The ABCs of Disarmament, Military, and the Environment

by Judy Lowe and John M. Miller

It is not hard to understand the damage war does to the environment: pictures of burning oil wells and the thick black slicks of oil spills during the Gulf War remain vivid. More recently the great movements of refugees in Rwanda, Bosnia and elsewhere have placed an overwhelming burden on land and water supplies. Last year 30,000 refugees from Rwanda overran a village in Tanzania. As a result the water supply ran out, the river was polluted, and garbage and sewage piled up. While such extensive harm to the environment is not usually a goal of war, it is always a collateral effect.

Actual fighting is not necessary for the military to damage the environment; war preparations are also destructive. Producing, testing and disposing of weapons all pollute the earth. Military training tears up the land and military activities squander non-renewable resources. The radioactive and toxic materials the military uses can cause cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. The world's militaries are poisoning the environment and thus the people they were supposed to protect.

Radioactive Pollution

Nuclear weapon tests, even those held underground, have released radioactivity. It was the presence of radioactive Strontium-90 in children's teeth that led to worldwide pressure to end atmospheric testing, and pressure continues to end underground testing.

Some of the most contaminated areas on earth, and most expensive to clean up, are the places where nuclear bombs were made. Radioactive material and other poisons have entered underground water supplies, rivers and the ground itself.

The pollution at nuclear test sites, military nuclear reactors and warhead assembly plants threatens the communities and natural environment around them. At the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state, where plutonium for nuclear warheads was made, even the tumbleweed must be collected to prevent the spread of radiation. At Kyshtym in the former Soviet Union, so much waste was dumped into Lake Karachay, it contains two and one-half times the amount of radioactive isotopes released at Chernobyl (the worst nuclear power plant accident in history). The lakebed is now covered with a thick layer of concrete to contain the radiation.

Safe ways to clean up and dispose of millions of tons of radioactive waste produced by uranium mining, weapons production, and now, the dismantling of nuclear warheads, remain elusive.

Military Contamination

Simple military maintenance using cleaning agents containing dangerous chemicals, as well as the burning of rocket fuel, contributes to the hole in the ozone layer, which protects us from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun.

Experts estimate that the world s armies use as much energy as the economy of Japan, about six percent of the global total. Military vehicles and aircraft burn tremendous amounts of fuel, and the manufacture of all weapons is a big energy drain.

Land and water suffer from the widespread use of many toxic substances by the military. Solvents, lubricants, heavy metals, and pesticides are poisonous if ingested. Improperly disposed of hazardous wastes continues to leak into ground water and park land. The Pentagon says that there are more than 20,000 contaminated sites spread throughout the United States. Finding, safely removing and permanently storing these wastes is difficult and expensive. Unexploded bombs still litter the landscape of practice ranges and war zones. Land mines are a special problem.

The military wants more and more land to train on. Unbearably loud noises from supersonic jets can cause health and other problems for residents and wildlife. In northern Canada, the native Innu people have continually protested low-level training flights by NATO members. They complain that the noise scares the wildlife and disrupts their traditional hunting practices.

Chemical weapons dumped at sea -- in the Baltic Sea, off Alaska, Russia and elsewhere -- have contaminated the world's oceans. Dozens of reactors from submarines, and some nuclear bombs, sit at the bottom of the sea.

Disarmament itself brings its own environmental problems. By their nature, weapons, full of dangerous substances, are designed to kill. How best to dispose of them is the subject of debate. Burning the chemical weapons might sound fine, unless you live near the incinerator. Nuclear materials from warheads remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Technologies must be found to store them and render them harmless.

While awareness of the environmental dangers of military activity is growing, armies are long used to hiding behind a veil of secrecy. Grassroots pressure has made some armies become more environmentally sensitive, but others resist efforts to bring them under the same environmental laws and regulations that apply to civilians.

The international community has lagged in dealing with these problems. The major military powers blocked the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio, Brazil, from taking forceful action. In the end, the conference paid only lip service to the environmental problems originating from the military. The UN Environmental Program has begun developing model environmental guidelines for militaries during peacetime. The laws of war, such as the Geneva Conventions and the Environmental Modification Convention (drafted in the wake of the widespread use of chemical defoliants during the Vietnam War), target only the most blatant alterations of the environment caused by war.

Preventing the environmental damage that results from war and war preparations means pursuing an active agenda of disarmament, military budget cuts, and moves toward peace. It involves a broadened definition of national security that looks beyond military threats to those posed by social injustice and environmental degradation.

(Judy Lowe is UN Representative for Peace Action. John M. Miller is coordinator of the International Clearinghouse on the Military and the Environment.)

Further contacts:

• Greenpeace International, Keizersgracht 176, 1016 Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Tel 31.20.523.6222; Fax 523.6200
• Greenpeace USA, 1436 U St. NW, Washington DC 20009, USA; Tel 1.202.462.1177; Fax 462.4507
• Global Green USA, 665 Buena Vista Dr., Santa Barbara, CA 93108, USA; Tel 1.805.565.3485; Fax 1.805.565.3846; E-mail ggusawest@aol.com
• International Clearinghouse on Military and the Environment, P.O. Box 150753, Brooklyn, NY 11215, USA; Tel/Fax 1.718.788.6071; E-mail fbp@igc.apc.org(John M. Miller)