Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion Focuses On National Security Implications Of Climate Change 20170606

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is carol warner, and the director of the environmental and energy study institute. Im delighted to welcome you to the briefing this afternoon on the National Security implications of Climate Change. Were honored for this breaking to happen at this very timely. In time as well as a look at these important issues. And i want to express my gratitude and enthusiasm for the partnership that we have in terms of bringing this briefing through the partnership with the Henry M Jackson foundation as well as the center for climate and security. And i wanted to be sure and mention that were joined by some members from the henry m. Jackson foundation today, including john handelman, who is the president of the Jackson Foundation board, as well as laura who is the foundations executive director. So thank you very, very much for your support, for your long understanding and visionary approach to this important issue and in carrying out the legacy of senator jackson who set up, for whom the foundation was set up to continue his unfinished work in the areas in which he for so long played a very key leadership role while he was here in the congress and especially in the senate where he also chaired the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, but when he took such an important leadership role with regard to International Affairs education, human rights, environment and Natural Resources management, and very important to the whole role of public service. So we are very, very grateful to the Jackson Foundation, also very, very grateful to the center for climate and security with whom we are also partnering with regard to this briefing. We are going to be hearing from a number of people who have a long history and who have given much, much thought to this important issue of climate, what does this really me for National Security, what are the angles that need to be thought about. And to first start off this breaking appointed first introduce colonel tom watson who is the director of Government Affairs for the center for climate and security. [applause] carol, thank you very much. The center for climate and security is delighted to cosponsor this event today with the esi and thanks to our esi partners for all your hard work to put this together. The center for climate and security would also like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to join us today for the National Security implications of Climate Change. A briefing to discuss the role of Climate Change is a threat multiplier in the geopolitical landscape, and the implications that assess for National Security. This briefing will explore the risk management, planning considerations facing the department of defense as it seeks to maintain force readiness and bolster infrastructure resilience. We think yo youll find todays panel both timely and informative on this important issue. The center for climate and security is a nonpartisan security and Foreign Policy institute with a distinguished Advisory Board of nationally recognized military, security, and Foreign Policy experts. Some of whom are here today as part of our panel. The center for climate and security envisions a climate resilient secrete landscape character further this this goal the center for climate and security facilitates policy Development Processes and dialogs like todays panel as well as providing analysis, conducting research and acting as a resource hub in the climate and security field. It is now my pleasure introduce your moderator for todays event, the honorable john conger. He is a member of the senate for climate and security advisories board. In addition is an independent consultant and president of the condor strategy and Solutions Llc and a nonresident Senior Advisor at the center for strategy and international studies. He served as the Principal Deputy undersecretary of defense comptroller where he provided advice to the secretary of defense on budgetary and financial matters. He has also overseen Energy Installation and departmental policy throughout dod as the assistant secretary for defense for energy, installation and environment. He served as acting deputy undersecretary of defense for installations in environment as well as the assistant deputy undersecretary for installations in environment. Mr. Conger has also served as a staff member in congress including a professional staff of the House International relations committee. Prior to that he was employed in the private sector as an Aerospace Engineer and defense analysts supporting the office of secretary of defense. He has multiple degrees from mit and a masters from George Washington university. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce your moderator for today, mr. John conger. The podium is yours. [applause] how a real doing today good . A little warm. We will keep the door open so that the air flow is okay, but were going to get back grandly so thats the tradeoff you are all going to have. So thank you for being here background noise. I hope will be a pretty enlightening discussion. You heard a couple times the reference to how time is was. I want to thank President Trump for making his last week on this topic. We did not plan that in advance. But nonetheless, as we go forward with the change in administration, from president obama to President Trump, the apparent change of opinion on Climate Change, we cant help but wonder whether this topic is to want the dod is is going to care about. Whether this is all just politics at the beginning of whether theres really a core National Security issue that drives dod interest in the impacts of Climate Change. Unconjugated preliminary and to do that by quoting secretary mattis, President Trumps secretary of defense. His quote was i agree that the effects of a changing climate such as increased maritime access to the arctic, rising sea levels, among others in fact, our security situation. I will ensure that the department continues to be prepared to conduct operations today and in the future, and that were prepared to address the effects of changing climate on our threat assessments resources and readiness. So thats the bottom line. That dod will adapt to changes in the climate and positions of the best to ensure they can get its mission and defend the country. The dod knows what youre doing and it was measured in responding to this risk but theres a lot you can do to mitigate risk once you acknowledge the wrist existed to do with a group of experts. Each of whom is a member of the board of advisors to the sender of climate and security, and each are uniquely qualified to address these points. They will talk about why dod still cares about Climate Change, how it affects the dod mission and the ability to carry out Mission Today and in the future. Im going to introduce everybody and call on each one of them to make some open comments and they moved to some questions and answers. Im going to ask that the panelists during their opening common stock are a facet of the problem that they wish, but to include in the thoughts one started question to blend in with her intro, any absence of politics, how would dod approach this issue . Setting aside the focus on climate by president obama and the resistance to focus on what President Trump, what would dod due . So thats sort of an entrylevel thought. Im going to go during introduce everybody all at once and then pass it to them to make their comments. Immediately to my left is sherri goodman, a number of our Advisory Board and a senior fellow with the wilson center. Prior to this role she was ceo and president of the Ocean Leadership consortium and Senior Vice President and general counsel and corporate secretary of the center for naval analyses. Before that indicate gone she was deputy under secretary of defense for Environmental Security and i will say that few people have done more at the nexus of climate and security, particularly or shepherding of the civil souza reports issued by sine started with the National Security and the threat of Climate Change report in 2007. To her left general ron keys is a member of the center and climate on climate and security Advisory Board and chairman of the cna military Advisory Board. So thats the board to put up the side edges from your gross really he coauthored a report on Sea Level Rise use military mission and issued by the seven climate and security and there should be copies in the front table. General keys is a retired 4star general from the air force. He retired in november 27 2007 after more than 40 years. He was a command pipe with more than 4000 flight hours and Fighter Aircraft including more than 300 hours of combat time. Gse climate challenges as an operator around the world, and as commander confronting the impact of climate on operational readiness at Langley Air Force base, now join force base your helped to his left doctor Gerald Galloway is a member of a Member Senate Armed Security Advisory Board and a coauthor of the aforementioned study on sealevel rise. Hes professor jimmy at university of maryland, focus on Water Resources and Disaster