Persistent fear-mongering about global warming has a way of making even normally rational people think irrationally. The proof: U.S. military and intelligence analysts are now imagining war scenarios that could be triggered by “climate change.”

This summary from a New York Times article a few days ago makes it sound like Al Gore is in charge of the Pentagon:

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.

“Here we have alarmists starting to sound like neo-conservatives,” Australian blogger Jennifer Marohasy wrote. “Is this the sort of the thing The New York Times would normally advocate or even condone?”

The article predictably ignores the evidence that that globe has been much warmer than it is now and that it has been cooling for several years. But that hasn’t stopped the government from spending taxpayers’ money on exercises that imagine worst-case scenarios from global warming.

It also hasn’t stopped wily politicians like Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., from trying to capitalize on the moment. Alarmists in Congress forced the Defense Department to study the potential security implications of presumed global warming, and now Kerry is embracing that new fear-mongering tactic to try to win votes for emissions regulations that would cripple the U.S. economy.

Don’t buy into the hysteria. It’s just another dirty, deceptive trick of the environmental movement.