A War Against the Climate

A Syrian street following Russian bombing in 2015.

By Wendy Ponte
Board Member | Minneapolis Climate Action

Here at Minneapolis Climate Action, we stand with the Ukrainian people and deplore the destruction that Russia has inflicted upon them. The loss of lives and homes is unfathomable. At this writing, over ten million Ukrainians have become refugees.
 
The horror of what is happening right now is so intense that most of us don’t even have the capacity to understand the impact that this war will have on our environment. There is a terrible loss of life occurring every day in Ukraine — but how many lives may be lost in the future due to the climate damage and pollution that war causes?
 
Below is just a short list of the environmental damage that extreme military activity creates. Read on to the end to find out about an additional climate threat that comes from our very own country that is directly related to the war in Ukraine.

What war does to harm our planet:
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• Increases greenhouse gases by the use of heavy equipment that consume large amounts of fossil fuel.
• Creates emissions from the incineration of buildings and forests. As well, there is the waste that military occupation creates. President Biden talked specifically about the danger to human health that massive incineration can cause in his recent State of the Union Address. Clearly incineration will also affect the health of animals that our ecosystem depends upon.
• Destructs flora and fauna in general, that get crushed by heavy military equipment and explosions. Their loss causes a chain reaction up and down the food chain. Even refugee camps, as necessary as they are, cause deforestation.
• Damages natural resources because of chemical warfare. Herbicides and defoliants poison the soil and air.
• Pollutes the air when chemicals and other substances are released from buildings athat have been destroyed.
• The worst terror of all—the potential of nuclear matter being released into the atmosphere—either as a result of damage to nuclear energy facilities, or the detonation of nuclear bombs.

 
It’s so easy for us to blame an outside entity, such as Russia, for the climate damage that this war is creating. Unfortunately, though, there is a climate threat right here in the United States that is a direct result of the war in Ukraine.
 
Within hours of the attack on Ukraine, the American Petroleum Institute, who represent all the major oil and gas companies in this country, began to ask for deregulation right now. Their claim: they can save the day and provide fuel to Europe and other countries whose sources are being taken away by sanctions.
Find out more about that by watching the short video, U.S. Oil & Gas Companies Trying to Profit From War in Ukraine.
 
When Ukrainians are finally able to return home (those that can), they will not only have to cope with what military conflict has done to their homeland, but also the health hazards that are sure to follow.
 
But unfortunately, the climate damage created by this war will also affect you and me, and everyone else on the planet, in the years ahead.
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