Military
contributions to
environmental
devastation

Thanatocene: Power and Ecocide

Autarchic (authoritarian, despotic) technologies:
We need to consider not just the technology, but the historical context that gave rise to war and the Anthropocene.

By the late 1980s, military training camps, often polluted with radioactive waste, munitions, etc., covered 1% of the earth’s surface (including 2% of the USA) (Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2013: 123).

Even in peacetime, military-industrial complexes destroy.
Military-industrial complexes pollute with radioactive waste, munitions etc. even in peacetime.
The Anthropocene (capitalocene) is also a Thanatocene.
Compare and contrast: Anthropocene, thanatocene, thermocene and capitalocene.

Like a state of emergency – State can transcend the rule of law during this time.
War creates a state of exception. Excuses brutalizing human treatment of the natural world.
State of exception

Scorched earth military operation: “the hostile use of environment modification”
(Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2013: 128).

“Scorched earth” military operation
Agent orange was a defoliant used by the US military in herbicidal warfare during the Vietnam War, 1961-1971.
4 million people exposed in Vietnam. Various cancers in the exposed. Genetic damage causes deformities among the offspring of those exposed.
Agent Orange also caused massive environmental damage in Vietnam. Over 31,000 km2 of forests were destroyed. Poisoned ground. Reforestation difficult. Animal species and populations were sharply reduced.

US army helicopter spraying Agent Orange over agricultural land during the Vietnam War

mangrove forests
Persistent dioxins, erosion caused by loss of tree cover, and loss of seedling forest stock.
Invasion of aggressive species (bamboo) thwarted forest regeneration.
Animal-species lost: 24 species of birds and five mammal species survived in a sprayed forest. In two adjacent sections of unsprayed forest – were 145 and 170 species of birds and 30 and 55 species of mammals.
Dioxins from Agent Orange persist in Vietnam in the soil – enters the food chain through animals and fish.

Herbicides
Herbicides kill plants on contact. Toxic residual action: they persist in soils, but often contaminate groundwater and rivers.
“It is estimated that 70 million litres of herbicide were sprayed between 1961 and 1971, contaminating 40% of Vietnam’s arable land, while the country also lost 23 % of its forest cover” (Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2013: 127).
Vietnam War: 85% of US Army ammunitions targeted at animals (cattle), and the environment: forests, fields, water, roads…(Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2013: 127).

Oil spills: Fewer than 1% of oil-soaked birds survive
“The basic transformation of the Western way of making war, its deep integration in the industrial system, the way in which the military are embedded in research and development, all underlie the argument … that the Anthropocene is also (and perhaps above all) a Thanatocene.” 124.

Consumption
B-52 bomber burns 12,000 litres of jet fuel per hour
F-13 fighter 7000 litres, comparable to the consumption of an average family car in a whole decade.
In 2006 the US Air Force consumed a total of 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel, as much as was used overseas during the whole of the Second World War (124).

The Anthropocene is a geological epoch following the Holocene. Central role of s humankind (some people more than others) in geology, and ecological destruction
The effects of human activity on the planet are tracked through analyses of:
Population
Economics
Water usage
Food production
Transportation
Technology 
(GHG) green house gases
Surface temperature
Natural resource usage
Since 1950, these trends have been increasing exponentially.
Source: The Last Habitat. http://lasthabit.at/2019/09/01/great-acceleration/
The Great Acceleration

Key role of WW2 in the history of the Anthropocene. Great acceleration a result of industrial mobilization for the war. After the war, civilian markets mobilized to absorb all this industrial activity (Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2013: 144-45).
The Great Acceleration, 1950s

The “Great Acceleration” of the 1950s
WWII prepared the legal and technological framework for mass-consumption society.
Industrial mobilization for the war, followed by the creation of civilian markets designed to absorb the excess industrial capacity.
Problem of productive over-capacity and its reconversion in peacetime. Has contributed to the Anthropocene.

Degrowth
The resources of between three and eight planet Earths would be required for those in the Global South to enjoy the living standards typical in the Global North.

Degrowth
“Degrowth” – coined to signify a deliberate political action to downscale the economy on a permanent and voluntary basis.
The eventual reduction of all available resources will lead to a forced reduction in consumption. Controlled reduction of consumption would reduce the trauma of this change assuming no technological changes increase the planet’s carrying capacity.

Electric planes