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US Militarism Is a Leading Cause of the Climate Catastrophe

US military interventions are not just wars on people — they’re also wars on the climate.

By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout, September 10, 2024

This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.

After the U.S. invaded Iraq, an estimated half a million Iraqis were killed and at least 9.2 million were displaced. From 2003-2011, more than 4.7 million Iraqis suffered from moderate to severe food insecurity. Over 243,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan/Pakistan war zone since 2001, more than 70,000 of them civilians. Between 4.5 and 4.6 million people have died in the post-9/11 wars.

The U.S.’s “war on terror” also escalated the climate catastrophe, resulting in local water shortages and extreme weather crises that are only getting worse. In 2022, Afghanistan had its worst drought in 30 years and it is facing a third consecutive year of drought. “The war has exacerbated climate change impacts,” Noor Ahmad Akhundzadah, a professor of hydrology at Kabul University, told the New York Times.

Meanwhile in the current moment, U.S. military assistance to Israel’s genocidal campaign is also intensifying the climate crisis.

As we look back across more than two decades of the “war on terror,” it is clear that many lives will be saved if we can bring a halt to U.S. military interventions throughout the world and simultaneously target the U.S. military’s catastrophic contributions to the climate crisis that threaten us all.

“The U.S. military is the single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world,” Taylor Smith-Hams, U.S. senior organizer at 350.org, a global climate justice organization, said at a workshop on the Impact of Current Wars on Climate Crisis at the Veterans For Peace (VFP) Convention on August 17. “Militarism and war are key drivers of the climate crisis,” she added, citing fighter jets, warships and the U.S.’s massive constellation of military bases throughout the world.

Climate Effects of the “War on Terror”

On September 11, 2001, 19 men committed suicide and took roughly 3,000 people with them by flying two airliners into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one into a field in Pennsylvania. None of the hijackers hailed from Afghanistan or Iraq; 15 came from Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, the Bush administration illegally invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and overthrew their governments, then killed, injured and tortured nearly three-quarters of a million of their people.

Beyond the terrible death tolls in both countries, a lesser known consequence of the “war on terror” was the exacerbation of the climate catastrophe, both in the countries targeted by the war and globally.

Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol excluded military emissions from the counting of national emissions figures, U.S. military emissions are significantly undercounted. Although militaries are a significant source of carbon emissions, little is understood about their carbon footprint.

Beyond the terrible death tolls … a lesser known consequence of the “war on terror” was the exacerbation of the climate catastrophe, both in the countries targeted by the war and globally.

One of the first studies to expose direct and indirect military emissions as a result of combat was conducted by Benjamin Neimark, Oliver Belcher, Kirsti Ashworth and Reuben Larbi. They examined the use of concrete “blast walls” by U.S. forces in Baghdad, Iraq, from 2003-2008, the first five years of Bush’s “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” to measure the carbon footprint of the war. Concrete walls and barriers were also used in U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Kandahar and Kabul, Afghanistan, from 2008-2012 during “Operation Enduring Freedom.” (Although these two wars did not bring freedom, their effects on the climate crisis are enduring.)

While occupying Baghdad, the U.S. military erected hundreds of miles of blast walls in order to control the urban population pursuant to its counterinsurgency strategy. “Effective weaponisation of concrete has an extraordinary carbon footprint,” Neimark, Belcher, Ashworth and Larbi wrote. “The large carbon footprint comes mainly from the amount of heat and energy in cement production, the main ingredient in concrete.”

The logistical movement of troops, convoys, weapons, supplies and equipment, as well as firepower itself, carry a direct carbon cost. Jet propulsion fuel for fighter jets is a major culprit. U.S. military fuel use is “one of the largest single institutional carbon polluters in modern history,” the researchers wrote. But the indirect emissions in blast walls that result from the concrete supply chains that furnish the U.S. military are also substantial, Neimark and his coauthors argue.

“Parts of Afghanistan have warmed twice as much as the global average” New York Times international climate reporter Somini Sengupta wrote in 2021, and the war has intensified the impact of climate change.

Afghanistan ranks in the top 10 countries undergoing extreme weather conditions, including droughts, storms and avalanches, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported a year ago. Afghanistan ranks fourth among countries with the highest risk of a crisis and eighth on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of nations most vulnerable and least prepared to deal with climate change.

The story of what happened in Afghanistan provides a chilling example of the long-term consequences of war on climate change. Decades from now, Gaza, which was already vulnerable to the climate crisis before October 7, 2023, will invariably suffer increased climate effects from Israel’s current genocidal campaign. “Climate consequences including sea level rise, drought and extreme heat were already threatening water supplies and food security in Palestine,” Nina Lakhani wrote in a January article in The Guardian. “The environmental situation in Gaza is now catastrophic.”

