Washington Post:
“A memoir by a fighter in a decades-long campaign to make U.S. defense policy take climate change and the environment seriously…. [it] is distinctive, even special… [and] valuable.”
About the book
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.
What was the key to this dramatic change in military thinking? What keeps today’s generals and admirals up at night? How can we safeguard our national defense and our planet? No one is better poised to answer these questions than Sherri Goodman, who was at the vanguard of environmental leadership among our armed forces and civilian representatives. In Threat Multiplier, she tells the inside story of the military’s fight for global security, a tale that is as hopeful as it is harrowing.
Reviews
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Washington Post: A career spent trying to make the military care about climate change
“A memoir by a fighter in a decades-long campaign to make U.S. defense policy take climate change and the environment seriously…. [it] is distinctive, even special… [and] valuable.”
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PBS News Weekend: New book ‘Threat Multiplier’ details the fight for the Pentagon to adapt to climate change
“In Threat Multiplier, Sherri Goodman recounts her decades-long effort to integrate climate change into U.S. defense policy, detailing the challenges of shifting institutional mindsets and the gradual acceptance of climate as a critical security concern.”
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Forbes: How Climate Change Is Reshaping Global Security And The Military
“The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War shows how deeply embedded fossil fuel dependence is in U.S. military strategy—and why truly addressing climate change requires rethinking that system from the ground up.”
Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and coauthor of 2054: A Novel
“Over the course of my naval career, I came to appreciate how climate change was affecting global politics . . . Sherri Goodman tells the untold story of how many of our nation's military leaders came to appreciate this challenge and recognize climate change as one of the key global threats of our age.”
John F. Kerry, former Secretary of State and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
"The climate crisis has enormous national security implications, and no one knows that better than Sherri Goodman, who long ago coined the phrase ‘threat multiplier’ to capture the ways this environmental wrecking ball would inform policymakers in situation rooms everywhere. There is no one better to take readers along on the Pentagon's journey wrestling with this new and evolving reality implicating basing, training, peacekeeping, and much more. A must read for everyone who wants to understand why climate imperatives aren't just for environmentalists."
Leon Panetta, former Secretary of Defense
"As Secretary of Defense, my job was to protect the nation from all manner of threats. Climate change was one of those threats. But it's not just one among a list of many. It's the threat that multiplies all others. Sherri Goodman gives us a first-hand account of how climate change affects the military and our national security - and the steps we must take to build a more secure future."
Stephen J. Hadley, former US National Security Advisor
"Climate change adds additional instability to a world already disrupted by strategic competition with China, Russia and Iran, two regional wars, and mounting challenges from new technologies such as AI and cyber. Sherri Goodman shows how the US military is managing these risks and why a bipartisan approach to building a more resilient future supports our national security."
John P. Holdren, Harvard University, former Science Advisor to the President
"This is an immensely informative and very important book. The story of how climate change and global security are intertwined—and how the US Department of Defense grasped this reality to become the US government leader in embedding climate-change resilience into its core responsibilities—is told here by a woman whose deep insight and remarkable political skill helped her do more than anybody to achieve this stunning result."
General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
"When I led US forces in Europe and Latin America, I witnessed how a changing climate creates instability, from weather extremes to environmental degradation. Threat Multiplier is a must read for military, civilian, and humanitarian leaders who want to understand how a changing climate and the energy transition affect decision making on these critical global challenges."