The Truman Center is excited to announce a virtual book talk with Truman Advisory Council Member, Sherri Goodman. Sherri has been one of the leading voices on climate change and national security for decades. In her new book, Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security, Sherri outlines the importance of climate and environmental issues to our national security and offers her recommendations for how the United States and our allies can advance the field of climate security during rapidly changing times. Katie MacDonald, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Tailwind and a member of the Truman National Security Project, will moderate this in-depth conversation with the Pentagon’s first Chief Environmental Officer, who helped shape the US military's transformation into a clean energy and climate leader. Truman President & CEO Tony Johnson will introduce this book talk that delves into today’s most pressing questions about climate change and national security.
When: October 16, 2024, 4 pm - 5pm ET / 1pm - 2pm PT
Threat Multiplier takes us onto the battlefield and inside the Pentagon to show how the US military is confronting the biggest security risk in global history: climate change. More than thirty years ago, when Sherri Goodman became the Pentagon’s first Chief Environmental Officer, no one would have imagined this role for our armed forces.
Indeed, for much of the twentieth century, the Department of Defense (DOD) was better known for containing the Soviet nuclear threat than protecting the environment. And yet, today, the military has moved from an environmental laggard to a clean energy and climate leader, recognizing that a warming world exacerbates every threat—from hurricanes and forest fires, to competition for increasingly scarce food and water, to terrorism and power plays by Russia and China. The Pentagon now considers climate in war games, disaster relief planning, international diplomacy, and even the design of its own bases.book talk