Is the US military secretly killing our planet? - 7am

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[00:01]
A
I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to 7am. It's the largest institutional emitter in the world. A bigger polluter than 140 countries and yet its emissions are hidden from sight. Now a new documentary is exposing the impact of the US military empire on the planet. The waste, the billion dollar budgets and the political manoeuvring that's kept it all out of the public eye. Today, journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin on what the world' biggest war machine is doing to our Earth. It's Monday, august 3rd. Abby, hello and welcome to 7am hey,
[00:50]
B
thank you so much for having me.
[00:51]
A
Could you start by talking to me a bit about just the scale of the US military? The bases, the infrastructure, the supplies, the sheer size of it all.
[01:01]
B
Just when you're looking at the bases, right, the bases alone, we're talking about 800 to 1,000 military installations that our US ran all around the world. We don't actually know the true count. But when you're looking at the pollution of just maintaining this global military empire, the emissions that it brings, just the consumption of oil every single day, is 270,000 barrels on paper. And that alone makes the US military as an institution the largest polluter in, in the world. I mean, wrap your mind around that, that is a larger polluter than 140 countries. And that's not even including the life cycle emissions. When we're talking about industry polluting in terms of extracting rare earth minerals, manufacturing all of the weaponry that we see. And then of course the application of the weaponry, war, it's completely unquantifiable. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
[01:56]
A
And so there's the fossil fuels, the oil that's actually consumed. And then as you mentioned, there are all these other ways that the military contributes. The climate crisis. One is the impact of the actual weapons being detonated. In your film you show how ammunition is actually blown up on base by the US military when it's unused instead of being returned to the manufacturers. Talk me through that.
[02:17]
B
Yeah, it's called the million dollar minute. And this is something done out of just pure boredom. And it's also directed.
[02:23]
C
Just so I'm understanding this correctly, let's say a company goes out to a forward operating base, they bring a big supply of bullets, mortar rounds, artillery rounds, grenades, everything, whatever they don't use, instead of just bringing it back with them when they return to the main base, it's just blown up in the field. Yeah, you dispose of it by blowing it up. It just is kind of like a self feeding cycle.
[02:49]
B
They actually are instructed to blow up all of their excess ammunition when they are on a forward operating base before they bring it back to the central hub. And this is basically to justify ongoing expenditures. It is an industry, it is a for profit corporation, or at least it acts as such. So you have to continue to get rid of everything that you have in order to justify why you are getting more money the following year. So, for example, we leave Afghanistan, yet the defense budget continues to go up and up and up. And it's the same thing with all the oil. When they're out there, they're told to dump all the oil so then they can refuel once they go back to the base. It's just a completely senseless, wasteful exercise. Just for profit. Just for profit. And it's all been really clear watching the wars today, how big of a polluter war is. What is less obvious, what's more invisible, is the pollution that's ongoing in relative peace time. I mean, every single base is a story of not only legacy contamination, but current ongoing toxic dumping, munitions testing. The toxic contamination of just cleaning the engine parts of the Boeing Pegasuses, the B52 bombers, the Bradley fighting vehicles. Just to clean those engines is doing an untold amount of damage. So this is relative peacetime, just to maintain the arsenal of the weaponry.
[04:11]
C
Hundreds of military bases across the country, including one here on Whidbey island in Washington State, have a toxic legacy from forever chemicals that are threatening the lives of families to this day.
[04:22]
A
The DoD revealed that in March of this year, they notified more than 2,000 agricultural operations across the country about potential PFAS contamination.
[04:31]
B
And then when you have these jets, I mean, the US military has air forces that are five times bigger than the next, you know, the next five biggest air powers combined. That alone, I mean, the amount of waste and emissions that are just being used just to fly around in pointless patrols, just to maintain mission readiness. I mean, just to wrap your mind around that, comparing to the average Australian driver, it would be comparable to like 20 years driving straight to one flight mission of a Boeing Pegasus.
[05:02]
A
And you made this film over several years. How difficult was it to get information about how the US military was contributing to emissions?
[05:12]
B
It's extraordinarily difficult because for the longest time they have obscured all of their data under the pretense of national security, just as they carved an exemption for their emissions back during the 1997 Kyoto treaties. And so all the data from the movie comes from its independent scientists trying to quantify the life cycle emissions and things like this, because the military still will not incorporate that data. So it's really tough to wrap your mind around. All we actually know is how much oil they consume.