Emissions From U.S.-Aided Israeli Genocide Have “Immense” Effect on Climate Crisis

Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinian people, and likely many more. During the first two months of Israel’s genocidal campaign, emissions that warmed the planet exceeded the annual carbon footprint of over 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, according to a study by Benjamin Neimark, Patrick Bigger, Frederick Otu-Larbi and Reuben Larbi. Roughly 281,000 metric tons of war-related carbon dioxide were emitted in the first two months of the war following October 7, 2023. More than 99 percent of these emissions resulted from Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza and U.S. supply flights to Israel. The climate cost was equivalent to the burning of at least 150,000 tons of coal. Almost half of the emissions were caused by U.S. cargo planes flying military supplies to Israel. Hamas rockets fired into Israel accounted for the equivalent of 300 tons of coal, an indicator of the asymmetry of Israel’s war on Palestine.

“The role of the US in the human and environmental destruction of Gaza cannot be overstated,” said Patrick Bigger, coauthor of the study and research director at the thinktank Climate + Community Project (CCP). During the VFP workshop, Bigger called it an “environmental Nakba.”

The story of what happened in Afghanistan provides a chilling example of the long-term consequences of war on climate change.

David Boyd, UN special rapporteur for human rights and the environment, said, “This research helps us understand the immense magnitude of military emissions — from preparing for war, carrying out war and rebuilding after war. Armed conflict pushes humanity even closer to the precipice of climate catastrophe, and is an idiotic way to spend our shrinking carbon budget.”

“From an ecological perspective, there is no such thing as an ‘effective’ or ‘green’ technology or military,” Neimark, Belcher, Ashworth and Larbi, coauthors of the concrete blast wall study, found. While Israel touts itself as a global leader in climate change adaptation and mitigation, it is actually engaged in “greenwashing” — misleading marketing practices to make policies appear more environmentally friendly. Indeed, “Israel’s green technologies are fundamentally structured by the Zionist project of appropriating Palestinian lands,” Sara Salazar Hughes, Stepha Velednitsky and Amelia Arden Green argue in their 2022 article, “Greenwashing in Palestine/Israel: Settler colonialism and environmental injustice in the age of climate catastrophe.”

Israel’s systems of waste management, renewable energy and agricultural technologies (“agritech”) are actually mechanisms for appropriation and dispossession of Palestinian territory, according to Hughes, Velednitsky and Green. Although Israel promotes itself as a responsible steward of Palestinian lands, “Israeli sustainability sustains settler colonialism.”

“Climate crisis in Palestine cannot be detached from the Israeli occupation. The brutal and extensively documented apartheid regime that Israel imposes and maintains over Palestinians is fundamentally incompatible with the tenets of climate justice,” Patrick Bigger, Batul Hassan, Salma Elmallah, Seth J. Prins, J. Mijin Cha, Malini Ranganathan, Thomas M. Hanna, Daniel Aldana Cohen and Johanna Bozuwa wrote for the think tank CCP.

Bigger and his coauthors cite Israel’s settler-colonial campaign to replace native olive groves with nonnative plants that reduce biodiversity, increase susceptibility to fire and put unsustainable pressure on natural resources. Palestinians, they write, are much more vulnerable than Israelis to the effects of climate change. “While Palestinians are displaced to support Israel’s renewable energy industry, Palestinian solar projects are destroyed as ‘illegal constructions,’ having failed to secure permits from Israeli authorities.”

As the largest provider of military hardware to the Israeli regime, the U.S. government is “directly complicit” in Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. “An immediate, permanent ceasefire and the end of US funding for Israeli apartheid and occupation is needed to halt the ongoing violence and address the driving forces of climate breakdown in Palestine,” Bigger and coauthors wrote.

About 20 percent of the U.S. military’s annual operational emissions is devoted to protecting fossil fuel interests in the Gulf, which is warming twice as rapidly as the rest of the world, according to Neta Crawford, author of The Pentagon, Climate Change and War. Nevertheless, the U.S. and other NATO countries are largely concerned with climate change as a national security threat. They don’t focus on their contributions to it.

“Here in the U.S., our government continues to dump enormous amounts of money into death and destruction at home and around the world, while cutting social programs and refusing to adequately contribute to international climate finance commitments, always with the excuse that there isn’t enough money,” Smith-Hams said at the VFP workshop.

Our anti-militarism work should target the U.S. military’s devastating contributions to the climate crisis. Our future depends on it.

For more information, see the Climate Crisis & Militarism Project of Veterans For Peace.

Marjorie Cohn

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She sits on the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace. A member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, she is the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.

September 13, 2024 Posted by | climate change, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Let’s Just Fight’: How Britain Prefers War Over Peace in Ukraine

Boris Johnson avoided promoting a compromise peace in Ukraine after Russia invaded. Now, Labour continues to help prolong the conflict to secure British interests.

DECLASSIFIED UK, MARK CURTIS, 9 September 2024

Last week, defence secretary John Healey announced that the UK “will continue to step up our support to help Ukraine achieve victory” in its war with Russia.

Both he and foreign secretary David Lammy have repeatedly said “Labour will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to win”. 

When President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukrainian forces conducted an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region last month, Healey praised the move as “bold”, saying it put Russian president Vladimir Putin “under pressure”.

Equipment used in that offensive included UK-supplied Challenger tanks sent to Ukraine last year.

Prime minister Keir Starmer has also told Zelensky he is willing to allow Ukraine’s use of UK-supplied long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia – provided the US agrees to it.

