Obama to Coast Guard cadets: I need you ready for the fight against global warming

I could have sworn he was going to stop the rise of the oceans just by getting elected, but since that didn't work I guess he'd better send the Coast Guard to the scene. If you see some extra water approaching the beach and it looks like it might have been part of a now-melted glacier, better start bailing the ocean!

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Really, ladies and gentlemen, your commander in chief:

"This is not just a problem for countries on the coast or for certain regions of the world. Climate change will impact every country on the planet. No nation is immune," the president said in prepared remarks. "So I am here today to say that climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and, make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country. And so we need to act-and we need to act now." The president will deliver the message at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. The president in recent months has pressed for action on global warming as a matter of health, as a matter of environmental protection and as a matter of international obligation. He's even couched it as a family matter, linking it to the worry he felt when one his daughters had an asthma attack as a preschooler.

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His speech to the cadets, by contrast, is focused on what the Obama administration says are immediate risks to national security, including contributing to more natural disasters that result in humanitarian crises and potential new flows of refugees. Further, the president sees climate change aggravating poverty and social tensions that can fuel instability and foster terrorist activity and other violence. Obama said the cadets would be part of the first generation of officers to begin their service in a world where it is increasingly clear that "climate change will shape how every one of our services plan, operate, train, equip and protect their infrastructure." As for the impact in the U.S., Obama pointed to streets in Miami and Charleston, S.C., that flood at high tide and to military bases around the country already feeling negative effects. "Around Norfolk, high tides and storms increasingly flood parts of our Navy base and an air base," Obama said of military facilities in Virginia. "In Alaska, thawing permafrost is damaging military facilities. Out West, deeper droughts and longer wildfires could threaten training areas our troops depend on." I'm sure the Coast Guard cadets are thrilled to hear that Obama wants to turn them into a federally sanctioned version of Greenpeace. And I'm sure it gives them great comfort in Iraq and Israel to know that when Obama talks about threats, he focuses not on ISIS or the nuclear threat posed by Iran, but on melting ice. What must it be like to be able to get so comfortable in your blue cocoon that, daily security briefings aside (assuming he even reads them), you can say things like this with no apparent sense of irony. Astonishing.

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