Management and is also a fellow at the texas a m Hagler Institute for advanced studies working on urban fighting in the United States. Urban flooding. He served eight additional years in the federal government. Professor gallo is a former dean of the faculty and academic programs at the Industrial College of the armed forces and former dean of Academic Board coming Us Military Academy at west point where he was professor of geography in the first hit of the department of geography and environmental engineering. And last but not least, where admiral and felt as a member of the centers Advisory Board. Praise is a shutter 31 year career in the u. S. Navy as a Surface Warfare officer. She commanded destroyer squadron 28 and strike a group and she was a member of the navies Climate Change and Energy Task Force advertisement featured Infrastructure Working Group for the hampton road sealevel rise prepared everything intergovernmental pilot planning project. So thanks to each of you for being here and i will turn it over to sherri for opening comments. Well, thank you [inaudible] great to deal with all of you today. Thank you to the Jackson Foundation, to the rockefeller foundation, to css and ees eye for organizing this. Many of you looked around for carol can member when we could hardly fill a room on this subject, let alone standing room only. So 30 years ago, 30 years ago i was the youngest and only female staff member on the Senate Armed Services committee, at the time when senator jackson still served in the senate. I worked for senator nunn who are just become the Armed Services committee. Senator warner, john warner of virginia was the ranking republican. And there were many days and many times when there was absolutely no difference between democrats and republicans on the issues that we worked. And so i, speak to you about the subject from a long bipartisan tradition that has been the hallmark of National Security policymaking and practice in this country. That has been around for decades, and which i think is incredibly important to the subject, and too many others in National Security that we face today. Because we are living in a time thats highly polarized, but 30 years ago what was more common was that on Armed Service committee, they could barely fill the work and fiber. That was not in my portfolio at all. As most of my colleagues who are old enough like me, i was more like the age of many of in the audience then. And at that time we were working on things like Nuclear Weapons and arms control and military readiness and troop readiness, all these issues are still very important, but during that early, and early post cold war. In this cold war. , we begin to understand the practices of the Industrial Age data led to environmental challenges. And so the Armed Services committees, both sides of the aisle, republicans and democrats, created within the Defense Department something that still and doors to today called the Strategic Environment Research and development program, which took research and assigns capably prolific this think this is still important, sort of underlying factor here that science, research, Technology Development innovation are a core component of everything that we do as americans but everything that occurs in National Security and that undergirds our understanding of what our threats are. Because in the first instance the National Security, you start from what are your threats . In the nuclear age we understood the nuclear threat. We spent billions of dollars of americas gdp to defend and deter what we consider to be the highest consequence, but low probability threat of a bolt out of the blue strike from the soviet union. Now in the climate age we have in Climate Change arguably an equally high, potential high consequence and higher probability threat. So that is our we think of it in terms of risk. What are the risks . And did we plan and program and budget accordingly to reduce those risks to our forces, to reduce the risks in operating around the world. So now when we look around the world today we see that there are many threats, of course, terrorism bright on our doorstep almost every day. Russia, rising china, and among those threats is Climate Change. The environmental considerations within the fence have always been, in my view, really a bipartisan consideration dating back 30 years ago from what i mentioned starting with considerations of how to address it by mental problems during the cold war and only post cold war. And there are number of programs which john and generals and admirals here were responsible for administering during the times in dod, to clean up military bases or comply with environmental laws. And as new challenges emerge we approach each one in its own right. And then the last two decades its become very clear that Climate Change is one of the significant threats to americas National Security. And thats why ten years ago this year when i was at cna reform the military Advisory Board that general keys now chairs, that general galloway has served on, that admiral phillips is associated with and many other leading generals and admirals in the Armed Services have been associated with peer to understand what are the National Security implications of Climate Change, and with characterized that as a threat multiplier. Threat multiplier for instability in fragile regions of the world. And we see it. We see how the geostrategic posture is affected by Climate Change. Just take the arctic. We have a whole new ocean thats been created and opened up within the last decade as the result of the melting, rapid melting of sea ice i in the arctic. And now we have two begin to have more capability to operate in the arctic in ways that we did not need to do quarter century ago. We see a potential rush for resources as theres more access to them, opportunities for additional fishing, navigation, transport, tourism that bring both opportunities but also risk. So thats one very poignant way in which Climate Change is changing our world as we know, changing how we have to position our armed forces to address that, as well as other capabilities. Second is important, extreme weather events. Weve seen that there are more extreme weather events of various types around the world, and we now have to position our forces to be able to respond, to increased typhoons, increased extreme weather events, storms that are creating new risk, taken within the asiapacific which one might call sort of the disaster alley of that region, where theres extreme risk with the urbanization that we see now in that area, and the largest cities in the world, both also People Living at very low lying areas everywhere from bangladesh to the philippines that are increasing risks when theres an extreme storm, Sea Level Rise, and with people who will be, need assistance. Thirdly, and i want to leave sometime here because some of the subject for my fellow panelists here, we see that its also affecting our military posture at home, our installations are at risk all along the Atlantic Coast from combination of Sea Level Rise, storm surge, and coastal erosion. And that is not a partisan issue. Thats something thats affecting us all, wherever our coastal military installations are located. And thats if we want to continue to operate we will need to address the infrastructure. Todays the day the administration is talking a lot about infrastructure. Well, theres a lot of infrastructure at military bases that needs to be hardened and secured against rising seas and extreme weather events. And much of this also connects then with the communities, wherever our military bases are, they are part of the community. And that brings us into building more resilient communities, to addressing these risks, because bases are really of the community. So in norfolk where people cant get to the base because of nuisance flooding that occurs not on a regular basis, thats a risk for our military and also is a risk for the community. So we see that these extreme weather events, storm surge, increase around the world and drought in particular, drought we know that underlying drought was a source of conflict, a source of instability leading to the complex in both syria and in the air spring uprisings. And thats now been well documented by Research Done by css and other scholars, that ccs and other scholars, that we need to better understand how drought, prolonged drug is going to be a source of instability in complex in the future as the world experiences more water stress and water scarcity, some of it activated by Climate Change also my water mismanagement. So these are all nonpartisan, bipartisan issues. They are ones that require us to harness the capabilities across a range of government agencies. I know many of you how you get all be working on Armed Services committee so youre working on committees that span a number of budgets and jurisdictions. You know, the research thats done across a number of agencies from noaa to nasty nsf including department of Defense Department of energy is all important as well as moving our nation forward weve always been leaders in the next wave of Energy Innovation. We had that opportunity now while caring for those who have to make the transition from fossil energy