Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went viral (1M+ views) while doubling down on Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot’s assertion that — as the Defense Department goes about ridding the military of “wokeness” — it will also eradicate “climate zealotry and other woke chimeras of the Left.”
Depending on the definitions of what he describes, Ullyot’s claims are unobjectionable — zealotry (i.e., fanaticism that overtakes logic) isn’t desirable or productive, as even a man with Holy Crusade tattoos may acknowledge, and nobody wants the world’s advanced military tolerating dangerous chimeras, whether they emanate from the Left or the Right.
[That is presuming Ullyot is using chimera to mean an “illusion” rather than to mean “a fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail,” another definition of the word.]
Hegseth’s assent on Ullyot’s assertion didn’t require as much consideration of language, however, as the SecDef wrote: “John is correct, of course. The @DeptofDefense does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting.”
Reactions to Hegseth’s climate change position showed concern that his statement represents more than a MAGA-driven assault on “woke” ideology, but also a potentially dangerous neglect with the Defense Secretary’s willingness to ignore factors that are critical to the very things he says the Pentagon should focus on: “training and warfighting.”
Others noting that part of the Pentagon’s role is peacekeeping — indeed, a Trump administration mantra is “peace through strength” and the President has called for peace in Ukraine and Gaza — and that utter neglect of climate change would imperil that mission, too.
If even U.S.-based insurance conglomerates, using empirical data, have found it necessary to bake climate change into their business models, how can the United States Department of Defense be adequately prepared for the future while failing to do the same?
[NOTE: A 2023 study out of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations states that “even Russia’s 2021 national security strategy states that climate change is a security threat that requires prevention and adaptation.”]
“The U.S. military is canceling more than 90 studies, including some that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed as climate change “crap.””
(Reuters)
#collapse
— Ian@collapseaphorisms (@collapseaphorisms.bsky.social) March 11, 2025 at 7:10 AM
Hegseth’s admission reveals a DoD lagging behind private enterprise in preparation for changing circumstances. In 2023, joining other American insurance giants, State Farm announced it would stop selling new home insurance policies in California citing “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure.” To remain solvent, insurers are making changes based on the data.
Saying “climate change is real” and boasting of investing “17 billion dollars over six years” in carbon capture technologies, ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Darren Woods told investors in 2023 that “when it comes to developing additional solutions, beyond wind, solar and EVs, nobody is investing more. On an annualized basis, our spend is more than one third of the budget of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.” The Pentagon is going in the opposite direction.
Yet agreeing with Hegseth are many commenters who want the “military to do military stuff” and others who express the belief that military’s consideration of climate change is at a remove from its core mission. As one X user called JackHudler writes: “The job of the US Military is to break things and kill people. Occasionally, as mission, time, and resources permit, build something. How much CO2 is totally irrelevant.”
But others — including military brass who have made preparations based on the data — argue for the importance of separating an acknowledgement of climate change from other elements of so-called wokeism.
That separation appears in great detail in the DoD’s Climate Adaptation Plan, which is not a blueprint for how to save the planet — as some on the Right assert — but instead a blueprint for how to win wars and maintain global dominance on a planet where sea levels, weather patterns, crop results are dramatically changing along with supply chains, energy sourcing and other crucial military factors.
(The document — which claims the DoD “has identified climate change as a factor that affects missions, plans, and installations, exacerbating instability and threatening operational readiness” — is available at the link above but not at the Defense Department site, presumably removed from public view as part of the “woke” purge.)
A sample of those priorities from DoD Climate Adaptation Plan below:
Purpose: Outlines a vision for adapting to climate change while aligning with the DoD’s warfighting mission. Key focus areas include:
- Training and Equipping Troops: Integrating climate effects (e.g., extreme heat, flooding) into exercises and contingency planning to ensure readiness.
- Installation Resilience: Developing plans to protect bases from climate hazards like sea-level rise and storms.
- Supply Chain Security: Ensuring access to critical materials and advancing clean energy technologies.