THE WAR MACHINE A DISASTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.
The US and UK militaries owe at least $111bn in reparations to communities most harmed by their planet-heating pollution, a first-of-its-kind study calculates. The research employs a “social cost of carbon” framework – a way to estimate the cost, in dollars, of the climate damage done by each additional tonne of carbon in the atmosphere. “The environmental costs of maintaining the global military reach of the US and UK armed forces are astonishing,” said Patrick Bigger, research director of the Climate and Community Project and co-author of the report. According to the report, which was published by the UK-based thinktank Common Wealth and the US-based Climate and Community Project, the two militaries have generated at least 430m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent since the 2015 United Nations Paris climate agreement. That’s more than the total greenhouse gas emissions produced in the UK last year. To offer minimal compensation for damage caused by those emissions, the US military should offer $106bn in international climate financing, while the UK military should offer $5bn, the researchers write, employing an equation drawn up by a Columbia University researcher in 2021. Those figures, though eye-popping, are “extremely conservative”, the authors say. Added to this is the vast amount of fireworks worldwide used to celebrate various historic events which are devastating to the wildlife highlighted by thousands of dead birds found the morning after and extreme terror for pets and domestic animals. All could easily be replaced by laser and drone light shows. These “events” are made worse by billions of balloons released causing untold damage to marine life with pictures of dolphins and turtles dying horrendous deaths due ingesting these killers. Mankind needs to completely revise its celebratory methods and for once put our wonderful eco systems in first place.
