Challenging the Militarization of Climate Change, with guest Nick Buxton

The military is at the heart of the fossil fuel economy, yet military emissions were specifically excluded from the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 at the behest of the U.S. government. Though it's possible they may no longer be specifically excluded in the wake of the recent Paris agreement, individual countries' current reporting of emissions and planned actions to combat climate change ("Intended Nationally Determined Contributions") have so far failed to include military emissions.

The United States' vast empire of 800 bases is concentrated in oil-rich regions and is designed to protect long-distance shipping routes and an unsustainable consumer economy that also contributes to climate change. This vast military bootprint, bolstered by a powerful arms industry, ends up fueling conflicts that do untold damage to the environment and kill vast numbers of civilians.

Further, as climate chaos and extreme weather create greater social instability and conflict, the military will play an increasing role in controlling populations worldwide. And corporations will continue to profit from it all.

Guest Nick Buxton, communications manager at the Transnational Institute https://www.tni.org/en, is co-editor of a new book: The Secure and the Dispossessed: How the Military and Corporations are Shaping a Climate-changed World.  He said in a press statement earlier today: "We need to open up a debate about how to cut record world military and homeland security expenditure and invest that money instead into climate adaptation for the world's most vulnerable people. That is the only way to deliver real human security, the security of a safe and sustainable future for everyone."