Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday delivered a speech to the Naval Academy’s 2021 graduating class, warning about cyber attacks, climate change, and other “modern threats.”
Harris began by saying that the world is “interconnected, interdependent, and fragile.”
“Just think, a deadly pandemic can spread throughout the globe in just a matter of months. A gang of hackers can disrupt the fuel supply of a whole seaboard. One country’s carbon emissions can threaten the sustainability of the whole Earth,” she said.
“This, Midshipmen, is the era we are in, and it is unlike any era that came before. So [the] challenge before us now is how to mount a modern defense to these modern threats,” Harris asserted.
She said adversaries have their sights set on the United States’ military technology, intellectual property, elections, and critical infrastructure, as exemplified by the ransomware attack against the Colonial Pipeline earlier this month.
“Well, that was a warning shot. In fact, there have been many warning shots,” she said.
“So, we must defend our nation against these threats and, at the same time, we must make advances in things that you’ve been learning — things like quantum computing and artificial intelligence and robotics — and things that will put our nation at a strategic advantage,” she added.
Harris then turned to climate change, which she said “is a very real threat to our national security.”
“I look at you and I know you are among the experts who will navigate and mitigate this threat,” she said, adding:
You are ocean engineers who will help navigate ships through thinning ice. You are mechanical engineers who will help reinforce sinking bases. You are electrical engineers who will soon help convert solar and wind energy into power, convert solar and wind energy into combat power.
She also said Marines would rather carry a rolled-up solar panel than 20 pounds of batteries.
“Just ask any Marine today, would she rather carry 20 pounds of batteries or a rolled-up solar panel? And I am positive she will tell you a solar panel, and so would he,” she said.
Harris presented diplomas to graduates of distinction, according to a press pool report.
Then-President Donald Trump spoke to graduates in 2018, staying to shake the hand of every graduate, as Breitbart News’ Charlie Spiering previously reported.
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