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Combat vs. The Climate: The Military and Climate Security Budgets Compared. As the U.S. debates the President’s plan for new military engagement, hundreds of thousands converged on New York to urge the world’s nations to take stronger action against the threat of climate change. A new report connects these two issues, and finds that the gap between U.S. spending on traditional instruments of military force and on averting climate catastrophe has narrowed slightly. Between 2008 and 2013, the proportion of security spending on climate change grew from 1% of military spending to 4%.
A ‘very young field’ of research tries to measure looming costs of ocean acidification. While many of the effects of ocean acidification remain invisible, by the end of this century, things will have changed drastically. One estimate looking only at lost ecosystem protections, such as that provided by tropical reefs, cited an economic value of $1 trillion annually.