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The Pentagon Budget: A Piggybank for Greening?
By maudeaster on 2019-04-12 09:00:06
Last week, Pat Hynes, a wise and thoughtful environmental | engineer, [caption id="attachment_12382" align="alignright"
a
width="300"] Pat Hynes. Photo by Mabel Leon[/caption] spoke at Women
Against War’s Annual Gathering. A retired professor from Boston University, Pat has long studied the ways that militarism
and climate change are interwoven. Her topic was War and Warming: Can We Save the Planet Without Taking on the
Military? Clearly her answer was no — and I was intrigued by the implications of her thinking, particularly in this tax-
paying season. Pat pointed out that 60% of the federal discretionary budget is military-related, with these funds needed more
urgently to address the increasing climate chaos, at home and around the world. She shared how much of US foreign and
military policy is focused on access to oil - oil we should not be using if we want our world to survive. The Pentagon’s
Contribution to Climate Change: Pat pointed out that the Pentagon itself is the single greatest institutional contributor to
our changing climate. She described the research of Barry Sanders, author of The
Green Zone, who has calculated that the US military consumes as much as one million barrels of oil a day. She described
how the Iraq War between 2003 and 2007 generated more carbon dioxide equivalent in greenhouse gas emissions than 139
of the world’s countries release annually. And how rebuilding Iraq (and now also Syria and Yemen) will require millions of
tons of cement , one of the most fossil intensive industries. Also, that the jet fuel used by the military is up to 3 times more
polluting that diesel or oil. What Really Threatens Our National Security? Pat criticized the bi-partisan Congressional
consensus which for decades has defined investing in national security as increasing the military budget. Interestingly, for
over ten years, the military has itself made the case for increased US spending to combat and mitigate climate change. The
Pentagon’s Defense Review has described the extreme weather and rising sea levels of climate change as “threat multipliers
that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability and social tensions.”
Lauren Markham’s recent article in The Guardian, How Climate Change. is_ Pushing Central American Migrants to the US”
provides a perfect illustration. ; h As floods, fires and storms devastate parts
of our country, it’s becoming clear that we need to invest in all kinds of strengthened infrastructure — from levees to
sea walls, from stronger water systems to resettlement communities for climate refugees — to provide resilience to
climate disasters already baked into our future. At the same time, we also need to invest tax dollars to transform our
transportation systems, housing and [caption id="attachment_12384" align="alignright" width="230"]
Photo from Fortune. com[/caption] entire economy to run efficiently on sustainable
energy. There is high interest in various proposals for a major green development akin to our national mobilization during
the Great Depression. Whatever form a Green New Deal takes, the question will be how to pay for it. To me it seems clear
that we need to view the Pentagon’s piggybank as a pot ripe for redirecting to our highest priority security threat.
[caption id="attachment_ 12383" align="alignnone" width="600"]
What Is the Green New Deal?
A 45 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030 could keep global
warming to 2.7°F. Here’s how to save the planet and create jobs:
What works for ..can also work for
the environment... the economy.
100%
of the nation’s power
0 million
ew jobs in the
first 10 years.
as
Nation.
Sources: Gata for Progress: POC
3OIE nfogranhic: Tracy Matsue Low tethods
Chart from The
Nation[/caption] Pat’s entire talk is available on Sanctuary Radio.
