An elephant is in the room. It’s right here in front of us all, whether we like it or not. Is it Exxon or Shell? No, that’s the orangutan in the building: a central problem, but widely talked about and well known. Attend almost any climate rally, and you might notice cardboard signs opposing the practices of Exxon or Shell and hear complaints about the mass media being in bed with corporate climate offenders. No, this elephant is celebrated at American sporting events and is often a source of irrational pride for large sections of the population. It is the Department of Defense, better known as the U.S. military. And it is one of earth’s all time environmental offenders.
In 2014, Newsweek ran an article entitle, “The U.S. Department of Defense [DoD] Is One of the World’s Biggest Polluters” noting, “Its footprint [the DOD’s] dwarfs that of any corporation: 4,127 installations across 19 million acres of American soil. Maureen Sullivan, who heads the Pentagon’s environmental programs, says her office contends with 39,000 contaminated sites.” In 2016, the Advocacy group Environment America listed the DoD as the third largest polluter of U.S. waterways. This year, Quartz cited a study and concluded that the U.S. Military’s “carbon bootprint is enormous” and it is one of the largest polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more climate-changing gases than most medium sized countries. If the US military were a country, its fuel usage alone would make it the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, sitting between Peru and Portugal. ” Overall, the U.S. military is a bigger polluter than 140 countries combined and is such an egregious offender that the U.S. effectively negotiated its exemption from the Kyoto Climate Accords. This exemption was lost in the Paris Accords, from which President Trump withdrew U.S. participation.
“In 2017, the U.S. Military bought about 269, 230 barrels of oil a day and emitted more than 25,000 kilotons of carbon dioxide by burning these fuels. The U.S. Air Force purchased $4.9 billion worth of fuel, and the Navy $2.8 billion, followed by the Army at $947 million and the marines at $36 million.” — Quartz
Gary Pullman, a former U.S. Army employee, wearing a Willie Nelson-like American flag bandana at the September 20th Salem Climate Strike, notes that James Mattis, former Secretary of Defense, had stated that climate change is one of the biggest threats facing the military, however, Pullman says, “…the military, along with a lot of other things we do is almost a total waste, when it comes to [the concept of] ‘just throwing stuff away.'” Pullman continues, “…that’s always been a mark of the way militaries operate. If it didn’t serve them in a war, they got rid of it, and that didn’t matter whether it was people or trees or machines or whatever…It’s time all of this changes.”
Estimated U.S. military spending for the 2019 fiscal year is $989 billion. The military has nearly 800 military bases in 70 countries, and it dumps more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies. Science Daily (2019) cites research from the University of Lancaster which concludes, “…the US military is one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries.” An abundance of credible research exists that shows the same findings. As climate activists often say, “The science is in. Listen to the facts.”
Brett Osborne, 21, joined the Climate Strike in Salem in opposition to planetary destruction and the need for urgent action. “America seems to have a real need to prove that it has the singular largest gun than everyone else and then some. Our military spending is huge; it’s as much as the next nine countries combined,” says Osborne. “I can’t fathom what we could possibly be doing that justifies that level of activity and production spending and, of course, it is contributing to a massive carbon footprint. I think the U.S. needs to scale back a lot of its international presence.”
Paul Piercy at the Silverton Climate Rally felt the military would be the last to fall in line. “Obviously, it’s a problem. I think it will probably have to come at the tail end of us curtailing more civil activities because that’s a hard one. I think it can be done, but you’re going to have to show, in the beginning, up front, we can do it, and then we’re going to have to force them to follow our lead because we are their bosses, ultimately. But you can’t ask them to do something that we’re not doing.”
”So you think the military will be the last to act?” I ask.
“I think so,” Piercy responds.
“Why is that?”
“It’s a tough nut to crack, simple as that.”
Elyce Hues, an organizer with Sustainable Silverton, said the following when asked about the DoD being one of earth’s greatest environmental offenders:
“That is really interesting. I didn’t know that. The Department of Defense is enormous, so the waste that it is going to generate is going to be commensurate with what a large entity they are, so that doesn’t surprise me. At the same time, I certify buildings as my job. I certify to a green building standard called LEED, and we get a ton of Department of Defense projects because they have requirements that they are building to the greenest codes. Also I know that the Department of Defense has acknowledged climate change as a reality. They have acknowledged it as a huge threat, one of the biggest threats our country faces, both in terms of the things you would think of for the Department of Defense, which is our ability to protect ourselves, the amount of wars that are going to be cropping up as a result of climate change, and the migration swings. People right now think we have migration or immigration problems in the United States. We haven’t seen a thing, compared to what we’re in for, when huge areas of the world become uninhabitable. And no one is going to be asking for permission at that point. We are going to have to deal with people who are fleeing for their lives in droves. So I can see why the Department of Defense says its one of the biggest threats or perhaps the biggest threat we face right now. And they do take some steps internally. I can’t really speak for whatever else they could do though.”
I clarified my question by providing some details about the environmental offenses of the U.S. military. Hues responded, “Is your question, maybe, about how the Green New Deal would address that particular gross emitter, in particular? Interesting, okay. I’m glad you mentioned it. I haven’t looked at it that much.”
At the Salem Climate Strike, Veronica Ruth had a straightforward and on point message, “Yeah, It’s disgusting. Frankly, it’s all disgusting: fossil fuel extraction, steel extraction, shipping, plastic manufacturing, mono-culture agriculture. and the industrial war complex is disgusting and has to be stopped.
During the recent surge in climate change action, I have yet to see any coverage about the military’s role in the climate crisis. Taking on the climate crisis in any serious way means addressing the role of the military industrial complex. If climate activists or climate action friendly media outlets choose to skirt the issue, then it’s merely a feel-good exercise and ignores the central problem. As long as some activists think that closing down a Shell station here or there or taking quicker showers will solve the climate crisis, while being oblivious to mankind’s single greatest polluter, climate change will not be sufficiently addressed. Thinking about turning your lights off in the bathroom while ignoring eight hundred military bases and an entity that is polluting the earth, water, and skies makes for a nonsensical strategy. The DoD is not only a leading climate offender, it is also the backbone of a philosophy that allows the private sector to exploit developing countries and wreak havoc on the environment. To put it into a slogan, the DoD is making the world safe for corporate America to operate around the world.