The aff’s apocalyptic climate rhetoric is another form of governmentality. It’ll be coopted by national security apparatus for military buildup

Maximilian, research associate at the Bonn University Department of Political Science, “Chaotic Climate Change and Security,” International Political Sociology 6, 165–185, 2012

Securitizing Climate Change The specter of chaos and an unpredictable climate also began to haunt national security communities, which have been quick to digest the spectacular insights put forward by a small but growing fraction of climatologists. In 2003, the Pentagon commissioned a consultancy study, which artfully employed what the Copenhagen School refers to as the ‘‘rhetoric of survival.’’ Its authors predict the advent of a nuclear war resulting from a fast shutdown of the ocean conveyor belt in the northern Atlantic (Schwartz and Randall 2003). Subsequent populist works such as Lyna’s Six Degrees, Pearce’s The Last Generation, and Lovelock’s Revenge of Gaia produced powerful narratives that embraced a similarly existentialist language. John Houghton, who served for the IPCC as cochairman of the first working group, called climate change ‘‘a weapon of mass destruction’’ in contradiction to the linear orthodoxy to which most of his colleagues and the IPCC reports still adhered. He accused the American and British leaders of neglecting their ‘‘duty above all others, (…) to protect the security of their peoples’’ (Brown 2003). Similarly, the vast majority of think tanks, NGOs, and research institutes portrayed climate change first and foremost as a national security issue.10 Since 2003, Western military and strategic communities have started connecting rapid climate shifts with national strategy and power politics. Their scenarios were based on ‘‘a decidedly post-equilibrium world, buffeted by greater or lesser degrees of turbulence’’ with profound implications for the US grand strategy (Cooper 2010:183).11 For the imminent future of the world, climate change is not just a minor threat. Environmentally induced interstate conflicts or societal breakdown must be expected (CNA, 2007). The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU, 2008:1) notes that climate change ‘‘will draw ever-deeper lines of division and conflict in international relations, triggering numerous conflicts between and within countries.’’ The latest forecast by the National Intelligence Council (2008) ranks climate change, with reference to its severe results such as water and resource scarcity, next to international terrorism, while the notoriously skeptic Bush Administration acknowledged the ‘‘significant relevance’’ of climate change for national security in the Arctic region. The new NATO strategy, as well as the 2010 US National Security Strategy, mentions climate as a threat almost identical to the German government and European Commission’s emphasis on climate security (Reiber and Zelli 2011). Another example of the connection between climate and national security can be seen in the Arctic. The rise in regional temperature is as much as twice the global average, rendering the very landscape a matter of concern. The sea ice over the North Pole might vanish completely within the next 30 years, shortening the sea-lanes between Europe and Asia by up to 4,000 nautical miles. The ongoing retraction destabilizes the existing sovereignty practices such as borders, navigation, defense, and extractive policies. It forces ‘‘the state system to confront its accepted suppositions about the relationship among land, state, territory, and nation’’ (Gerhardt, Steinberg, Tasch, Fabiano, and Shields 2010:999). In response, the Canadian government is rapidly extending its military presence at the American continent’s northern rim in order to control its exposed territorial demarcations and the Northwest Passage (Byers 2009). On the opposite side of the Arctic, Russia’s government is trying to secure territorial claims and the interests of its national oil companies by re-establishing its strategic ‘‘bear bombers’’ patrol flights and large-scale military drills (Zysk 2010). ‘‘The bear,’’ Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has declared, ‘‘is the real master of the Arctic,’’ thus emphasizing both Russia’s ‘‘profound strategic interests’’ in the region, as well as the dire consequences of ice shield reduction and sea ice melting for the animal’s living conditions (Harding 2010). In this strategic rivalry, the point of view of indigenous groups—not to mention of flora and fauna—is marginalized, despite the fact that their livelihood is existentially threatened (Leichenko and O’Brien 2008:91–103; Adger, Barnett, Chapin, and Ellemor 2011:9–13).12 Despite their conflicting strategic interests, the governments of Denmark, Russia, and Canada agreed to solve their territorial disputes within international legal frameworks. By 2013, the UN seabed commission will determine ownership rights. Here, scientific practices once again come into play, since geologists and 10This conclusion is based on a systematic reading of over 30 reports, policy papers, and magazine articles that were published in Australia, Northern America, and Europe. For further discussions, see Maas and Ta¨nzler (2009) and Brzoska (2009). 11The military’s interest in climate dates back to the World War II and even before, while climate science and the US military have a history of being strongly interwoven (Weart 2003). 12 Due to its focus on large-scale system components, the research on ‘‘tipping points’’ usually omits a smallscale, human perspective (Liverman 2009). It thus cannot offer sufficient spatial resolution that would allow for meaningful adaptation policies. Maximilian Mayer 173 lawyers map the region’s continental shelves and shall ascertain which nations own exclusive rights to exploit the large gas and oil deposits under International Law (Mayer and Schouten 2011:25). In sum, the rapid ‘‘opening up’’ of the North leads to the evolution of overlapping assemblages, in which the same materials are often enrolled differently, but rapid physical, ecological, and territorial changes are mainly translated into threats to sovereignty and economic interests. The associations that enact state interests are so dominant because they entail multiple practices in a coherent and geographically dispersed way, and easily connect with the existing global assemblages such as transport shipping and fossil resource extraction.