into new forms of energy. But as we make our country and our world more secure, moving along, stayed at the forefront of Energy Innovation curve is going to be increasingly important. We had the ability to do that. And we see were doing that already today, particularly in the department of defense as the figure out how to power the force for the future looking at everything from smart microgrids to wind and solar to power our Forward Operating bases where they are at the front so they can be more resilient and operate more securely. General . Okay. So having said all that let me answer the question. If this were not political, what would we be doing . One, we would be enjoying a renaissance that much less oversight. And that causes those problems. And number two, we would probably have more money to work some of these issues. The real question is why does dod about this at all . Because even though we live in the communities, we are just normal people who just happen to wear a uniform in our profession. We are not necessarily known as tree huggers and thereby mentalists and all the rest of that, the reason we care is because its only three things that we focus on any military. The first thing is mission effectiveness. The ability to go and do what we have to do. We go and fight americas wars when she calls upon us to do so, and we windows wars. We have to be able to base, we have to be able to train, to test, mobilize, deploy, operate, reach back. We have to be able to do all of those things in face of everything that could happen, but if somebody walks out and cuts water, some of those a satchel over a fence or whether a flood comes in or whether sea levels rise. So we need to be able to do that. So it its mission effectivenes. Its about going and fighting and winning. The second thing that we focus a lot on his battle space awareness. This i think somehow confuses people, that we are not focus on Climate Change, not focus on Renewable Energy because we put altogether. We dont break out each threat to individual and put that in its own Program Elements and get money for that. We look at what other threats, the impacts to our ability to operate . That sort of battle space awareness, applied to where we base, treat and all the rest of the things just like we do when were in combat. We look at what we have enough water, in a fuel . With our convoys be exposed . When we had a problem with whether a certain area because of dust . Very fine, gritty dust or will they have a problem with disease and everything . We focus on those from an intellectual and intelligence focus to make sure we know what are the threats. Then we have a term the third thing is called survival to operate, survived to operate. Because in our line of work we know that were going to get hit, and when we get it with going to have to still operate. It was a term we going to back in the days when we really concerned about chemical warfare. You had to suit up in your face for suits and put on your mask and hope that you didnt pass out from heat but that was survived to operate. Were going to get camp and buyout and continue to fight. You go back to the first gulf war, you can see the pictures of people Walking Around in these suits. So survived th operator with a k at, are the things that are going to prevent us from survived to operate . Are politically to cut our roads or cover runways . Are the wildfires going to knock down the greed and we will not be able to get our electricity on and on and on. Those are the three things we look at. Mission effectiveness, battle that space awareness and being able to survived operate. What do we think is in a nutshell what are the effects . Heres some of problems we have. The first bob is just on training. The piracy has gotten longer. We have people on the fire line. You dont want to put people on a firelight unless theyre trained to be on the filing. That is dangerous business. If they are trying to be on the fire line they are not trained to be whatever it was they came into the army, navy, marines, coast guard, air force. Thats training that if were going to do more swiftwater rescue, if you have been involved in Something Like that, that is some hand eye coordination. You have to know what youre doing or you will be swept away, too. What about our Hurricane Hunters so, we certainly got, we dont think we will get that many more people and that many more dollars so if we do these kind of things, we are going to have to make hard choices. The other issue that you have is when you are doing these kind of things is that you can be so involved. Suppose we had a major wildfire and a lot of our National Guard is primary in these reactions and someone decides to do something in north korea or afghanistan, name it a dangerous place around the world and you have your force splits up. People think about when we talk about humanitarian crises and things like that we tend to think about over their. We are probably fast approaching to the day when it will be here. If you go out a sometime when you are taking a trip see what quach of an looks like in the west in the ocean and how low that thing is. Go out to diego garcia and look at where the water is. Go to Langley Air Force base and thats where our raptors live. It is a jewel in our crown and the we have analyzed it doesnt have to go 3 feet entitled depth. It only has to get four or 5 inches and across the bay four or 5 miles across and the wind comes in and you have a lot of water. I was there in 84, commanding a fighter squadron. We probably had four or five hurricanes while i was there. We took some water, but we changed a few things and we were good to go. I went back in 2005, as a combat combat command and we had one noreaster come through, just plain vanilla noreaster and we had about three or 4 feet of water in the main road that went outside of my quarters and we had people scrambling to pump water just because in that amount of time things had gotten that much worse. Get a smaller storm starting from a higher base. Those are the kind of things we start to look at is how bad could it be . This is that analysis we do. Look at where you are you say what could happen and you go how could how bad could that be, could we stand that because in some cases we will just grit our teeth. Then, if its so bad we cant stand it, how much would it cost to move it back to something we can stand and what technologically do we have to know to do that and when do we start doing that technology so its ready to implement when we get to the point that we have to have it, so its a matter of how bad can it be, can we stand it, cant stand it, is it affordable and accessible for us to actually change it. Then, go back to that house and think what if we are wrong. What if its really not happening . What if it really doesnt get that bad . How much money will we have pumped into these things that we were planning on doing and find out we really didnt need to do that and wheres the offramp . Where can we stop . Have we done something to make us better able to operate and helps our battle space awareness and helps us to survive to operate . Thats the reason the military cares because its our job to be ready and to be able to mobilize and deploy. When you call us on the phone you expect someone to pick up on the other end and a some people say well, can you give me unexampled of where a disaster has happened, no not really. Not yet. Thats the whole point of this is i dont want to stand asked deep when you guys call and say we are appear on the top of our house and we would like your choppers to come rescue and i go i would like to do that, but they are up to the skids in water themselves, so thats the kind of forward planning we are trying to do to make sure we can operate. The other thing to close with is that is here and kind of in the us, but as it sheri said is the catalyst for conflict. We dont have much water in some places wont have as much water and wont go as much food. There will be humanitarian crisis with a huge migration and at some point we will probably be called to go help or there may be too much water. Ive been involved as director of ops in yukon and zimbabwe and they had floods that covered the whole country. If those become more likely, then we will have to respond to those kinds of things, so not only are we getting more work if you will inside our United States, but we will get more work outside the United States. Now, its a matter of competing priorities. Where you want me to do . Where you want me to be . How do you want me to train . Thats the reason we are focused and have been for a long time. Going back to about 2003, which was the very First Official look at what is Climate Change going to do to us, but in 1994, i was commanding at an air force base and we were doing search and rescue exercises with russia, canada and the us and we were back then talking about when these lanes a start to open up we will have a lot more shipping through their, so we need Better Communications up there. We need better cooperation of their etc. Etc. , so we have seen this coming for a long time, but its just been painfully slow to start the focus and flow the money. Thank you. Sherry jerry . Thank you. Its interesting, you asked the question