Under the prior Democratic administration, we saw seabags full of personal and institutional capital - not to mention a lot of actual capital - expended on the farcical "Great Green Fleet."
As it is with all non-value added political vanity projects (remember "Lean-In Circles"), the Navy doesn't keep them across administrations because they are just foolish and wasteful in addition to being just domestic policy objectives and personal positioning on the Navy's dime. With the Biden Administration, the Gaia cult has returned and sadly the present SECNAV feels that he needs to make another run with the same talking points supporting a neo-pagan doomsday cult that has been warning of impending doom for decades that is always right over the horizon but never arrives.
This unserious hobby is the real "existential threat." It is a distraction in time, money, focus, and institutional credibility. We have very real threats over the horizon and in our desire to pay homage to the cult, we are in the process of empowering our enemies with our foolishness.
Let's look at the maritime challenges facing our nation; an inadequate industrial base; an almost extinct merchant marine; an inability to design and build effective and affordable warships on a regular basis; Africa and Asia facing famine and instability do the the inability to get grain out of the Black Sea at market prices; a Chinese navy's steady rise to primacy in the Pacific. We could go on, yet in the summer of 2022, what is our SECNAV expending time on?
The climate crisis is a threat we know well at the U.S. Department of the Navy: It impacts our mission, our people, our platforms and our installations. As secretary of the Navy, I have three enduring priorities: strengthen our maritime dominance, empower our people and strengthen our strategic partnerships. These priorities serve a driving purpose in my comprehensive strategy “Climate Action 2030,” which I signed earlier this year.
The approach builds on the department’s history of leadership and partnership on climate and energy. It commits us to ambitious action across the entire enterprise to combat what both President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have identified as an “existential threat.” It is against this backdrop that I will visit the South Pacific and Oceania region this week.
As we sat fat, dumb, and distracted in DC, China island hopped through the Pacific making friends and bases in what was once our backyard. Were any of their gains made through climate change histrionics - even though China is the #1 producer of what Gaia's priests call "greenhouse gasses?"
No. Of course not. They are a serious nation with serious goals made by serious people with serious plan to secure them.
Us?
Additionally, the United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as Seabees, are working with partners to adapt and build resilience throughout the region to buttress themselves against the climate crisis, helping to build renewable energy microgrids as well as shoreline and wetlands improvements. The Marine Corps, the nation’s crisis response force, trains all year to be prepared to respond to any disaster or threat anywhere around the world.
This is all fine and well, but let us talk plainly with each other - even if Al Gore has always been right and speaks revealed truth through is chosen prophet John Kerry - will that counter the gains of China in any meaningful way?
No. No it won't. Just like the "Great Green Fleet" did nothing for the combat power of the US Navy and "Lean in Circles" did nothing to support women in the service, that isn't the goal. What is being done is using DON money, manpower, time, and reputation to provide fan service to domestic political constituencies for - in the end - civilian gain and profit.
Nothing else.
If you care for the environment - as I do - then wouldn't you rather see this time and effort spent on ensuring when Sailors and Marines are deployed, their families have clean water, superfund sites on bases that are rapidly being cleaned up, base housing clear of mold and lead, health and child care best positioned to help those in need? Then, in those nations we help, help what they need; access to clean water, markets, waste management, and good governance. Much of that should come through the State Department, but ... well ... of course.
Nothing DON does will effect what the planet's ever changing climate does - but it can effect what the people in other nations think of us ... and what facilities we may or may not have access too when we need to sustain the fight west of Wake in the not-too-distant future.
Serious ideas and people are needed for a serious time.
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