Drought, Heat & Energy Nightmares -- But U.S. Climate Bill Favors Fossil Fuel Extraction?

I recently saw a joke that Germans were down to one shower a week and tourism had fallen off. Now I can't find it again, and I'm not sure anymore that it was a joke.

Did Germany foresee the Rhine River drying up when they gave in to U.S. pressure not to certify the NordStream 2 gas pipeline from Russia? The U.S. told them: no problem we will sell you fracked gas which we'll deliver via shipping. "German energy nightmare," indeed.

Of course, it's not just Germany. England is also in a drought exacerbated by record high temperatures.

Drought in the western part of the continental U.S. is also reaching epic proportions, 

and fire season is a thing of the past because now it's pretty much year round.

The “everything is fine” gif in real life. https://t.co/qWaSb9PKx6

— Anne with an "e" (@mrsmaris) August 11, 2022

https://twitter.com/mrsmaris/status/1557733365314306049

Drought in eastern Africa is also at life-threatening levels.

Source: Flickr "1.5 million livestock heads have been lost in southern Ethiopia already. The migration of people and livestock from drought-affected areas is straining already scarce resources in host communities. 285,000 people are displaced."

 

© European Union, 2022 (photographer: Silvya Bolliger)

So, what does the U.S. government do? Pass a "climate" bill with provisions to expand fossil fuel extraction! Congress at this point in history can only pass legislation if it benefits their wealthy donors. (The bill also extended the Unaffordable Care Act for three years. Because that will definitely bring down the global temperature.)

It's a major reason that Democrats and Republicans are rapidly losing the consent of the governed, and we are running out of time to take action designed to protect life on Earth.

The other anti-climate bill is, of course, massive military spending authorized for FY23. 

To name just one small part of the problem, what's the climate impact of all those weapons the U.S. is sending to Ukraine for use in a war they can't win? Reporting from your state-affiliated corporate media doesn't dare ask that question.

Also increasingly evident is massive expansion of (militarized*) space exploration. From "Increased Spaceflight Will Warm Earth's Stratosphere 4 Degrees, Study Finds" by Caroline Delbert in Popular Mechanics:

In new research published earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) simulates the effect of greatly increased spaceflight on the stratosphere. The results show that planned spaceflight over the next few decades could raise Earth’s temperature, change global air currents, and dampen the ozone layer. The study appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmosphere.

* All U.S. space exploration and development is military in nature, no matter what NASA says.

But not to worry, everything is fine.

End Pentagon Climate Crimes! Say Veterans Arrested In DC

Before deciding to reduce my own emissions by taking action closer to home, I used to join Veterans for Peace members risking arrest in Washington DC to protest U.S. wars. VFP members' motivation this week was an issue I've been focused on for years, and one that is finally getting some traction in the corporate press: the climate impact of the U.S. military. So I'm a bit sad that I wasn't there with them.

I appreciate this group's efforts to get our warmongering government to recognize that we're in a climate emergency and act accordingly. VFP members also called attention to other dangerous enivronmental impacts of military pollution, from toxic burn pits to leaking jet fuel into the groundwater in Hawai'i.

Here's the press release from their action in DC.

Military Veterans Arrested Demanding Presidential & Congressional Action on Climate Crisis

 

WASHINGTON, D.C.- On Wednesday, August 3rd, seven military veterans and supporters were arrested near the U.S. Capitol Building. Members of Veterans For Peace, an organization of over 120 military veteran chapters worldwide, gathered at the foot of the Capitol demanding more robust action on addressing the climate crisis.

Veterans For Peace demands that the President and Congress:

• Stop the U.S.-driven wars and all military weapons sales, shipments and support to nation states engaged in open armed conflict.

• Require the U.S. military release a full report on their greenhouse gas emissions. The United States military does not publicly and regularly report its overall fuel consumption or greenhouse gas emissions—despite requirements laid out in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. DoD is estimated to emit more CO2 than over 120 separate countries.

• Declare a Climate Emergency NOW–and use all the resulting Presidential powers including stopping the granting of new resource extraction permits and leases, e.g., drilling on public lands and pipeline construction, and strengthening of standards including air quality and methane emissions.

