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- From: Foreign Bases Project <fbp@igc.apc.org>
- Subject: Militaries War on Environment
- Message-ID: <1992Nov6.222447.7733@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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- Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 22:24:47 GMT
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- /* Written 8:01 am Nov 2, 1992 by wrl@igc.apc.org in igc:wri.news */
- /* ---------- "Militaries War on Environment" ---------- */
- THE MILITARIES WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT
- BY JOHN M. MILLER
-
- THAT humans make war on the environment is a widely used
- metaphor, which becomes literally true when nations make war on
- each other. From Vietnam to Central America and Afghanistan to the
- Persian Gulf, warfare has had grave ecological consequences that
- affect not only the environment, but the health and security of
- the people who depend on it. And the negative impact of the worlds
- armies on the environment neither begins nor ends with a shooting
- war. Every day militaries use up non-renewable resources, pollute
- water sources, and contribute to ozone depletion.
- Images from the Gulf War of the smoke-darkened Kuwaiti desert
- with oil wells burning out of control was a stark reminder of the
- environmental damage of war. Ongoing revelations of radioactive
- pollution from nuclear weapons sites in the United States and the
- former Soviet Union point to the costs of peacetime military
- activity. More recently communities are becoming aware of the
- environmental impacts of military bases and the numerous toxic
- chemicals they use. All of these revelations have helped lift the
- veil from the myriad of ways that militaries wage war on the
- environment (and all of us), even when they are not waging war on
- each other.
- The recent Gulf War is a vivid case study in the damage that
- war can cause the environment. While the hundreds of oil fires
- have been extinguished, oil lakes still cover the Kuwaiti desert.
- Oil still contaminates the Gulf and little has been done to clean
- the hundreds of miles of coastline. Studies to determine the full
- extent of the damage to important and fragile ecosystems critical
- to a range of animal and plant species have only begun. Heavy
- military vehicles and military fortifications have dug up and
- packed down the deserts of the region that, lacking water, will
- take years to recover. A year and half after the end of the war
- little is known about the full extent of environmental damage
- caused by the bombing of Iraq's nuclear and chemical weapons
- facilities and petrochemical and other industrial sites. The
- bombing of Iraq's electrical system caused widespread disruption
- of sewage and other critical systems polluting water supplies and
- spreading disease. Throughout the developing world, immigrant
- workers in the Persian Gulf fled home as Gulf War refugees
- increasing stress on rural ecosystems and urban areas.
-
- RESOURCE USE
- Like the Gulf War, many wars are about access to
- resources.
- Michael Renner of Worldwatch Institute estimates that the worlds
- armies use as much energy as the economy of Japan, about six
- percent of total use worldwide. An F-16 fighter burns more fuel
- in an hour than the average U.S. car does in one year. Militaries
- account for nine percent of the iron and steel consumed each year.
- They also use a large proportion of such minerals as beryllium,
- cobalt, and titanium. In a self-perpetuating cycle, nations create
- armies to gain access to resources that their armies must consume
- in order to function.
-
- Militaries have a seemingly insatiable appetite for land
- to train
- on. This need has risen steadily as armies have grown larger and
- weapons have become more technologically advanced. Modern planes
- can fly faster and further. Modern artillery can shoot farther. Up
- to one percent of land worldwide is directly used by militaries.
- Every year additional land is damaged or made unsuitable for
- civilian use. Unbearably loud noises from overflights by jets can
- cause health and other problems for residents and wildlife below
- training areas. In recent years protests against low-flying jets
- in Europe and across the United States are beginning to curb the
- impunity with which western air forces disturb those below.
- Large tracts of land are also destroyed during war. Operation
- Ranch Hand sprayed 18 million gallons of herbicides on more than
- six million acres in Vietnam and a lesser area in Laos and
- Cambodia. That land is only beginning to recover. Track marks can
- still be seen in the deserts of North Africa, reminders of the
- massive tank battles of World War II.