[05:44]
A
And you mentioned that when the US counts its emissions, the military is exempt. How did that happen?
[05:50]
B
Yeah, in 1997, the Clinton administration, during the first attempt for all countries to convene to try to address climate change seriously and to try to curb and count their total emissions and work together to try to curb those cooperatively, the US Carved an exemption for its military. And so all other countries followed suit.
[06:09]
C
I am very pleased that the United States has reached a truly historic agreement with other nations in the world to take unprecedented steps to address the global problem of climate change. It reflects a commitment by our generation to act in the interest of future generations.
[06:26]
B
And so it wasn't until the Paris accords in 2015 that this was a voluntary measure. Why would any country voluntarily put up their military emissions if the United States refuses to? And so every single year after year after year at these COP conferences where all these delegates are patting themselves on the back, no one is actually talking about the totality of our emissions. Therefore they are a farce.
[06:51]
D
Speaker Pelosi, you just presided over a large increase in the Pentagon budget. This Pentagon budget is already massive. The Pentagon is a larger polluter than 140 countries combined.
[07:03]
A
And you actually went to one of the cops, Cop 26 in Scotland. In your search for answers on this. What did you take away from that conference?
[07:12]
B
You know, I took away that there's a huge problem with the entire neoliberal establishment where it's an obsession with free market capitalism and an obsession with individual rights, while you are completely ignoring the main drivers of the problem, the main perpetrators, and you're actually including them as the solution to the very problem they are exacerbating.
[07:34]
C
I don't see what we're doing in any way or, you know, increasing the defense budget as being something that's inconsistent with climate action. I really don't. And maybe just add that national security
[07:46]
B
advisors all tell us that the climate crisis is a national security matter. It was panel after panel of people literally saying the military is the solution
[07:59]
D
for climate change, while on the other
[08:02]
B
side of their mouth they're saying, no, we shouldn't count their emissions. I mean, they, they refuse to answer a simple question about whether or not the military should be included in this. And instead they're saying it's the solution. It's really ceding to this inevitability that there's no imagination. And so that's where we're in. We're in a collective suicide death spiral led by liberalism that has basically just given up any sort of control to the military.
[08:31]
A
Coming up, what happened when Abby went head to head with some of the military's top brass? So Abby, in putting together this documentary, you did try to go to the military for answers. You were a guest at an international war games event. You spoke to a number of high ranking military officials. What was your experience trying to extract a response from them?
[09:03]
B
I mean, it's like beating your head against a brick wall because these people are so obsessed with their self preservation and they just justify their position in, in this huge apparatus where, you know, I'll ask them these pointed questions about have you ever thought about how these war games hurt marine life? And they'll say, you know, I don't know if these war games are worth it to the environmental cost. But then in the next breath they'll be like, but we have to train, we have to get the oil, we have to drill. And you're just like, you can see their brains working real time to try to kind of absolve and like justify what they are doing.
[09:35]
C
I would push back a little bit and say I don't. Personally, I think it has to be a balance we have to exercise, we have to train, but we also want to respect the environment and make sure that we're not doing harm.
[09:45]
D
How could you say that though, when you guys are using live ordinance dropping, you know, actual real missiles using live ammunition?
[09:51]
B
I mean, the thing is they just feel like they have no choice because, you know, these, these people are taught military brass, they've never been asked a difficult question in their life. They're pampered as hell and but you see their brain short circuiting.
[10:01]
D
It does seem like a contradiction for so many nations to get together, to not deal with an actual existential threat of environmental collapse and climate change and instead exacerbate the problem because military is such a large contributor to pollution and climate change.
[10:17]
C
Really the purpose of what we're doing here with RIMPAC is to build these capable, adaptive partners that can help uphold international norms and rules.
[10:25]
B
But it is just so insane that I'm surrounded at these conferences by access journalists who are extensions of the military industrial complex. There's no real journalism being done and everyone just acquiesces and thinks that the status quo is all great, that the military should be this dominant force that is polluting the hell out of the planet. And destroying any ability at a sustainable future. And no one's questioning these people. It's insane.
