The U.S. must downsize its military budget to meet the climate crisis.
The dog days of summer are upon us — and the record high temperatures killing hundreds in the Pacific Northwest and bringing 118 degree heat to Siberia serve as a harbinger of even hotter, more dangerous days unless we address the elephant in the room.
The Pentagon
As the largest institutional consumer of oil and, therefore, the largest single U.S. emitter of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG’s), the Pentagon must reduce its carbon footprint of wars and weapons production as well as its bootprint — including tens of thousands of troops deployed worldwide at 800 overseas military bases and one under construction on Okinawa.
To avoid the worst of the climate crisis, President Joe Biden, Congress and the public can reject an interventionist foreign policy fueled by the drive for full-spectrum dominance of the air, land, sea and space. Otherwise, we brace ourselves for ever rising sea levels: extreme weather, drought, famine — all of which, according to the World Bank, could result in 143-million climate refugees by 2050.
Brown University’s Cost of War Project reports the Pentagon’s GHG’s exceed those of many industrialized nations, such as Denmark, Sweden and Portugal, with the “War on Terror” alone producing 1,267 million metric tons of GHG’s, the carbon equivalent of a 12-million pound mountain of coal.
One B-52 Stratofortress, Boeing’s long-range bomber, consumes as much fuel in an hour as the average car driver uses in seven years, according to the National Priorities Project. Biden’s proposed record-high FY-22 $753-billion military budget includes $12 billion for 85 problem-plagued F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets designed to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. With $100 million price tag on each jet, the weapons system is an environmentalist’s nightmare that emits tons of earth-warming polluting compounds, from Carbon Monoxide to Nitrous Oxide to Sulfur Dioxide, chemicals that act as blankets trapping the heat.
Moreover, the F-35 has been plagued by maintenance issues and software glitches, raising additional environmental concerns. “If it crashes, its 10,000 pounds of combustible material would burn in the inferno created by 2, 700 pounds of jet fuel,” according to the organization ‘Safe Skies and Clean Water Wisconsin’, which has filed lawsuits charging the federal government with failing to conduct adequate environmental assessments.
Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee, led by Chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) and ranking member Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Ok), claims Biden’s military budget is too skinny and has voted to boost the top line by another $25 billion. This despite the fact that the Pentagon has failed three audits for failing to produce details reports on its assets and liabilities.