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

Luke Sekera-Flanders: Reconsider What It Means To Be A Patriot

 

Luke Sekera-Flanders, photo by Ellen Davidson

Growing up in a rural town and through attending public school, I was often exposed to military propaganda.

From kindergarten through 5th grade, each class would have to put on a patriotic performance for the school, whether singing songs like “Proud To Be An American,” making skits depicting war, or listing reasons why America was the greatest country in the world - mainly its military. At my high school, and at all sorts of community events, myself and other young teenagers were presented an enticing image of what military service could offer us: financial benefits, community, and purpose.

But as I learned through my own research, there is far greater reason to be opposed to militarism and the military-industrial complex. For one, investing in war as deeply as the U.S. has robs us of so many opportunities to pursue a healthier, safer future. Changes in our climate and environmental destruction pose an ever increasing threat to human health and safety, and the U.S. military is a leading contributor to this emerging crisis that is rarely addressed. According to a 2019 study, the military emits more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than 140 countries. 

my photo

The Blue Angels and shows like it serve as a recruiting tool and a flex of America’s air power, which has been consistently used to devastate civilians across the world as recently as last weekend, when a drone strike on a supposed ISIS target in Afghanistan killed 10 civilians, including 8 children. And because of the marriage between government and corporations, U.S. foreign policy, including decisions to go to war, are dictated by economic interests - and corporations who profit from war are happy to risk military and civilian lives for profit.

Imagine if we invested so much as a fraction of our swelling “defense” budget toward proactively mitigating the coming effects of climate change, such as water insecurity. As of 2014, there were 39,000 different sites in the U.S., including multiple waterways, that were severely contaminated because of environmental disregard by the military. The military supposedly exists for our security - and yet the threat of a coming water crisis has been practically ignored. Climate scientists warn that as climate change worsens, droughts will become more frequent and more severe, even in regions that had seen abundance of water. Water is the cornerstone of all life on earth, so as water scarcity worsens, it will take the forefront of geopolitical issues as the century progresses. A couple years ago, the World Economic Forum confirmed this, placing the probability of future wars being fought over water sources at 95%.

photo by Nickie Sekera

We need to invest in public water infrastructure now, so that corporations don't have their hand on the tap nor the excuse to drag us into an overseas war over water.

While corporate media and the mainstream of environmentalism insist that the solution to climate change can be achieved with consumer choices and electing milquetoast reformers, the real culprits go without any accountability.

Imperialism is costly in all respects.

It detracts from what could be invested in healthcare, education, environmental protection and social services. It subjugates, traumatizes, exploits, and robs self determination from people across the world, for little more than political utility and economic gain for corporations.

photo by Peter Woodruff

Its drain on resources and massive pollution condemns future generations to a future of resource scarcity.

We need to end the military-industrial complex, and reconsider what it means to be a patriot. 

-- Luke Sekera Flanders, Community Water Justice

All banners by the Artists' Rapid Response Team of the Maine Union of Visual Artists.

The Greatest Health Threat We Face Today: War

Meredith Bruskin holding sign "WAR = CLIMATE CHAOS" (photo credit: Gigi Larc)

Approaching the 20th anniversary of the climate disaster cleverly titled the "War on Terror" -- clever, because you're never going to win a war against an abstract noun -- I'm sharing some words of wisdom from a dear friend. 

Nurse practicioner Meredith Bruskin spoke on the theme "Climate is Health" at our protest of the Blue Angels air show climate crime last weekend in Brunswick. 

You can see video of her remarks if you prefer to receive information that way.

Mary Beth Sullivan & me with ARRT! banner and our Maine Natural Guard shirts
(photo credit: Gigi Larc)

Thank you Luke for speaking about the next generations, something that Indigenous People always consider. I would like to start by recognizing we are on Indigenous land. In addition to the Abenaki, the place we now call MaINE IS HOME TO THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE OF THE WABANAKI CONFEDERACY, THE PENOBSCOT, PASSAMAQUODDY,, MALISEET AND MI'KMAQ PEOPLES. We live on their unceded homelands as they continue their struggle with the State of Maine to recognize their inherent sovereignty.

Their struggle is central to the health of all Maine's people-- because it is a fight for the rights of Mother Earth and for community, against State and corporate control and disregard of our natural resources. And I want to express gratitude for their dedicated stewardship of this land and waters, for past, present and future generations.

When Lisa asked me to talk about climate and health, it seemed simple -- climate is health. The water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat -- all essential for our physical health. And when toxins and carcinogens spill into the earth and waters in the interest of corporate profits, cancers increase. We all know that plastic is choking our fish and oceans, burying islands in the South Pacific and spilling into the rivers here in Maine, that lead is poisoning our eagles and our children and tainting our tapwater, and carbon dioxide is strangling the breath of the entire planet--and stoking the cycles of droughts and floods and extreme weather patterns that are traumatizing people around the globe.