• Cut the Pentagon Budget- Military spending should be reduced by at least $200 billion annually, freeing up $2 trillion or more over the next decade for domestic and human needs priorities. With those spending cuts, the Pentagon's budget would remain more than enough to keep America safe at a level well above our nation's post-World War II historical average.

• Prioritize investing in communities in the U.S. impacted by the military and climate change and in the Global South including paying the U.S.' climate debt.

• Prioritize diplomacy over the threat of military force, beginning with negotiations for a global Climate Emergency Treaty and the renegotiation of lapsed nuclear arms treaties between U.S. and Russia.

"The military has done next to nothing to reduce their carbon footprint, either ignoring the climate mandate completely or just focusing on creating more advanced weapons systems that can continue to operate under worsening climate conditions. From the burn pits to nuclear waste to water contamination in Hawai'i, the U.S. military is responsible for an unprecedented amount of climate disasters. It is past time for Congress and the President to hold the U.S. military accountable for their catastrophic effects on the planet." -Garett Reppenhagen, Executive Director of Veterans For Peace, U.S. Army, Cavalry/Scout Sniper, OIF Veteran.

"I chose to risk arrest today because as a Marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, I saw firsthand the devastation that the military has wrought on countries around the globe, including just 48 hours ago when the U.S. military issued yet another drone strike on Afghanistan. The U.S. spends unprecedented amounts of money on an ever-expanding U.S. military, using veterans like me as pawns in their justifications for more money. We need to be reducing U.S. militarism and redirecting that money towards climate solutions like renewable energy and resources that meet human needs." -Chris Velazquez, OIF/OEF Veteran, 2004-2010

Interviews available upon request

####

 For Photos of the Event

"As a retired research geologist I fear the climate crisis. As a veteran, I know our military fuels this crisis and they have no accountability for their actions. It is too late for more talk, we need immediate action." -Jim Rine, U.S. Army, 1970-73

"As a lifelong resident of Hampton Roads, Virginia, which has the largest naval institution in the world, I've seen the domestic environmental harm the military causes in my own backyard. From the dumping of jet fuel into wetlands in Virginia Beach to the contamination of our waterways from shipyards, it's important to recognize all impacts of incessant militarism and say no to the military's war on the climate." T.J. Thompson, U.S. Navy, 1998-2004, deployed to South America, Mediterranean Cruise and the invasion of Iraq

"It is totally irresponsible for our government to spend billions of dollars funding wars abroad that accelerate the climate crisis while people are suffering at home without housing or food." -Jeff Parente, U.S. Marine Corps, 2006-2014, OIF Veteran

"The money needed to avoid the worst results of climate change, as well as many other social issues that lack adequate funding, is the wasteful and bloated military budget. Not only that, the U.S. military is the greatest contributor to mounting ecological catastrophe." -Joshua Farris, U.S. Army, 2000-2004, OIF veteran

"We've passed the point of return for our climate and our world. I am here because I know that we must do everything we can to mitigate the worst of what is to come. We must not sit back in apathy and hopelessness. The time to act is NOW." -Stephanie Atkinson, U.S. Army Reserve, 1984-1990

"As a veteran I have seen first hand the waste of the U.S. military. I have also watched Congress say that they care about veterans and active duty members of the military as an excuse to enrich lobbyists and military contractors, while defunding any military benefits. Since leaving the military I have become a land conservation advocate and I believe I have a responsibility to speak out against U.S. militarism and the pollution that the military creates." -Mike Marion, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1988-90, Panama

"One of the ways I atone for my actions when I was in the military in Iraq, before I knew any better, was to work towards a better world.  I want future generations to have a chance to live in a world that is not on fire."  -Jules Vaquera, U.S. Air Force, OIF Veteran, 2000-2006

Contact: 314-899-4515, press@veteransforpeace.org

##

Check out VFP's Climate and Militarism Project which is doing great work educating and resisting. 

Reporting On Military's Role In Driving Climate Crisis Too Negative For Corporate Media?

