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.

Can you tell the exact price of global warming?

It seems that in some particular cases, the price tag of global warming is much more visible that what we expect it to be. And when general warnings and theoretical threats come down to specific facts and prices - the whole idea of climate change turns more and more inconvenient.

In this case, economist predict, that US. state, North Carolina will soon face billions of dollars of expenses caused by the global warming. The state at the south-east coast of the US has been identified as one of the United States' most vulnerable regions to climate change.

According to a recent report - done by three North Carolina universities and the Department of Global Change and Natural Systems at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, the low-lying coastline of North Carolina will be especially prone to hurricanes and erosion if ocean levels rise as projected between 1 foot and 3 feet over the next 25 to 75 years. The result would be more destructive hurricanes that will cause billions of dollars of damage to private property.

Estimates of the project said that by 2080, each hurricane could cause $157 million in damage. Researchers also expect the changing climate to affect coastal industries such as recreational fishing and beach tourism.