Carbon 'Bootprints'

Even if we each do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint, it will not be enough - because of carbon emissions from the MIC. Just how much do the U.S military and supporting industries contribute to Global Warming?

First, what exactly is the U.S. military? It is run by the Chiefs of Staffs of the Navy, Air Force and Army, who report to the Secretary of Defense, who reports to the Commander in Chief. They are all a part of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government. Their 2018 budget is $700 billion. There are around 800 military bases worldwide, with approximately two million active troops. The U.S. military is the third largest military in the world after China and India.

And the Climate Change costs of the MIC are…

U.S. military:
• Production of military materiel (materials and equipment) and infrastructure and movement thereof
• War games
• Wars. How many are we still fighting? Obama launched airstrikes or raids in seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan
• Oil production and transport are directly used and encouraged by the military’s constant needs
• Underground oil storage for supply in case there is a war

The production of military equipment for commercial arms sales also contributes to Climate Change.

Under DCS, PM’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls provides regulatory approvals for more than $110 billion per year in sales of defense equipment, services, and related manufacturing technologies controlled under the 21 categories of the U.S. Munitions List (USML). These sales are negotiated privately between foreign end-users and U.S. companies.

The word Behemoth comes to mind…

The Pentagon’s Carbon Foot Print
Counterpunch December 2015

the Pentagon has been granted a unique exemption from reducing – or even reporting – its pollution. The U.S. won this prize during the 1998 Kyoto Protocol negotiations (COP4) after the Pentagon insisted on a ‘national security provision’ that would place its operations beyond global scrutiny or control.” [2]
So not only is the Pentagon exempt from any climate agreements, it is also exempt from having to reduce its own greenhouse gas emission levels and exempt even from reporting those levels.
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As Sara Flounders had revealed: “The complete U.S. military exemption from greenhouse gas emissions calculations includes more than 1,000 U.S. bases in more than 130 countries around the world, its 6,000 facilities in the U.S., its aircraft carriers and jet aircraft. Also excluded are its weapons testing and all multilateral operations such as the giant U.S. commanded NATO military alliance and AFRICOM, the U.S. military alliance now blanketing Africa.”

Or maybe Godzilla…

Pentagon to lose emissions exemption under Paris climate deal
Guardian December 2015

The US military and armed forces of countries around the world will no longer be automatically exempted from emissions-cutting obligations under the UN Paris climate deal, the Guardian has learned.
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Under the Paris agreement, countries would not be obliged to cut their military emissions but, equally, there would be no automatic exemption for them either.
US officials privately say that the deal adopted on Saturday has no provisions covering military compliance one way or another
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The US military is widely thought to be the world’s biggest institutional consumer of crude oil, but its emissions reporting exemptions mean it is hard to be sure.

Balrog??? Gamera?

Pentagon Pollution, 7: The military assault on global climate
Climate & Capitalism February 2015

"The U.S. military is the single greatest institutional contributor to the growing natural disasters intensified by global climate change."

Correspondingly, militarism is the most oil-exhaustive activity on the planet, growing more so with faster, bigger, more fuel-guzzling planes, tanks and naval vessels employed in more intensive air and ground wars. At the outset of the Iraq war in March 2003, the Army estimated it would need more than 40 million gallons of gasoline for three weeks of combat, exceeding the total quantity used by all Allied forces in the four years of World War 1. Among the Army’s armamentarium were 2,000 staunch M-1 Abrams tanks fired up for the war and burning 250 gallons of fuel per hour.

The US Air Force (USAF) is the single largest consumer of jet fuel in the world. Fathom, if you can, the astronomical fuel usage of USAF fighter planes: the F-4 Phantom Fighter burns more than 1,600 gallons of jet fuel per hour and peaks at 14,400 gallons per hour at supersonic speeds. The B-52 Stratocruiser, with eight jet engines, guzzles 500 gallons per minute; ten minutes of flight uses as much fuel as the average driver does in one year of driving! A quarter of the world’s jet fuel feeds the USAF fleet of flying killing machines; in 2006, they consumed as much fuel as US planes did during the Second World War (1941-1945) — an astounding 2.6 billion gallons.