"Horrific heat descends upon Western Europe:  104° in London"
 Source: Yale Climate Connections (Image credit: tropicaltidbits.com)

Source: India Today

Following an extensive clampdown on information sharing --using the pretext of dangerous wronthink on the covid pandemic -- no corporate media outlets and few social media posts in 2022 are in danger of connecting these dots: 

Despite years of research and reporting on the U.S. military's enormous role in driving climate crisis, and despite record high temperatures and wildfires across the Global North, what messages are corporate media putting out?

Fear Russia and send more weapons to Ukraine. 

By astonishing coincidence, the popular Netflix horror series Stranger Things began production in 2016 and just happens to be set in the 1980's, getting maximum mileage out of Cold War era bad guys.

Fear China, and conduct RIMPAC war games with South Korea and Japan blowing up battleships in the Pacific.  Also, focus on Taiwan as the location for the next U.S./NATO proxy war.

Remind people how beastly hot it is and how many unnecessary deaths result -- but do not address the root cause: fighting wars for access to fossil fuels.

Admonish climatologists to not be so negative.

A clip from Don’t Look Up, and then a real TV interview that just happened pic.twitter.com/CokQ5eb3sO

— Ben Phillips (@benphillips76) July 20, 2022

https://twitter.com/benphillips76/status/1549768004233314306

Spin "protecting the homeland and the United States" (whatever that's supposed to mean) as necessary because Russia and China might get better access to fossil fuel reserves, rare earth minerals, and potable water in Latin America.

U.S. SOUTHCOM Commander:"This region is so rich in resources.. it's off the charts rich."

"60% of the world's lithium is in the region; you have heavy crude, you have light sweet crude, you have rare earth elements, you have the Amazon.." pic.twitter.com/33dQ6EXKAo

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) July 20, 2022

https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews/status/1549834456353185797

Promote WWIII, ignoring the abundance of historical examples of what happened to empires that overextended in the mistaken belief that they were invincible.

Fiddle while Rome burns.

Image courtesy of ARRT! (Artists’ Rapid Response Team) arrteam.org

Setting Ourselves On Fire

I've lived my entire life with the spectre of thermonuclear fire consuming the world. It hovered over us as we contemplated the future of what we'd started in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, sometimes, joked about it -- dark humor, laughing in the face of annihilation. 

When I say my entire life, I'm not exaggerating. My father was in college when I was born and he had a post-nuclear apocalypse poem published in a UMaine literary journal. My parents also had vinyl of the Kingston Trio playing "The Merry Minuet" at iconic NYC nightclub the hungry i. (With apologies for the typical white supremacist perspective that the continent of Africa is  analogous to nation-states.)

...Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.

And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.

They're rioting in Africa. There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.

After listening to that on repeat for several years, is it any wonder I flinched every time a plane flew overhead? Such was my childhood. 

Then there were the racial assassinations of the 60's. James Baldwin's prophetic book The Fire Next Time was on our shelves. It's a metaphor, it's Biblical, and it also coexisted with the arson that accompanied many riots. Cue Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose famous quote on that deserves its full context:

And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. [emphasis mine]

(Do I need to point out how much worse things have gotten for Black people in incarceration nation since MLK said that?)

So I've worried about inequality and injustice, and I've worried about U.S. wars with their destruction and self-inflicted moral injuries. 

Photo by Malcolm Browne for Associated Press

Back when the corporate press showed more of the news, we watched as a Buddhist monk in Vietnam died by self-immolation. Widely perceived as a protest against the war,  Thích Quang Duc's act called attention to persecution of Buddhists by the puppet government of South Vietnam in 1963.

Many years and many U.S. puppet governments later, it slowly became apparent that we should all be more aware of global warming and climate change ending us. And that wars and, more broadly, militarism are a big part of that.

A long preamble leading up to this news: 

a Buddhist burned himself to death in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Earth Day 2022 to call attention to extreme climate crisis.

This image from an unknown videographer appears to be a still from a video allegedly of Wynn Bruce's self-immolation, and an emergency responder trying to put the fire out.

But under the 21st century's corporate information control regime, hardly anybody heard about it.

