Navy admiral urges action in dealing with climate

NORFOLK

Rear Adm. David Titley admits he used to be a skeptic about global warming. That was years ago. Now he is leading Navy efforts to better understand and cope with climate change.

Titley spoke Thursday night at Old Dominion University as part of the Blue Planet Forum, a free lecture series about environmental issues facing Hampton Roads and Virginia.

Climate change, Titley told a standing-room-only crowd, "is a strategic challenge, and it's incredibly important we get it right."

Asked about skeptics of the scientific theory that man-made emissions are accelerating the slow warming of the Earth, Titley smiled and referenced the movie "Thelma and Louise."

He showed a slide from the 1991 classic, of Thelma and Louise's car going over a cliff in a suicidal plunge, and said: "One option is to hold hands, pretend it doesn't exist, put your foot on the accelerator and see what happens.

"I don't recommend this option," Titley added, "but it's an option nonetheless."

What Titley does suggest is a methodical, detailed, worldwide analysis of the problem, constantly being adjusted with new data, followed by specific actions to overcome consequences such as flooding, lost wetlands, erosion, inundation and threats to food supplies, fresh water and natural resources.

Rising sea levels have Titley forecasting for a future Navy that anticipates instability and weaknesses - not only at sea, but also in protecting military bases near vulnerable shorelines, including Norfolk Naval Station.

As the Navy's chief oceanographer and director of Task Force Climate Change, an international group of more than 450 government and academic experts, Titley said Hampton Roads is "in the first tier" of an in-depth review of military options. The report is expected in 2012.

But his folksy, brass-tacks explanation of what is happening to the planet got the most attention.

"We know the climate is changing," he said. "There's just too much data showing it.

"As a navigator, you learn never to trust just one individual data point. If, for example, we just had the ice melting in the Arctic, OK, we could debate that. But all the data lines up in a single picture. It's all there. It all adds up."

Before the event, Titley met with academics at ODU to discuss their new initiative to make the university a hub for research into rising sea levels. He invited ODU to join his task force.

The school is launching a multi disciplinary approach to rising seas, one involving all six colleges at the university, from engineering to risk management to psychology to public communications.

Titley was asked whether the military is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the rest of American society. His answer: No.

"We are 2 percent of the U.S. fuel budget," he said.

He also was asked whether climate change can be seen as a natural cycle of the Earth simply evolving, as it has done before.

"If this is a natural spike, then lets's go back to basic physics. The air temperature is rising. The ocean is warmer. What changed to make that happen? I ask that question to people who raise this argument and never get a good answer."

He predicted the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia will become a key shipping lane as sea ice melts away, and he applauded the Navy's commitment to cut its greenhouse gas em issions 50 percent by 2020.

He said the military is studying how to turn algae into an affordable biofuel as well as testing portable power sources, alternative-energy vehicles and other ways to reduce "our strategic vulnerability to oil."

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com