Military leaders should be very concerned about climate change – that’s the message of a new report released this week by the CNA Corporation’s Military Advisory Board.

While climate change has enjoyed a recent spike in news coverage, journalists face a constant challenge to bring sustained attention to other environmental stories, including resource scarcity, the changing oceans, and demographic change. [Video Below]

Earlier this week, the Department of Defense released its first Quadrennial Defense Review since fiscal cliffs, shutdowns, and spending cuts hit the federal government. Not surprisingly, “austerity” shows up in almost every chapter of the report. What shows up even more? Climate change. For the second QDR in a row, the Pentagon has called out climate change as a “significant challenge for the United States and the world at large.”

“Humanity is altering Earth’s life support system. Carbon dioxide emissions are accelerating; greenhouse gas levels are unprecedented in human history,” says a new video summarizing some of the most striking finds of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report. The climate system is changing rapidly, and it is “extremely likely,” the video quotes the IPCC, that humans are the central reason why.

Temperatures in the Arctic have increased at twice the global rate over the past 40 years, vaulting the region to international prominence as an emerging theater for maritime transportation and competition over newly uncovered resources.

The international community should start strategizing now to manage the ambitions of circumpolar states and minimize the potential for conflict, write authors Rob Huebert, Heather Exner-Pirot, Adam Lajeunesse, and Jay Gulledge in a report. Published by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Climate Change and International Security: The Arctic as a Bellwether explores the geopolitical implications of climate change in the Arctic and puts forth several recommendations for policymakers to consider. Huebert et al. write that “maintaining security and peace in the Arctic will require adapting policies and institutions to the emerging environment there.” They recommend that Arctic states strengthen existing multilateral agreements by, for example, advocating the accession of the United States into the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Further, they propose that the Arctic Council lifts its ban on discussing security issues in order to become a forum for meaningful discussion.

Natural disasters have dominated news coverage in the past several years, with many observers noting a distressing rise in the frequency and scale of disasters as well as rising costs. Despite these worrying trends, a critical mass of leadership and public support for doing something about it is emerging.

India and China – “the two most important countries going forward in this century” – will both experience domestic concerns as a result of environmental change, but they are responding very differently, said Cleo Paskal, an associate fellow at Chatham House, in an interview with the Environment, Conflict, and Cooperation (ECC) Platform.

2012 witnessed a remarkable number and extremity of environmental conditions, from Hurricane Sandy and the U.S. drought to wildfires in Siberia and drought-driven blackouts in India. Arctic sea ice melted to its furthest extent in recent history. The energy landscape continued to change as well, from the launch of the U.S. Navy’s Great Green Fleet to the first liquefied natural gas shipments across the Arctic. As President Obama clearly stated in his second inaugural address, climate change is heightening both our risks and the need to respond, but tying together all of these issues is a highly complex endeavor.