Making a Killing
War without end Industrial civilization is an ideology that we are all addicted to. This is a ideology that is a drug that has been dealt to the whole world. The side effects are chronic war, environmental collapse, population overshoot and an impending anthropocene. Cultures such as the Native American Indians, Australian aborigines and the Inuit people have lived for 50’000 years in harmony with the natural world.
This addiction has let to 2 world wars; The deaths of tens of millions of human beings; Species extinctions beyond the natural rate and a runaway climatic shift that will disrupt the goldilocks effect that keeps our planet in a harmonious, equilibrium that is our life support system.
When we slaughter each other en-masse we need to consider the amount of emissions produced in the bombing campaigns. Conflict carbon has a significant environmental cost for us all on this planet.
According to the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) militaries are responsible for around 5.5 percent of global greenhouse emissions.
The war in Ukraine has generated global heating emissions equivalent to 237 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Around 3 million hectares of Ukrainian forests have been destroyed or damaged due to the war.
According to he IGGAW report Russia and Ukraine have used 18 million tonnes of fuel and have set fire to 1.3 million hectares of fields and forests. Bombings of oil refineries are increasing annual emissions.
The vast majority (over 99%) of the 281,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2 equivalent) estimated to have been generated in the first 60 days following the 7 October Hamas attack can be attributed to Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by researchers in the UK and US.
“This study is only a snapshot of the larger military boot print of war … a partial picture of the massive carbon emissions and wider toxic pollutants that will remain long after the fighting is over,” said Benjamin Neimark, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL), and co-author of the research published on Tuesday on Social Science Research Network.
“The military’s environmental exceptionalism allows them to pollute with impunity, as if the carbon emissions spitting from their tanks and fighter jets don’t count. This has to stop, to tackle the climate crisis we need accountability,” added Neimark, who partnered with researchers at University of Lancaster and the Climate and Community Project (CCP)
The US plays an oversized role in military carbon emissions – and supplies Israel with billions of dollars of military aid, weapons and other equipment that it deploys in Gaza and the West Bank.By 4 December, at least 200 American cargo flights were reported to have delivered 10,000 tonnes of military equipment to Israel. The study found that the flights guzzled around 50m litres of aviation fuel, spewing an estimated 133,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – more than the entire island of Grenada last year.“The role of the US in the human and environmental destruction of Gaza cannot be overstated,” said co-author Patrick Bigger, research director at the thinktank CCP.