The suitability of our war-fighters to assist in flood and fire disasters became the topic of a national debate over the past few weeks and both my cli-fi novels The Kyoto Bell and The Capricorn Sky speculate on this future of the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
Why? When I worked for Defence Minister Faulkner more than a decade back, I pointed out to defence officials that global warming would change the role of the ADF, and strategic planning was urgent – after all, the Pentagon was going through the climate “wargaming” process under President Obama. A bit opportunistic of me, sure, but when you’re in the room …
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute started looking at the issue around then, but to this day the ADF itself, or their political masters, are denialists, continuing to buy big bits of hardware for conventional warfare. (Tho’ the past two years may have triggered a change in thinking within the ADF, but certainly not their masters.)
Pussyfooting around with pledges by 2050 won’t cut the carbon. If the world goes the full Mad Max meltdown and we return to naked warlordism, then it’s all over, but if our social and political structures remain reasonably intact, the ADF’s role will shift in the face of climate disasters.
Multiple habitats and homes across our precious continent have been destroyed recently with a mere 1.04 degrees of global warming, accelerated over the past 40 years. The Great Barrier Reef is damaged, some sections of the Great Eastern Forests are toast.
Scarily the Paris Agreement countenances further warming to 1.5 degrees (how bad will wild fires be then?) and worse, the current CO2 build-up is pointing to well over 2 degrees by the end of the 21st century.
The geo-political future – either through regional collaboration, or hostile resource wars – will determine human survival in the Anthropocene. We’ll all be together on lifeboat Earth trying to prevail as a species by reversing the atmospheric carbon overload – so I’m betting on collaboration rather than those hairy Mad Max rock’n’roll warlords hoarding petrol, solar panels and child-bearing women.
In my thrillers, the ADF by necessity, becomes an enhanced search, rescue and civilian evacuation authority, and is merged with the police to save costs. As the climate deteriorates we’ll have no choice. We won’t have the money for hi-tech fighter jets, tanks or subs. We’ll be rebuilding towns, roads, railways and bridges constantly.
Only one war will be raging at the end of this century – against the weather – the singular enemy. The Australian War Memorial will honour the many brave, dead Search & Rescue personnel. Indeed, in The Kyoto Bell, Lissa’s dad is a war hero, a military casualty of a failed ocean rescue in 2130. His name is inscribed at the AWM, among the thousands that fall before him.
I’m not claiming to be a soothsayer – you just need to read IPCC reports to understand the mayhem to come. How we “deal” is where the speculation comes in. How we “deal” will also determine our species survival.
My thrillers are available from all good bookshops, online or from this website and I invite you to ponder the governance consequences of 2 degrees warming by 2100, now we know what a mere 1.04 degree warming can destroy.