- One of the longest lived legacies from many wars is the
- thousands of rounds of unexploded bombs and mines left over from
- many wars. These bombs can maim and kill and unless thoroughly
- cleared they make use of the land dangerous for decades. German
- mustard gas shells, lobbed during World War I, are still
- occasionally uncovered. Unexploded ordnance is still a major
- problem in Vietnam, sending numerous children and farmers to the
- hospital 17 years after the war. Mineclearing is a big and
- dangerous business now, with companies vying for contracts to
- remove mines in Angola, Kuwait, and Cambodia.
-
- Toxic Chemicals & Hazardous Waste
-
- While negotiations on a treaty to ban the possession of
- chemical weapons recently ended, militaries wage chemical warfare
- daily on their own citizens by using some of the most lethal
- chemicals known--not to wage war but to prepare for it. Solvents,
- PCBs, pesticides, heavy metals, alkalies, propellants and
- explosives then need to be disposed of safely. According to the
- Pentagons Defense Environmental Restoration Program, 17,482 toxic
- hot spots have been found at the 1,855 domestic installations.
- (The U.S. does not provide figures for its overseas military
- bases.) A toxic hot spot is a place where hazardous waste
- contamination poses a potential threat. Areas around many
- conventional and nuclear production facilities are also
- contaminated. The costs of cleaning up these sites are
- astronomical and estimates vary widely, anywhere from $50 billion
- to $200 billion.
- As a number of militaries begin post-Cold War reductions, the
- need to isolate and clean up chemical pollutants will delay
- alternative uses at many military bases. Also delayed will be the
- economic recovery of communities around the bases, adding to
- pressure to leave bases open or conduct shoddy clean ups.
- There is every reason to believe that contamination at the
- bases of other militaries is as bad or worse. Germany recently put
- former Soviet soldiers awaiting repatriation to Russia to work
- locating dumps created in East Germany. No oversight from host
- governments and poor record-keeping or a lack of any records mean
- that an unknown number of toxic time bombs are scattered
- throughout eastern Europe.
- The disposal of chemical weapons poses a number of special
- environmental hazards. After World War II, stocks of chemical
- weapons were haphazardly dumped in several ocean areas. Now the
- U.S. and Russia have adopted incineration as the preferred
- disposal method, ignoring and inadequately researching safer
- alternatives. The U.S. moved chemical weapons from Okinawa and
- Germany to Johnston Island in the Pacific in 1972 and 1990.
- Pacific Islanders now fear that the U.S. will incinerate its
- entire stockpile of chemical weapons at Johnston, ignoring their
- wishes and well-being.
-
- Nuclear Contamination
-
- Toxic and nuclear contamination from nuclear weapons
- production and testing have created life-threatening conditions in
- many parts of the world. Nuclear tests have spread deadly
- radioactive isotopes worldwide. Contamination from test sites,
- military nuclear reactors, warhead assembly plants, and
- haphazardly created waste sites is migrating into water supplies
- and the air, threatening the communities and ecosystems around
- them. Safe ways to clean up and dispose of millions of tons of
- radioactive waste produced by uranium mining, weapons production,
- and now, the dismantling of nuclear warheads remain elusive.
- Contamination at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities alone may cost
- $200-$300 billion to clean up over the next 30 years. Nuclear hot
- spots in the South Pacific, U.S., former USSR, China and elsewhere
- will threaten the health of many for years to come.
- Indigenous peoples ave especially suffered from the nuclear
- arms race. Their lands and waters in North America, the Pacific,
- the former USSR, Australia, and elsewhere have been irradiated by
- nuclear tests by the major nuclear powers. It is still not safe
- for Marshall Islanders to reinhabit their original islands. In
- Australia, aborigines received little or no warning before British
- tests irradiated them in the 1950s.
- Above ground nuclear testing contaminated the atmosphere, but
- many underground nuclear tests leak radiation as well. Other
- military activities are affecting the atmosphere as well. The
- military is responsible for over two-thirds of U.S. use of the
- ozone-depleting chemical CFC-113. While the Pentagon is moving
- away from CFC use, the high cost of changing military
- specifications is stalling the conversion to safer chemicals in
- the U.S. and abroad, because many other nations follow the U.S.
- lead when it comes to technical requirements in weapons
- production. Exhaust from solid-fuelled rockets and missiles
- injects large amounts of ozone harming hydrochloric acid directly
- into the upper atmosphere.