[10:51]
A
And the mainstream climate movement spent years campaigning against fossil fuel companies, coal and oil. Tell me a bit more about why you think the military has remained such a peripheral subject.
[11:02]
B
Yes, I think that for decades neoliberalism has not only co opted the environmental struggle, the progressive movements, and tried to essentially hijack the language and fold it into the same systems of oppression that we're trying to fight and mobilize against. But this has all been very revealed and exposed in the last couple of years, the collapse of all, all these international norms and rules. And so I think people are realizing, at least in my lifetime, kind of the foundational current that's driving all of this, which is capitalism. And so all of us have been isolated and siloed into these movements without understanding how all of them connect. Just as Americans and Australians are kind of unaware of our imperial role in the world. And so it really kind of takes us getting a bird's eye view and just saying, wait, wait, we are all children of this military empire. And no, I don't want to be complicit anymore. I don't want to collaborate with this. I want a peaceful future for Australia and the United States. I don't want to host nuclear submarines basically threatening China's doorsteps like that doesn't need to be the inevitability of the future here.
[12:08]
A
Yeah, in the film you talk about expansion into the Arctic as well as US military buildup in regards to China. So how do you think those are going to escalate and what impact do you think they will have on the climate?
[12:20]
B
I mean, it's going to have devastating impacts on the climate because another aspect of this is the great power competition and the continuous military buildup around the world that encroaches countries like Russia and China and then their reaction to it. So because of the belligerent nature of my government to continue to encroach on these countries, they are responding.
[12:40]
C
I preach the Arctic heavily. It is the place that most don't care about and they just don't understand what's up there for minerals, natural gas, rare earth, oil. And the Russians actually trying to mark claim to that territory and try to control that body of water, so we cannot relinquish that. So space.
[13:00]
B
You know, I think that it's going to have an enormous effect when we're seeing, look at the Iran war today, the intentional targeting of oil depots, the black soot, the black rain, all of this is going to be generationally felt. It's not going to be isolated to Gaza and Lebanon or Iran. So we haven't even felt the brunt of what the, you know, the cataclysmic effects of this war that is ongoing, which we know is explicitly about oil. I mean, this is the thing about this military industrial complex. It necessitates its own. I mean, the expansion of the military comes hand in glove with these wars, right? I mean, when you acquire all the natural resources, when you go after Venezuela and Iran and explicitly state that it's for pillaging and plundering their oil supply, and then it further justifies the expansion of the military that's pillaging and plundering the oil supply. I mean, it's just a self fulfilling prophecy.
[13:52]
A
What kind of responses have you been getting here in Australia as you've been touring the film?
[13:57]
B
I have been to Perth where they're going to set up one of the Oka's sites to host nuclear subs and people are really upset. I mean, I went and saw the beautiful coral reefs that are inevitably going to be dredged. Everywhere I go across Australia, it's the same story as everywhere in the rest of the world where US military bases are housed. People do not want them there. People understand the risk and it's not coming from China. It's coming from the armed soldier that's dumping their pollution overboard. It's coming from the PFAS contamination that's housed at the base in your backyard. The media is telling us to be terrified of Hamas and about China. And what I'm seeing are people are terrified of a world where genocide has become the status quo and our leaders say nothing. And so this is incredibly motivating to see so many Australians standing up and saying, no, they are not going to accept nuclear submarines hosted here. No, they're not going to accept their country as a battering ram in this inevitable madness. And it's very inspiring and I continue to be motivated by everyone that I meet that's trying to push out U.S. bases.
[15:06]
A
Well, Abby, thank you so much for speaking with me.
[15:09]
B
Thank you so much, Ruby. I appreciate it.
[15:14]
A
Abby's film Earth's Greatest Enemy is out now.
[15:26]
E
Also in the news, authorities are investigating whether bird flu is behind a mass mortality event at a South Australian island called Borden rock. More than 80 dead and sick greater crested terns were found on the island. Experts say it mirrors what's happened overseas with the outbreak which has caused significant illness and deaths in poultry, wild birds and mammals. And the prime minister is under pressure from the opposition to stand aside Northern Territory Labor MP Luke Gosling as an envoy for Defence, Veteran affairs and Northern Australia. Gosling was charged last week over an alleged assault on the Northern Territory's administrator, a role equivalent to state governor. Gosling has declined to comment as the matter is before the courts. I'm Ruby Jones.
[16:06]
A
This is 7:00am thanks for listening.

