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The Pentagon
The Pentagon
Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree on almost nothing these days, but there is a major exception—one that fuels the climate crisis and degrades and destroys the environment. Military spending by the United States is one of the world’s biggest contributors to climate change, even in peacetime. And partisan politics disappears when it comes to feeding the military monster.
The connections between militarism and the climate crisis are the focus of an Earth Day eve presentation on April 21, sponsored by Milwaukee Veterans for Peace and Peace Action Wisconsin.
The numbers are staggering. The U.S. military burns 100 million gallons of oil a year, produces more greenhouse gases than Morocco, Peru, Hungary, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, and most other smaller nations. Between 2001 and 2017, 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases were released. According to research from Brown University, the Pentagon would be the world's 55th largest CO2 emitter if it were a country.
The Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest consumer of energy in the US, and the world’s biggest institutional consumer of petroleum. Since 2001, the DOD has accounted for 77 to 80 percent of all US government energy consumption, the Cost of War project at Brown University found.
Fuel, especially jet fuel, is the main source of Pentagon emissions. But the DOD also has more than 275,000 buildings at 800 bases located on about 27 million acres of land in the US and around the world. The Pentagon building itself produces 25 million metric tons a year of C02, the Brown report said.
More Staggering Numbers
The other staggering numbers are the bipartisan support for ever-increasing military spending.
President Joe Biden proposed a record Pentagon budget of $715 billion for 2022. But that wasn’t enough for Congress, controlled by Biden’s own party. What finally passed was $728.5 billion, about 5 per cent more than 2021—and $2,000-plus for every man, woman and child in the U.S.
Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate budget committee, was a voice in the wilderness, saying: “At a time when we are already spending more on the military than the next 11 countries combined, no we do not need a massive increase in the defense budget.” hose 11 countries include Russia and China; the U.S. spends three times as much as China and 10 times as much as Russia does. The U.S. was the world’s biggest spender in 2020, accounting for 39 per cent of global military spending.
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Add to the C02 emissions the incredible amount of damage actual warfare does to the environment, as demonstrated in Ukraine, where an environmental activist says she fears damage to water, air, soil and wildlife “will be so huge that we won’t be able to rebuild.” They are calling it “ecocide,” Global Citizen reports.
The bloated Pentagon budget passed 88-11 in the Senate, with Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson, who usually cancel out each other’s votes, both supporting it. In the House it was 363-70, with Democrats voting for it 169-51 and Republicans 194-19. Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind joined all five Republicans in voting yes; Democrats Gwen Moore and Mark Pocan were among the 70 “nays.”
More Cuts Needed
The Pentagon acknowledges the threat from climate change and has made some relatively small reductions in the size of its gigantic footprint. But clearly much more is needed.
Veterans for Peace, an international organization with a chapter in Milwaukee, has launched a Climate Crisis and Militarism campaign to educate the public about the role of the US military, the largest institutional source of greenhouse gas on the planet.
Garett Reppenhagen, VFP’s executive director, has led the group to link peace and environmental concerns. They call for reducing the unsustainable military budget; closing bases around the world; de-militarizing foreign policy; and redirecting funds towards mitigating the climate crisis.
“Veterans For Peace honors Earth Day by discussing how militarism impacts the environment. We hope to spread the message about the environmental costs of war, a topic that isn’t often discussed when leaders debate climate change and enact environmental policies. Instead of working for a cleaner, cooler future, our tax dollars are being spent on human death and environmental destruction,” said Reppenhagen, a former Army sniper who served in Kosovo and Iraq.
“I don’t want to see my child struggling in a world filled with famine, natural disasters, climate refugees, and violence to meet scarce resource demands. I feel it is necessary to speak out against unchecked militarism that contributes to massive climate destruction.”
Reppenhagen will be featured on an online webinar on The Climate Crisis and Militarism on Thursday, April 21, at 7 p.m., sponsored by Milwaukee Chapter 102 of Veterans for Peace and Peace Action Wisconsin: Zoom link to join.
