U.S. Imperial Militarism, Climate Change, and Extinction
by Climate SOS
As it becomes increasingly clear that we’re way past the point of
dangerous interference with the climate system, as more and more
components of the natural world that sustains our very existence
collapse, revealing the breadth and depth of our destruction, as
scientists openly despair at the already triggered avalanche of what
they fear is the Sixth Great Extinction, the US government, at the
behest of its military-industrial-banking corporate masters, is
continuing its mad quest of military dominance, wars and resource grabs,
all to continue a doctrine of ‘economic growth/expansion’, based on
exploitation and the destruction of nature and its peoples.
War and military spending dominates the federal budget,
drains the lifeblood of our economy, and prevents meaningful climate
action.
At a time when many vital social programs are cut
because of ‘economic hardship’, and many jobless youth are driven (and
actively lured) into enlisting for the military machine, the military
budget soared from $767 billion in 2009, to $837 billion for 2011, and
the total spending on current and past wars (including interest on
federal debt due to past military spending, and veterans programs)
amounted to $1,167 billion, or 39.3% of the 2011 federal discretionary
budget, according to analysis by FCNL.[
1]
The only way to save the planet: stop the military-industrial machine!
The budgetary and economic costs of the Iraq war is estimated by Nobel
Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, with his colleague Linda
Bilmes, to reach between
$4 trillion and $6 trillion![
10]
Michael Nasuti of Kabul Press recently calculated that each Taliban
soldier killed in Afghanistan costs an average of $50 million to the
US.[
11]
US accounts for 48% of the world’s total military spending, and exceeds
more than the next 45 highest spending countries in the world
combined. Not even including spending on the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, 87% of all US security spending goes towards military
forces, while only 8% goes towards homeland security and 5% to
non-military international engagement.[
12]
By comparison, the $18.2 billion [2]
in the 2011 federal budget for ‘climate spending’ (which includes large
spending on false solutions like nuclear power, ‘clean coal’, biomass
energy and biofuels, etc.) is hailed as proof of commitment to climate
action by the Obama administration, while concern for ‘damaging the
economy’ is offered as the excuse for not taking any stronger, decisive
actions to avert the climate catastrophe, and for the necessity of
creating risky carbon markets, and relying on various other ‘market
mechanisms’ (such as carbon ‘offsets’) to supposedly reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. The reality of these ‘market mechanisms’ is often no
real carbon reductions, further ecosystem and biodiversity degradation,
further landgrabs and economic disparity, while huge sums of money
changes hands..[3]
In Copenhagen, US insisted on no more than a paltry and woefully
insufficient $10 billion/year for 3 years, and $100 billion by 2020,
from all developed countries COMBINED, as climate aid for developing
countries to adapt to climate change and for their mitigation efforts.
This in spite of US being the country responsible for most of the CO2
currently in the atmosphere, while many developing countries are already
suffering disproportionate consequences of climate change. Even the
promised funds consist mostly of recycled previous aid commitments,
private investments (i.e., for profit!) and loans (further indebting
developing countries).[14]
“American leadership” is a farce! Our wars, and our
thousand military bases all over the world, serve no purpose other than
to advance “American interests”. We are in it for oil, for
exploitation of numerous other resources, and for profit. Not only do
military activities serve to exploit the rest of the world for American
and transnational corporations, they are the largest, and ongoing,
wealth transfer from the American taxpayers to the
military-industrial-banking and other corporate interests in all of
history. A 2009 report “The Military Costs of Securing Energy” found
that up to 30% of United States military spending goes towards securing
energy supplies around the world.[4]
Ironically, the Department of Defense is the largest institutional oil consumer in the world. As Sara Flounders writes for the IAC[5]:
“Even according to rankings in the 2006 CIA World Factbook, only 35
countries (out of 210 in the world) consume more oil per day than the
Pentagon.” Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International,
pointed out that “The Iraq war … emits more than 60 percent of all
countries.”
Despite the enormous direct and indirect carbon footprint of
the US military and its wars, military emissions abroad are exempt from
national reporting requirements, as it is classified under international
bunker fuel, which is categorically exempt.
