Armies must get ready for global warming role

I don't know about you, but my first associations of global warming, climate change and the expected ecological disasters come from catastrophe movies like the Water World, Day after tomorrow, and ultimately from Mad Max.

And sometimes I have to wonder, how close that might be to our expected future.

Global warming now becomes such a treat to global security, that military planners must build it into their calculations - the head of Britain's armed forces said on Monday.

Sounds really foreshadowing, eh?

According to Jock Stirrup, chief of defence staff, climate change includes risks like lack of drinking water supply, agricultural disasters, therefore possibilities of famine, and most of all the need for evacuating millions of people from their homes, that could cause weakened states, and had to become a feature of military planning.

First analyses, however show, that this new approach doesn't mean the georgaphical focus needs to be changed, because the areas, seem to be most vulnerable to climate change and major humanitarian disasters coming from global warning are those, that's security risks are already extremely high.

"Just glance at a map of the areas most likely to be affected and you are struck at once by the fact that they are exactly those parts of the world where we see fragility, instability and weak governance today." - Stirrup told yesterday.

Scientists say average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to burning fossil fuels for power and transport, melting ice caps, bringing floods, droughts and famines, and putting millions of lives at risk.