British military spokeman said, "We've moved beyond merely theorizing whether climate change has ramifications for defense. We know it will."

Some people still believe climate change is a fringe theory propunded by left-wing wackos. Those wackos increasingly include people and organizations who are hardly known as either left wong or environmentalists.

Tip: Grist.org