Not only do the wars of the US make the lives of the Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Libyans, Syrians ... impossible, not only do the exuberant costs of these wars throw the world into an economic crisis, the military operations also destroy the environment. And if this trend continues, the US and NATO military machine will make life on this planet impossible for humans and animals.
This extensive post has been divided into three parts. Here part 1. In this post, I mainly talk about numbers.
War money can pay for the changeover to renewable energy
The money wasted on the Iraq war - a war for oil, let us not forget that - could have funded the planetary changeover to renewable energy. Just sit with that for a second.
"The cost of America’s post-9/11 wars is approaching $6 trillion and the price tag will continue to climb right along with sea levels, temperatures, atmospheric CO2, and methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas". This is written by Stacy Bannerman, the author of Homefront 911: How Families of Veterans Are Wounded by Our Wars (2015), and When the War Came Home (2006).
Insatiable militarism is the largest institutional contribution to natural disasters intensified by global climate change.
The US military is responsible for the most blatant and widespread pollution of the planet, but this information and accompanying documentation is almost never mentioned. Despite the evidence, the environmental impact of the US military is largely ignored by the environmental organizations and was not the focus of discussions on the proposed restrictions on the environmental conferences on climate change.
This environmental impact consists of unrestrained use of fossil fuels, the massive creation of greenhouse gases and the release of radioactive and chemical contaminants in the air, water and soil.
How the war machine destroys life for many millions of people
Iraq is witnessing a horrendous environmental disaster. Military action by the United States has resulted in the desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory, paralyzing the country's agricultural industry. The country is forced to import more than 80 percent of its food.
US use of depleted uranium in Iraq during the Gulf War also caused an enormous environmental impact for Iraqis. In addition, the US Army's policy to use open wells to remove waste from the 2003 invasion has caused a wave of cancer among US military and Iraqi civilians. Here is one of the reasons of the refugee flow.
The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the secret operations in Pakistan, the equipment at more than 1,000 US bases around the world, the 6,000 sites in the US, all NATO operations, aircraft carriers and jet aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales: this entire listing is not included in counts of US greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, it’s not included in worldwide negotiations on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Pentagon exempt from all climate agreements
Sara Flounders writes:
The US military machine, is the world’s biggest institutional consumer of petroleum products and the world’s worst polluter of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements.
"It's a loophole in the Kyoto Convention on Climate Change big enough to drive a tank through", according to the report A Climate of War.
In addition, the military remains largely exempt from compliance with most federal and national environmental legislation, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The US environmental agency appears to be a partner of the Pentagon in this crime and is working hard to keep it that way. It seems like the military-industrial complex, which consumes nearly 60 percent of the American national budget, may exempt from all climate agreements. This is energy-inefficient and ecologically self-destructive.
During the long history of military preparations, operations and wars, the US military was never held responsible for the effects of its activities on the environment, people or animals. During the negotiations for the Kyoto agreements in December 1997, the US demanded that all military operations worldwide, including activities in participation with the UN and NATO, be exempted from measurements.
After reaching this agreement, the Bush administration subsequently refused to sign the agreements and the US Congress adopted an explicit provision guaranteeing that the US military will be exempt from reducing energy consumption or measurements of greenhouse gas emissions.
The redevelopment of Iraqi schools, houses, businesses, bridges, roads and hospitals that have been pulverized by the war, require millions of tons of cement, one of the largest industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2006 the US spent more on the war in Iraq than the whole world together on investments in renewable energy.
The Pentagon consumes more petroleum per day than the total consumption of 175 countries (out of 210 in the world) and generates more than 70 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the US, according to statistics in the CIA World Factbook. "The US Air Force annually burns 2.4 billion gallons (+/- 9 billion liters) of jet fuel, all derived from petroleum," reported an article in the Scientific American.*
Since the start of the post-9/11 wars, U.S. military fuel consumption has averaged about 144 million barrels annually. That figure doesn’t include fuel used by coalition forces, military contractors, or the massive amount of fossil fuels burned in weapons manufacturing.*
US Army is a major emitter of carbon dioxide
According to Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, “The Iraq war was responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) from March 2003 through December 2007.” That’s more CO2e than 60 percent of all countries, and those figures are only from the first four years. The US downsized the war in December of 2011, but still haven’t left, so the U.S. invasion and 15 years of occupation has likely generated upwards of 400 million metric tons of CO2e to date.*
*Figures come from this source. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
In May 2017, the mainstream media paid little attention to the news that the US Marine Station in Virginia Beach had discharged an estimated 94,000 liters of jet fuel in a nearby river, less than a mile from the Atlantic. Although the incident was certainly not as catastrophic as some other pipelines, this underlines an important but little known fact - that the US Department of Defense is one of the biggest polluters in the world.
While the US Department of Defense produces more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies together - 750,000 tonnes of toxic waste every year - it has left its toxic legacy around the world. Depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants such as Agent Orange and lead, among others, along with the huge amounts of radiation from the produced weapons, which are being tested and used, are just a few of the pollutants, with which the US military contaminates the environment.
In 2014, the former head of the Pentagon environmental program told in a very interesting report in Newsweek that her department contends with 39,000 contaminated areas spread over 19 million acres of American soil…
So far part 1 of this post. The next time I want to talk about the fact that military bases are among the most polluted places in the world and how they are responsible for many climate refugees.
sources not mentioned in the text:
- https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-pentagon-the-climate-elephant-2/5402505
- https://climateandcapitalism.com/2015/02/08/pentagon-pollution-7-military-assault-global-climate/
- https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-record-u-s-military-budget-spiralling-growth-of-americas-war-economy/5479264?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
- https://www.rt.com/usa/388054-nas-oceana-jet-fuel/
- https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/31/climate-worst-casualty-war