JOIN THE PEACE AND CLIMATE MOVEMENTS A

JOIN THE PEACE AND CLIMATE MOVEMENTS!

A little context America’s fuel use – approx. 20. 6 million barrels of oil/day = ¼ of the world’s oil. 40% of that is gasoline for motor vehicles.

This country pumps a staggering 8 billion pounds (4 million tons) of carbon into the atmosphere every day.

Military Energy Use: The numbers are elusive and enormous! • Pentagon admits to 144 million barrels of fuel per year or 400, 000 barrels/day, BUT • More likely 1 million barrels/day or 365 million barrels/year! • Only fourteen countries exceed that number! As much as the whole country of Spain.

In Context • “The Pentagon is the largest single consumer of oil in the world, using enough energy in one year to run all the transit systems in the country for the next 14 to 22 years. ” (Barry Sanders, The Green Zone) • It both “purchases more light refined petroleum than any other single organization in the world, ” and also is the largest single polluter of any single agency or organization in the world. (BS)

The Pollution • If estimate half as jet fuel, must correct: > 650 million pounds or 325, 000 tons/day or over 100 million tons/year CO 2 equivalent. • This is about 8% of the nation’s total carbon emissions.

M-1 Abrams Tank: 0. 2 mpg or 252 gallons/hr. Army uses 1800 of them and they require a fleet of 2, 000 support trucks .

USS Independence Aircraft carrier uses 5, 600 gallons an hour = 112, 000 tons of CO 2/hour.

F-15: 1600 gal jet fuel/hr. With afterburners – 14, 400 gal/hr equivalent to > 330 tons or 660, 000 pounds of CO 2 equivalent/hr!

“Principle gas hog award” goes to B 52 Stratocruiser: uses 3, 334 gal/hr STANDARD fuel use producing 200, 000 pounds/hr CO 2 equivalent. • It requires inair refueling by KC-10 Extender aircraft using 2, 050 gallons per hour = 120, 000 lb or 60 tons CO 2 equivalents/h our.

War, the military’s product! • In the first three weeks of combat in Iraq, , the Army calculated its branch alone required more than 40 million gallons of fuel. • If assume 1/4 was jet fuel = 600 million pounds of CO 2 equivalent. • Non-jet fuel produced 660 million pounds of CO 2. • = 600, 000 tons of CO 2!

The meaning of shock & awe.

The Problem: • “Even if every person in America decided to stop driving today, and even if every polluting factory in the country voluntarily shut down its operations right now, the land the animals and the water and the air – those things that we generally include by referring to them as the environment – would still face a most serious assault. And, ironically, that greatest single assault on the environment, on all of us around the globe, comes from one agency, that one agency in business to protect us from our enemies, the Armed Forces of the United States. ” (Barry Sanders, The Green Zone)

http: //www. pgpf. org/Chart-Archive/0053_defense-comparison. aspx

http: //nationalpriorities. org/en/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

How Many Jobs Can $1 Billion Buy? Education Health Care Clean Energy Consumption Military Source: Pollin & Garrett-Peltier, 2009

The Purpose: “The de-facto role of the U. S. armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends we will do a fair amount of killing. ” -- quote from a former officer at the Pentagon in charge of thinking about future warfare in the 1990’s from the military Parameters Magazine, excerpted by Susan George of the Transnational Institute.

The vicious cycle: burning oil in war for oil.

Cutting the military and stopping war: • Creates jobs. • Supports children, the elderly and our economy. • Stops climate change.

It’s time to unite our efforts. • The fact is that we can’t stop war as long as the world economy is dependent on fossil fuels. • And we can’t reverse climate change and build sustainable economies unless we stop war.