Censored 2011: US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet

(Photo: Nate Bierschenk)

Ahhhh Copenhagen, home of the semi-recent U.N. Climate Change Conference. A beautiful city that I had the chance to visit while I was studying abroad last fall. This is a picture that I took of an exhibit put on before the conference titled, "100 Places to Visit Before they disappear." The Danish exhibit featured 100 pictures of places at serious risk of environmental endangerment resulting from global warming.

What I found when I read the chapter "US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet" in Censored 2011, was that although the US Department of Defense is easily the largest polluter of carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions, it was deemed free from any discussion during the conference. Sara Flounders writes in her article, "By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements." Throughout all of the US Military's operations, it has never been held responsible for the effects of its activities on the environment. During negations for the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the US demanded that any military operations worldwide, including those in participation with the UN and NATO, be exempted from measurement or reductions. To add insult to injury, the US under the Bush administration promptly refused to sign the protocol altogether, and instead urged Congress to pass a provision guaranteeing the US military exemptions from any energy reduction or measurement. According to Lucinda Marshall, director of the Feminist Peace Network, "The US Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous wast than the five largest US chemical companies combined." Her article contends that Depleted uranium, petroleum, oil, pesticides, defoliant agents such as Agent Orange, lead, along with various amounts of radiation from weaponry produced, tested, and used, are only some of the pollutants from which the US military is contaminating the environment.

According to the report, The Military's Impact on The Environment: A Neglected Aspect of the Sustainable Development Debate, discusses the links between the military, the environment, and human security. It lists the Military stresses on the Environment as; Pollution of the air, land and water in peacetime; the immediate and long-term effects of armed conflict; militarization of outer space; nuclear weapons development and production; and land use. This paper shows how military's from around the world negatively affect the world's environment. It contends that the world's military forces lone are responsible for the release of more than two thirds of the worlds Carbon Dioxide. It continues, "During the Cold War alone, as results of naval accidents there are at least 50 nuclear warheads and 11 nuclear reactors littering the ocean floor. There are more nuclear nuclear reactors at sea than on land. The Pentagon generates five times more toxins than the five major US chemical companies combined. "

The Following are examples of pollution caused by the US military from the article in Censored 2011.

• Depleted uranium: Tens of thousands of pounds of microparticles of radioactive and highly toxic waste contaminate the Middle East, Central Asia and the Balkins.
  
• Thirty-five years after the Vietnam War, dioxin contamination is three hundred to four hundred times higher than "safe" levels, resulting in severe birth defects and cancers into the third generation of those affected.
  
• US military policies and wars in Iraq have created severe desertification of 90 percent of the land, changing Iraq from a food exporter into a country that imports 80 percent of its food.
  
• In the US, military bases top the Superfund list of the most polluted places, as perchlorate and trichloroethylene seep into the drinking water, aquifers, and soil.
• Nuclear weapons testing in the American Southwest and the South Pacific Islands has contminated millions of acres of land and water with radiation, while uranium tailings defile Navajo reservations.
  
• Rusting barrels of chemicals and solvents and millions of rounds of ammunition are criminally abandoned by the Pentagon in bases around the world.