The military fuels the climate crisis. It is the chief impediment to global cooperation on climate. The U.S. military’s greenhouse gas emissions are more than those of most entire countries, making it the single biggest institutional source of climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions (5). Our Department of Defense is the largest institutional consumer of oil ($17B/year). At U.S. insistence, the 1997 Kyoto treaty exempts military greenhouse gas emissions. The exemption continues.

 

Wars wreak additional havoc on the environment. Wars throughout history have damaged the earth, whether intentionally or not. The Romans sowed salt on Carthaginian fields during the Third Punic War. In WW II, nuclear and conventional bombs destroyed cities, farms, and irrigation systems. In 1943, a U.S. ship at Bari, Italy sank with a million pounds of mustard gas, which will keep leaking for centuries. The United States and Japan left over 1,000 ships on the floor of the Pacific, including fuel tankers. In 2001, one such ship, the USS Mississinewa, was found to be leaking oil. In the 1960s and 70s, the United States “sprayed 14 percent of South Vietnam’s forests with herbicides, burned farm land, and shot livestock.” Agent Orange continues to harm the health of the Vietnamese and has caused a half million birth defects (6).

 

War displaces people to less habitable areas, which damages ecosystems. The U.S. bombing and spraying of Southeast Asia produced 17 million refugees. As of the end of 2008, there were 13.5 million refugees and asylum seekers around the world, many of whom were escaping polluted, unfarmable lands. In the 1990’s, Rwanda’s brutal civil war pushed people into areas inhabited by endangered species, including gorillas. Wars in the Gulf (1990-91), Yugoslavia (1991-2001), Iraq and Afghanistan (2001+), and Sri Lanka (1983-2009) all damaged the environment (7).

 

War doesn’t stop polluting even when it is over:

Tens of millions of [land mines and cluster bombs] are estimated to be lying around on the earth […] Land mines [are] “the most toxic and widespread pollution facing mankind.” They damage the environment in four ways:
“Fear of mines denies access to abundant natural resources and arable land; populations are forced to move preferentially into marginal and fragile environments in order to avoid minefields; this migration speeds depletion of biological diversity; and land-mine explosions disrupt essential soil and water processes.” – Jennifer Leaning (8)
 

Sadly, the U.S., China and Russian have not signed a popular treaty to ban landmines and cluster bombs.

 

Why so many wars? Wars by rich nations on poor ones actually do not correlate with human rights violations, lack of democracy or threats of terrorism, but strongly correlate with the presence of oil or other resources (9). Perversely, wars fought over scarce resources consume those very resources, in a vicious cycle.

 

Why don’t we hear much about the environmental impact of war? War is about geopolitical influence and is a huge money maker for weapons manufacturers, homeland security companies, military bureaucracies and even fossil fuel companies that gain access to resources accessed by war. Google “Operation Mockingbird” to learn how the CIA gets big media outlets to disseminate war propaganda. It is time to demand peace. Let’s protect the planet and its people – planet over profits!

Save the planet, save ourselves. Peace Now! – Adrienne Kinne, Veterans for Peace