Natural Guard Pledge: Speak Up To Call Out The Pentagon For Its Major Role In Causing Climate Chaos

The Eagle Creek wildfire burns in the background as golfers play at the Beacon Rock Golf Course in North Bonneville, Washington, on September 4, 2017.  Kate Beckwith, Facebook

My friend Janet Weil has been updating me about forest fires raging in the Columbia River basin. As the daughter of a forester, she is heartbroken at news that these forests may never be restored. Global warming means the conditions for such living organisms may no longer be present in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Meanwhile, another friend who relocated to the Florida Keys this year to teach school has finally updated her blog so I know that she and her family are alive. They evacuated to northern Florida and then, ultimately, to Alabama to get out of harms way from Hurricane Irene. They expect to find nothing left worth saving when they return home to see the effects of the 10 foot storm surge.

A new acquaintance who grew up in Texas told me last weekend that where he's from is either on fire or under water right now. Hurricane Harvey's toxic flood waters, full of fecal bacteria and chemicals from oil refineries, are a menace to life in Houston and an enormous surrounding area.

But hey, it's beautiful in Maine this time of year and a young moose was sighted at the end of our driveway a couple of days ago. 

The photo of golfers ignoring the raging fire in the distance kind of says it all.

This coming weekend I'll be at the Sierra Club of Maine's annual climate conference tabling for the Maine Natural Guard.

I'm going to be there because environmental organizations continue to ignore the carbon belching elephant in the room: the military. Liberals or progressives or whatever you want to call them willfully ignore the role of the Pentagon as the largest consumer of fossil fuels on the planet. It consumes more than many countries, and more than any other organization.

Should the Sierra Club really need to be reminded of this fact?

Actually, it's not a reminder because many people never knew this central truth about climate change to begin with.

The corporate media have done such a thorough job of directing our gaze away from the truth about the environmental, social and moral costs of the "war on terror" that the public remains profoundly ignorant.

Even socialist publications like Jacobin can publish an entire summer issue devoted to climate change and not mention the Pentagon or its wars once. WTF? (Janet sent them a corrective message. You can, too.)

Image: Anthony Freda

I'm looking forward to spending this Saturday with my husband and our friends Mary Beth Sullivan and Bruce Gagnon sharing some useful information. I'll also be offering people a chance to buy a good looking Maine Natural Guard t-shirt printed on 100% organic cotton.

People can join the Natural Guard from wherever they find themselves in climate chaos. 

Taking the pledge is easy. Just read it:

I pledge to speak out about the effects of militarism on our environment, because the commons we all share that sustain life are valuable to me. 

IN DISCUSSIONS ABOUT SECURITY and safety, we remind others of the need to count in the cost in pollution and fuel consumption of waging wars all around the planet.

IN DISCUSSIONS ABOUT ACTING SOON TO PROTECT OUR LOVED ONES FROM THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHAOS, we remind others of the need to examine the role of the Pentagon and its many contractors in contributing to planetary warming.

and click here to add your name.

Then, get busy sharing some truth.

P.S. If you can make it to Washington, DC this month you can attend the first ever (?!) conference to connect the dots between the Pentagon===>climate change. Details on No War 2017: War and the Environment here.