Despite Labour’s public relations about “change” during the general election, Lammy has consistently said that “with Labour there will be no change in the UK’s financial, military, diplomatic and political support for Ukraine”.


The consequences of this are hard to overstate. Since Russia’s brutal invasion, inflicting untold misery on millions of Ukrainians, bombarding civilians and committing war crimes, UK governments have been overwhelmingly focused on one thing – “winning” the war.

Yet one thing Whitehall has conspicuously avoided is making serious attempts at promoting a compromise peace that would end the fighting.

Indeed, one casualty of Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russia is that it derailed secret talks to negotiate an agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure, according to the Washington Post.

There are specific reasons Whitehall prefers war over peace in Ukraine. It is worth going back to the very first chance negotiators had to end this devastating conflict soon after Russia invaded. 

Scuppering peace prospects

There is considerable evidence showing the UK helped scupper the prospects for peace within a few weeks of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

The following month, direct peace negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian delegations and mediation efforts by the then Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, created a genuine chance for ending the war peacefully.

Meeting in Turkey, the two sides produced the Istanbul communiqué in late March 2022 in which Ukraine promised not to join Nato or allow foreign military bases on its soil. For its part, Russia promised to withdraw its occupation troops from Ukraine, although not from the Donbas region or the Crimea. 

David Arakhamia, the parliamentary leader of Zelensky’s “Servant of the People” party who led Ukraine’s delegation in the talks, later revealed that Moscow was “ready to end the war if we took neutrality… and made commitments that we would not join Nato”. 

This was the key point”, he said in an interview in 2023.

Reports suggest Zelensky was then prepared to give up Nato membership and that he understood this was the key issue for Moscow. “And as far as I remember, they started a war because of this”, he said at the time.

‘Permanent neutrality’

Russia and Ukraine appeared relatively close to a deal that would “have ended the war and provided Ukraine with multilateral security guarantees, paving the way to its permanent neutrality and, down the road, its membership in the EU”, according to one detailed study…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

‘Keep fighting and dying’

In their summit in Brussels on 24 March 2022, Nato decided to oppose peace negotiations until Russia had fully withdrawn all its troops from Ukraine. 

By early April, the Washington Post was reporting that “For some in Nato, it’s better for Ukrainians to keep fighting and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too soon or at too high a price for Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who acted as one of the mediators in the Istanbul talks, later said that “nothing could happen because everything else was decided in Washington…. the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They first had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed.”

Enter Boris Johnson

As talks were approaching a possible agreement, UK prime minister Boris Johnson arrived unannounced in Kyiv on 9 April 2022. 

A report in Ukrainska Pravda noted that Johnson brought two messages: “The first is that Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with”, and “the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements or guarantees, they [the collective West] are not”.  

Before his visit, Johnson “instructed” Zelensky “not to make any concessions to Putin”, columnist Simon Jenkins wrote in the Guardian.

David Arakhamia said that Johnson had come to Kyiv to inform Ukrainian officials the West wouldn’t sign any agreement with Moscow, instead urging: “let’s just fight.”……………………………………………..

Peace feelers

The March/April 2022 negotiations may have produced the best opportunity to bring about a compromise peace, but there have been others since.

It is difficult to gauge whether the peace feelers put out by the Kremlin over the past two and half years are simply part of its propaganda strategy or serious attempts to end the fighting. The reason is that they have never been seriously tested by Washington and London……………………………………………………………..

Total war

The US and UK have long publicly rejected talks based on anything other than Russia’s complete withdrawal from Ukraine. 

This principled position might have merit but for the real world intervening. Aggressors should surely not be rewarded in international relations, but this is something that applies as much to the US/UK in Iraq or Libya, or Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, as to Russia in Ukraine. 

Only in the case of Ukraine, however, has the UK held to the high-minded position that Moscow must withdraw all its forces before any peace moves can be considered.

The second obvious truth is that holding to the position of regaining full control over all Ukrainian territory – including the disputed areas in the Donbas and the Crimea – is simply a recipe for ongoing war.

As leading analyst Anatol Lieven has written, “To recover everything it has lost since 2014 looks impossible. It would require the total defeat of the Russian military.”

Yet this appears to be what Keir Starmer wants. “This terrible conflict must end with the defeat of Putin in Ukraine”, the then UK opposition leader said in the House of Commons in 2023.

Although Zelensky vows to fight on, some senior Ukrainian figures are more than aware of the need for pragmatism. ………………………………………………….

What does Britain want?

To the UK establishment, the Ukraine war is a proxy one against Russia, its key rival for influence in Europe. 

With Ukraine as the latest battleground in a modern great game, Whitehall’s main goal is to maintain Russia as a pariah state and end its independent foreign policy, which challenges Nato’s supremacy in Europe and, to an extent, the Middle East. 

The war has enabled the UK to cement relations with an important new ally. UK officials have barely hidden their glee at overcoming their European competitors to get to Kyiv first. ……………………………………………………

MI6 in Ukraine

It turns out that British intelligence was increasingly active in Ukraine for years before Russia’s invasion – a remarkable turnaround from the blackout of the Cold War years.  

