War and the Climate Crisis
The following are notes from an RC class I led on war and the climate crisis:
- Some issues that underlie the climate crisis also underlie war. Both involve national oppression, nationalism, imperialism, ideologies of supremacy, and feelings of victimization.
- Businesses that design and build machinery to kill people and destroy the environment are deeply integrated into our societies. For example, most people with retirement investments indirectly own parts of these businesses.
- There are military bases and businesses in every U.S. state. Local and national politicians rely on these businesses for campaign donations and are vulnerable to being influenced by them.
- War has a huge impact on the natural environment. For example, an enormous amount of oil is burned when moving armies and their equipment. The U.S. military is the largest consumer of oil in the world, at a hundred million barrels a year. During war, the burning of oil goes into overdrive [greatly increases].
- War distracts societies from addressing the climate crisis. And during war, “national unity” takes precedence over “luxuries” like the right to organize and protest, which is essential for ending the climate crisis.
- Distresses handed down from earlier wars make us vulnerable to supporting current wars. We may not have personally experienced war. However, it is likely that our parents or grandparents did. They couldn’t discharge the terror, fury, powerlessness, and confusion, so they acted some of it out at us. The resulting distresses are then available to be manipulated and exploited. For example, Russian President Putin has called the invasion of Ukraine “denazification,” deliberately restimulating hurts from World War II.
We had mini-sessions throughout the class. I also did a demonstration with each person on their and their family’s relationship to war.
Berkeley, California, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for USA political issues
(Present Time 208, July 2022)
Last modified: 2022-12-25 10:17:04+00