Climate change doesn’t just pose an existential threat to our planet. It’s also ratcheting up national security risks. With increasing food insecurity, resource scarcity and unstable borders, climate change could lead to a rise in political tensions both within the U.S. and between other countries.

What exactly is at risk?
An unpredictable climate “leads to heightened risks of interpersonal and intergroup violence,” said the World Economic Forum. A one-degree Celsius uptick in temperature can “increase interpersonal violence by approximately 2%, while intergroup conflict risk” can increase by “2.5% to 5%.” This is largely attributed to resource loss. With a two-degree change, some crops will “no longer survive, water shortages will become widespread, and food will be in short supply,” said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, at Newsroom. 

As a result, there will be climate refugees deepening “regional conflicts that could explode to encompass many countries,” said Trenberth. Climate change “takes things that we were already worried about, like extremism or terrorism, and exacerbates the scale or nature of those threats,” Scott Moore, a practice professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, said to Time. “If you have these intensified climate change impacts, they place stress on things like food systems and worsen already existing tensions within countries.”

What’s the government doing about it?
The threat of climate change on national security was first acknowledged by President George W. Bush in 1991 and first listed as a threat by the U.S. national security community in 2008. However, in the U.S. intelligence community’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, any mention of climate change was noticeably absent.

The Trump administration has been known to deny climate change and curtail programs dedicated to the environment or aid. It has “defunded climate science, shut down USAID, cut billions from foreign aid,” and “withdrawn America from the Paris Climate Agreement,” said William S. Becker at The Hill. 

Failing to acknowledge the threat will make the administration's national security sector “less nimble,” said Mark Nevitt, an associate professor of law at Emory University, to Time. “You can’t just wish climate change away.”

Larry Ellison has been a Silicon Valley titan for nearly half a century. Now 81, he is redefining himself, with the help of his son, David, as a 21st-century version of the 20th-century press baron, at the head of an empire straddling tech, media and politics. 

‘Back to the top of the tech heap’ 
Ellison co-founded Software Development Laboratories in 1977 with an initial investment of just $2,000. The software and database company, which would later become Oracle Corporation, is now valued at more than $800 billion, and Ellison still owns 40%. He stepped down as CEO in 2014, but far from calling it a day, he has since “clawed his way back to the top of the tech heap,” said the Financial Times. 

The entrepreneur is “forging new personal alliances” as he attempts to position himself in the “vanguard of the AI revolution.” His net worth has doubled in the past year, largely due to the key role Oracle is playing in building artificial intelligence infrastructure and entering lucrative deals with the likes of OpenAI and governments around the world. And his big bet on AI saw him briefly become the world’s richest person in September. 

‘CEO of everything’ 
Ellison’s extracurricular interests have “tended to skew toward yachting, tennis, anti-aging research and buying an island in Hawaii,” and a late-in-life transformation into media mogul is an “unlikely path,” said the BBC. Yet the father-and-son duo are pursuing deals that would “give them control over some of the biggest media companies on the planet.” 

Skydance Media, David Ellison’s Hollywood production company behind hit films like “Top Gun: Maverick,” has secured an $8 billion deal to purchase Paramount and its subsidiaries. The company is also in talks to take over Warner Bros Discovery, and Oracle will be part of a consortium to take over a minority stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations, giving it a greater role in retraining the platform’s algorithm. 

These deals would not have been possible without the explicit support of President Donald Trump. He has called Ellison a “sort of CEO of everything.” And, indeed, “taken together,” said The Telegraph, “these investments put Ellison at the heart of some of the world’s most powerful outlets in both traditional and new media.”

Four-month-old pileated gibbon E.T. clings to its mother, Nyami, as she climbs a rope at the Attica Zoological Park near Athens, Greece. E.T. is one of four recently born animals at the park.
Thanassis Stavrakis / AP

Several movies about mobsters, including “The Godfather” and “On the Waterfront,” are considered among the finest pieces of cinema ever produced. But organized crime has made its mark on television, too, helping to turn the medium into the preferred outlet for both auteurs and stars.

‘Love/Hate’ (2010-14)
RTÉ’s mob drama, largely unknown outside of Ireland, is a gritty look at the Dublin criminal underworld. The show is distinguished by its unflinching portrayal of violence and its willingness to remove plot armor from key characters, often leaving viewers in an unsettling position. Featuring “compact seasons and episodes that don’t leave room for fluff,” the little-known series thrives on a “mix of drama and willingness to keep the stakes perilously high,” said Collider. (Prime)

‘Peaky Blinders’ (2013-22)
Set in England immediately after World War I, the series tells the story of the titular street gang led by Tommy Shelby, played by Cillian Murphy (pictured above). Being a fan of this “big, dumb and brilliant show” ultimately gives you a sense of “roaring satisfaction” if you stay with it, said The Ringer. (Netflix)

‘The Penguin’ (2024)
A completely unrecognizable Colin Farrell plays Oz Cobb, nicknamed The Penguin, as he tries to sweet-talk, kill and scheme his way to the top of Gotham’s Falcone crime family. The performances by Farrell and Emmy winner Cristin Milioti, a would-be rival or ally, are part of what make the series a “genuinely excellent stand-alone miniseries,” said SFGate. (HBO Max)