A bombshell New York Times investigation in February 2024 notes that the CIA established 12 secret “forward operating bases” along Ukraine’s border with Russia in the decade before 2022…………………………………………………..

According to the New York Times, in the run-up to the 2022 invasion, the head of one of Russia’s intelligence services reported to Putin that CIA and MI6 were controlling Kyiv and were turning the neighbouring country “into a beachhead for operations against Moscow.”

In other words, “Ukraine was drawn into a Western coalition for the purpose of waging a broad-based shadow war against Russia”, comments Mark Episkopos, a fellow at the Quincy Institute.

He adds: “Moscow repeatedly warned — for many years before 2014 — that it was and remains prepared to take drastic action to prevent Ukraine from being used by the West as a forward operating base against Russia. Yet that, as recounted in lurid detail by the New York Times, is precisely what has happened over the past 10 years”.

This budding intelligence relationship has been cemented by the war itself. US Defense Department documents leaked in March 2023 showed Britain then had the largest number of special forces operating in the country, with 50 troops. 

War profits

Courting Ukraine as a new ally has major benefits for the UK arms industry, which exerts enormous influence over Whitehall’s foreign policies. War is good for them, peace not so much.

In the ten years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, UK arms companies sold only £35m in military equipment to Kyiv. That figure has skyrocketed since February 2022 to over £800m. 

UK arms corporations have secured a new, lucrative market……………………………………….

The war is a boon right across the UK’s substantial military industry: Britain has sent around 400 different military capabilities to Ukraine since 2022.

For US arms companies, the prize has been even greater. Washington has provided over $150bn worth of military equipment and aid to Ukraine since 2022.

Endgame

Journalist Branko Marcetic has long documented reports highlighting Western opposition to Ukraine peace prospects. 

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny the war in Ukraine could have been ended mere months into the Russian invasion — and that the US and UK governments worked to prevent this from happening”, he writes. 

If a compromise peace holds little value for the British elite, what does “winning” mean? A war with Russia? 

In May this year the UK and US publicly gave Ukraine the go-ahead to use British-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia, saying it was up to Kyiv whether to do so. 

That decision appeared to cross a line. With senior British military figures saying the UK must be prepared to fight a war with Russia, who knows what endgame is being planned in Whitehall, or what Keir Starmer’s limits might be. https://www.declassifieduk.org/lets-just-fight-how-britain-prefers-war-over-peace-in-ukraine/

September 13, 2024 Posted by | UK, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel kills 40 in Gaza “humanitarian zone”

Electronic Intafada Maureen Clare Murphy, 10 September 2024

Israel massacred at least 40 Palestinians by bombing tents housing people displaced from other areas of Gaza in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, early Tuesday, according to the government media office in the territory.

The health ministry in Gaza recorded the deaths of 19 individuals whose bodies were brought to hospitals. The media office explained that its higher fatality count includes 21 people whose bodies were not recovered because they were totally obliterated by the heavy weapons dropped on them.

Crews were still searching for missing persons, the government media office added. Video of the aftermath of the strike in al-Mawasi shows a 30-foot-deep crater in the sand where tents once stood:

Israel claimed without proof that it targeted a command center belonging to Hamas, which denied that any of its fighters were present.

This is a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes,” Hamas stated. The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or use these places for military purposes.”

UN “deplores” attack

The UN human rights office stated that it “deplores” the attack on al-Mawasi, which Israel had unilaterally designated as a “humanitarian zone.”

Instead of ensuring the safety of displaced Palestinians, the Israeli military “continues to choose to use weapons with wide area effects in these increasingly densely populated areas … suggesting a complete disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.”

The vast majority of Gaza’s population, which stood at 2.3 million before the genocide, has been displaced from their homes. Many people have been displaced multiple times, with no safe place to go.

Even if Israel’s claims that Hamas fighters had embedded themselves in the camp were true, the UN office said, this would not relieve its military of its obligation “to comply with the fundamental international humanitarian law principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack.”

Israel has instructed civilians to move to al-Mawasi, an open coastal area lacking infrastructure to meet the needs of displaced people, when issuing evacuation orders in other areas of Gaza. Israel most recently ordered Palestinians to evacuate to al-Mawasi on 24 August, the UN human rights office said.

In July, Israeli warplanes dropped bombs on al-Mawasi, killing dozens of Palestinians. Israel claimed that it had targeted Muhammad Deif, the head of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and the commander of Qassam’s Khan Younis Brigade.

Hamas has not confirmed whether Deif, who survived several previous attempts on his life, was killed.

American officials may have been involved in the July massacre in al-Mawasi. The New York Times reported last month that the US has been involved with intercepting the communications of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and has also “provided ground-penetrating radar to Israel to help in the hunt for him and other Hamas commanders.”

Attacks on shelters in north

Israel has repeatedly struck facilities being used as shelters for displaced people in Gaza, often claiming without evidence that they were being used as command centers by Hamas and other resistance groups, despite the vast tunnel networks used by Palestinian fighters.