Image source: UK Daily Mail "Pictured: Climate activist, 50, who died after lighting himself ablaze in front of the Supreme Court on Earth Day wrote '4/22/2022' and a fire emoji in a Facebook post from 2020"

In fact the first few stories about Bruce's act in the U.S. corporate press neglected to include...climate change. This is consistent with their focus on profits over life and is a major contributing factor to the increased threat of climate chaos.

The same is true of their chronic neglect of the military elephant in the climate change room. To know the facts about that, you'd need to turn to alternative media, or search out collections like this one.

Nonstop coverage of atrocities allegedly committed on behalf of the villain du jour pushes out useful, actionable information.

Today, as the world gallops toward nuclear confrontation in the proxy war between the U.S./NATO and Russia, U.S. taxpayers recently sent $1 billion in weapons to Ukraine's puppet government while the corporate press applauded and ice shelves collapsed.

Leading intellectuals wonder not if but how we will set ourselves on fire unto death. Will it be long painful years of heat, floods, drought, and sea level rise? Or a relatively brief nuclear war being inexplicably promoted by the talking heads employed to manufacture consent? Stay tuned.

Andrea Brower, Kaua'i Climate Forum On Military & Climate: 'This Is A Radically Underdiscussed Topic'

The Kaua'i Climate Forum invited me to present at their monthly zoom meeting on how the U.S. military contributes to climate chaos. Their January 12 forum included three outstanding climate and militarism activists based in Hawaii: Ann Wright of Veterans for Peace, Koohan Paik-Mander of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, and Kip Goodwin of Sierra Club. Here's the full recording:

Another Cost of War: The Military's Impact On The Climate Crisis forum

Like many zoom recordings, the first few minutes are spent waiting for attendees to enter the room, so I suggest you skip the first 4 minutes to get to Andrea's introduction of the sponsoring organizations, the topic, and the speakers. My 20 minute presentation with slides starts at the 10:45 point.

If you are short on time you can see just my recorded presentation here (the time difference between Maine and Hawaii made me beg off on presenting live way past my bedtime).

However, you will miss a lot if you don't hear the shorter presentations that follow mine. I've transcribed some excerpts from their remarks.

Andrea Brower, moderator, Gonzaga University adjunct faculty, Sociology & Environmental Studies:

This is a radically underdiscussed topic...we really can't talk about the climate crisis without discussing the U.S. military...Hawaii is where the U.S. military is arguably the biggest polluter, and Red Hill is just one example of many.

Ann Wright, retired Colonel U.S. Army & U.S. State Dept, organizer with Veterans for Peace:

"Most of the time we think of military pollution interms of what we've seen in wars...Iraq oil fields that were blown up...Iraq & Afghanistan burning pits...now dealing with the health problems that were caused...just as in the Vietnam war the health problems that were caused by Agent Orange...a legacy that the Vietnamese are still dealing with

Right here at Red Hill...we have 93,000 people most of them on military base housing...who are dealing with not having potable water...we are dealing with parts of the climate chaos, with how the repositories of fuel that the military says they have to have for national security... What is national security? Do you have n.s. when you're killing your own people with the materials that you're using for what you say in n.s.? our HI congressional delegation has picked upt hose terms. Congressman Kahele "the fuel insecurity is really n.s. & we've got to resolve this issue of having jet fuel 100 ft abo ve the main aquifer of Oahu."

Right here we're dealing with the tangible effects of military pollution

Marine Corps Osprey go out on training missions and they now are buzzing Molokai ...protests because these planes come in so low, shaking the windows...if you look at how much fuel they're using...the training and preparations are killing our enviro, killing our climate. something that well all here in the haw islands HI's congressional delegation which typically loves everything military gets huge amounts of their campaign funds from military-related industries. Well finally we have one time when our entire delegation has said no to the military & we need to keep after them to say no to the military which has been used to getting just as a matter of fact."

 

Laurel Brier, retired social worker & lead organizer for the Kaua'i Climate Forum: 

"[military emissions are] the whale in the room...there's no greening war

Bill McKibben's not talking about it, Greta's not talking about it" 

 

Koohan Paik-Mander, journalist & board member, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space:

"Spread the truth! The media is complicit, the Democrats are complicit...all we have is ourselves."

