Climate Change & the U.S. Military
Climate Change Challenges: Support the Environment or the U.S. Military?
By Kathy Kelly edited version below. Full article here http://tinyurl.com/oxc6wuu [Common Dreams]
Having lived through the 1991 Desert Storm bombing and the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing in Iraq, I tread carefully when speaking about any danger greater than war that children in our world might face…
Even so, it seems the greatest danger—the greatest violence—that any of us face is contained in our attacks on our environment. Today’s children and generations to follow them face nightmares of scarcity, disease, mass displacement, social chaos, and war, due to our patterns of consumption and pollution.
Ironically, one of the institutions in U.S. society which comprehends the disasters that loom is the U.S. military. In the past few years, the Pentagon has issued several reports which concur that the greatest threat to U.S. national security is posed by climate change and potential environmental disasters… What’s more, the U.S. military, with its more than 7,000 bases, installations, and other facilities, worldwide, is one of the most egregious polluters on the planet and is the world’s largest single consumer of fossil fuels.
Its terrible legacy of forcing its own soldiers and their families, over decades, to drink lethally carcinogenic water on bases that should have been evacuated as contaminated sites is covered in a recent Newsweek story. Civilians drinking from wells around. ..U.S. military bases… can fare little better…
(What about Hawai`i – contaminated by military Depleted Uranium radiation, leaking military fuel, and a stew of other military toxic chemicals?)
Save the Planet! Stop the Wars Now!
1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, etc.
5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Contact: Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
Phone (808) 966-7622. Email:ja@malu-aina.org http://www.malu-aina.org
Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (Dec. 5, 2014 – 689th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office
