President Trump is aiding and abetting the greatest threat to America's national security

Climate change is a dire threat to America. And Trump is making it worse.

Damage from superstorm Sandy.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)

One of the more ludicrous conceits in American political discourse is the microscopic boundaries of the term "national security." In elite circles, "national security" generally refers to the use of military force to topple some tinpot dictatorship or meddle in a chaotic civil war, most often in the Middle East somewhere. Hundreds of billions are spent, tens of thousands die, the region is left radically destabilized, and the assumption that American military force is by definition good is ever more ironclad.

But if national security means anything at all, it surely includes maintaining the actual physical existence of the country. There are only two things that pose a clear and present existential danger to the United States: nuclear war, and climate change.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.