Kip Goodwin, peace and justice activist with Sierra Club & Democratic Party Environmental Caucus:

"Homeland Defense Radar Hawaii (HDRH) to be built [in one of two locations in Hawaii]...would have one purpose: to detect the launch of a intercontinental ballistic missile from North Korea ...this radar has lost support among DOD strategy planners ...because hypersonic missiles can evade the radar...the HDRH has been zeroed out of the last two defense auth bills in favor of a network of satellite detection systems... 

What's keeping the HDRH alive is procurements won by our congressional delegation...one thing Republicans and Democrats in Washington can agree on is voting more funding to the Pentagon than it even asks for...the military would invest $1 billion of our taxpayer structures in a tsunami-zone..sea level is expected to rise at that location 3 feet by the end of the century. The military's answer to that is to put the radar complex on a platform 27 acres...that would require 80,000 truckloads of concrete and in-fill...disrupting daily life and commerce for a year or more...

The background for all this is the headlong rush into a nuclear arms race.

Opinion polls show that the treaty... that makes ownership of a nuclear weapon illegal under international law signed by 86 countries has overwhelming support worldwide. But nuclear weapons state the U.S., influenced by the weapons industry, lacks the political will to pursue treaties to place limits on nuclear warheads and missiles. There can be no greater harm than a nuclear exchange."

My favorite comment during the discussion period came near the end.

Young antiwar activist SL:

"Whenever I hear people talking about climate change, especially young people, we're not very good at

making the connection to militarism around the globe, and connecting domestic capitalist failures to imperialist aggression abroad.

I'm curious because many of you have been working the space where climate change and antiwar efforts overlap, what do you think we can do as young activists to bring those two conversations together more and work together in organizing?

 

Ann Wright: 

"Have meetings and talk about the two subjects together. Have some good graphics that show the two subjects together...Host the dialog!" 

My comment: that could look like sharing this blog post, these presentations, and/or the research they were based on.

Or maybe you'd like to apply for this job newly created by the Conflict & Environment Observatory.

Vacancy: Campaigner (military and #ClimateChange)
Location: #HebdenBridge, UK, hybrid/remote.
Salary: £30,000. Hours: Full time – 37.5 hours. Contract: Until Dec 2023. Closing date: 18 Feb 2022. You must be eligible to work in the UK. 

More info: https://ceobs.org/vacancies

New Video By Military Emissions Researchers Reveals Truth About What's Driving #ClimateCrisis

Excited to share this newly published short video introducing many people to facts that have been hidden for far too long: 

the world's militaries, especially the U.S. military, are major contributors to climate crisis.

Climate change and the military: tracking their carbon emissions features researchers from the U.S. and UK discussing what they have found and also how difficult it was to find this information. (My note: by design.)

Why not share this video with your elected officials, friends, and family?

Late Stage Capitalism Is A Death Cult -- Change My Mind

Aerial view of candle factory in Kentucky before and after this week's tornado.
Source: MAXAR Technologies via Reuters

I was sleepy the other night when I thought my husband said that there had been a 200 mile wide tornado killing people in Kentucky. Turns out it was a mile wide tornado (bad enough) touching down over a 200 mile area in several states (quite bad) in December (clear sign of a climate in crisis).

What he didn't know at the time is that Amazon warehouse workers routinely deprived of their cell phones were buried under rubble when the roof collapsed.

Source: The Washington Time "OSHA opens probe into deadly Amazon warehouse collapse in Illinois"

Also that workers in Kentucky's Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory who heard warning sirens and tried to leave were threatened with firing if they departed. Some stayed and died, some left anyway, and some stayed and survived to tell the tale.

The economic system producing both galloping climate change and burgeoning military budgets that drive climate change is a death cult.

Usually the claim "capitalism is a death cult" applies these days to the absence of public health policy that protects, you know, public health. 

One cannot serve both commerce and health as the CDC has bent over backward to demonstrate.