Summary6 min read

Podcast Summary: "Is the US military secretly killing our planet?"

Podcast: 7am (Solstice Media)
Date: August 2, 2026
Host: Ruby Jones
Guest: Abby Martin, journalist and filmmaker

Overview

This episode of 7am delves into the environmental impact of the U.S. military, described as the world’s largest institutional emitter and polluter. Host Ruby Jones speaks with Abby Martin, whose new documentary "Earth’s Greatest Enemy" investigates the military's secretive carbon footprint, its infrastructural sprawl, toxic legacy, and the entrenched political and economic systems obscuring its true environmental cost. The conversation uncovers the military’s exemption from climate treaties, the hidden scale of its pollution, and the complicity of governments and media in allowing these impacts to remain under-discussed—particularly as Australia prepares to play host to new U.S. military sites.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Massive Scale and Hidden Emissions of the US Military

Global Footprint of Bases:
- The US operates between 800–1,000 military bases worldwide, with uncertainty even around the true number.
  
  "Just when you're looking at the bases, right, the bases alone, we're talking about 800 to 1,000 military installations that are US ran all around the world." — Abby Martin [01:00]
Consumption and Pollution:
- The US military consumes 270,000 barrels of oil per day (on paper); actual emissions far exceed this, factoring in the life cycle of weaponry from extraction to use.
  
  "That alone makes the US military as an institution the largest polluter in, in the world...that's just the tip of the iceberg." — Abby Martin [01:17]
Invisible Impact:
- Pollution from munitions, toxic dumping, and routine maintenance persists even in peacetime, with lasting contamination on and around bases.
  
  "Every single base is a story of not only legacy contamination, but current ongoing toxic dumping, munitions testing." — Abby Martin [03:34]

Wasteful Practices and Self-Perpetuating Budgets

"Million Dollar Minute":
- Unused ammunition is routinely destroyed on base rather than returned to suppliers; leftover oil is dumped, justifying constant resupply and expanding budgets.
  
  "They actually are instructed to blow up all of their excess ammunition when they are on a forward operating base before they bring it back to the central hub...It is a for profit corporation, or at least it acts as such." — Abby Martin [02:48]
  "When they're out there, they're told to dump all the oil so then they can refuel once they go back to the base." — Abby Martin [03:09]

Systematic Concealment of Military Emissions

Exemption at Climate Accords:
- The U.S. carved out a military emissions exemption at the 1997 Kyoto Treaty; other countries followed suit. Not until Paris 2015 were military emissions reporting even voluntary—and still avoided.
  
  "The US Carved an exemption for its military. And so all other countries followed suit." — Abby Martin [05:49]
- Negotiators and defense officials dodge questions about including military emissions in climate commitments.
  
  "Panel after panel of people literally saying the military is the solution for climate change, while on the other side of their mouth they're saying, no, we shouldn't count their emissions." — Abby Martin [07:46]

The Climate Movement's "Blind Spot" on Militarism

Focus on Fossil Fuel Companies:
- Environmental activism has historically targeted big corporations, rarely addressing military pollution.
  
  "For decades neoliberalism has not only co opted the environmental struggle...but this has all been very revealed and exposed in the last couple of years, the collapse of all, all these international norms and rules." — Abby Martin [11:02]
Connection to Capitalism and Imperialism:
- Martin argues the military-industrial complex perpetuates wars for resources (oil, minerals) while expanding militarization—reinforcing environmental destruction.
  
  "All of us have been isolated and siloed into these movements without understanding how all of them connect...We are all children of this military empire." — Abby Martin [11:47]

Direct Encounters with Military and Official Response

Obfuscation from Top Military Officials:
- Military leaders deflect on environmental questions, citing "training needs" and "national security."
  
  "I would push back a little bit and say I don’t...I think it has to be a balance...But we also want to respect the environment." — US Military Official [09:35]
- Officials justify war exercises and maintain an "inevitability" mindset regarding expansion and resource extraction.
  
  "But we have to train, we have to get the oil, we have to drill." — Military Response paraphrased by Abby Martin [09:02]

The Australian Context: US Bases and Public Response

Australian Concerns Over US Bases:
- Planned US nuclear submarine sites stoke local fears over reef destruction and PFAS contamination.
  
  "Everywhere I go across Australia, it’s the same story as everywhere in the rest of the world where US military bases are housed. People do not want them there." — Abby Martin [13:56]
- Media and government frame China as a threat, while communities are more worried about direct contamination and militarization.
  
  "It's not coming from China. It's coming from the armed soldier that's dumping their pollution overboard. It's coming from the PFAS contamination that's housed at the base in your backyard." — Abby Martin [14:18]

Geopolitical Escalation and Environmental Devastation

Arctic, China, Iran, and Oil Wars:
- Expansion into sensitive regions (Arctic, Taiwan Strait, Gulf) intensifies hostilities and risks environmental catastrophe.
  