On 7 September, the Israeli military attacked the Halima al-Sadia school sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians in Jabaliya al-Nazla, northern Gaza. The attack, which occurred without warning, killed four people and injured several others, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

That same day, four Palestinians, including a child, were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed the Amr Ibn al-Aas school north of Gaza City, which was also being used as a shelter.

“Since the beginning of August, the Israeli occupation army has bombed 16 schools being used as shelters in the Gaza Strip,” Euro-Med Monitor stated. All but one of the targeted schools are in the northern half of Gaza.

More than 215 Palestinians were killed in those attacks and hundreds more were injured, the rights group added, noting that Israel has escalated its targeting of civilians in Gaza City and the northern governorates of the territory.

The deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza’s north, including facilities serving as shelters, is part of Israel’s strategy to create a coercive environment in order to forcibly transfer the population to central and southern Gaza, according to Euro-Med Monitor.

Israeli plan to depopulate northern Gaza

The rights group pointed to reports in Israeli media about a plan drafted by Israeli reservist commanders and soldiers to depopulate northern Gaza.

The scheme, reportedly presented to Israel’s cabinet and other senior officials, was spearheaded by Giora Eiland, the retired major general and close advisor to Israel’s defense minister who called for creating conditions for the spread of epidemics in Gaza as a form of biological warfare.

It calls for an estimated 300,000 civilians to evacuate northern Gaza in a one-week period, after which the area would be besieged and Hamas fighters would be made to surrender or be killed.

According to Aluf Benn, chief editor of the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz, Israel has entered the second phase of its war, during which it “will strive to complete its takeover of the northern Gaza Strip.”

Benn added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government will subject Palestinians in northern Gaza to “the fate of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh: They were expelled from the region a year ago, overnight, in a rapid move by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Israel’s close ally.”

According to Benn, steps taken toward this new phase include Israel’s recent tapping of a colonel to head the Gaza equivalent of the Civil Administration in the West Bank and Netanyahu’s instruction for the military to prepare to distribute aid in lieu of humanitarian organizations.

“The motive is obvious: whoever distributes the food and medicine has their hand on the power switch,” Benn said.

He added that Netanyahu’s “relinquishment of the return of the Israeli hostages” is intended to deprive Sinwar of leverage in negotiations. Meanwhile, their continued captivity in Gaza will provide “Israel’s justification for continued warfare, siege and occupation.”

The ongoing warfare and siege in turn will compel Palestinians to leave Gaza for good, Benn projects…………………………….

At least 41,020 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023, and some 94,925 have been injured, according to the health ministry in the territory.

Thousands more are missing and an unknown number of people have died as a result of Israel’s blockade and systematic attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and sanitation and water infrastructure.  https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-40-gaza-humanitarian-zone

September 13, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Rich countries silencing climate protest while preaching about rights elsewhere, says study

Report says governments in global north increasingly using draconian measures while criticising similar tactics in global south

Matthew Taylor, Tue 10 Sep 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/10/climate-rights-report-draconian-measures-protest

Wealthy, democratic countries in the global north are using harsh, vague and punitive measures to crack down on climate protests at the same time as criticising similar draconian tactics by authorities in the global south, according to a report.

A Climate Rights International report exposes the increasingly heavy-handed treatment of climate activists in Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US.

It found the crackdown in these countries – including lengthy prison sentences, preventive detention and harassment – was a violation of governments’ legal responsibility to protect basic rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association.

It also highlights how these same governments frequently criticise regimes in developing countries for not respecting the right to protest peacefully.

“Governments too often take such a strong and principled view about the right to peaceful protest in other countries – but when they don’t like certain kinds of protests at home they pass laws and deploy the police to stop them,” said Brad Adams, director at Climate Rights International.

Across Europe, the US and the UK, authorities have responded to non-violent climate protests with mass arrests and draconian new laws that have resulted in long prison sentences. In some instances those who have taken part have been labelled as hooligans, saboteurs or ecoterrorists by politicians and the media.

Senior human rights advocates and environmental campaigners have raised concerns about the crackdown and called on governments to protect the right to non-violent protest.

“These defenders are basically trying to save the planet, and in doing so save humanity,” Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, told the Guardian last year. “These are people we should be protecting, but are seen by governments and corporations as a threat to be neutralised. In the end it’s about power and economics.”

The escalating climate crisis has resulted in record-breaking temperatures around the world in 2024, driving food shortages, mass movements of people and economic hardship – as well as deadly fires and floods.

But the report found that rather than taking urgent measures to rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels and halt ecological collapse, many relatively wealthy countries have instead focused on those trying to stop those raising the alarm by taking part in protests and civil disobedience.

“You don’t have to agree with the tactics of climate activists to understand the importance of defending their rights to protest and to free speech,” said Adams. “Instead of jailing climate protesters and undermining civil liberties, governments should heed their call to take urgent action to address the climate crisis.”

The report’s authors highlighted several examples of developed countries lauding the importance of the right to protest on the international stage at the same time as undertaking harsh and punitive crackdowns at home.

