Leftists have long hated the U.S. military, and have tried many times to significantly reduce the funding. Now they’ll be going after them over their carbon footprint
The Pentagon emits more greenhouse gases than many countries, study says
The U.S. government plays a big role in contributing to climate change, which has grown increasingly a part of our daily lives and is threatening the planet, a new research study found Wednesday.
The Pentagon produced 59 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2017 alone, more than Sweden and Denmark, according to a study released by Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs.
The study finds the Pentagon’s emissions to be “greater than many smaller countries’ total greenhouse gas emissions” in any year from 2001 to 2017.
“If it were a country, it would have been the world’s 55th largest greenhouse gas emitter,” says lead author and Boston University political scientist Neta Crawford, who is a part of Brown’s program, adding that the Defense Department is the world’s single largest consumer of oil.
Of course it comes from a Modern Socialism college like Brown. I wonder what the carbon footprint is for the college?
Department of Defense spokeswoman Heather Babb declined comment to USA TODAY about the study, but said in a statement the Department of Defense energy program’s chief priority is supporting the ability to carry out its mission to deter war and ensure national security.
The DoD makes it possible for idiot Warmists at Brown to have the freedom and modern lifestyle to write stupid studies
The study also notes the greenhouse gas reduction efforts made by the Pentagon, but Crawford writes that there is “a lot of room to reduce emissions” in the military:Â it would make a noticeable difference if the Pentagon started rethinking whether certain missions are necessary.
She told USA TODAY that everyday Americans can affect missions by urging their congressmen to “close [military] stations that are at risk” to climate change and to “rethink procurement of those thirsty [fuel-guzzling] weapons.”
In other words, close most bases and do away with tanks, mobile gun platforms, ships, and so forth. All the things that keep America free for idiots to make these type of pronouncements.
TEACH typed: “…it comes from a Modern Socialism college like Brown.”
What is a Modern Socialism college? … as the tRumplican movement descends deeper and deeper into anti-intellectualism… shut down the Fake News, shut down the universities… all hail the Dear Leader!
TEACH typed: “The DoD makes it possible for idiot Warmists at Brown to have the freedom and modern lifestyle to write stupid studies”
Our tax dollars also make it possible for idiot conservabloggers to have the freedom and modern lifestyle to assail American values.
TEACH typed: “In other words, close most bases and do away with tanks, mobile gun platforms, ships…”
That wasn’t said in any words in the article.
The US spends one third of its tax monies on the DOD and related. We have the largest military budget in the world, by far. The Last American Conservative, President Dwight David Eisenhower said,
“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. … We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. …
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
https://www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/military-industrial-complex-speech.asp
Paraphrasing a formerly sane commenter here regarding the potential impact of global warming on future generations:
“Fuk em, we got ours, and we’ll all be dead.”
Our only Earth continues to warm rapidly, a result of CO2 we humans continue to pump into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels; CO2 that was previously sequestered deep in the Earth as coal, oil and gas. The amounts of CO2 added is greater than the carbon cycle can accommodate, disrupting the carbon equilibrium, hence the rise in CO2 concentration from 280 ppm to over 410 ppm. Hence the predictable and predicted warming.
Hence LOL, get f*cked.
Little missy prattling on again.
Actually, that is a good idea: we should be asking if some of our military missions are necessary.
We lost four American special ops soldiers in Niger in 2017, and we have to ask: why were there American special operations people in Niger in the first place? Yes, there are Islamist guerrillas in Niger, but do we really need to be worried about Islamists in what President Trump accurately described as an [insert slang term for feces here]hole country? So what if Boko Haram takes over the place? It’ll make life miserable for the people there, girls won’t be allowed to go to school and female genital mutilation will be practiced, but is it our business to worry about that? Niger is dirt poor, and Boko Haram will have more than it can handle in trying to keep the country running. Let the neighboring [insert slang term for feces here]hole countries worry about it, let France, the former colonial ruler worry about it, but unless it directly involves the security of the United States, we should let other people handle the problems.
We had people in Niger because back in 2006-2008 the US government decided that having ten unified global commands was not enough and that we needed an 11th. Previously, Africa was shared by EUCOM, CENTCOM, and PACOM, but in 2008, AFRICOM was created. Now that we had a HQ with a charter to “manage” Africa, they needed something to do. It didn’t take them long to find out that Bad things were going on in Africa and African nations were only too eager to allow the USA to spend money in their country.
It is also why we have 10 Aircraft carriers, more than the rest of the world put together, and still the US Navy claims they don’t have enough. And the US Army, with over a million troop in uniform (counting reserves) claims they don’t have enough.
This is nothing new. I worked logistics at the command level for a couple different USAF commands in the latter part of my career. Every year we had to fight off the loons and do dog and pony shows to display how green we were. None of the different initiatives (on energy usage, types of fuels/energy, etc.) promoted by the loons amounted to a hill of beans, yet we had to spend time showing how great we were so they would shut up and go away for a while.
Even the loons using the fact that we exist and expend energy as proof the military needs to be destroyed is not new. That’s one of the wearying things about dealing with envirowhackos. Each new crop believes only they, the true believers, have the right answer, and all they need to do is demonstrate their superiority and everyone else will fall in line as we trip down the rainbow colored path into a shiny new environmentally friendly future. It’s heart-breakingly easy to demonstrate to the few who will listen they really have no clue about how the real world works, thus defanging them in short order. But, there are those who refuse to accept reality, and there is always a fresh crop of idiots.
“The study finds the Pentagon’s emissions to be “greater than many smaller countries’ total greenhouse gas emissions†in any year from 2001 to 2017.”
What countries? Andorra? Monaco? Vatican City?
I note the article from that paragon of science, USA Today, only mentions CO2, which is a weak “greenhouse gas” and is not likely to drive the temperature up to any meaningful (sorry) degree. IOW, yet another meaningless “Chicken Little” article to get the ignorant masses, i.e liberals, upset.
The article referenced the Scandinavian nations of Sweden and Denmark.
Although CO2 is often referred to as a “weak” greenhouse gas, it’s strong enough to have kept the Earth from being ice-covered. It seems reasonable if our atmosphere keeps us some 30C above the black body calculated temperature that more CO2 would retain even more heat. And that’s what is seen. Pre-industrial age, CO2 was 280 ppm, now it is 410 ppm and rising. This is scientifically consistent with the amount of fossil fuel consumption as well as with the C12, C13 and C14 isotope distribution in the atmosphere. (Plants preferentially incorporate C13 and the ~ 5700 yr t1/2 of C14 makes it impossible for it to be in fossil fuels).
So? It’s been much higher in the past and……no “tipping pointâ€. Shocking. Fossil fuels were made by plants and now we are feeding them back to plants. Perfect recycling on a 100s million year scale. Gaia!
Unfortunately for future generations we’ve exceeded the capacity of green plants to use up all the fossil fuels kindly provided by their ancestors, with an assist from humans. Hence, the increase in atmospheric CO2 and the warming it is causing.
Totally not true.
The Pentagon is a building. It was redesigned as a “green” building after 9-11 and had a Leed award for being sustainable. it has a much lower carbon footprint than other government office buildings its size.
How “green” and “climate friendly” do you think America will be after we’re nuked by China and N. Korea?