Year 3, Month 4, Day 24: Paisley and Patchouli

The Minnesota Star-Tribune addresses the newest addition to the Hippie Ranks:

YOKOSUKA, Japan — To the world’s military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts.

By Arctic standards, the region is already buzzing with military activity, and experts believe that will increase significantly in the years ahead.

Last month, Norway wrapped up one of the largest Arctic maneuvers ever — Exercise Cold Response — with 16,300 troops from 14 countries training on the ice for everything from high intensity warfare to terror threats. Attesting to the harsh conditions, five Norwegian troops were killed when their C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed near the summit of Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest mountain.

The U.S., Canada and Denmark held major exercises two months ago, and in an unprecedented move, the military chiefs of the eight main Arctic powers — Canada, the U.S., Russia, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland — gathered at a Canadian military base last week to specifically discuss regional security issues.

I ought to be able to get a couple more letters out of this story. It’d be fun to mock Darrell Issa even if there was no climate crisis. Sent April 16:

If we are to judge by their plans and strategic preparations, there’s no doubt that America’s military establishment is taking climate change seriously.

This raises the troubling possibility that the armed forces have been infiltrated by an international conspiracy of climate scientists, tree-hugging environmentalists, and socialist college professors, in which case we can expect soldiers to start confiscating SUVs and hauling their drivers off to compulsory re-education camps. This is surely an obvious place for a stalwart anti-environmentalist like Representative Darrell Issa to start an investigation. The House Oversight Committee, which Issa chairs, needs to start issuing subpoenas; let’s get to the bottom of this!

But wait — could it be that military analysts know something these legislators don’t? Perhaps in their eagerness to pander to the tea-partiers in their district, congressional climate-change denialists have been ignoring facts that don’t suit their ideologies. Perhaps the corporations that fund their campaigns have more influence on our lawmakers than the opinions of our nation’s military leaders.

I don’t know. Sounds pretty far-fetched to me.

Warren Senders