his article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.
The nuclear-war themed back and forth between North and South Korea is not the biggest threat to the Asia-Pacific region. Instead, it’s climate change, according to a top military officer.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, a naval officer in charge of the Asia-Pacific region, told the Boston Globe Friday that global warming “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.” Locklear added: “People are surprised sometimes…You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”
Locklear made the comments to the Boston Globe during an interview after he met with scholars at Harvard and Tufts Universities.