Lucky Me, Unlucky Oceans

Two lucky things happened yesterday at Koohan Paik-Mander's talk in Brunswick: she presented me with a copy of Pentagon, Climate Change, and War by Neta Crawford, inscribed by the author who she had just been on retreat with and 2) a seaweed harvester I've corresponded with, Larch Hanson, showed up. His timing was impeccable as I'm just preparing for a talk next month against a proposed rocket launch site on the Maine coast adjacent to Acadia National Park. 

Larch and his partner Nina Crocker had come quite a ways to hear Koohan and they were not disappointed.

I suppose it was three lucky things, actually, because Koohan's talk was so good. I'd heard a version of it before when we worked together on a COP26 People's Forum webinar about climate and militarism, but the in-person wisdom and additional information were  tremendously thought-provoking.

Militarization of the oceans is no joke, is well underway, and creates wholesale slaughter of life forms -- like the ocean mammals who seem in many ways wiser than humans. By killing off whales or coral reefs, the war machine may actually kill off life on the planet by interfering with the ocean's basic functions e.g. its ability to sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide. 

And as we know, the heavens are now full of the satellites that are integral to modern weapons systems. Koohan described how every archipelago in the Pacific is infested with U.S. military installations, many brand new, and how the Pentagon is rapidly filling the oceans with sonar devices that will link up to satellites in order to threaten nuclear war on China. (Check out this radio interview  Koohan did with anti-nuclear activist Bob Anderson in New Mexico recently.)

A slide she shared mapped corporate entities' plans to put satellites overhead for the next five years:

What could go wrong?

As to why meeting Larch was so lucky, he's someone I've been needing and wanting to work with because he's from the town being targeted for a rocket launch site. As was discussed in the Q&A at Koohan's talk, launch sites all over the planet are part of the Pentagon's plan for full spectrum dominance. From New Zealand to Kodiak, Alaska residents experience the noise, pollution, and habitat destruction of rocket launches that were never going to be for military purposes but then somehow always are used for military purposes.

Here's an excerpt from the handout Larch shared with us about Steuben, Maine:

I look forward to generating more resistance to using the Maine coast for rocket launches. Bruce Gagnon and I will be speaking at the Common Ground Fair on Sunday September 24 at 9am and we've invited Larch to consider joining us as a co-presenter.

With islands around the northern hemisphere burning in the hottest summer yet, rocket launches from the rapidly warming waters off Maine are the next-to-last thing we need. 

WW3 with a nuclear-armed nation is the literal last thing we need and the furthest thing from lucky that I can imagine.

Koohan left us with some relevant lines from Alan Ginsburg's epic poem "Howl":

Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! 

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

Connecting The Dots With A Global Environmental Antiwar Perspective

I'm excited to welcome Koohan Paik-Mander to Brunswick, Maine this weekend. She and I are both on the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (GN) board together, but we've not met in person. This is typical of the GN as its directors, advisors, and members are found around the world e.g. South Korea, India, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and U.S. 

Where there is military degradation of the environment, including space and the planet's oceans, GN's  members are paying attention and reporting back, as well as often organizing resistance locally to military bases, rocket launch sites, and colonizer warmongering.

From Hawai'i, Koohan focuses on the oceans we all share. I got to know her better when we collaborated on a webinar during the 2021 People's Summit for Climate Justice at COP26  organized by Veterans for Peace. 

She's also been reporting from the U.S. war on China beat for a while now.

I've learned a lot from Koohan, a journalist who is also a strong researcher (remember when the two went hand in hand?). She wrote to me last fall when warplane jet fuel leaking into drinking water in Hawai'i was getting a lot of attention from environmental activists:

Even though the military is Hawaii's biggest economic driver after tourism, the preparation for war with China is tangibly scary, even for the rah-rah corporate media. When the local community saw that the Pentagon has been more than willing to forego safe drinking water from Oahu's only aquifer in order to push for war, articles started to appear that were more realistically critical. 

I'm glad the Global Network is here to connect these articles with you and others.

A big benefit of GN membership is the curated news feed. Koohan shared the photo above with us in November, 2022 and commented:

Aloha Friends,

We were overjoyed this morning by this sight. 

This photo was taken the first night of the first eruption since 1984 from the world's largest live volcano. Apparently, Madame Pele, the Fire Goddess, has decided that it's EVICTION TIME for the U.S. military. 

The 125,000-square-mile Pohakuloa Training Area is the largest live-fire training ground in the Pacific"

 

Despite the fact that its lease (for the whopping sum of $1.00) expires in 2029, some believe Pohakuloa might become the site of a U.S. Space Force base. Stay tuned for more on that.

If you're lucky enough to be in Maine, join us Sunday August 13 in Brunswick at the Curtis Memorial Library from 4-6pm. Light refreshments and an opportunity to hear from Koohan Paik-Mander, a unique and dedicated defender of the oceans!