US Military
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Dirty coal group’s 14th forgery impersonated veterans; real vets support a climate bill
Climate change is a major threat to U.S. Security. The clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill would enhance our security by reducing oil dependence and environmental harm. That’s why the conservative Virgina Republican, John Warner, is pushing hard to pass the bill — because he is a former Navy secretary and former Senate […]
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Climate plus security minus hyperbole still scary
The impact of climate change on national security has finally moved above the fold. And as the December Copenhagen climate change negotiations approach, politicians and experts alike are being forced to examine the complex effects of natural and social change on security. They must also walk a linguistic tightrope between hyperbole and uncertainty, working to […]
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Veterans push for climate bill with new ‘Operation Free’ coalition
A new coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is hoping to counter the oil industry–backed “Energy Citizens” rallies with its own call to pass a climate bill and end dependence on fossil fuels. Under the name of Operation Free, the group aims to rally other vets to the cause. “We’re a coalition of leading veterans […]
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Obama admin should bring defense and climate funding into balance, argues a new report
Image: Tom Twigg/Grist With climate change among the world’s biggest security challenges, the Obama administration should be pumping much more money into addressing the problem, argues a new report [PDF] from the Institute for Policy Studies. In fiscal year 2008, the United States invested 20 times more money in developing military technology than in developing […]
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Company denies its robots feed on the dead
via Wired: “We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO. The basic idea is that this is (among other things) a battlefield robot that runs on biomass it harvests on the battlefield. I can’t imagine why anyone thought […]
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KBR, Halliburton sued over war-zone’s toxic burn pits
Confronted with the need to dispose of enormous quantities of war-related trash including batteries, pesticide containers, medical waste and even human body parts, but lacking proper incinerators, private contractors working for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan came up with a simple solution. They burned the trash in big, open pits. But now soldiers, […]
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Treating climate change as a security threat
Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / Grist Old soldiers, as they say, never die — and at 97 the legendary Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap seems intent on proving the point. But he does not seem to be that interested in fading away, either. For the man who drove out first France and then the […]
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Changing the climate with China’s military
When I heard President Obama call for more regular dialogue between the Chinese and American militaries, my first thought was, “Why not the environment?” Perhaps it is not a front-burner issue for both institutions — but that is exactly the point. If dialogue is to improve understanding, build ties, and lower the prospects for confrontation, […]
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The Few, the Proud, the Exempt
Defense Bill Will Exempt Military from Species-Protection Laws The U.S. military may be having trouble achieving its goals in Iraq, but at least it’s getting what it wants on Capitol Hill: exemptions from key environmental laws. President Bush today is scheduled to sign a $401 billion defense authorization bill that includes provisions exempting the military […]