Maybe Ghidorah…

Is Climate the Worst Casualty of War?
Common Dreams July 2018

According to Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, “The Iraq war was responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) from March 2003 through December 2007.” That’s more CO2e than 60 percent of all countries, and those figures are only from the first four years. We downsized the war in December of 2011, but still haven’t left, so the U.S. invasion and 15 years of occupation has likely generated upwards of 400 million metric tons of CO2e to date.

The Beast Of Barmston Drain…

image credit, listverse

Sooner than later…

Paul Beckwith

I declare a global climate change emergency to claw back up the rock face to attempt to regain system stability, or face an untenable calamity of biblical proportions.

me… We need to turn on a dime at mach 10.

HOT AIR NEWS ROUNDUP
Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record
The Guardian August 21, 2018

The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer.
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This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere.
One meteorologist described the loss of ice as “scary”.
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This year’s openings are driven more by wind than melting but they have occurred during two temperature spikes. In February, the Kap Morris Jesup weather station in the region is usually below -20C, but earlier this year there were 10 days above freezing and warm winds, which unlocked the ice from the coast. Last week, the crack opened again after Kap Morris Jesup briefly registered a record high of 17C and strong southerly winds picked up to 11 knots. Experts predict that coastal seas will freeze again but probably later than normal.

“I think that solar heating of the water column will increase during this opening and this will delay freeze-up and ice formation,” said Rasmus Tage Tonboe, a sea ice expert at the the Danish Meteorological Institute.

As Arctic Warming Stalls Summer Weather, Study Warns of Intensifying 'Very-Extreme Extremes'
Common Dreams August 20, 2018

A new climate study out Monday in Nature warns that "accelerated warming in the Arctic" is stalling summer weather over North America, Europe, and Asia, and could lead to a future of even more "very-extreme extremes," including dangerous heat waves and flooding.
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As the study outlines, greenhouse gas emissions are causing rapidly rising near-surface temperatures in the Arctic, which are increasing two-to-four times faster than the rest of the globe. While past studies have focused on how this phenomenon, called Arctic amplification (AA), impacts mid-latitude winters, this research team focused on summers.

Saying Goodbye to Planet Earth
Truthdig August 19, 2018

This tiny span of time on a planet that is 4.5 billion years old is known as the Holocene Age. It now appears to be coming to an end with the refusal of our species to significantly curb the carbon emissions and pollutants that might cause human extinction. The human-induced change to the ecosystem, at least for many thousands of years, will probably make the biosphere inhospitable to most forms of life.
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Frank (Adam Frank, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester) said the mathematical models for the future of the planet have three trajectories. One is a massive die-off of perhaps 70 percent of the human population and then an uneasy stabilization. The second is complete collapse and extinction. The third is a dramatic reconfiguration of human society to protect the biosphere and make it more diverse and productive not for human beings but for the health of the planet. This would include halting our consumption of fossil fuels, converting to a plant-based diet and dismantling the animal agriculture industry as well as greening deserts and restoring rainforests.

Trump’s Team “Edited” Report to Promote Coal, As New Data Reveals Huge Methane Leaks
Oil Change International August 2018

…the Trump Administration has been using cold weather events to try and promote coal, at the expense of renewables and the climate.
Firstly, an investigation by Climate Home News (CHN) has revealed that “unregulated, unnoticed coal mines across the US are leaking a potent greenhouse gas [methane] with the same greenhouse effect as 13 million cars”.
According to the CHN analysis of government data, there are roughly 300 active and 200 abandoned coal mines, which are belching and leaking about one-tenth of the potent greenhouse gas, methane. Some 60.5 MMTCO2e of methane was released in 2016.