what it would it be like if politics werent here and i would say the military would do the same thing they are now. If you go back to older field manuals, it said weather and terrain is most significant aspect about a field whether its the runways that have to be open to land on them or if its the open seas where the hills when they are in change the military is concerned about that. So, the military has long had an interest in dealing with things like this and forecasting what might happen. Unexampled, during world war ii as you may recall in the news we had to cross the rhine river. We were fortunate to secure a bridge which became a famous movie, but all the time that activity was going on they were getting ready for this into germany and the military forces grouped a large number of meteorologist and climatologist and intelligence people together to determine what might the germans do and what might nature do to make the rhine going to flood. To change the ability for the forces to operate and it was critical with what eisenhower was planning to understand what would happen on the ground and thats what we see in summary ways when we deal with moving forces overseas to a place weve never been act or a place where we have been to, but its changing. Will we be able to carry out the military operation . So we are very interested that the dod and all Services Care about being ready so if you expect us to go we have to be a will to deliver on that. Im an engineer, so i spend a lot of my time i have done strategy and worked out what will be the threat multiplier and challenges in bangladesh were singapore or somewhere else where people are rushing to the cities and under Climate Change we may have real significant problems in dealing with these. Singapore, the sea level is rising and they are dealing with it because they recognize they have to plan 20, 30 and 50 years out. Other countries to do that and they will become significant challenges for us. But, are we ready . Thats a real question and there are three things to talk about quickly. Number one, the issue of training. Training is at the heart of what the military doesnt if our bases are not capable of providing a platform for training, then we wont be as ready as we should be. We have already seen the challenges back to as far as the red caucasian woodpecker at fort bragg North Carolina that stop training in many areas. We have stopped training in parts of National Training center for various animals that are there on the endangered species list. As the temperature rises with Climate Change, it will cause significant movements and where we will deal with these issues and we will have to address them. Our country is responsive to that. We will have to look at what is the temperature going to do to the ability of our troops to train because you can only train outside during a certain. Back of time. All of those things have to be taken into account as you move forward. The other issues that come up are, how do we test the equipment for the future. We have to come up with new methods, acquisition of material we will need. The trucks we use now, the combat vehicles we use, the ships and planes all have to be prepared to operate in this different environment my experience in vietnam with dust our helicopters are wonderful, but you put them down consistently and dust as you did in iraq or now in afghanistan and it creates severe problems. If you operate in environments where the temperatures are different than you were when you plan to operate their then you cant get the helicopters to go to certain elevations and do other things that make your operation move smoothly, so we have to think about what equipment will we require the future, how will we test it, do you want us to be ready to go. You cant operate with the last worse equipment when the world around you is changing, so its important that the military consider whats on the horizon and what we do about the horizon if we have to land in the pacific we have had a look at the pacific. Shere has mentioned the issue of operating on islands as a Sea Level Rises. Can we still land where we used to be able to land and will our vessels when the seas are more intense, will they be able to move the short come the Landing Craft that has to move the supplies in . We had to think through these and you expect them to do that and thats why i say this kind of thinking is going on at the highest levels all the time. Its only when there is interference in the thinking that people say dont do it, dont think this way, its really not happening that the military begins to push back a bit and say no, we have to be ready for these eventualities. Its important that we do that. The last one is kind of interesting because we dont hardly think of it. We dont live just on military installations. We get supplies him all over the world. You can recall in 2011, when the area north bangkok, thailand, an area of great Industrial Power where they were manufacturing parts and also subsystems that were being used we discovered later in systems in the us. If that area is underwater we cant get the supplies for justintime manufacturing. We have to be aware of those things. Last year, you may recall there was flooding in south and North Carolina interstate 95 was shut down for a week from about 30 miles. You cant move large amounts of material when you need to when the roads are underwater. Now, we are prepared for that. Our military installations have ties to the neighboring communities whether its the power, water or the roads, are they working together to guess to the right approach when the time comes that we have one of these major events. You have seen the quote thousand year floods, the disastrous storms we have on our coast and we have to be ready for those. Thats what the military is trying to do, to look ahead and see what is it we are dealing with and can we in fact be ready for the future. Also, can we enter installations especially do it in coordination with our civilian neighbors. In our study on the gulf and east coast communities tied into the military we found there are just see challenges and everyone of them them because we now have military personnel living off because the have to get on coast , workers that man key installations that we need to have get to the post. We again, need them to support what we are doing and we need to support what they are doing as we adaptively deal with Climate Change and that doesnt mean we will build a wall, levies, breakwaters. We will go for Natural Systems and find new ways to do it. Your militaries at the forefront of dealing with some of these challenges and again, it comes back to we are not going to be any different whether theres politics or not because the military is focused on having a military thats ready to move and in order to do that we have to think through the hazards we will face, the risk created by those hazards and the strategies that we will use. Admiral . Good afternoon, everyone and thank you to mr. Conger for your kind introduction and thank you for tolerating a really tight room. As mr. Conger mentioned on the Service Warfare officer. I drove it ships for 31 years and like my military peers, and operator. Eyman trained to view a mission and Strategic Operational and tactical terms, do what is required with cleared id fragment his and to prepare and execute the patient. I dont do it with any sort of political focus whatsoever. I have a job and i know how to do the job. The navy has a long impact of taking Climate Index seriously because they create an intensified risk as in the palace have mentioned. This is a real threat, not imagined based on a political agenda. We in the Department Defense department have an inherent response ability to prepare, to execute a mission. That responsibility drives serious consideration for Climate Change because we see more and more of the impacts of it in our daily lives as we execute our mission and prepare here at home and also as we operate overseas. Finally, Climate Change adaptation contains a government approach and the Defense Community needs the opportunity to execute as general implied without a constant shifting of perspectives, words, strategies, impediments to be able to execute its mission. We know what we need to do. We know what we are faced with. Allow us to plan, evaluate risk, prepare and operate. We have a National Security mission to fulfill, after all. The challenges particularly astute as some of you have heard mentioned in our coastal military installations and no more so in Hampton Roads where i live. Hampton roads is a region on the frontline of Climate Impact right now. We experience Sea Level Rise at twice the rate of other east coast locations, second only to new orleans in the degree of change we see because we are also dealing with the land that is unique to the hefty roads area. This is a serious and growing threat, not only to Regional Military readiness, but National Military readiness. Why is that . Theres almost 29 separate federal entities within the hampton road region spread across nearly 100 distinct facilities. Of these, the largest percentage nearly two thirds are department of defense facilities and two thirds of those are navy facilities. Including unique National Assets like naval station norfolk, arguably the Largest Naval station in the world. Our only Aircraft Carrier Construction Fueling facility is one of only two submarine construction facilities in the country and in addition air force combat command, Army Training training command, special Operation Forces and key Training Facilities were those commands, the Largest Naval command outside of europe, supreme allied command for transportation is in norfolk, virginia. Also, we are the fourthlargest commercial force on the east coast gateway to the Chesapeake Bay which helped us to support not only the economy of the country, the economy of virginia in the military and civil facilities that put reside in the region. 