"For decades, the military treated climate change as a threat. Now it’s backing away from plans to protect people and bases from extreme weather."
"Retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant Vida Rivera knows heat can be as dangerous as any enemy.
Early in her military career, she collapsed from heat exhaustion while carrying a 65-pound pack on a sweltering hike in Quantico, Virginia. Years later in Afghanistan, Rivera drove a truck in temperatures nearing 120 degrees. But she was ready. She’d taken a mechanics course — twice — to make sure she could fix the truck’s air conditioning if it failed.
She knew extreme heat could incapacitate her Marines. “They need water and good temps like everybody,” she said.
Across the U.S. military, climate change isn’t a distant threat. It’s a daily challenge. The fallout from a warming planet has hit the military hard, sidelining more than 10,000 troops since 2018, flooding bases and undermining everything from runways to nuclear readiness."
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