72. Climate Memo Mondays, #72, April 25, 2022

Neta Crawford.  The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War
Jessica Corbett, Scientists Take Action, Mobilize
“The Power of Big Oil, Part I,” PBS, Frontline (4-19-22)

Neta C. Crawford.  The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War:Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions.  2022.

How the Pentagon became the world's largest single greenhouse gas emitter and why it's not too late to break the link between national security and fossil fuel consumption.

The military has for years (unlike many politicians) acknowledged that climate change is real, creating conditions so extreme that some military officials fear future climate wars. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Defense—military forces and DOD agencies—is the largest single energy consumer in the United States and the world's largest institutional greenhouse gas emitter. In this eye-opening book, Neta Crawford traces the U.S. military's growing consumption of energy and calls for a reconceptualization of foreign policy and military doctrine. Only such a rethinking, she argues, will break the link between national security and fossil fuels.

The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War shows how the U.S. economy and military together have created a deep and long-term cycle of economic growth, fossil fuel use, and dependency. This cycle has shaped U.S. military doctrine and, over the past fifty years, has driven the mission to protect access to Persian Gulf oil. Crawford shows that even as the U.S. military acknowledged and adapted to human-caused climate change, it resisted reporting its own greenhouse gas emissions.

Examining the idea of climate change as a “threat multiplier” in national security, she argues that the United States faces more risk from climate change than from lost access to Persian Gulf oil—or from most military conflicts. The most effective way to cut military emissions, Crawford suggests provocatively, is to rethink U.S. grand strategy, which would enable the United States to reduce the size and operations of the military.

Scientists Glue Hands To UK Business Department

By Jessica Corbett, Commondreams. PopularResistance.org (4-16-22).    Over two dozen scientists on Wednesday glued scientific papers and their own hands to the windows of a U.K. government building in London to demand an end to fossil fuels. The demonstration was part of a wave of Extinction Rebellion (XR) actions that launched last weekend and are scheduled through Sunday—a protest series that follows a worldwide mobilization of scientists last week, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest concerning report. With his left hand glued to the U.K. Department for Business, Energy, & Industrial Strategy... -more-

THE POWER OF BIG OIL

Frontline Film: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-power-of-big-oil/

FRONTLINE examines the fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. This three-part series traces decades of missed opportunities and the ongoing attempts to hold Big Oil to account.