{"id":630,"date":"2019-02-18T00:21:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T00:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?p=630"},"modified":"2019-11-25T17:33:37","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T17:33:37","slug":"material-world-the-military-contribution-to-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/material-world-the-military-contribution-to-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Material World: the military contribution to climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The United Nations Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change \nlast October made grim reading. Our planet is facing a crisis \nunprecedented in human history, one that some believe to be an \nexistential threat to civilisation itself. We are informed that a series\n of business and life-style reforms might lessen the worst effects of \nclimate change. But it is apparent that those scientific minds confirm \nthe maxim quoted by Frederic Jameson that \u2018It has become easier to \nimagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While conceding that the cause of climate change can be attributed to\n the effects of capitalism, we are told that is simply the way things \nare and that we people should change, not the economic system, with the \nmedia concentrating its commentary on the recommendations that \nconsumption of beef is reduced to a minimum and instead we adopt a \nplant-based \u2018flexitarian\u2019 diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing is clear, socialism will not be inheriting a healthy planet\n but the Socialist Party believes that with the disappearance of the \nworld\u2019s military and its accompanying armament industry, combined with \nthe end of all those auxiliary businesses of the buying and selling \nexchange economy, may well provide sufficient reduction of the \ngreenhouse gases for the process of fixing our broken planet to \ncommence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitalism drives war. If it were a country, the US Department of \nDefense would rank 34th in the world in average daily oil use, coming in\n just ahead of Sweden. The US military consumes as much energy as \nNigeria, with a population of more than 140 million. A 2012 \nCongressional report stated that the DoD consumed approximately 117 \nmillion barrels of oil per year. Based on this level of annual fuel \nconsumption, the DoD emits approximately 49 million metric tonnes of CO2\n into the atmosphere ever year, which is roughly equivalent to annual \ngreenhouse gas emissions from 10 million passenger vehicles or 4 million\n homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DoD uses 4.6 billion US gallons of fuel annually, an average of \n12.6 million gallons of fuel per day. The US military alone contributes 5\n percent of current global warming emissions. Military fuel is more \npolluting because of the fuel type used for aviation. CO2 emissions from\n jet fuel are larger \u2013 possibly triple \u2013 per gallon than those from \ndiesel and oil. Further, aircraft exhaust has unique polluting effects \nthat result in greater warming effect per unit of fuel used. Effects \nfrom jet exhaust, including nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide, soot and \nwater vapour exacerbate the warming effect of the CO2 exhaust emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electricity usage by the military, which accounts for even more \ngreenhouse gas emissions, is also gargantuan. In 2006, the DoD used \nalmost 30,000 gigawatt hours of electricity. The DoD\u2019s electricity use \nwould supply enough electricity to power more than 2.6 million average \nAmerican homes. In 2012, the DoD consumed about a billion gigawatt hours\n of site-delivered energy. While consuming that amount of energy, DoD \nemitted 70 million metric tons of CO2. And yet, total DoD energy use and\n costs are even higher simply because the energy use arising from the \ncontractors are not included in DoD\u2019s data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UK \u2018military\u2019 oil use was 7 million barrels in 2004 which was 1 \npercent of total UK oil consumption; similar to Namibia\u2019s total \nconsumption. CO2 emissions was 5 metric tons in 2005 (1 percent of total\n UK emissions; similar to Senegal\u2019s total emissions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this we must also add all the arms manufacturers who provide the \nmilitary with its armaments. For Raytheon, the defence contractor, \nemissions of greenhouse gas in 2011 were 522,000 metric tons, for \ninstance. Shutting down capitalism would not only stop the damage to our\n planet but all the human energy and endeavour that goes into the \nmilitary and the arms industries could be transformed into socially \nuseful projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Socialists envisage a strategy of re-aligning our allocation of \nenergy so that the rapid upgrading of the poor and vulnerable presently \nliving in misery and squalor is quickly resolved and then we achieve a \n\u2018steady-state economy\u2019 or a \u2018zero-growth\u2019 society which corresponds to \nwhat Marx called \u2018simple reproduction,\u2019 the situation where human needs \nare in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. We can endorse\n the statement of Sylvia Pankhurst that \u2018we do not preach a gospel of \nwant and scarcity, but of abundance. We do not call for limitation of \nbirths, for penurious thrift, and self-denial.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are not a party of abstinence and reject the view that individuals should consume less while leaving the economic system unchanged. However, we do envisage a new society where less is better. Less duplication of brands and no more throwaway built-in obsolescence but instead better quality recyclable, repairable and reusable products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALJO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change last October made grim reading. Our planet is facing a crisis unprecedented in human history, one that some believe to be an existential threat to civilisation itself. We are informed that a series of business and life-style reforms might lessen the worst effects of climate change. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2829,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions\/2829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}