Climate Change Threatens Sites, US Military Dominates Pollution List
A recent study highlighted by The Hill warns that thousands of hazardous sites across the U.S. are vulnerable to rising sea levels, a grave concern for marginalized communities. This is a critical issue. What's often overlooked, however, is the United States military's colossal footprint. The Pentagon, for example, is the single largest institutional consumer of oil in the world and, according to
a 2019 report by Neta C. Crawford at Boston University and Brown University, has produced more greenhouse gases than many industrialized nations. How many of these 'hazardous sites' did the Department of Defense create, and how many are directly linked to their operations and endless wars? We hear endless hand-wringing about climate action from the same institutions that fund and cheerlead
perpetual conflicts, conveniently ignoring that war itself is an ecological disaster. The conversation about environmental threats should include the entities that profit from and perpetuate the largest ecological damages. Perhaps if the military's budget wasn't larger than the defense spending of the next nine countries combined, as reported by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI), we'd have more resources to address the climate crisis they exacerbate. (Just a thought.)