Jonathan Powers in a blog post at HuffPo highlighted a point that JK has made in the past.

As a soldier fighting on the ground in Iraq, I never considered climate change to be a threat to our national security. What would my platoon do to fight melting ice burgs, rising sea levels, or drought in Africa?

It was not until I redeployed from Iraq and began understanding national security did I realize that protecting America means much more than just bombs and bullets.

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So how does climate change affect our national security?

CNA Corporation, a nonprofit research and analysis organization, released a study today that was headed by some of our military’s most respected leaders, such as former Army Chief of Staff General Gordan Sullivan and former CENTCOM Commander General Anthony Zinni, titled “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” (pdf). This report addresses the serious threat that climate change poses to both our military and national security interests. Issues such as:

• conflicts over essential resources like food and water
• massive migrations due to drought or rising sea levels
• increased storm activity and recovery operations

...these senior military leaders conclude that climate change “poses a serious threat to America’s national security.”

So what can average Americans do about it?

Each of us has a responsibility to educate ourselves and become environmentally literate. We must begin to understand how our actions affect the environment and what measures each of us can implement in our lives to decrease the threat associated with climate change.

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Becoming environmentally literate is not about becoming a “tree hugger,” it is about doing your part to addressing a key threat to our nation’s security. Watch, learn, and do your part in creating an environmentally sustainable world.

Now we must act so that at some future date America will never have to fight for its economic security because we are permanently held hostage to foreign oil.

We must make the hard choices - about alternative energy and clean coal, conservation and fuel efficiency - that will free our future from the dominance of big oil and yesterday’s fossil fuels, a dominance that in the era of global warming threatens the future itself.

So I come here again to Faneuil Hall, which is also the cradle of American independence, to set out a strategy for energy independence. To propose specific steps for an energy revolution as far-reaching as the industrial revolution.

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...energy independence is more than an important economic priority; it is an indispensable element of our national security. Our reliance on oil not only props up decaying and dictatorial regimes, but those that tolerate and sustain terrorist groups. Any long-term strategy for winning the war on terror must be matched with a determined effort to reduce our dependence on petroleum. It demands an international response, linked to the rapid emergence of new energy technologies, in order to ensure that emerging economies don’t become the new enablers of Middle East autocrats. Make no mistake, our long term mission in the war on terror depends on long term energy independence. We must end the empire of oil.

For some, it may be hard to conceive of a world where fossil fuels, and especially petroleum, are not the dominant sources of fuel.

In fact, we’ve been here before. One hundred and fifty years ago in Massachusetts, in New Bedford and Nantucket, no one could conceive of a future that didn’t depend on whale oil. But until recently, America’s history has been to drive technology, transform marketplaces, and invent a future never imagined before. In America, making the impossible possible has been a credo and a way of life.

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That’s where you come in. You need to push the curve. You need to shake things up.

A Saudi Arabian oil minister and a founder of OPEC once said, “That the Stone Age came to an end not for a lack of stones, and the oil age will end, but not for a lack of oil.” We are not about to run out of oil, but the consequences of endless dependence on oil are too great, too profound, and too dangerous for our nation. Rather than have our energy policy be the last big mistake of the 20th century, we can and must create a policy that is the first great breakthrough of the 21st century.

So for the second time in our history let’s declare and win our independence. This time not from foreign rule but from foreign oil. If we are as Lincoln said the “last best hope of Earth,” let’s stop being the denier of global warming that endangers the Earth. Let’s give our people back the truth, and let’s give the world back its future.

Each of the people featured in This Moment on Earth has pushed the curve. They changed their communities.

Together we can change the world.

UPDATE:  JK wrote to the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Biden, today. His letter notes the report of the retired generals and asks Sen. Biden to “hold a hearing on this issue, with the specific goal of exploring the implications of climate change – including rising ocean levels, droughts and violent weather – on our national security.”