45 of our Regional Economic development is based on the presence of federal facilities. Also, it could go in the structure, so it impacts the whole community. The whole region is impacted by what happening here and its ability to support the military. 65 of the 1. 7 Million People who live in Hampton Roads 17 cities travel to another city to work. The resilience and adaptation can be limited to just protecting a facility or a city. It has to be done across the whole Government Community within the region. In my ongoing work on the region i often encounter people who cannot wait to tell me about their experiences with water and i will share a few. A nato colonel and his wife that amended the christmas party, as soon as she found out i worked on Sea Level Rise she couldnt wait to spend the next 30 minutes telling me about life in hampton road dealing with water and had to learn to drive a fourwheel drive vehicle, learn to think about the storms, the weather and the tides to get in and out of her community. She has learned different ways to get places that she needed to go just to pick up the groceries or pick up her husband at work. There are people i know in Virginia Beach who had to decide what vehicle to take to work and when they will leave it based on the tide cycle and while the should only be limited to significant storms, now this could happen any time if the wind blows the right way. You had to change your plans then and operate differently. I know a retired military couple who openly discuss their concern that they will have to abandon their home because of the constant flooding that makes it difficult to get in and out of their neighborhood, even though it doesnt direct may impact their house, so we are dealing with this on a routine basis as people change their lives every day in hampton road just to be able to execute whatever it is they need to do and many of those people are involved in supporting the military in some way shape or form and they are the families of Service Members who are stationed in the region. In discussing the national and security implications you can see to hampton road is crucial for the entire range of changes between a large number of federal facilities and the fact that we are now constantly dealing with water and places we dont want, need or expect on a more routine basis. We are really doing with the challenges and we know we will have to deal with them in the future. Within that context, the department of defense believes it has an inherent response ability to prepare and take this seriously and they have to have the ability to plan, implement, interact with the local community, share data in an open matter so we can plan regionally to not only support our local and regional mission, but to execute our National Security static strategy. Thank you. Okay. So, im going to sort out some of the answer to the question i posed which was, what amount of politics and what amount would happen regardless of politics this sounds like you to Pay Attention to Climate Change regardless of politics. There are things that will happen and there are two main categories i heard discussed. What is on mission and the other on if the structure. Lets do a couple questions on each one and let the panel talk. First lets start with mission. We go back to the madison quote where he says i agree that affects of a changing Climate Impacts our security situation. Can navy have a couple comments about things going on today that are exasperated him and not cause, but exasperated by climate so our folks in the field have to actually Pay Attention to what is going on with regard to the change in climate, sea levels etc. That affects their preparation for their job and what they had to train for in the field today. I know there is a lot a discussion of syrian weather drought exasperated that situation. Sherry, you talked about the arctic and how that could change our future Mission Profiles as ice of mouth. Does anyone want to take a whack at that and focus on that piece of the puzzle . I think that easy one is if there is an easy one is the arctic. We know what the problems are in the arctic because it opens up and you have more people up there so you will have more opportunity for one mischief, accidents etc. , but when you go north some of the problems you have is that we dont have a good picture of the north like we do on most of the rest of the globe, so having that intelligence of their so you know whats going on so the coast guard can see with happening. Second thing is communications are bad at the top of the world, so you have to make sure you have the capabilities so when something does happen someone gets notified so they can go out and fix that. Thats sort of an approach to what will we have to do when you can no longer walk across the north pole, but you can sail across the north pole. That makes a big difference. Another thing is, i think and jerry probably will talk better about this than i can, but its a matter of water. If people dont have enough water than even when you send your troops in their, they wont quickly dig up a well and find water either, so its a matter how do you make water, how do you reclaim our and make sure is pure enough to use and make sure you can carry enough. Do you go in with pounds of plastic bottles or in with a couple of cantonese canteens. Can you go in and usually your desalinization or you some of the other systems we have actually reclaim water, so i think that is an issue as we get into some of these areas. In other areas, from an airport standpoint we have looked at the issue of where can we base . Are the base is going to be tenable and thats the issue for us. You need a long piece of concrete to get in and operate otherwise you are operating at great range so in some cases they may be under water and in other cases it may be too dry or too dusty to operate, so those are the kind of things we are looking at from an air force standpoint. Just to add on to what general keith has mentioned, in addition in the arctic it is shrinking very rapidly now. Its to the point that we are looking to having to read relocate arctic villages, alaskan villages because of the combination of thinking permafrost, coastal erosion and rising seas. In addition, theres new opportunities for energy exploration, which is going to bring risk and potential reward. We are going to see operational the us and russia are only about 30 miles apart at the closest point in the bering straits, which until we recent years was navigable only for a very brief period of the year and used to refuel and restock villages up at the top of the world, but now we saw even last year a chinese tanker the trip across the russian Northwest Passage and down the bering strait. I think this is just the beginning of what will be much more ship traffic in that area for a variety of reasons. Last year there was a multi passenger cruise ship called the crystal serenity that fortunately failed without incident throughout the canadian Northwest Passage and in the us and american arctic and is planning travel again this summer. In my view, its only going to be a matter of time before there is some incidents that requires a significant search and rescue or well spill response. Our coast guard along with associated military guard and other forces are already planning and preparing for such eventualities and as a result we are looking at buying not only new icebreakers, but additional communication, maritime awareness, potentially even a deep water port up in that region, which the us has never had and so really this region of the world is changing more rapidly than anywhere else on the planet now and it is putting the us and other nations in the world and not only arctic nations because there are countries from china to singapore to spain see new opportunities to obtain either the energy, the fish, the tourism or other opportunities that will be there in that region and that will bring, as i said, both significant risk which today we are not really prepared to address. That will force up to sort of shift how we look at those as priorities for that region compared to other places we need to have force available throughout the world. So, that is sort of the overview on mission and we can get two more questions on that in a bit, but so clearly dod needs to plan in advance for missions they will have to fulfill as the world changes there will be new missions to think about. From a infrastructure perspective, we are in a given location the world and its changing around