In the United States, politicians who refuse to acknowledge the public health consequences of air pollution and drought will soon feel the wrath of voters at the polls.

"The system favors negligent behavior because it provides no incentive to change and no penalties for making the same mistakes over and over. Not only is this a waste of taxpayer money, it is also fundamentally inconsistent with the goal of building a resilient society that must have the capacity to learn from the past."

The recent climate change talks in Paris animated a lot of security concerns from many different perspectives. Of of the most common security themes at the Paris summit—and was even mentioned in the final draft—hinged on how the impacts of climate change are a driver for a lot of security concerns.

"The world is physically changing and that will put demands on future U.S. military officers. For the Coast Guard in particular, the changes in water — from the opening of the Arctic Ocean due to warming atmosphere to the devastation we have seen (and will see) in coastal nations — will bring about a brand new world order. This administration should know. Now that the Arctic is relatively ice-free for several months each year, a new and lasting occurrence, the administration recently approved offshore drilling in the Arctic, bringing a new challenge to the Coast Guard's response and recovery efforts."

"...[T]he Arctic Council agreed to let nations that, at last look at the map, are not located anywhere near the Arctic, join as observers. It may seem a diplomatic nicety, but it is the recognition that the Arctic Council nations no longer have a monopoly on the region. China, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Singapore are on a hunt for more energy and have their eyes on the waning polar ice caps."

"But today's scare is not just a matter of concern for China. The nation's insular government, dense population, and environmental ills have already combined to create several global pandemics. The 2003 SARS outbreak began in China, and, by its end, killed about 800 people and caused close to $50 billion in economic losses. China had originally prevented disclosure of the SARS outbreak, telling nervous global public health officials to take a hike."

"Our infrastructure investments — whether they come through taxes, loans, or a promising infrastructure bank proposal that would invest private funds into public works — utilize local ingenuity to reduce our vulnerabilities. The decline of American infrastructure is a fixable national security problem, much more so than the religious, political, and ethnic divisions that pit so much of the world against each other."