Two years ago, the CIA set up a Centre for Climate Change and National Security. The Centre would “do more than bring together in a single place expertise on an important national security topic. It will also be aggressive in outreach to academics and think tanks working the issue. The goal is a powerful asset recognized throughout our government, and beyond, for its knowledge and insight.”
Two years later, and the Centre responded to a Freedom of Information request by National Security Archive scholar Jeffrey Richelson with a letter saying: ““We completed a thorough search for records responsive to your request and located material that we determined is currently and properly classified and must be denied in its entirety.” Yes, the Centre’s entire research, if it has any, is classified. How’s that for aggressive outreach!
Set up a year after president Obama’s election, in a brief moment of euphoria when it appeared the US might do something (anything!) about climate change, the Centre rapidly found itself under attack from a resurgent Republican party, including Senator John Barrasso, who tried to get the Centre’s funding scrapped in 2010, declaring “The CIA’s resources should be focused on monitoring terrorists in caves—not polar bears on icebergs”. The Centre’s response, alas, appears to have been to bunker down and keep schtum. Climate change? Shhhh.
