U.S. Military Is World’s Biggest Polluter

https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-2408760609.html

by umadon • 7 years ago

92 19 7 years ago

djohnston• 7 years ago

are militaries in general just producing lots of toxic things (not surprising), and the US has the biggest footprint because it has the biggest military? or, is the us just particularly bad on a per unit basis

umvi2• 7 years ago

Any military that has jets, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, etc. will have the same pollution problems as the US military. The US military is just so much bigger than everybody else's for a variety of complex reasons.

Also, it's a bit unfair to say "US Military" as if it is a single unified organization. I would bet the US Navy specifically is the biggest offender.

I bet "US Military" is smaller than "China Factories" though.

maxxxxx• 7 years ago

Military by definition has the attitude to achieve a single objective through any means possible. It's not exactly surprising that they don't care much about other things. In addition if you are a soldier you often are in pretty bad situations is following some environmental rules is just another burden.

legitster• 7 years ago

I am having trouble validating this claim:

"U.S. military action there has resulted in the desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory, crippling the country's agricultural industry and forcing it to import more than 80 percent of its food"

I can't find any citations in the source - most of the places I am looking talk about the destruction of irrigation systems at the hand of the Iraqi state. So at best the military is only partly responsible.

bargl4• 7 years ago

The USA military fills a space that would be filled by another power if there was no USA military.

I personally don't want that to be China. Not because I think they'd do a bunch of crazy things but because I think they'd slowly and methodically subvert other countries just like they're doing in the South China Sea.

While I agree 1000% we need to minimize the USA military, we also need a plan for other (UN) countries to contribute to a shared force or something similar that can police in place of the USA military. Even in turn policing the USA in cases of military overstepping.

EDIT: What I'm saying is this article points to a problem, but it's complex. I imagine with UN oversight a military force might actually be less of a polluter and we might slow down arms races as well.

pnongrata• 7 years ago

Why should there be any superpower policing other countries? IMO, China, like any other country strong enough to put up a fight, so to speak, acts out of self-preservation. It's understandable if you look at US' decades long foreign policies.

bargl4• 7 years ago

Why are police necessary anywhere? To enforce the rules of the land that enact peace and order.

China is trying to steal territory from the Philippines, they arguably don't have the power to fight China. Without allies in the USA they'd have no recourse.

If every country was equal I'd agree with you, but they aren't, so we need protections for the smaller countries out there that get rolled over by the big countries.

Edit: Ideally we wouldn't need a police force, and I don't use Police force to mean what the US is doing in the middle east. I'm all about anti-interventionist policies. But I also don't want to see big governments roll over smaller ones, I think the UN is a good counter to that.

This is what I meant by South China Sea. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... Hopefully that link resolves correclty.

natechols• 7 years ago

Nobody outside China thinks what's going on in the South China Sea has anything to do with "self-preservation".

SEJeff• 7 years ago

And what is somewhat amusing, is that the DoD has labelled energy independence as a critical factor for the military to have. As a result, they're been spending the last 10-15 years working on the tech for things like military microgrids and whatnot.

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/christian-stirling-haig/budget-...

https://www.energydigital.com/renewable-energy/us-military-w...

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/for-the-u-s-mil...

I'm not saying there isn't a long way to go, but they're definitely aware of the problem.

devy• 7 years ago

The Runit Dome (concrete dome designed to contain nuclear waste) is leaking highly toxic and radioactive garbages out.[1][2] It's pretty nasty out there - let alone the environmental impact.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runit_Island

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19959889

Aloha• 7 years ago

I'm not fan of the American propensity for projecting power with guns, but this article seems to be more than a little bit biased.

* The uranium mines mentioned belonged to the DOE.

* The link purportedly explaining why we caused desertification in Iraq carries no sources explaining this, other than a vague mention of US military policies (which in most cases are civilian political policies).

* The article in language is saying the military is currently the worlds biggest polluter, while mostly touching on issues from the cold war, before there were environmental rules of note.

This doesn't even touch on the absolute environmental devastation that the Soviet system left too.

In General the Military-Industrial complex is dirty, and left in its wake over the 40 years of the cold war, an environmental mess than will take 80 years to clean up, but that doesn't make any military currently the worlds largest anything, except possibly a waste of money.

rayiner• 7 years ago

The US military is also one of if not the largest organization in the world. So this is unsurprising.

U.S. Military Is World’s Biggest Polluter

Related Stories