us and will affect the things we cant move or at least not easily. General keys you finished a report on Sea Level Rise, could you summarize the findings of the report briefly . I would say the challenge we identified is that we see coastal erosion. We are seeing the Sea Level Rise and we are seeing the challenge of increased numbers of large storms causing problems and in addition, if you happen to a place like norfork, the water is rising and that crates all sorts of problems so there is a physical issue of how do you deal with that and defensive structure, the army corps of engineers and other agencies in the government are looking at, are there ways besides putting concrete out to deal with that because its expensive and may not last long, so that is a challenge. The other challenges to recognize that this will be phased over time and to develop a plan to deal with this peer consider what the challenges are, forecast what your risk is over time and then develop the plan that says i will get to this step in this step, but be prepared to change as the conditions can change on the coastal areas. What is of interest to me and talking about that if the structure is that its not just our infrastructure that we are worried about, we are worried about the of the structure of our partner nations. We use their bases. We have hundreds of bases overseas relying on someone else to give us support over them to handle their problems and we will come into back them up. When they have the same sorts of problems on the coastal areas especially, you create even more problems, so that challenge becomes one of we had these bases and we need to do something about them. We will will we develop a plan that will allows to get from here to here and have them remain as they are needed, able to carry out the missions they are assigned and that will take planning and a lot of resources to do that. Not everything today, but over time we need a program and that strategy will be critical. Admiral, you recently sat and shared a working group on the intergovernmental relationships when he have Sea Level Rise near Hampton Roads. How do the local municipalities deal with the bases and vice versa. Can you characterize how this issue is driving requirements . What do folks actually need to communicate with each other . How much planning needs to be done jointly and is it Hampton Roads is sort of like the frontline of the issue, but there are other places. What are the kinds of things that need to be going back and forth and communication between those two . The first thing is understanding of common standards are cows example, if the defense of Department Plans to adopt common to Sea Level Rise over the next period of time, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, what are they using to make those plans and how does that compare with what the cities are looking at. If they arent using and planning the same standards then they arent ever going to meet in the middle and we could miss the tendencies where we will find infrastructure, roads, highways, utilities will need to be upgraded based on one set of circumstances, but if the city is using a lower Sea Level Rise, as example meaning not as much water at the same time been they wont be prepared or ready, so shared common standards is important. Even though there are many opportunities for the federal facilities and local communities to engage with each other, we found there was not a lot of actual structured ways in which that takes place. There doesnt appear to be a lot of Detailed Planning to the structure updates, meetings, memorandums of understanding where they would share information with each other on a routine basis. That was puzzling and we had in our working group just by chance the storm water from little creek, the cities of north folk, and Virginia Beach had actually never met and during the course of their working group they were in the room together. They met, shared data that they have wanted from each other for 20 years, but couldnt figure out how to get it, so the challenges 20 years ago the need was not what it is today, so now that there is a greater need there is a greater interest in more established policy, plans and procedures so the cities and federal facilities can share and plan to get. The challenge is budgets. The federal governments budget is not in line with what the cities are using or in line with the state budget, so the challenge to make those things fit together and plan and execute things or joint coordination is required, that is difficult. The last thing, when you look at the way we deal with flood planning in this country and the way we determine what is Critical Infrastructure and how far above base Flood Elevation do you raise the building. A lot of it is based on Historical Data and what you expect to happen this year today. We have to change how we think about that because we are plenty 50 years in the future and you dont want to build a building 50 years in the future saying it will have that lifespan and say, lets build it 3 feet above the base Flood Elevation that we have today because in 50 years it will be a different base Flood Elevation. That is a paradigm shift in the way we think and plan. Very little flood planning and by the way it doesnt just go up , it goes out. Until we figure out that this is not just federal dod issue, its in everyone issue and how to prepare for that. We will be challenged to plan appropriately and collaborate on planning. What makes Hampton Roads so interesting is that there are semi facilities that are altogether that have to collaborate so its fascinating and it will be a great challenge for the future see that before we go to questions, i have someone who handed me a piece of paper with a question from the audience and since they had the forethought to do that, they get to go first. The question was, along the same lines and talking about adaptation of the structure, the impact of the present executive orders of repealing of the executive orders on the military does anyone have any comments on say for example i recalled adaptation executive order was repealed. Are there specific impacts that will come from that . I would that would not think so unless something happens here, i mean, a lot of the pushback we get becomes political and someone says you cant spend money on that. On the other hand, the military has been very effective i think, saying we are not spending this on Climate Change or Renewable Energy. We are spending this on mission effectiveness. Its hard for someone to come in to a commander and say you cant spend this money to make your base more resilient or you cant spend this money on your porch to make you more effective. So, i think, i mean, one of the things we do not like in the military as we get these people can send us this and say you have to do x and generally its an Unfunded Mandate so we dont like Unfunded Mandates when people come in and say you have to do this and you are looking to go where is the check attached and there is none. We had to take precious money from Something Else in order to do the mandate, so i dont see that as a we are too far down the road. We understand this at a very granular level and we can make the case that if you dont do this this will be that affect. We wont be up to fly or mobilize or tester whatever. You go down and you look at the block houses around the beach and we have all of our very valuable telemetry and we do this high and testing and you can see how undercut they are by the coastal flooding storms that before would never even reach halfway up the beach. Then you understand we got to spend money here or we will lose millions, hundreds of millions. So, i dont think from my perspective in my experience has been it makes sense. Its a pragmatic practical kind of thing. Its not democrat, republican liberal or conservative. Its climate. Its mother nature. Mother nature does not belong to a party. She just trundles along. But, to go to the executive order itself, this is tied into the federal standard promulgated by the last administration two years ago. It is clear that everything we have talked about being ready for the future take that into account just as you said if you are rebuilding and its focused on rebuilding with federal funds after a disaster than the money should go into not back where you are or may be in future and by the way we just spent 15 billion in new orleans to rebuild the levees and with the target height of the levee focused on the 2053 elevation, not 2015. That makes a lot of sense. Why put yourself in a hole the day a project . So, i believe the people thinking about the Infrastructure Program that we will see in the next week or two weeks recognize that if you are going to build, build for the future not today. My hope is that we will continue on the path of this standard. Its like a do over on that also because i know folks that work in the Insurance Industry and work in the insuring of the Insurance Companies and that space and i frankly think this will be commercially driven because you will be able to get any kind of insurance. Is like the folks down in miami. Miami has looked at this and said holy smokes if you had been in the stranded miami and the road is fairly close