Thinking of empire on Earth Day

Today's Earth Day, which means a lot of politicians are giving very nice speeches about all the great things they are doing to protect the environment and save the polar bear. One thing they and the leading environmental groups won't be talking about? The U.S. empire's contribution to global warming, as I noted in this piece detailing how all of the Pentagon's overseas activities – including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – enjoy an exemption under the Kyoto Protocol that is likely to extend to any new future climate treaty:

Climate change has been branded a threat to national security, but a future global treaty addressing the issue is likely to exempt from regulation most of the greenhouse gases associated with overseas military activities and the world’s largest polluter—the U.S. armed forces—a fact some environmentalists are arguing will significantly undercut the effectiveness of such an agreement. The issue is potentially troubling for proponents of a treaty as it suggests that even as the Obama administration and leading Democrats push emission controls based on the perceived security threat posed by global warming, they are unwilling to address a leading contributor to the problem.

The preliminary climate change agreement announced in Copenhagen leaves unresolved many key questions, but there’s a broad consensus overseas military operations will continue to enjoy a major exemption under any eventual comprehensive, legally binding treaty. Indeed, both foreign diplomats and officials with most major environmental groups have been reticent to broach the subject for fear of alienating the U.S. government, which accounts for nearly half of global military spending.

-----

“It can be a bit of a delicate subject,” says a former senior Defense Department official who was deeply involved in the debate over the Kyoto Protocol. “We’re the largest military in the world and we’re going to be the most penalized if military emissions are counted, so that has to be considered.”

Read the rest.