In the second winter of a deadly pandemic the U.S. has racked up this dismal track record:

• no universal health care
• no free testing kits such as the rest of the world receives (and derision from the White House press secretary for even suggesting this would be a good idea)

Wow. This tweet took off. And contains some of the most accurate responses wrt our pandemic response here in the US.

Maybe at some point our FDA, CDC and administration will understand finally this is a PUBLIC HEALTH problem, and not a Medical problem to make $$ off of. Maybe. https://t.co/fUCMNTtw91

— Michael Mina (@michaelmina_lab) December 7, 2021

• vaccine mandates rather than empirically proven access + education + incentive methods

• feeble vaccine distribution to low income nations we share the planet's germ pool with

• miniscule economic relief for actual people (vs. corporations)

• huge growth in the numbers of unhoused people nationwide

• schools open despite higher infection levels and maxed out hospital ICUs nationwide

• widespread health care provider burnout

• obscene growth in wealth inequality

Extreme wealth inequality has been a significant force for toppling the social order throughout history. So have pandemics and other disasters.

Meanwhile, the engines of commerce churn on creating profits to buy off governments. Subsidies to fossil fuel corporations were $5.9 trillion in 2020, a whopping $11 million a minute.

That would buy a lot of testing kits. If only the U.S. prioritized life over profits.

Are Military And Space Programs Victims Of Climate Crisis Or Perpetrators?

Pentagon Planet by Anthony Freda

I'm back from a blogging break during National Novel Writing Month aka nanowrimo in November. I met the challenge of writing a 50,000 word first draft in 30 days; the jury is still out on whether or not it was time well-spent. If you're interested in being a reader who will provide feedback on Comfy Underpants (working title) depicting the effects on children of grinding poverty in late stage capitalism, leave a comment.

During November I collaborated on a few COP 26 related projects, including a virtual presentation for the People's Summit on behalf of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. I teamed up with Koohan Paik-Mander (GN board member in Hawaii) and Veterans for Peace members in the US (president Adrienne Kinne) and UK (David Collins) plus sponsoring organization the Institute for Policy Studies (Ashik Siddique) to present on US Militarism, Space Tech & Climate Crisis: the role of militarism in climate justice.

My presentation in the 90 minute webinar focused on Information Control and Perception Management Around Climate Impact of Space Programs.

To prepare I learned more about the parallels between US military programs and space programs, and their interconnection. For the TL,DW crowd (too long, didn't watch) I'll summarize my key points:

• The role of military in driving climate crisis has been hidden successfully up to now, but COP 26 was a turning point for climate activists if not for national governments.

• The role of space programs in harming climate is similarly hidden.

• Space programs are portrayed as non-military in nature despite the fact that NASA develops technology which is then used by the military.

• Focus on space programs' climate harms is confined in the press to private space programs.

• Both the military and space programs are portrayed as victims of climate crisis in the corporate press and in their own communications to the public.

Koohan's presentation on the militarization of the ocean around Hawaii including space and with disastrous effects on marine life was powerful and new information for many.

In the runup to COP 26, Peace Action Maine invited David Swanson of World Beyond War and Janet Weil of VFP's Climate Crisis & Militarism Project to speak on How the Pentagon Fuels Climate Crisis. 

I did the intro giving the context of the upcoming climate summit in Glasgow and what it might mean for our work, and PAM board member Devon Grayson-Wallace facilitated.

(Link here if embedded video does not work for you.)

COP 26 was a dismal failure in terms of halting runaway climate crisis.

 The non-binding agreements reached would, even if observed in full (highly unlikely), not keep carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions at safe levels. 

Greta Thunberg mocked the empty promises of elected officials (I can't bring myself to call them leaders): "Net zero, blah blah blah. Climate neutral, blah blah blah."

Images source: World Peace Ever TV

Youth and indigenous climate activists staged numerous actions to draw attention to the urgency of the crisis while world leaders went through the motions of taking meaningful action. Wealthy countries will continue to pollute with others bearing the brunt of the dire effects. What else is new?

Here's a simple direct action you can take right now. Pledge to connect the dots between our real security needs around climate and the enormous military emissions elephant in the room.

Source: research by Prof. Neta Crawford for the Costs of War project