What Eisenhower prophetically identified as a huge burden on humanity, the military industrial complex has grown immeasurably since in the last 60 years, since his warning. The continued rise in global military spending (now about $1.4 trillion/year with at least half from the U.S.) and the escalation of the U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan makes it extremely difficult to create – in the time we may have left – the global cooperation and investment into a solar energy infrastructure necessary to prevent the onset of catastrophic global warming (“C3″). You can find out a lot more on this subject in my recent paper “Ecosocialism or Ecocatastrophe?” Capitalism Nature Socialism (March 2009). Of course, you need not be an ecosocialist to recognize that the military industrial fossil fuel nuclear complex (“MIC ” for short) is a huge obstacle to preventing C3 (e.g., Jeffrey Sachs and Lester Brown both have addressed this issue). And as I pointed out in my paper, while the carbon emissions from the Iraq War are indeed comparable to small nations, they only amount to 0.1% of the total global emissions from burning fossil fuel for the same 5 years. Recent estimates give Pentagon oil consumption levels of about 0.4% of annual global oil consumption, with the Pentagon’s total primary energy consumption being roughly 1% of the U.S. total in FY 2006. But, rather it is MIC itself that is by far the biggest contributor.
MIC is likely the biggest single obstacle to preventing C3 because:
1) It is the present core of global capital reproduction with its colossal waste of energy and material resources.
2) The integration of fossil fuel/nuclear industry in MIC.
3) MIC’s dominant role in setting the domestic/foreign policy agenda of the United States, tragically reborn in the present administration, despite the hopes of so many youth who supported Obama’s election. MIC’s teeth are dug deeply into Obama.
4) Pentagon as the “global oil-protection service” for the U.S. imperial agenda (Klare), indeed for the transnational capital class itself. (And not only oil but also strategic minerals critical to aerospace and information technology).

The projected $3 trillion for the Iraq War and Occupation is approximately equal to the estimated renewable energy investment of $2.89 trillion needed by 2030 to insure a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 (July 2007, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/future- investment ). And now we have the additional huge burdens imposed by the costs of the global recession and the escalation in Afghanistan.

There is no prospect of climate security without peace and no peace without climate security. The convergence of the climate and peace/anti-imperialist movement is imperative, asap!

‘If you want to argue that global warming isn’t real, please go elsewhere: comments from deniers and similar trolls will be deleted.’

Yikes! Sounds facist. What if people, right or wrong, really do disagree with your premise?

But on the article, it is simple. The U.S. military has pre-empted global war for the past sixy years or so. We should allocate the Pentagon’s CO2 against the quotas of those that benefited, namely the world at large. Problem solved.