Why? Because at the time of the Kyoto Accords negotiations, the U.S.
demanded as a provision of signing on, that all of its military
operations worldwide and all operations it participates in with the U.N.
and/or NATO be completely exempted from measurement or reductions
requirements. After securing this gigantic concession, as well as
forcing carbon trading into the Kyoto over the objection of EU
countries, the Bush administration then refused to sign the accords.
Today, the exemption still holds, and in 2007 as well as 2010, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, itself under much
political influence) ignored calls from civil society organizations to
demand each state to release information for the purpose of estimating
direct and indirect military emissions.[9]
Beyond greenhouse gas emissions, US military activities cause
air, water and soil pollution of astounding scale, abroad and at home.
Barry Sanders in his book, “The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of
Militarism,” says that “the greatest single assault on the environment,
on all of us around the globe, comes from one agency … the Armed Forces
of the United States.” According to Sanders:[6]
- In the space of 2 days, the US military delivered 800 Tomahawk cruise missiles–one every four minutes, day and night, for forty-eight hours. A total of 2,400,000 pounds of explosives, or 1,200 tons.
- A United Nations report, dated 2005, estimated that 4 million pounds of low-level radioactive dust,
the residue from spent munitions made with depleted uranium, has
settled over the deserts and cities of Iraq, which means that a good
deal of the country is now radioactive.
- A UN environmental report about the first Gulf War points to the damage inflicted by 70-ton tanks like the M-1 Abrams on the ecology of the desert: “Approximately 50% of Kuwait’s land area has had its fragile soil surface destroyed
as scores of tanks moved out of that country each day and headed for
Iraq.” Once the surface of the earth has broken apart, the report goes
on, the wind has an easier job of eroding even more land mass (organic
matter oxidizes, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere). Iraq’s lands,
arable and fertile for thousands of years, have also been so devastated
by the US led wars that it has become a desert wasteland.[5]
- The support vehicles that supply fuel consume over half the fuel in
the battlefield. The military refers to fuel consumption in terms of “gallons per mile,” “gallons per minute,” and “barrels per hour.”
- The world’s largest oil ‘spill’ was in Kuwait,
intentionally done by retreating Iraqi forces opening valves from
wells, pipelines and several tankers. Most of the oil that washed
ashore is still devastating the fragile ecosystem there. They also set
fire to 700 well heads that burned in an inferno.
Even before the full length of expected latency period in the
development of cancer has passed, rates of cancer (especially childhood
cancer) and congenital birth defects, as well as infant mortality and
abnormal sex ratio in newborns, have all dramatically increased in the
Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004.[7] Similar findings were made in other Iraqi cities like Basra, and in the Balkans and Afghanistan.[8]
Within the US, one out of every ten Americans lives within ten miles
of a military site that has been listed as a Superfund priority cleanup
site. The burden of health impacts and environmental destruction falls
disproportionately on poorer communities, people of color and indigenous
communities, women and children.[8]
US military aggression and dominance, its massive destruction
to human lives and the environment of entire regions, along with its
key role in preventing meaningful response to avert the climate
catastrophe, means that US “national security” policies and the ongoing
wars make us far less, not more, secure. Even as early as
2003, a report commissioned by the Pentagon detailed the security threat
posed by abrupt climate change, which it considered a higher threat
than terrorism. The report raised the prospect of nuclear war,
widespread famine and riots over food and water, mass migration, and
predicts: “Once again warfare would define human life”.[15]
But the military’s solutions? Beef up the US military even more, build
fortress America, develop more long range capabilities (as US military
bases on small islands are lost to the rising seas), and run the
military on liquefied coal and biofuels, both of which make the climate
problem worse. (see www.biofuelwatch.org.uk for more on biofuels.)
The worst impacts of climate change may be how humanity reacts to it, according to a recent study.[13]
Climate impacts will lead to mass migration, more and severe
wars/conflicts, deeper fascism/oppression towards immigrants, and
ecosystem decimation as people desperately seek water and sustenance.
