That’s right; the scandal-plagued government agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior U.S. policymakers operated a special unit that focused on global warming. Known as the Center on Climate Change and National Security, it was an exclusive division led by “senior specialists.” It operated under a cloak of secrecy that rejected all public-records requests, despite President Obama’s promise to run a transparent government.

When the center was launched in 2009, the CIA said it would not address the science of climate change but rather the national security impact of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts and heightened competition for natural resources. The unit was touted as an important tool that would bring together in a single place expertise on an important national security topic; the effect environmental factors can have on political, economic and social stability overseas.

Instead it was a big joke that accomplished nothing and wasted undisclosed amounts (it’s a national security secret) of taxpayer dollars. In fact, Americans may never know much about what the center actually did or how much cash it blew since it’s all “classified” to prevent compromising national security. At least that’s what the CIA told an intelligence historian affiliated with the National Security Archives last year in response to a records request.

However, we will be left with some of the great work the special unit approved for public disclosure. For instance, earlier this month it divulged in a special report that global warming presents a worldwide security risk caused mainly by “social and political stresses outside the United States.” This may seem inconsequential from a spy agency basking in the shame of a major sex scandal.

The startling report actually exposes the national security dangers of global warming. Climate change is accelerating at such a fast pace that it will put severe strains on U.S. military and intelligence agencies in the coming years, the CIA-sanctioned study found. The changes will trigger increasingly disruptive developments around the world as well.

“Scientific evidence indicates that the global climate is moving outside the bounds of past experience and can be expected to put new stresses on societies around the world, prompting examination of a variety of plausible scenarios through which climate change might pose or alter security risks for the United States,” according to a summary from the report. It goes on to offer an improved understanding of the links between climate and security as well as the ability to anticipate potential security risks arising from “climate phenomena.”

With the folding of this special CIA global warming unit, Americans and the U.S. government must learn to survive without the sensational climate change intelligence it uncovered.

This type of sensational information is probably not the sort  expected from the government agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior U.S. policymakers. But this is today’s Central Intelligence Agency, with a fallen chief who may have compromised national security during an extramarital affair and a new emphasis on global warming.

In fact, many Americans may not know that the CIA, created in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman, operates a special center dedicated to global warming. Judicial Watch wrote about it last fall because it operates under a cloak of secrecy that rejects all public-records requests. What we do know is was launched under President Obama in 2009, it’s known as the Center on Climate Change and National Security and it is considered an exclusive unit led by “senior specialists.”

As the agency suffers through a monstrous scandal this month, it comes out with a startling report exposing the national security dangers of global warming. Climate change is accelerating at such a fast pace that it will put severe strains on U.S. military and intelligence agencies in the coming years, the CIA-sanctioned study found. The changes will trigger increasingly disruptive developments around the world as well.

“Scientific evidence indicates that the global climate is moving outside the bounds of past experience and can be expected to put new stresses on societies around the world, prompting examination of a variety of plausible scenarios through which climate change might pose or alter security risks for the United States,” according to a summary from the report. It goes on to offer an improved understanding of the links between climate and security as well as the ability to anticipate potential security risks arising from “climate phenomena.”

Keeping with the CIA’s primary mission of gathering foreign intelligence, the report focuses on climate-related “social and political stresses outside the United States.” It outlines security risks that might “exceed the capacity of affected populations to cope and respond.” How exactly will this occur? Seemingly unrelated events exacerbated by climate change will cause an unpredictable crisis in water and energy supplies, food markets and public health systems.

Since Obama became president, a variety of taxpayer-funded studies have warned about the ills of global warming. Just last week researchers at a public university in Maryland revealed that the Washington D.C. area and surrounding government infrastructure will be virtually destroyed by global warming over the next century. This will occur as a result of long-term sea level rise caused by climate change, according to those particular researchers.

Previous to that the government warned that global warming will make food and water dangerous, cause mental illness, cancer and threaten national security. In fact, a consortium of Obama Administration scientists from several government agencies—including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the State Department and National Institute of Environmental Health Science—have confirmed that global warming is one of the “most visible environmental concerns of the 21st century.”