Daniel Coats (C), director of National Intelligence, Gina Haspel (2nd L), director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Christopher Wray (L), director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and General Robert Ashley (R), director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testify on Worldwide Threats during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, January 29, 2019. Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP/ Getty

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The nation’s intelligence community warned in its annual assessment of worldwide threats that climate change and other kinds of environmental degradation pose risks to global stability because they are “likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond.”

Released Tuesday, the Worldwide Threat Assessmentprepared by the Director of National Intelligence added to a swelling chorus of scientific and national security voices in pointing out the ways climate change fuels widespread insecurity and erodes America’s ability to respond to it.

“Climate hazards such as extreme weather, higher temperatures, droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, sea level rise, soil degradation, and acidifying […]