-
- National Security
- Militaries citing "national security" have hidden their
- environmental crimes behind a veil of secrecy. In many nations,
- the military is often exempt from environmental rules and
- regulations either by law or by custom. In recent years, Congress
- and grassroots protest have increasingly brought military
- activities under the environmental laws and regulations that apply
- to others, but the Pentagon and Department of Energy continue to
- resist efforts to treat them like any other polluter. And most
- environmental laws contain loopholes that allow the president to
- cite a national emergency to exempt the military.
- Military harm to the environment is not confined to its
- direct impacts. Hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide are
- spent preparing for war. Military spending continues to consume
- monetary, human and other resources short-changing environmental
- protection, development and other social needs. Billions must now
- be spent cleaning up military messes.
- Many politically involved militaries protect, promote, and
- often directly benefit from environmentally destructive projects
- and activities. They are used to suppress opposition to harmful
- projects, stifling environmental debate. The wholesale destruction
- of the Amazon began under the military dictatorship in Brazil.
- Burma's military is cutting down its teak forests, trading the
- wood for arms and cash to support its dictatorship. In the name of
- anti-communism the Philippine army suppressed dissent against
- environmentally destructive forestry, hydroelectric and other
- projects during and after the Marcos dictatorship.
-
- New Image
- Many of the worlds militaries, seeing which way the public
- opinion winds are blowing, are working to improve their
- environmental practice and image. Here in the United States, the
- Pentagon regularly proclaims this or that environmental
- innovation. Several years ago, the Senate passed the Strategic
- Environmental Initiative (SEI), Senator Sam Nunn's (D-GA) proposal
- to fund the military to release environmental data and do
- environmentally useful work. But the military mindset on this
- matter was revealed when, after a long delay, the Pentagon
- proposed that the first project under SEI find a more
- environmentally benign way to produce plutonium triggers for
- nuclear weapons.
- At Pentagon conferences during the build up toward the Gulf
- War, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney put the best face on DoD
- environmental practice, admitting the need to remedy past mistakes
- and championing efforts to recycle, substitute non-toxic materials
- for harmful ones, and preserve nature on military bases. But
- Admiral David Jeremiah, vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
- made clear that there are limits to how gently armies can adapt to
- the environment. When forced to choose, the military's mission
- comes before environmental protection. War and preparation for war
- are "always inherently destructive and inefficient," he said.
- A major international opportunity to deal with impacts of the
- military on the environment was lost last spring when the UN
- Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) sidestepped
- these problems. The U.S. delegation worked hard to keep military
- matters off the agenda of the Earth Summit and proposals holding
- nations accountable for how their militaries handle their
- hazardous waste safely and contaminate the environment with their
- weapons of mass destruction were watered down or deleted.
-
- If the official conference was intent on giving the
- military an
- environmental blank check, non-governmental organizations meeting
- outside were not so ready to do so. The NGOs negotiated their own
- agreement on militarism, the environment, and development.
- Condemning the failure of UNCED to deal with military questions,
- the NGO "treaty" demanded "an end to the exploitation of women,
- children, and other peoples marginalized by dominant military
- systems." The alternative blueprint pledges groups to work for
- environmentally sound demilitarization and the peaceful resolution
- of conflicts. The treaty's action plan calls for a comprehensive
- nuclear test ban and promises greater information sharing about
- the impacts of militarism and support for indigenous peoples
- opposition to the use of their lands and airspace for military
- purposes.
- Many things can be done to alleviate some of the most
- environmentally harmful practices of militaries--measures that
- must be taken as steps toward disarmament regardless of whether
- bases remain open or are closed. But in the end militaries will
- have to be eliminated to finally bring an end to their war on
- nature and us.
-
- John M. Miller is a member of the War Resisters League
- Executive Committee and Coordinator of the International
- Clearinghouse on the Military and the Environment/ARC, PO Box
- 150753, Brooklyn, NY 11215; (718)788-6071, e-mail: fbp@igc.org.
-
- ******** From November/December 1992 (Vol.9 #6) issue of the
- Nonviolent Activist, publication of the War Resisters League, 339
- Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012. e-mail: wrl@igc.org.
- Subscriptions: $15/year.
-
-