Army Green

Saturday was a national day of climate action, and while I was working for a good bit of it, I did my part by purchasing a bunch of compact fluourescent bulbs and finally installing them throughout the apartment. It's small, but multiplied by 300 million it would have an effect. And apparently, a very big interest group is coming aboard the climate change train - the military:

Former US military leaders have called on the Bush administration to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

In a report, they say global warming poses a serious threat to national security, as the US could be drawn into wars over water and other conflicts.

They appear to criticise President George W Bush's refusal to join an international treaty to cut emissions.

Among the 11 authors are ex-Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan and Mr Bush's ex-Mid-East peace envoy Anthony Zinni.

The report says the US "must become a more constructive partner" with other nations to fight global warming and deal with its consequences.

Of course, these are retired generals and not the active military. If it was, they'd have to answer for the fact that the biggest user of greenhouse gases by far is the US military, and each war of choice that they undertake corrodes the atmosphere that much more. Eventually, the military would be responsible for the humanitarian and disaster relief that would come about with worldwide chaos associated with climate change. So they have an interest in pushing all leaders to curtail it. But they also ought to have a responsibility in doing their own part. The military expends a tremendous amount of oil - they need to address that with new technologies. Our military is well-known for looking deep into the future and planning scenarios. They need to war-game the scenario of how they have a finite amount of carbon-based fuel to use in the same dangerous world twenty years from now. Otherwise they escape personal responsibility and are talking as if they're on the outside looking in.

UPDATE: Anthony Zinni said on NPR today that the liquid of potential conflict in the future is water, not oil. I do agree that there will be water wars in the future if we keep going down this path.