just by beach. Thats pretty cool and they started building that raising the road and they have these little suitable systems that allow the water not to wash up, stops the water but then water will come out, but when the water gets so high in the ocean that oneway valve doesnt go either way and it stops than now all the rain dams up behind us of the people that have these nice houses on the other side of the road cant get insurance because their first floor is now classified as a basement. So theres all this unintended consequences, but its commercially driven. If you cant get insurance, then you will think twice about going to your insurancecompany and saying how could i get insurance , can even if im not mandated federally, can i do something so i can protect myself from it catastrophic loss , psychic some of these things that other commercial interests will weigh in on this and more or less force as to do the right thing without governmental rules and regulations. So, i would like to get a couple questions from the audience if we could. We have a room full of staffers and i would be interested to hear what people are interested in and we have about 20 more minutes left. We have a wandering microphone, so if you could wait before your you ask your question so we have it fed into the tape, the video. So, there is the microphone. Does anyone have any questions . Dont worry. I have a page full if no one has been questions. We have at least one, there. Thank you for coming to speak with us today and answer the questions presented and in regards to my own question, the idea of mitigation, Risk Mitigation as a whole focusing on adaptation, infrastructure planning and forethought in that realm, but in terms of mitigating the impact that humans might have on Climate Change, is that also does take language aspect with the Current Administration in the past administration trying to create barriers to what you can do internally or what is the lack of talk on mitigating the militarys impact on the environment . You are talking about missions at this point . Well, let me do like 30 seconds. I ran the installation Environment Office when we were getting the Greenhouse Gas requirements down on us and we still thought about the problem like it was about energy efficiency, about money, not about a mission. Renewable Energy Projects were about resilience and savings, frankly and not about lowering emissions. Those were good benefits to have as well, but it was not why we were doing what we were doing. Did anyone else have any thoughts you want to add . When you get to medication heres the thing you have to understand and i hope everyone takes this with a heart because you may have heard this old song that says the department of defense is the largest single user of energy in the United States. You heard that; right . The percentage of that in order to be the largest single user is 1. 7 of all the energy used in the United States. We want run on a quibble and of 350,000 barrels, i think it is. Thats a day. And sale of our ships very efficiently and we will use alternative nonpolluting fuel where its possible. We do going to do all of those things because it makes mission sends and budget sense for us. But this is one of these things that we cant win this war. We can show why its important why we believe in it, e, et ceta but will not be able to win this one has we just dont have the market. We dont have the volume to make it happen. So from a medication standpoint that will be very, well do what we can do and we would do the right thing, but thats not going to fix it because you still of 98 of the budget that needs to be fixed. That said, i agree with general keys on that point. When the military lowers its carbon footprint, so to speak, its also able to provide leadership as it has in other technologies and innovations throughout the years. In the transition, you go back in the transition from steam to call, to oil to nuclear. All forms of energy, the United States military was at the forefront of leading those massive ship transitions in energy. Today, the us military while not alone is among those leading in that transition to diversify its energy mix. Of course its going to continue to operate on forms of fossil energy for the foreseeable future. That said, when i was in the department of defense the way that we budgeted for oil, is essentially a tax on the rest of the defense budget. It would come in at the end of the year after the service, the army, navy, air force, everybody else built their budget to do whatever they needed. If the price of fuel had gone up that year then it was an extra cost on the military. So the was in some ways theres a direct incentive to be more fuelefficient because then you can use those funds for military readiness, training, of operations, equipment. And at the same time being more innovative, more efficient, improved security of Energy Security and energy resilience. Thats why secretary of defense mattis, with his commanding our forces in iraq famously said unleashed us from the tether of fuel. That didnt necessarily mean unleash as completely from fossil energy but unleashes from the long supply lines that are putting our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines at risk in convoy of fuel to the front. In those ten years since he made his comments, the military has gotten very busy diversify and innovating and being able to reduce the burden on our forces out of long logistic supply lines. I would add to that, the military set the example in our relations with the partners overseas. They are very impressed of what the u. S. Military has done and they are following. So do matter. My personal opinion is there such a thing as a climate greed, the climate right now is when you go overseas or go to installation of people come here from other countries, they say you are with it. The question will be will they draw some of the Conclusion Even if we continue to pay a different public stance on it . I think its important, they have said it is to press reports come in the states must take a leadership position in dealing with Climate Change across the board. And so i dont think we have to forget that. Even though we are going to pursue, i would argue the military will pursue active actions but will at the same time be guiding and listening to and talking to our allies. Do we have another question . Do you have the mic . Thank you for speaking with us. I have a quick question about the relationship between congress and the dod. Are there particular things that congress can do outside of the allocation of funding to help the dod in mitigating some of the risks you guys have spoken about today . Does anyone want to take that . How can congress be helpful . Thats probably one of the highlights of the fact that congress will invite members of dod to come over and sit down and talk. We prefer to talk in an office call. Open testimony does not enthrall me. I dont think most people are enthralled with open testimony because all of you understand, its high theater sometimes. But we need to get down to where we can talk about why we are doing what we are doing, why we believe its the right thing to do, and have that pragmatic discussion around the table, rather than jockeying for position of having a microscope in front of us and now we are on the news. Thats just not useful. Generally speaking the folks on the Armed Service committee that i dealt with back in the day, thats where we get our work done. So i think, ask us, ask dod, why do you do this . Its not because we think it something cool to do. We are pretty busy so we really dont have time to do cool stuff. We have got to do stuff that is focus on mission effectiveness. I think everyone would be happy to explain that and say this is why were doing it, this is why when you do it. If you need to take their peers down in norfolk and you need to build the meyer, thats a discussion we should be able to map. To have. Thats one of those things, the unthinkable happens even if you dont think about it. So we need to think about it and we need to talk about it. Nothing, someone shouldnt be able to say i dont want you talking about that. Thats not good because were not sharing information that we both have. So i think thats important. This gets back to executive order question, and the challenge with executive order, what does that impose in the department of defense mind. Doubt. What are we allowed to do, what are we not allowed to do . Does this mean the things i have planned that we mitigating or resiliency, strategies or infrastructure corrections, changes, upgrades, modifications, i can do the networks that this mean i cant use certain words . Does this mean i cant execute plans i already have in place . The doubt is the problem and right now there is some doubt because theres concerned that if the military speaks openly about what its trying to do and what its trying to do it, it will be told to stop. Thats bad. We dont want that to happen. What we really need i think for the Defense Department would appreciate from congress is the opportunity to have that conversation and the opportunity to say heres why i need to do this and heres what im doing to prepare for. And be straightforward about it, and this