Rep. Ike Skelton

WASHINGTON — Perhaps no Missourian in Washington wields more clout than Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Skelton, of Lexington, is a distinctly moderate Democrat seldom mistaken for an environmentalist. In battles over the Missouri River that flows near his home, Skelton casts his lot with farmers and bargers rather than the conservationists and pallid sturgeon lovers.

But Skelton has been doing some thinking about climate change, and what he is saying runs counter to some of his view about the environment and to the position of more than a few Missouri politicians.

In a column he writes for his constituents, Skelton observed today that climate change has emerged as a “real concern” among military planners.

“For many of us, this issue is ‘out of sight, out of mind’. But it is important for all Americans to fully examine how this phenomenon, if left unchecked, could increase the likelihood of U.S. military intervention abroad and further stretch and strain our troops and their families,” he wrote.

Skelton referred to a report by the former Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan that sounds remarkably similar to the conclusions of the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the entity that some Missouri pols, notably Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth, are fond of criticizing.

Sullivan concluded that “on the simplest level, it (climate change) has the potential to create sustained natural and humanitarian disasters on a scale far beyond those we see today. The consequences will likely foster political instability where societal demands exceed the capacity of governments to cope.”

The military report goes on to say that natural disasters like those that would result from rising seas and inundated lands could undermine governments in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, bringing the U.S. into the picture both for security and humanitarian reasons.

Skelton ends his column by saying that we need to be “open and honest” about the challenges from climate change — the issue that could consume Congress in a few months much like the contentious debate over health care dominates today.