Welcoming a UN report in July this year, the UK government said: “These rights [to peaceful assembly and protest] are essential to the functioning of society, providing a platform for citizens to advocate for positive change. Nonetheless, civic space is increasingly contested as authoritarian governments and actors, who feel vulnerable to scrutiny and accountability, seek to silence dissent.”

Tuesday’s report also found:

  • Record prison sentences for non violent protest in several countries including the UK, Germany and the US.
  • Preemptive arrests and detention for those suspected of planning peaceful protests.
  • Draconian new laws passed to make the vast majority of peaceful protest illegal.
  • Measures to stop juries hearing about people’s motivation for taking part in protests during court cases, which critics say fundamentally undermines the right to a fair trial.

Climate Rights International called on democratic governments around the world to halt the authoritarian crackdown and protect people’s rights to protest.

“Governments should see climate protesters and activists as allies in the fight against climate change, not criminals,” said Adams. “The crackdown on peaceful protests is not only a violation of their basic rights, it can also be used by repressive governments as a green light to go after climate, environmental, and human rights defenders in their countries.”

September 13, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, politics international | Leave a comment

Sane foreign policy biggest loser in Harris/Trump debate.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 11 Sept 24

You know that foreign policy gets short shrift in US elections when it isn’t even broached till over half way thru the lone presidential debate.

As bad as that was, it pales in comparison to the dreadful discussion of the No. 1 issue affecting all 8 billion of us: achieving peace while preventing nuclear war.

When asked how she would end Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza, Harris could have stated she’d cut off all US weapons to Israel, over 50,000 tons of which have killed tens of thousands of Palestinian moms and kids. Without them the Israeli genocide there would collapse within 3 months. Instead of an action plan she merely restated her now tired wish of achieving a ceasefire that is impossible till she pivots to ending all weapons deliveries.

At least we know where she stands…the weapons will continue flowing into Israel till all the Palestinians flow out of Gaza and the West Bank. This is Israel’s stated goal and Kamala’s support of it is “ironclad.” Trump, could have exploited Harris’ ghoulish support of genocide by calling for an immediate weapons embargo on Israel. Instead he offered the unhinged charge that Harris hates Israel and if elected, she’ll be responsible for Israel being destroyed “within 2 years.” What he didn’t reiterate is that he’s even more enamored of Israeli genocidal ethnic cleansing in Gaza than Harris. He’s never supported a ceasefire of any kind, instead trumpeting that Israel must “finish the job.”

Sane views on the US proxy war against Russia fared no better. Harris reiterated the delusional Biden position that Ukraine is the first step in Russia’s plan to go after Poland and other European countries. With Ukraine near defeat with no chance of prevailing, Harris appears ready to commit another $150 billion on a lost war of America’s making till the last Ukrainian solder is dead. But the greatest threat to peoplekind that Harris refuses to acknowledge, is that current US policy with Russia in Ukraine presents the biggest threat of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis 62 years ago. That is unconscionable.

Trump response was to boast Russia would never have invaded Ukraine under his presidency and that he could end it while still President Elect with his superior negotiating skills. But it was Trump who reinstituted the flow of weapons to Ukraine during his term that fueled the civil war in Donbas. Along with endless NATO membership overtures to Ukraine by both Trump and Biden, the Russian invasion of Ukraine became virtually inevitable.

To his credit Trump did not view the war in Ukraine as a zero sum game that America must totally win; Russia totally lose. He simply said it must end period, reflecting disdain for the US national security establishment by refusing to parrot their assertion Russia is recreating the Soviet Union starting with Ukraine. While commendable, Trump never acted on any initiative to further peace during his term by reigning in our trillion dollar national security budget. Indeed, he expanded provocative bombings such as his assassination fo Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad that nearly triggered war with Iran in 2020.

Trump did inadvertently offer one truth that got no reaction. He said the Biden/Harris policies could provoke WWIII. While he likely only offered that to further his ‘demonize Harris’ agenda, every person in the peace community knows that is precisely the ominous path Biden/Harris policy in Ukraine have set the world on.

The Harris Trump debate did educate those of us in the peace community that peace will not be priority in either a Harris or Trump administration. Neither offered a plan to end the genocidal ethnic cleansing in Gaza nor the possibility of nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine.

But simply on Trump’s refusal to join the crowd viewing Russia as an existential threat to America or any other country including Ukraine once they renounce NATO membership and designs on Donbas, Trump is less a threat to our survival than Kamala Harris. She once again bragged the US must remain the “most lethal” country of the world’s 193. That should dishearten every person of peace to their core.

September 13, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

‘Unacceptable’: Is this Ontario nuclear waste dump a risk to Quebec’s water supply?

The Bloc Québécois is calling for work to immediately stop on an already-approved nuclear waste facility at the Chalk River research site in eastern Ontario, arguing its current placement unnecessarily risks Quebecers’ water supply — a claim that the company behind the project denies.

Sept. 10, 2024, By Alex Ballingall, Ottawa Bureau, Toronto Star

OTTAWA — The Bloc Québécois is calling for work to immediately stop on an already-approved nuclear waste facility at the Chalk River research site in eastern Ontario, arguing its current placement unnecessarily risks Quebecers’ water supply — a claim the company behind the project denies. 

Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet held a news conference on Parliament Hill Monday with First Nations from Ontario and Quebec who also oppose the project. Trumpeting his solidarity with the leaders, who claim the project’s approval early this year violated their rights as Indigenous Peoples, Blanchet said the waste facility is too close to the Ottawa River that separates Quebec from Ontario and flows into the St. Lawrence River. 

Speaking in French, Blanchet described the plan as a way to take the “dangerous” waste from Ontario’s nuclear industry and place it in a spot that he claimed could put the water supply of Quebecers at risk. 

“This is unacceptable to us,” Blanchet said. He added that the planned facility “should be placed elsewhere.” 

Chief Lance Haymond of the Kebaowek First Nation, who attended the news conference with Blanchet, accused the company building the facility — Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, which is contracted to run the Chalk River facility by an arms-length federal Crown corporation — of dismissing his community’s concerns, which include worries about disruption to local bears and other wildlife.

Haymond said the company is presenting a “façade of reconciliation” over its failure to seek his nation’s consent for the project, which is on unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg near Deep River, Ont., almost 200 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.

The Kebaowek First Nation has also launched a legal process in Federal Court that seeks to overturn the January decision by Canada’s federal nuclear regulator to green-light the project. 

“We will not stand by while our rights are trampled, our lands desecrated and our future put at risk,” Haymond said. ……………………………………………………………..

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved the project in January, more than eight years after Canadian Nuclear Laboratories first raised the idea.

A spokesperson for the commission declined to comment Monday, citing the Federal Court challenge………………………………………………………………………….

According to the safety commission, most of the waste slated for disposal there will come from the company’s existing Chalk River Laboratories operation at the site, with about 10 per cent coming from other sites, including commercial sources like hospitals and universities.

The waste site is planned as an “engineered containment mound” that covers 37 hectares, alongside other facilities like a wastewater treatment plant. 

The project has been controversial for months, with several municipalities in the region and environmental groups stating their opposition alongside First Nations. Bloc MPs and Green Leader Elizabeth May have also denounced the project.  https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/unacceptable-is-this-ontario-nuclear-waste-dump-a-risk-to-quebecs-water-supply/article_27adb27e-6ec2-11ef-985e-9345e7a9932d.html?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=C574FBD817092BE3920DD70067C080F0&utm_campaign=frst_1906

September 13, 2024 Posted by | Canada, wastes, water | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson goes into business with Steve Bannon, Charlotte Owen and a uranium entrepreneur

Owen, who was elevated to the House of Lords last year at the age of 29, now has a plum job despite having no energy sector experience.

 by Jack Peat,  2024-09-09, https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/business-economics/boris-johnson-goes-into-business-with-steve-bannon-charlotte-owen-and-a-uranium-entrepreneur-382535/

Boris Johnson has been added as the director and co-chairman of Better Earth, a company that lists Charlotte Owen, Steve Bannon and a uranium entrepreneur among its staffers.

Better Earth was incorporated by Amir Adnani in December last year and now includes a high-profile roster of employees, including a former prime minister, a controversial media strategist and Britain’s youngest peer.

Adnani, a Canadian citizen of Iranian heritage, is the director of a network of offshore companies based in the British Virgin Islands and is president and CEO of Uranium Energy Corp, a US-based mining and exploration company, championed by former Donald Trump adviser Bannon.

On 1st May, Companies House filings reveal that “the Rt Hon Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson” was added as a director and co-chairman, shortly followed by Charlotte Owen – now Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge – who joined the company to work alongside him despite having a lack of energy sector experience.

Headquartered in a serviced office building in Sevenoaks, Better Earth describes itself as an “energy transition company”.

Its website, which is currently under construction, says it will “work directly with national governments and regions that are seeking both inward investment and/or to reduce their emissions ahead of 2030”.

In 2022, just days before leaving office, Johnson announced a £700 million investment in the controversial Sizewell C reactor stating the country needed to “Go nuclear, go large!”.

At the time, Caroline Lucas, the then Green MP and former party leader, described Sizewell C as “massively costly, achingly slow and carries huge unnecessary risks”.

Among those who cheered the Sizewell C investment was Adnani. He excitedly posted the announcement on his Twitter account: “Boris Johnson plans to sign off on new £30bn nuclear plant in his final week in power! #uranium.”

Adnani has appeared at least twice on former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, and on one occasion told him that his ambition was to achieve “full spectrum energy dominance”.

Doesn’t sound scary at all!

September 13, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, Uranium | Leave a comment

Democracy Dumped in Cumbria.. Nuclear Dump Under the Irish Sea Here We Come?! UNLESS….

On  By mariannewildart

Today’s BBC news item features Councillor David Moore enthusing “it’s (Sellafield) the biggest employer in the area”. He adds: “I think that’s why conversation here’s different. We’re already the hosts of the waste. And we all want to find it a safer location.” Councillor Moore is of course very keen on new wastes arriving at Sellafield.

