AN ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIO AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY.

(excerpted from FY2004 EADSURLS No. 43)
Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall.
[United States Department of Defense. Office of Net Assessment]. October 2003, Web-posted February 2004.

Sunday’s edition of London’s Observer raised a furor with an article about this report, commissioned by the Pentagon last year and written by two futurologists. Subsequent media stories have described the report as a classified document that projects that Britain will soon have a Siberian-type climate, among other scenarios. The futurologists and Pentagon officials stress the report's scary-sounding projections are highly improbable and extremely unlikely. Rather, they stress, the report is typical of many “worst-case” studies, which specifically present low-possibility, high-impact scenarios for defense planners.

[Note: This report was discussed a few weeks in a Fortune magazine article. See: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,582584,00.html ]