Time for Peace: Wars Bring Environmental Devastation
Wars are incredibly destructive not only because of the death tolls they bring, but also their mass contributions to global warming. War is currently one of the biggest climate threats the world is facing.
But why is war so horrible for the environment?
Military Contributions
The U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s single largest institutional consumer of oil, making it one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters. All of their heavy duty equipment including aircrafts, ships, vehicles, and more, require large amounts of energy. This energy comes in the form of fossil fuels, most commonly oil.
When you burn fossil fuels, it produces greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide. These greenhouse gas emissions are extremely damaging because they trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere. This creates several negative impacts on the environment including the furthering of global warming, air pollution, water pollution, ocean acidification, and much more. The machinery the U.S. military uses in particular emits extreme amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.
While the U.S. is a part of the United Nations, its military doesn’t report their greenhouse gas emissions to the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a way that would be able to tell us its impact. IPPC was created by the United Nations specifically to produce scientific assessments on climate change and potential future risks. The U.S. military reports their emissions to a ‘nonspecific’ category that holds other emission and waste data, including data from civilian waste incineration, which essentially makes it impossible to tell the exact amount of emissions the military is contributing. Though, it is estimated that militaries are responsible for about 5.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions globally.
Environmental Impact of War
War does not just further global warming, its negative environmental impacts can also be felt more immediately, mainly by the people residing in conflict zones. The people stuck in conflict zones often have to deal with consuming polluted resources.
Damage to buildings and roads can fill the air with debris and particles that make it harder to breathe. Large military vehicles can make this worse by kicking up the debris and filling the air even more. Discarded ammunition can leak uranium into water systems and when waste management systems collapse, people can be led to dumping human waste into water sources. Severe pollution can also occur when industrial energy facilities are deliberately attacked or destroyed by other efforts.
Even wildlife is not safe from the effects of war. Military ships often discard large amounts of waste into waters which leads to the degradation of marine life and ecosystems. Thousands of plants and animals are killed by the ongoing conflict. According to a study in Nature, upwards of 90% of the large animals present in areas of war can decline. Even just one year of war can cause massive long-term biodiversity loss.
From increasing pollution and global warming to contaminating human resources and devastating biodiversity, the impact of war is severely damaging and far-reaching. If we don’t advocate for more sustainable practices and less war, the environmental toll we are causing will become more than devastating.