Gigi Larc with ARRT! sandwich board (photo credit: Mary Beth Sullivan)

And the pursuit of endless war to increase the profits of our arms dealers and their investors, militarize this country internally, and prop up a fossil fuel economy an d a political system built on white supremacy that has brought us to this raging time, all have a terrible cost in mental health and spirit. Our worsening addiction crisis is no surprise. PTSD from Climate crisis and war are rampant; and we are still losing 18 veterans every day, to suicide.

Jason Rawn with a message for Blue Angels air show audience
(photo credit: Mary Beth Sullivan)

The greatest health threats we face today are war and the existential threat of nuclear war

either by accident or climate catastrophe or what I would call, insanity -- and the risk of a climate disaster causing a nuclear meltdown is terribly real -- I imagine folks in Louisiana understand that really well right now.

Every climate catastrophe causes illness, stress that affects our immune systems, trauma, displacement and increased pollution of our land and waters that in turn causes an increase in illness and lowers life expectancy. And we know the connection to the unequal burden of both climate change and militarism on people of color, indigenous peoples, and the poor.

This pandemic gives us a clear view of the effect on health of the deep inequality in our society. We CAN afford healthcare for all our citizens. It would actually save us money to have a Medicare for All system, and it would save thousands of lives yearly as well. Surely, the money spent on displays promoting the military like the Blue Angels could be a hefty down payment for maternal healthcare, and to support Women's Right to Choose! -- let alone that just half of the Pentagon's budget could wipe out hunger nationwide.

Recently about 50 people, activists like us, walked in Asheville, North Carolina to protest Raytheon -- the second largest arms manufacturer world wide -- relocating part of its manufacturing to North Carolina for cheaper labor, in a "military" supporter state.

Speaking out about military spending and the effect this will have on the climate crisis, one of the protestors, Steve Norris said: " This is local resistance to a national disease."

Exactly. We each do whatever we can to choose health over the disease of power by wealth and the war and disaster economy that supports it. Despite the fire raging, we continue. That is what we do. Just like the healthcare workers who are currently risking their lives and exhausting their spirits in their work caring for people in this pandemic, likely a virus very connected to the climate crisis. Just as the indigenous and environmental activists at Line 3 and at pipeline sites around the world who risk arrest and beatings--and in some cases, their lives, continue--so do we.

We will not let them glorify destruction in our name without speaking out.

And every time we speak the truth, we shore up our immune systems and together, share that strength. Despite . Thanks for being here.

I would like to read a poem I dedicate to all of you, called "Despite"...

Cold crisp day, close to breaking

wafer thin , lifted gently

from its lair between tissues

of time : what was, what will be.

And it will. Filled with sky as

translucent as breath

and just as new, these mountains

shared with all their valleys

and companions, oh the friends

that walk with us along the way!

Rich as rain after a long dry time,

as a fire, on a cold winter night.

For this, beloved, I sing my song.

This is the light

that the heart carries.

Despite. Despite.

-- Meredith Bruskin, Swanville

Despite a large turnout and great speeches like Meredith's, there was very little media coverage of our protest of the Blue Angels air show. This despite advance press releases and follow up calls.

You can read Sam Pfeifle's analysis of this news blackout here, published by Maine Beacon. 

Notable exception: C. Thacher Carter in the Times Record who phoned me after the event. His article covering the air show also appeared in the Portland Press Herald, Lewiston Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal, and Waterville Morning Sentinel (all papers with the same owner).

Polluting Isn't Patriotic And Real Angels Don't Drop Bombs

The Navy's Blue Angels are major polluters who generate around 800,000 tons of CO2 when they put on an airshow. 

Photo credit (including whole group pic): Ellen Davidson

Sixty people from ages 94 to 1 turned out to protest yesterday in Brunswick, Maine, lining the streets as hundred of cars bumper to bumper crept by.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

Luke Sekera-Flanders of Community Water Justice was our MC and spoke forcefully on the mandatory patriotism he has experienced growing up and attending public schools in Maine.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

The recent high school graduate also shared the costs to climate of the U.S.'s vast military empire.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

Bruce Gagnon of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space spoke about the menacing presence of US military aircraft in countries around the world, and shared that Brunswick resident Jean Parker’s sliding glass door shattered on Friday as the Blue Angels did their practice runs prior to the air show.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

I spoke on behalf of the Maine Natural Guard urging people to take the pledge to help their neighbors connect the dots between climate crisis and Pentagon greenhouse gas emissions. Information on this has been controlled because military emissions are usually omitted from national reporting by the US. Urged people to sign on to demands that COP26 in Glasgow this fall include military emissions in the agreement that nations negotiate there.