What today’s BBC news article on nuclear waste fails to state is that Councillor David Moore was one of only 3 (I know!) “executive councillors” who took the decision to put Cumbria in the frame for an unprecedented deep sub-sea nuclear dump by agreeing to the “Community Partnership” with Nuclear Waste Services in the plan to “deliver a Geological Disposal Facility.” In doing so Councillor Moore failed to declare his fiscal interests in the nuclear industry by dint of his paid membership of various nuclear bodies (monies recieved totalling over £100,000) and his spouse’s employment.

A police complaint was made about this ongoing failure to declare interests but Cumbria police after over a year of obfuscation and delays decided that there was no offence. Cumbria police have essentially given the green light to those in public office not to declare fiscal interests in decisions they make on industrial developments.

We have asked for sight of Cumbria Police’s reasons for failing to take Councillor David Moore to task over his failure to declare interests but to no avail. It is clear that Councillor Moore was told by Cumbria Police that no action would be taken against him long before we were told. And we were only told after saying we would make an official complaint against the length of time the Police’s decision was taking.

We have sent off another email today asking for sight of Cumbria Police’s justification for not taking any action against David Moore – not even a slap on the wrist it appears for what is a criminal offence. Meanwhile Councillor David Moore, who has put Cumbria once again in the frame for a nuclear dump, is the ‘go to’ voice of the “community” for the mainstream media.

Something is very wrong here.

oday’s email to Cumbria Police’s Disclosure Unit:

Dear Disclosure Unit
We do not appear to have had full answers from you regarding Cumbria Police’s decision not to prosecute Councillor David Moore’s failure to declare nuclear interests when taking nuclear decisions with Copeland Borough Council. David Moore is quoted on today’s BBC News as a Councillor and member of the GDF Partnership. The news item does not mention that David Moore was one of only three councillors who voted to go forward with GDF Partnership while recieving monies from the nuclear industry. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx6e2x0kdyo
?What Date was Councillor David Moore told of the decision that he had committed no criminal offence when making Council decisions on nuclear by neglecting to disclose monies from the nuclear industry and that fact that his wife works for ……..
On behalf of over 30 people signing a letter of complaint against Cllr David Moore, I request sight of the “comprehensive review of the police investigation that was undertaken and the outcome that no further action is to be taken because there is no evidence of any criminality.”
In particular I request sight of justifications for overturning the Localism Act in the case of Cllr David Moore
http://publicsectorblog.practicallaw.com/first-conviction-of-a-councillor-under-the-localism-act-2011/

The original letter of complaint was written in 2022 – the length of time the police took to reply to us and then take a decision (to take no action) is scandalous.

For all links including the original letter check out Lakes Against Nuclear Dump

September 13, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Letter to New First Minister over South Wales Nuclear Overflights

 https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/letter-to-new-first-minister-over-south-wales-nuclear-overflights/ 10th September 2024

With the recent election of Dame Eluned Morgan, the NFLA Secretary has written to the new Welsh First Minister to ask for action on the flights carrying nuclear materials over South Wales.

Cardiff City Councillor Sue Lent, Chair of the Welsh NFLAs, first wrote to Dame Eluned’s predecessor Vaughan Gething at the end of April drawing attention to the carriage of nuclear materials by

RAF aircraft passing over the heavily populated cities of South Wales enroute from the USA to Brize Norton.

In that letter we asked First Minister Gething, as Chair of the Wales Resilience Forum, with responsibility for emergency planning across the nation, to seek a reassurance from the MoD / RAF that such flights will be diverted out to sea, well away from South Wales municipalities and revisit emergency planning arrangements for any accident involving these special nuclear materials.

After two reminders were sent to the First Minister’s Office, a reply was finally received on 5 August, the day before Dame Eluned replaced him in office. Unfortunately, that letter stated that whilst some preparation for the possibility of an aircraft accident had been made by first responders, ‘the issues you raise with respect to flight paths and nuclear related policies are reserved matters for the UK Government’

We also wrote to the Defence Nuclear Organisation asking them whether any emergency planning exercises had been held in Wales since Exercise Astral Bend in 2011, and we also requested any assessments of those exercises. As per usual the military denied our Freedom of Information requests suggesting that the Welsh NFLAs had a nefarious purpose in seeking to undermine national security and the efficiency of our armed forces when our concern was for the safety of the people of Wales. The only thing they would tell us is that a further exercise had been held on 21 September 2023, ironically the UN International Day of Peace.

We have now written to Dame Eluned Morgan asking her to take up the two ‘asks’ that we made of her predecessor. When we have her reply then the correspondence will be published in full in a future NFLA Briefing.

September 13, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

UK Government considering scrapping Wylfa plans and 24GW nuclear capacity target

2  Government considering scrapping Wylfa plans and 24GW nuclear capacity
target. Energy secretary Ed Miliband is considering scrapping plans to use
the Wylfa site in North Wales for a new large-scale nuclear power plant as
well as the UK’s target of developing 24GW of nuclear capacity by 2050.

 New Civil Engineer 9th Sept 2024

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/government-considering-scrapping-wylfa-plans-and-24gw-nuclear-capacity-target-09-09-2024

September 13, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment