If we all think it's hard to understand health care legislation, wait until climate change really hits Congress.

"The energy and climate legislation is going to be way worse than health care," University of Montana forestry professor Steve Running said Thursday. "We Earth scientists have dreaded for years when we'd finally get to the political battles over what to do - that's not what we scientists are good at."

What they are good at is teaching people, and that's why UM is opening a climate change studies minor degree program this year. Running directs the university's Climate Change Studies Program, and his work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change earned a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

More than 60 students are already looking into the program, according to coordinator Nicky Phear.

Thursday's gathering dovetailed the debut of that degree program with presentations from the Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate. Unfortunately, Missoula's own weather changes derailed several scheduled speakers by fogging out incoming commercial airline flights. Former Sen. John Warner and retired Adm. John Nathman were unable to deliver a joint lecture on National Security and Climate Change Thursday evening.

In a telephone interview Thursday afternoon, Nathman put the military's climate change concerns in practical terms. The U.S. Marines can buy gas for $2 a gallon from Kuwait, he said. But by the time it's transported to Afghanistan and delivered in heavily protected convoys to a Marine Humvee on the front lines, that cost has jumped to about $190 a gallon.

"We're really trying to reduce our dependence on heavy carbon fuels," Nathman said. In addition to its sheer monetary cost, battlefield fuel has become a tactical target for enemies who see it as a weak spot in America's armor. And using fossil fuels furthers climatic changes that produce more strategic threats.

The admiral is an advisory member of the Center for Naval Analyses, which recently published "Powering America's Defense: Energy and the Risk to National Security." The report looks at both the world's energy supply and climate change in terms of military risk.

"We need to think about what climate change can do," Nathman said. "It acts as a threat multiplier for destabilization in real volatile parts of world."

In places like Somalia, the warming climate has wiped out the agriculture base, leaving it at the mercy of warlords who manipulate unemployed citizens to violence. Whether the United States or some other military organization steps in to fight high-seas piracy or defend threatened neighbor states, these failed nations are adding to the world's security challenges.

In places like the United States, the potential for a sea level increase of a meter or so over the next several decades has huge implications for naval bases like Norfolk, Va. It's even more challenging for countries like Bangladesh, which are seeing huge storm surges pounding not only their coastal communities but everyone living along inland riverbanks.

"In Mississippi, the Navy has one of the best computers for predicting where hurricanes will touch U.S. soil," Nathman said. "We're seeing more hurricanes now and more energy in them, and it's related to a small rise in ocean temperatures."

Nathman said the military has two roles in the climate change debate. First, it is a big planning factory, well positioned to study global problems and provide solutions. And second, it is an excellent proving ground, able to test new portable solar panels or large-scale energy efficiency programs.

"The military is not advocating any specific energy source, but we do advocate moving to clean, renewable energy where we can," Nathman said. "Where climate change is concerned, if this country chooses not to do anything about it, if we don't pay now, we know we'll pay a whole lot more later."

Getting anyone to pay now is a massive political problem, according to Running.

"Where it gets completely wild is when you consider what kinds of things we can do to reduce carbon emissions," Running said. "The technology doesn't exist to do that now, without reducing our lifestyles to primitive levels.

"We're asking people to make dramatic changes to their lifestyles to save their grandchildren. I haven't seen a politician on a national forum actually admit what I just said."

Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com.