The US’ hidden methane problem
Climate Home News August 13, 2018

Climate Home News analysis of government data has identified roughly 300 active and 200 abandoned coal mines, which are the source of almost one-tenth of US methane pollution.
Methane has 34 times the long-term warming effect of carbon dioxide and accounts for 10% of US greenhouse gas emissions. Its emissions from the oil and gas industry and the efforts of the Trump administration to roll back regulations on them have been widely publicized.
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Even as US coal production has plummeted over the past decade, and the number of active mines halved, coal mine methane emissions fell at a much slower pace, EPA data published in April shows. This indicates mines are not being fully sealed as they shut down.

'Abrupt thaw' of permafrost beneath lakes could significantly affect climate change models
Science News August 15, 2018

Methane released by thawing permafrost from some Arctic lakes could significantly accelerate climate change, according to a new study. Unlike shallow, gradual thawing of terrestrial permafrost, the abrupt thaw beneath thermokarst lakes is irreversible this century. Even climate models that project only moderate warming this century will have to factor in their emissions, according to the researchers.

Melting Arctic Could Rapidly Unlock 'Deep Carbon' Buried in Permafrost
Live Science August 2018

These lakes, which form when surface ice melts and the ground beneath it collapses, could thaw underground permafrost much faster than scientists thought was possible, a new study reveals.
Previously, scientists thought the bulk of this deep thawing of Arctic permafrost would likely not happen until after 2100.
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"As that permafrost thaws, we get what we call a thaw bulb, and that thaw bulb can deepen and expand laterally," Walter Anthony said. When that happens, "what was previously frozen soil with organic carbon in it becomes thawed, and that thawed soil releases this organic matter to microbes that decompose it and make carbon dioxide and methane."
The researchers wanted to quantify just how much methane —the major component of the gas bubbling up from the lakes —thermokarstive lakes are emitting today and what their projected emissions are for the future. The team used a combination of computer models and measurements taken from fieldwork in Alaska, Canada and Siberia to map the growth and emissions of thermokarst lakes.

B.C. firefighters can't do much more than 'get out of the way,' says expert
CBC August 21, 2018

"Current fire suppression technology is vastly inferior to the extremes of nature," he said, adding that there are no fire-season-ending events on the near horizon.

Big oil asks government to protect it from climate change
AP August 22, 2018

“Our overall economy, not only in Texas but in the entire country, is so much at risk from a high storm surge,” said Matt Sebesta, a Republican who as Brazoria County judge oversees a swath of Gulf Coast.

But the idea of taxpayers around the country paying to protect refineries worth billions, and in a state where top politicians still dispute climate change’s validity, doesn’t sit well with some.

“The oil and gas industry is getting a free ride,” said Brandt Mannchen, a member of the Sierra Club’s executive committee in Houston. “You don’t hear the industry making a peep about paying for any of this and why should they? There’s all this push like, ‘Please Senator Cornyn, Please Senator Cruz, we need money for this and that.’”

The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT): Secret Deal Which Allows Energy Giants to Sue Governments
openDemocracyUK August 20, 2018

Twenty years ago, and without any public debate, an arcane international agreement entered into force. The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) gives sweeping powers to foreign investors in the energy sector, including the peculiar privilege to directly sue states in secret international tribunals arbitrated over by three private lawyers. Companies are claiming dizzying sums in compensation for government actions that have allegedly damaged their investments, either directly through expropriation or indirectly through regulations of virtually any kind.

Exclusive: Some Arctic Ground No Longer Freezing—Even in Winter
National Geographic August 20, 2018

In April he sent a team of workers out with heavy drills to be sure. They bored into the soil a few feet down and found thick, slushy mud. Zimov said that was impossible. Cherskiy, his community of 3,000 along the Kolyma River, is one of the coldest spots on Earth. Even in late spring, ground below the surface should be frozen solid.
Except this year, it wasn't.

Every winter across the Arctic, the top few inches or feet of soil and rich plant matter freezes up before thawing again in summer. Beneath this active layer of ground extending hundreds of feet deeper sits continuously frozen earth called permafrost, which, in places, has stayed frozen for millennia.

Enjoy!