is an impact to our National Security and we have to prepare for it at the end. So the implication, i just wanted to clarify note out there, so the implication is that if congress was to be clear that dod can go but its normal resilience and Adaptation Plans and execute those, that has nothing do with the political discussion thats going on here. And Adaptation Plan is critical to future preparation, to ask your permission. Doing it right is important. It would be interesting to ask the members, how many of them had the opportunity to talk about relationship between the bases and the military or the people who live off post and what theyv is done to think abt Climate Change together, what are the adaptations they had to take together . Ive met people that spend a lot of time with her members and others where just as you said about even are a military installation not needing everybody when we dont have the two working together and the congress can be a great spur to having that sort of joint effort to look at the future. And i think we have time for, based on the length of these answers, one more question. I see a hand up in the back. Thank you all for coming here today and speaking with us. My main question is, you talked a lot about the effects that were seeing with the linkage between Climate Change and rising sea levels. I was wonder what kind of effects are w missing away from those coastal areas, more in the midrange we are not as close rivers or lakes . Thank you. Everybody is close to a river, ill tell you that come as we learned. And we are seeing challenges right now across the nation with the effects of larger storms, and when they, more intense storms. All you have to do is go to houston or baton rouge or other cities in this country where their problems. That scene thin thing can happeo military installations. So what heretofore had that been a problem has to become a big problem. We are working on as an agent or was said in the introduction, im working on the challenge of urban flooding and the United States, which is hardly ever seen because it doesnt last for more than two or three days, just get your house what. If you are very poor, give a very difficult time. The same thing i if you older barracks at military installations and you get these intense rainfall events, or we talked about the temperature rise you have in places and the United States that is just too hot to train, well, thats a problem for us. Its not just go for. Theres all sorts of things, including we dont have these great concrete runways, asphalt on roads and runways and in intense heat can be a problem when you get the temperature july. There were, i worked on a Pilot Project in hampton region. There were two dod pies, one was in Mountain Home air force base and it was Michigan Army and air National Guard. Both ponds were hard to focus on drought, fire issues come some extent flash flooding but whole different set of circumstances and Sea Level Rise and require flooding. So three very different regions, three very different challenges. All climate driven. That just reminded me Mountain Home was on my bases come when the big issues at Mountain Home is aquifer is drying up. How do we get, you know, they goes to this kabuki dance of how to get water out of the snake river to get to mount no because its a great place. Its a great capability but the issue there is not enough water and it was nonrefilling aquifer. Pleasure looking around, osd and the services looking, serving the bases and where is what are going to be a problem . The closer you get to the bay, to the coast, then you start having saltwater intrusion. Thats all another set of problems. Some of the high lands you end up come youre just not have enough water. How do we protect that capability. Then you start looking at from a National Standpoint and summaries with way too much water in some of the rivers and some of the rivers we havent got enough water but that wasnt the water we are planning on generating electricity with. So its all of that kind of come with just a look at this kind of things. Again it goes back to back could be, could we stand that . Technically and dollar buys what could we do to get this back to something that will work. And when we have to start and had we know we are making progress, and then always ask the question, what if we are wrong . You know, we dont have enough money to waste. We did have a plan that is adaptable and we can look ahead. And i think as sherri has said, we have spent a lot of brainpower looking at this. I think we are pretty good example how to look at this and think about how to move ahead. Because i remember saying when we were working on Renewable Energy, particularly for fossil fuel, that doesnt solve our problem. If you have to get 500 miles deep to refill your tank, doesnt matter whether youre carrying a biofuel fossil fuel, you still got to get 500 miles deep. I was trying to explain to people why we are interested in this. I said no commander wants to write a letter home, dear mr. And mrs. Smith, i was so enthralled with Renewable Energy that i got your son or daughter into the valley of death and ran out of fuel and they are dead. I mean, thats not, we dont want that. By the same token, i dont want to write that letter and say, i didnt focus enough on fuel availability, and i get your son or daughter into the valley of death and i got him killed. So thats a serious kind of, when we look at this stuff, this is not sort of academic. These are real people shedding real blood in faraway places, and we got to make sure we got the capability to keep them as absolutely as wellequipped, well lit and is well protected as we possibly can. Weve got like three minutes left. I see a hand picking up your if its a short question we can do it. You touched a bunch on this but so given the projected budget of the projected agenda do you feel like youll be able to encompass what you need to secure mission operations, et cetera, awareness, training . Or do you feel like that agenda or budget may hamper you in certain ways . Before anybody catc had justt me clarify that no one here is in the department of defense right now and it might be a challenge to the question. Like anyone wants to take a whack at it, they can. Ill go ahead you want to go . Go. Its a good question, and the challenge right now is theres a lot of uncertainty in the system about the extent to which the responsible planning, preparation for resilience for adaptation from training to operations to installations can continue, can continue to go forward. And thats because of the actions of recent weeks. And so its important, i mean, i think secretary state on the record are very important, but it needs to follow through throughout industry secretary mattis communicated throughout the Defense Department. It needs to be heard here on capitol hill. It was reflected in the statements by the new director of national intelligence, dan coats, when he was up here on the hill testifying not long ago about recognizing Climate Change as a threat but it needs to continue to be heard at all levels of command and that all parts of the services and throughout the u. S. Government really so the agencies that have been doing the work in the universities and the other set of in supporting network can continue, can continue to plant in a responsible way and protect the american people. So let me, because i cant resist at a used to be the deputy comptroller of the Defense Department, i have to enter the budget question. It isnt a Climate Change line in the dod budget. This is, this is more about how you spend money than what you spend. If im going to build a new building and they decide not to build in a floodplain is that Climate Change been or did i need that building anyway . How am i spending my money rather than what money and expanding i think is the key question. Dod wants to be able to take into account. Thats the crucial point. Dont make you do something stupid in either side of the equation. I dont want to waste a lot of money putting in a project that is now a return on investment either. But if i can avoid the risk by spending my money smarter, if i need to replace appear because i need to replace the pier and want to build up allies will last longer, like, why would i be able to do that . So thats more what its all about. All right, were at the end of our time. Im going to give our panelists a last opportunity to giv get st of a 32nd closure and then will hand it back 30second closure. Anybody . All right. So everybody wants me to finish up. I think, carol, we going to give closing comments . I had it on my agenda. Thanks very much. [inaudible conversations] and on behalf of our whole partnership, we want to express our appreciation to all of you for being here, for also, for those of you are watching online, thank you. And please feel free to follow up with the center with eesi in terms of any other questions or issues that you you like us toy and address in the future. These issues are profoundly important and we willing to be about problemsolving and doing the best that we all can, because were all in this soup together. So thanks again very much for coming and thank you, wonderful, wonderful panel. Terrific. [applause] [inaudible