Greenwashing The War In Ukraine

Now in its second year, the war in Ukraine has already produced two ecological disasters: the largest methane release in history from the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, and an enormous flood of agricultural lands from the breach in the Nova Kakhova dam on the Dnieper River.

Both have been blamed on Russia, but thinking people aren't buying it. In both cases, Russia could have simply shut off the flow of gas or opened the floodgates without bombing anything. 

Enter luminaries of the climate movement to defend the empire's run up to WW3.

Greta Thunberg: 

This ecocide as a continuation of Russia's unprovoked[emphasis mine] full-scale invasion of Ukraine is yet another atrocity which leaves the world lost for words. 

Bill McKibben:

It’s amazing to watch people across the planet rallying to the defense of brave Ukraine—choirs singing outside Russian embassies, soccer teams refusing to play Russian teams. And it’s wonderful to watch governments rise to the occasion: shutting off airspace to Russian airplanes, or kicking them off international banking protocols.

Annalena Baerbock, German Green and German Foreign Minister:

Howie Hawkins, U.S. Green and 2020 candidate for president:

What's going on?

It's not like these folks don't know the outsize role that militarism plays in driving climate crisis.

The notion that fighting wars for access to fossil fuels requires a lot of fossil fuels has been both well-documented and, in recent years, widely shared. So how is it that Greens and other environmental advocates are suddenly cheerleaders for NATO's war on Russia?

It's not sudden, in fact. The leading national organizations focused on climate crisis in the U.S. have long since been infiltrated and hollowed out by the Democratic Party, and disinclined to criticize woke militarism. One of the DNC's many false dichotomies is Republicans bad for environment, Democrats good. This flies in the face of facts on the ground, both in the Biden administration and the Obama administration.

But the DNC strategy is really very clever: find movements with traction and then slowly control them from within while leaving their facades in place.

This is why environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, 35o.org et al. have consistently failed to oppose soaring Pentagon budgets, hundreds of military bases around the globe, air shows that burn highly polluting jet fuel for entertainment, and increasingly common rocket launches that damage shoreline breeding grounds.

Here in Maine a coalition effort to block construction of a rocket launch site just offshore from Acadia National Park drew zero support from any of the state branches of the organizations named above. The "orange man bad" hysteria promoted the false dichotomy belief that anything Democrats was, by contrast, good. But Dems serve the same corporations that Republicans do, and their immense failures to steward our crumbling ecosystem are right there for those with eyes to see them.

It's not strictly an environmental organization, but the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has also thrown down on the NATO side of the war in Ukraine.

My reply:

I do not "like" your tweet bashing Russia. Your pro-NATO stance is hurting your credibility with me. According your own account of who's spending on nukes, the U.S. is way out in front at $43.7 billion or $83,143 per minute (an interesting metric).

With its NATO allies UK & France, $56.1 billion vs. Russia's $9.6 billion. Which of these countries have used nuclear weapons? Depleted uranium? ICAN's mission of a nuclear ban has not & will not be realized if you continue to support U.S./NATO imperialism.

Hastening the likelihood of nuclear weapons use by provoking war with Russia -- and, incidentally, China -- is a crime against life on our planet. And there's nothing green about it.