Defense Writers Group
18 June 2025
Moderator: Thank you all for coming to a very special Defense Writers Group on climate security in our hemisphere and beyond.
Our guests, of course, are well known to you. We have Laura J. Richardson, retired General. Her last command was U.S. Southern Command which she retired from last year. And Sherri Goodman, former and I think the first Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security and author of a wonderful book, “Threat Multiplier.”
Those of you that have spent time with me in the last couple of years know that I am absolutely obsessed with climate change and national security, and I truly believe this should be a bipartisan, nonpartisan, apolitical issue. It’s not red/blue, it’s not left/right, it’s not Republican/Democrat.
Think about it. Mitigating the crisis of rising sea levels on our coastal military installations? That’s not a political question. Dealing with increased Great Power competition in the Arctic made possible by melting ice caps? That should be an apolitical problem. Climate induced migration from south to north? Well, if the border security is important to anybody, and we know it is, we can’t deal with that without talking about the underlying issues of migration forced by climate security.
We’re grateful to The Rockefeller Foundation for their support in hosting us in this lovely space, for all their hospitality.
A small shout out before we get started to Andy Hoehn, my friend and co-author of our book “Age of Danger,” which came out three years ago. It was in that research that I really began to understand the link between climate change and national security. One of the people we interviewed, I won’t say she’s the godfather of climate security, she’s the godmother of climate security. Sherri’s book came out last year, an absolute must-read if you're interested in the topic. And just like Sherri helped Andy and me with our book, General Richardson figures prominently in Sherri’s book. So let me just read you one paragraph before we get started.
“Leaders such as General Richardson and her SOUTHCOM team are performing the vital work of deterring threats from China and other maligned actors in the region and helping the Western Hemisphere become more resilient to climate change. That is the work of converting the threat multiplier of climate change to an opportunity multiplier for action. Storms, floods, droughts and other extreme weather events are, after all, disasters that require immediate action and are long term threats to stability. For the U.S. and its southern neighbors alike, climate resilience is an all-hands-on-deck mission.”
Well said.
So General Richardson, first of all, thank you for what you’ve done throughout your career in keeping our nation safe. I wanted to ask you to just reflect upon your time at Southern Command dealing with these issues that Sherri so accurately discussed. Then we’ll turn to Sherri for opening comments before we open it to a discussion.
Gen. (Ret) Richardson: Thank you for the invitation to be here today, and thank you all for being here. Certainly this time is yours, so Sherri and I will be happy to answer as many questions as you have.
My time in U.S. Southern Command, I’m very honored to have been the commander there for three years. You only get three years in the seat. That’s a really short time if you really think about it.
