Former Climate Security Program Manager Esther Sperling in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
On Wednesday, March 18th, ASP’s former Climate Security Program Manager and current Adjunct Fellow Esther Sperling was published in the Georgetown Journal of International affairs. Her article, “Preparing for the Inevitable: Climate Change and the Military”, addresses how U.S. military installations and operations are vulnerable to climate change and what policies the Department of Defense can implement to address those vulnerabilities.
Though the impacts of climate change still feel like a distant problem to some military leaders, Sperling argues that climate change “has already had identifiable impacts [on] military installations in the last five years.”
It’s critically important to address the risks climate change poses to military readiness. The U.S. has bases and conducts operations around the world that will see climate impacts in one form or another. Sperling stresses that “the military is not responsible for solving climate change, but all of its services will need to adapt.”
As Climate Security Program Manager, Sperling developed an interactive website to highlight the threats climate change—extreme heat, rising sea levels, extreme storms, and Arctic sea ice melt—poses to U.S. military installations. The website also makes a series of recommendations on how best to address these threats. Visit ASP’s military base resilience website for more information.
