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CommentaryThe War on The PlanetWhen we think about the death and suffering imposed by today's U.S. wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, we may see the bombed buildings, the shattered bodies lying in the street, the long lines of frightened refugees. We must also see other, less visible victims of military devastation: the land, its waters, all its living creatures, the entire planet, poisoned until the end of time and rendered almost permanently lifeless.
The two kinds of victims are inseparable; they perish together. War on people is war on the planet. The two wars share the same origins. The U.S. military itself points the way. To give just one example: In recent years the Pentagon has generated more toxics annually than the top five U.S. chemical companies combined. As one military base commander said, "We are in the business of protecting the nation, not the environment." In short, the military and a healthy planet are incompatible. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the human species--spearheaded by the United States--has gone into overdrive on what appears to be a suicidal, growth-obsessed path. Maximizing use of the earth's resources has led, among other results, to great leaps in the greenhouse effect, ozone holes and depletion and toxification of natural resources. Every year 27,000 species go extinct; fresh water sources are drying up around the globe; microscopic organisms that fertilize the humus of life in every square foot of living material are being eradicated. At the same time, the goal of limitless growth has brought about the impoverishment of two-thirds of humanity. Half of the world's people live on less than $2 a day, deprived of liberty, education, decent housing and health care, thanks primarily to inequality, racism and wars. CONNECTING ISSUESBoth environmental and social collapses result from monopoly capital plundering the earth's biological and human resources for profit. In this way, human rights and environmental rights are indivisible. You cannot separate massive social injustice from the clear-cutting of rain forests. The ozone holes, the greenhouse effect and the extinction of species are all directly connected with starving Somalis, exploited Guatemalan workers and single mothers denied health insurance in New York City. You cannot separate the impoverishment of plant life through warfare from the poverty that makes Latino and Black youth think their only hope lies in joining the military. Nothing short of total revolution based on biocentric thinking--that is, seeing the earth as a community where all species live and develop together and no single species or social class or nation dominates--can save the planet. We may call this Liberation Ecology, but the point is this: There's no room for the wars and U.S. empire-building we see today. The needs of humanity are as important as the needs of the biosphere; the two are always linked together. The true ecologist must think like a social revolutionary, and vice versa. Every specific issue we tackle needs to be framed by a general understanding of the entire planet. Without a healthy habitat, there can be no social or economic justice, no peace or freedom. In the same way, without social and economic justice, the web of life itself is doomed. Today's threat of unending war to expand U.S. power makes the choice clearer than ever. Must we have nuclear annihilation to be convinced? John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War and other books, lives in Taos, N.M., and frequently speaks on environmental issues. |
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