Photo credit: Gigi Larc

Meredith Bruskin of Swanville spoke from a public health nurse perspective on the effects of climate crisis on our physical, mental, and spiritual health. And of militarism's damage to our spiritual well-being.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

VFP national Executive Director Garret Reppenhagen who has recently moved to Lincolnville, Maine spoke about enlisting to go to Iraq for economic reasons after his veteran father passed away. He decried the glorification of war via air shows that lure unsuspecting youth into signing away years of their life and possibly experiencing trauma they never recover from.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

Tarak Kauff from New York spoke about the Pentagon’s environmental harms and the militarized culture we live in.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

The IDEAL Maine Social Aid & Sanctuary Band showed up and energized the crowd with several rousing numbers including a singalong of classic antiwar anthem “Down by the Riverside.”

Flyers on climate & militarism were handed through many car windows by Veteran for Peace members including Doug Rawlings, co-founder of VFP which originated in Maine.

Photo credit: Gigi Larc

Banners created by the Artists' Rapid Response Team (ARRT!) of the Union of Maine Visual Artists were highly visible to passing motorists.

Photo credit: Gigi Larc

My husband Mark Roman was spotted in his Maine Natural Guard t-shirt in downtown Brunswick later in the day by a woman who noted that there was a big protest at the air show today. She shared that her mother had made a sign for the occasion: Polluting Isn't Patriotic.

Our protest was also included in the local newspaper Times Record's reporting on the air show by C. Thacher Carter:

The Blue Angel performances also drew a crowd of roughly 60 protestors, who spoke out against the environmental impact of the Blue Angel performance. Protestors stood near the main gate at the corner of Bath Road and Admiral Fitch Avenue late Saturday morning.

Lisa Savage, founding member of Maine Natural Guard and 2020 U.S. Senate Independent Green candidate, was one of the protestors present. The Maine Natural Guard is an organization that examines the Pentagon’s use of fossil fuels and its impact on climate change.

“This protest was to point out that the carbon footprint of an airshow like this, the Blue Angels, is huge and putting a lot, a lot of carbon in the air,” Savage said. “To be burning jet fuel for entertainment is probably not a great approach to mitigating the effects of the climate change on the ability of this planet to sustain our life.”

Savage said that the group also has the point of view that the airshows are recruiting events to encourage enlistment and that there are 140 nations that consume less fuel than the Pentagon does in a year.

Videographer Martha Spiess was on hand for Peace Action Maine and I will share her documentation of this great event soon.

The Fire This Time

Nagasaki in August, 1945 Source: HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES

This month, a hot one in the Global North, is when we remember the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two types of nuclear weapons. This month the old lies will be trotted out: the U.S. ended the war and saved countless (American soldiers') lives by dropping these bombs. 

This month the old lies will be refuted -- eloquently and with copious references by David Swanson in Hiroshima is a Lie among other places.

Anyone paying attention to WWII actual history rather than the History Channel (some say, Hitler Channel) version knows that Japan was about to surrender. And the U.S. government knew it. The unnecessary firepower was primarily intended as a show of strength to warn the U.S.S.R. that, with Nazi Germany defeated -- primarily by the U.S.S.R. -- the U.S. was the new bully on the block.

But firebombing cities full of civilians was nothing new in 1945. The U.S. had already burned up many cities in Japan and Germany. 

And burning civilians to death has continued as the signature act of aggression by U.S. forces.

Napalm was developed, a jellied form of petroleum, to burn Vietnamese jungles and people.

Drones were developed to deliver Hellfire missiles remotely without risk (other than debilitating moral injuries to last a lifetime) to the bombers.

White phosphorus was developed to burn on contact and keep burning deep into the flesh. It's used extensively by Israel and the U.S. on civilian populations.

And now come global raging fires, a result of runaway military use of fossil fuels which is accelerating rather than abating in the face of climate emergency.

Source:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/07/apocalyptic-scenes-hit-greece-as-athens-besieged-by-fire?
Joseph Galanakis/Rex/Shutterstock

Greece is on fire, with ground temperatures beyond belief.

Oregon has gone almost two months without rain and is burning.

Just two examples out of many.

When will we stop burning up people, animals, fish, birds, and forests for profit?

When will we realize that to live by the sword of fire is to die by the sword of fire?

Respect to the environmental activists begging us to find a better way to live, throwing their spanners into the works of late stage capitalism.

Respect to the nuclear resistance activists begging us to realize that any further deployment of nuclear weaponry spells doom for humans as a species.

In the face of facts on the ground, why does the U.S. keep building nuclear weapon systems? For profit, of course. The revolving door between the Pentagon and military contractors guarantees that these deadly contracts keep rolling in. 

Source: https://jpegy.com/artsy/you-cannot-eat-money-33756

Indigenous wisdom is ignored at a time in history when listening and heeding could save us. 

Will we listen in time to save us from the fire this time?