Desertification, soil loss, more massive carbon transfer from the
biosphere to the atmosphere, and further disruption of the climate
regulatory functions of natural ecosystems, all will contribute to
pushing climate change beyond human control. Policy
makers and their strategists have yet to recognize this level of
interconnectedness, where failure of one part likely leads to cascading
failures of the whole system. The Pentagon report calculated
dispassionately, from the ‘safety’ of their Fortress America vantage
point: “Deaths from war as well as starvation and disease will decrease
population size, which overtime, will re-balance with carrying
capacity.”[15]
In short,
aggression towards any peoples = suicide for all. No one
nation/region/group can survive catastrophic climate change alone. The
fate of humanity is ONE! Our only chance lies in peace
and collaboration as one human family, and urgently redirecting military
spending to climate and ecosystem salvation/restoration, life-affirming
jobs, healthcare, education, poverty eradication, etc., worldwide. In
fact, we must confront the shared root causes of militarism, global
environmental destruction, and many of the other interconnected social
injustices: a profit-driven system that disregards the value of
human life and the very nature that supports human life. Indeed, the
slogan on the streets of Copenhagen among the 100,000 marchers was: “System Change, Not Climate Change!”[16]
As if to further convince us that climate activists must join forces
with antiwar, antiracism, and other social justice movements, the US
government and its allies are increasingly using ‘anti-terrorist’ laws
to justify spying on and pre-emptive prosecution of activists across a
wide range of political strata, including climate activists. Only when
we are united and fight as one, will we stand any chance!
Actions:
1.Sign on in support (organizations only please), by Dec 6, 2010, to the resolution
to be delivered to US delegates and others during COP16 UN climate
conference Nov29-Dec10, 2010, and to the White House and the media,
demanding an end to wars, slash US military funding, fund climate and
human needs. (please send organization – including country, contact
name, title and email address to rsmolker@riseup.net)
2.Forward this fact sheet (pdf here) and the accompanying resolution widely, use in teach-ins, letter to editors, other outreach. (resolution pdf)
3.Join and get out the word about the April 9, 2011 bi-coastal antiwar demonstrations in NYC and San Francisco (details soon on nationalpeaceconference.org), and especially the multi-location non-violent direct action component to show that we mean it (for the NVDA, email maggie@securegreenfuture.org).
References:
[1] http://www.fcnl.org/budget/budget-proposal11.htm
[2] Miriam Pemberton with Jonathan Glyn, Military vs. Climate Security: The 2011 Budgets Compared. Institute for Policy Studies. http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/military_vs_climate_security_the_2011_budgets_compared
[3] Many resources can be found on the various market mechanisms and other false solutions, here: www.climatesos.org/resources
[4] Anita Dancs, Mary Orisich, Suzanne Smith, The Military Costs of Securing Energy (National Priorities Project – October 2008)
[5] http://www.iacenter.org/o/world/climatesummit_pentagon121809/
[6] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-sanders/the-green-zone-the-worst-_b_70173.html
[7] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html
[8] http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0327-21.htm
[9] http://www.actforclimatejustice.org/2010/03/the-impact-of-militarism-on-climate-change-must-no-longer-be-ignored/ (and personal communication with the author)
[10] http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-27/the-economic-crisis-and-the-hidden-cost-of-the-wars/full/
[11] http://www.kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article32304
[12] http://www.peace-action.org/Peace%20Action%20Military%20Spending%20Primer.pdf
[13] Will R. Turner, et al. (2010). Climate change: helping nature survive the human response. Conservation Letters, http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123523083/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/08/06/the.worst.impact.climate.change.may.be.how.humanity.reacts.it
[14] http://www.foei.org/en/media/archive/2010/developed-countries-attempt-to-launder-aid-money-through-world-bank-and-call-it-climate-funds, http://www.foe.org/un-advisory-group-climate-finance-report-falls-flat, http://www.ituc-csi.org/climate-finance-closing-the.html?lang=en
[15] 2003 Pentagon report: http://www.climate.org/PDF/clim_change_scenario.pdf About the report authors: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=doug_randall_1
[16] http://www.indymedia.org/pt/2009/12/932387.shtml
More resources:
