Veterans push climate-change legislation

Matt Victoriano won't back down from a fight to protect his country.

But Victoriano, a 29-year-old Marine Corps combat veteran from Arkansas, is standing up to a different kind of enemy than those he faced in Baghdad. He's among a group of military veterans pushing for changes to U.S. energy policy to reduce the threat of climate change and dependence on foreign oil. He doesn't think the American public understands the stakes.

"Everyone's thinking about drowning polar bears and tree-hugging hippies wearing hemp clothes," he said. "We were on the front lines."

Victoriano is one of five combat veterans who motored through Richmond yesterday on a multi-state bus tour to support climate-change legislation pending in the U.S. Senate. The banner on the side of the biodiesel-fueled bus proclaimed their mission, "More jobs, less pollution, greater security," as it stopped at the Randolph Community Center in Richmond.

Chuck Tyler, a former Army sergeant from Charlottesville, participated in two Middle East wars -- the liberation of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He also was deployed to the scene of natural disasters, including Hurricane Floyd's devastation of southeastern Virginia and North Carolina in 1999.

"Every disaster seemed worse than the last one we responded to," said Tyler, 41. "I came to the conclusion that our profligate use of fossil fuels contributes to climate change."

One of the biggest political obstacles to climate-change legislation is concern about the potential effect on jobs in states like Virginia that depend on coal mining and electricity generated by fossil fuels. The five veterans argue that the legislation will not damage the state's coal industry in the near term but will generate new types of jobs in renewable energy in the long term.

"Over the next few decades we can bring different jobs to the state," said Ashkan Bayatpour, 25, a Navy veteran from Alabama who served in Iraq. "It's not really a loss of jobs; it's a conversion."

The tour was organized by a coalition of veterans groups and environmental advocates, led by Operation Free and the Truman National Security Project. They contend that climate change threatens U.S. security, including military bases in coastal regions of Virginia and other states that could be affected by rising sea levels.

"You're talking about climate change and you're talking about a resource war," Tyler said. "They both threaten the security of the United States."

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or .