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How the war industry contributes to global warming, and not to humanity

“Lockheed Martin has 21 paid lobbyists on Parliament Hill,”   “and none from environment, women or peace groups, which can’t afford it.”

War on Earth, THE COAST, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Against the people’s wishes, governments and the war industry choose destruction over protection.by Chris Benjamin, 25 March 2010,

If money talks, what does it say that Canada spends 12 times more on the Department of National Defence than it does on Environment Canada, and 120 times more on defence than it does on climate change mitigation?

Last year we spent $18.8 billion on defence, our largest single program expense, more than double what we spent on crown corporations, and three times what we spent on the departments of Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries & Oceans combined. The defence budget is our fastest growing expense and will surpass $30 billion in 2027.

We’re following the lead of the US, which has long been the big spender at the officer’s club. According to the Centre for Research on Globalization, in 2007 “the US Navy had 285 combat and support ships and around 4,000 operational aircraft. The US Army had 28,000 armored vehicles, 140,000 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, more than 4,000 combat helicopters, several hundred fixed-wing aircraft and 187,493 fleet vehicles.”

All those instruments of destruction run on oil and emit greenhouse gases. The US military is, in fact, the largest polluter in the world, and uses six percent of the world’s energy…….The world’s militaries release nearly a 10th of all carbon emissions, yet are exempt from international climate change treaties. That exemption was a neat trick by the Bush administration, which lobbied for it in Kyoto and still didn’t sign the damn treaty…….The impact of these “investments” is beyond tragic……..A leaked UK Atomic Energy report revealed that the 50 tonnes of depleted uranium unleashed on Iraq during the first Oil War could “cause up to half a million additional cancer deaths over several decades.”
Canadian values as expressed in polls. Our top priorities are always health, education and environment. So why does government spend this way?”Lockheed Martin has 21 paid lobbyists on Parliament Hill,” Lorincz says, “and none from environment, women or peace groups, which can’t afford it.”

Money talks.

War on Earth | Sustainable City | Halifax, Nova Scotia | THE COAST

March 27, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, weapons and war | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons