--Non-nuclear bombs in World War II destroyed cities, farms, and irrigation systems, producing 50 million refugees and displaced persons; and U.S. bombing of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia produced 17 million refugees. Great damage to existing ecosystems has been done through the war-caused displacement of populations around the world to less habitable areas.
--Wars leave a lot of dangerous stuff behind--including, for example, the huge quantity of chemical weapons the U.S. dumped into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans between 1944 and 1970. A U.S. ship carrying a million pounds of mustard gas sunk by German bombs in World War II is expected to keep leaking the gas into the sea for centuries. And, among over 1,000 U.S. and Japanese ships left on the floor of the Pacific Ocean in World War II, one was found to still be leaking oil in 2001.
--Land mines are among the most deadly weapons left behind by war. A 1993 U.S. State Department report calls them "the most toxic and widespread pollution facing mankind." They damage the environment in four principal ways: 1) by denying access to natural resources and arable land; 2) by forcing populations to move into marginal and fragile environments; 3) by (as a result of this migration) speeding depletion of biological diversity; and 4) by causing explosions that disrupt essential soil and water processes.
--In Vietnam from 1965 to 1971, the U.S. developed new ways to destroy plant, animal, and human life. It sprayed 14-percent of South Vietnam's forests with herbicides, burned farm land, and shot livestock. The herbicide Agent Orange caused some half-million birth defects and still threatens the health of the Vietnamese. During the Gulf War, Iraq released 10-million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf and set 732 oil wells on fire, causing extensive damage to wildlife and poisoning ground water with oil spills. Wars in Angola eliminated 90-percent of the wildlife between 1975 and 1991. A civil war in Sri Lanka felled five-million trees.
--The Soviet and U.S. occupations of Afghanistan destroyed or damaged thousands of villages and poisoned the country's air and water with explosives and rocket propellants. Afghanistan's forests are almost gone, and most of the migratory birds that used to pass through the country are no longer seen.
--In its 1991 aerial campaign over Iraq, the U.S. used 340 tons of missiles containing depleted uranium, leading to significantly higher rates of cancer, birth defects, and infant mortality in the city of Fallujah in early 2010.
--The U.S. Department of Defense generates more chemical waste than the five largest chemical companies combined.
--If we don't soon abolish war, we will by the year 2050 produce such a dramatically changing climate that it will disrupt the global economy and set millions of refugees on the move.
War and the Preparation for War Siphon Off Federal Funds Essential To Preserving the Environment.
From the same sources in the WBW online course, I learned that war and the preparation for war also harm the environment indirectly by draining off federal funds that might otherwise be used to help secure the environment. Here are some of the ways that happens:
--Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spends $622 million each year trying to figure out how to produce power without oil, the U.S. military spends hundreds of billions of dollars burning oil in wars fought to control the supply of oil. The million dollars it takes to maintain each soldier in a foreign occupation for a year could create 20 green-energy jobs at $50,000 each.
--Bloated by a spendthrift consumption of oil, the out-of-control U.S. military budget greatly diminishes financial resources needed to address and combat global climate change--today's paramount environmental issue.
--In 2003, two-thirds of the U.S. army's fuel consumption could be accounted for by vehicles delivering fuel to the battlefield.
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