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ASP in Dallas: Climate Change and America’s National Security
On Monday and Tuesday, June 2 and 3, representatives of the American Security Project visited Dallas, Texas for a series of meetings, public events, and briefings on how climate change is affecting security, and how institutions in the region are planning for it.
Attending were BGen Stephen Cheney, USMC (ret.), ASP’s CEO and Maj. General Paul Eaton, USA (Retired). Cheney is the CEO of the American Security Project, and a 30 year veteran of the Marine Corps. Eaton currently serves as Senior Advisor to the National Security Network. His most recent operational assignment was Commanding General of the command charged with reestablishing Iraqi Security Forces 2003-2004. Both are members of ASP’s Consensus for American Security. Andrew Holland, ASP’s Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate, and Porter Brockway, ASP’s events manager, rounded out the delegation.
The first appointment was an event cosponsored with the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations. Hosted at the Rosewood Crescent Hotel in downtown Dallas, the event was an expert-level roundtable that featured an informed discussion of the impacts climate change will have on national security. The roundtable included Cynthia Connor, representing the United Kingdom’s Texas consulate, representatives from the private sector, academia, and a number of retired military.
General Eaton characterized the military planning process as looking at what counts for “vital national interests” – and made clear that climate change is impacting vital interests. He talked about risk management, saying that the military is very good at asking “what if” and then asking the crucial follow-up, “what next?”
Listen to the Audio here:
AUDIO OF DALLAS COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS EVENT
That evening, ASP hosted a VIP dinner to discuss in an off-the-record format various threats to national security with a high-level group of speakers. The group heard serious questions about how climate change was altering the operating environment for the military.
Using Dallas’ Waste to Power a City
On Tuesday morning, the ASP delegation drove to the McCommas Bluff landfill, operated by the city of Dallas. The city claims to be adding about 6400 tons of waste per day to the landfill.
That waste is digested by bacteria into a combination of gases that can be harvested for fuel. A bit more than half of the gas that is vented from typical landfills is methane – natural gas: a clean-burning fuel that also is a potent greenhouse gas if emitted directly into the atmosphere.
Throughout McCommas Bluff, the company Clean Energy Fuels has sunk over 450 pipes into landfill to harvest that gas before it escapes into the atmosphere. They pipe it from the landfill over to a processing facility that separates the gas into its constituent parts: sulfur dioxide (the source of that characteristic smell), carbon dioxide, nitrogen, trace contaminants, and methane. They process the methane until it is pure enough and concentrated enough to connect to the nearby interstate ...
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By American Security Project
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On Monday and Tuesday, June 2 and 3, representatives of the American Security Project visited Dallas, Texas for a series of meetings, public events, and briefings on how climate change is affecting security, and how institutions in the region are planning for it.
Attending were BGen Stephen Cheney, USMC (ret.), ASP’s CEO and Maj. General Paul Eaton, USA (Retired). Cheney is the CEO of the American Security Project, and a 30 year veteran of the Marine Corps. Eaton currently serves as Senior Advisor to the National Security Network. His most recent operational assignment was Commanding General of the command charged with reestablishing Iraqi Security Forces 2003-2004. Both are members of ASP’s Consensus for American Security. Andrew Holland, ASP’s Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate, and Porter Brockway, ASP’s events manager, rounded out the delegation.
The first appointment was an event cosponsored with the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations. Hosted at the Rosewood Crescent Hotel in downtown Dallas, the event was an expert-level roundtable that featured an informed discussion of the impacts climate change will have on national security. The roundtable included Cynthia Connor, representing the United Kingdom’s Texas consulate, representatives from the private sector, academia, and a number of retired military.
General Eaton characterized the military planning process as looking at what counts for “vital national interests” – and made clear that climate change is impacting vital interests. He talked about risk management, saying that the military is very good at asking “what if” and then asking the crucial follow-up, “what next?”
Listen to the Audio here:
AUDIO OF DALLAS COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS EVENT
That evening, ASP hosted a VIP dinner to discuss in an off-the-record format various threats to national security with a high-level group of speakers. The group heard serious questions about how climate change was altering the operating environment for the military.
Using Dallas’ Waste to Power a City
On Tuesday morning, the ASP delegation drove to the McCommas Bluff landfill, operated by the city of Dallas. The city claims to be adding about 6400 tons of waste per day to the landfill.
That waste is digested by bacteria into a combination of gases that can be harvested for fuel. A bit more than half of the gas that is vented from typical landfills is methane – natural gas: a clean-burning fuel that also is a potent greenhouse gas if emitted directly into the atmosphere.
Throughout McCommas Bluff, the company Clean Energy Fuels has sunk over 450 pipes into landfill to harvest that gas before it escapes into the atmosphere. They pipe it from the landfill over to a processing facility that separates the gas into its constituent parts: sulfur dioxide (the source of that characteristic smell), carbon dioxide, nitrogen, trace contaminants, and methane. They process the methane until it is pure enough and concentrated enough to connect to the nearby interstate ...