  "Because of the belligerent nature of my government to continue to encroach on these countries, they are responding." — Abby Martin [12:33]
- Ongoing wars produce generational pollution: “black soot, black rain” from oil depot bombings and industrial targeting.
  
  "It’s going to have an enormous effect when we're seeing, look at the Iran war today, the intentional targeting of oil depots, the black soot, the black rain, all of this is going to be generationally felt." — Abby Martin [13:00]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the scale of military pollution:

"That alone makes the US military as an institution the largest polluter in, in the world. I mean, wrap your mind around that, that is a larger polluter than 140 countries." — Abby Martin [01:17]
On senseless waste:

"It's just a completely senseless, wasteful exercise. Just for profit. Just for profit." — Abby Martin [03:12]
On lack of data and accountability:

"They have obscured all of their data under the pretense of national security, just as they carved an exemption for their emissions back during the 1997 Kyoto treaties." — Abby Martin [05:13]
On hypocrisy at climate talks:

"Panel after panel of people literally saying the military is the solution for climate change, while on the other side of their mouth they're saying, no, we shouldn't count their emissions." — Abby Martin [07:46]
On public awakening in Australia:

"People do not want them there. People understand the risk and it's not coming from China. It's coming from the armed soldier that's dumping their pollution overboard." — Abby Martin [14:03]

Timestamps of Major Segments

00:01–01:55: Ruby Jones introduces Abby Martin and the scale of US military emissions
01:55–04:11: Ammunition and oil dumping ("million dollar minute"); the idea of war as a self-perpetuating business
04:11–05:44: Peacetime pollution; toxic legacies; emissions from military aircraft
05:44–06:51: Exemption of military emissions in international climate talks; Paris climate accords and continued obfuscation
07:03–08:30: Abby Martin's experience at COP26; doublethink of military as both perpetrator and “solution”
08:30–10:50: Direct engagement with military officials at exercises; media complicity
11:02–12:07: Why the military stays on the environmental movement's periphery
12:07–13:52: Risks of Arctic militarization, great power competition, and generational climate destruction from current wars
13:52–15:08: Reactions from the Australian public on hosting US military facilities

Conclusion

In this wide-ranging and critical episode, Abby Martin exposes the US military’s massive and largely hidden contribution to global pollution—and the systemic, political, and economic denial sustaining it. She connects the dots from American imperialism to Australia’s local battles against new US military presences, revealing how environmental, anti-war, and democratic movements must merge to confront a problem outsized even compared to the world’s largest corporations. The episode is a call for reckoning and renewed imagination about our political and environmental future.

Abby Martin's documentary, "Earth’s Greatest Enemy," is now available.

Loading summary

Transcript45 lines

[00:01]
A
I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to 7am. It's the largest institutional emitter in the world. A bigger polluter than 140 countries and yet its emissions are hidden from sight. Now a new documentary is exposing the impact of the US military empire on the planet. The waste, the billion dollar budgets and the political manoeuvring that's kept it all out of the public eye. Today, journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin on what the world' biggest war machine is doing to our Earth. It's Monday, august 3rd. Abby, hello and welcome to 7am hey,
[00:50]
B
thank you so much for having me.
[00:51]
A
Could you start by talking to me a bit about just the scale of the US military? The bases, the infrastructure, the supplies, the sheer size of it all.
[01:01]
B
Just when you're looking at the bases, right, the bases alone, we're talking about 800 to 1,000 military installations that our US ran all around the world. We don't actually know the true count. But when you're looking at the pollution of just maintaining this global military empire, the emissions that it brings, just the consumption of oil every single day, is 270,000 barrels on paper. And that alone makes the US military as an institution the largest polluter in, in the world. I mean, wrap your mind around that, that is a larger polluter than 140 countries. And that's not even including the life cycle emissions. When we're talking about industry polluting in terms of extracting rare earth minerals, manufacturing all of the weaponry that we see. And then of course the application of the weaponry, war, it's completely unquantifiable. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
[01:56]
A
And so there's the fossil fuels, the oil that's actually consumed. And then as you mentioned, there are all these other ways that the military contributes. The climate crisis. One is the impact of the actual weapons being detonated. In your film you show how ammunition is actually blown up on base by the US military when it's unused instead of being returned to the manufacturers. Talk me through that.
[02:17]
B
Yeah, it's called the million dollar minute. And this is something done out of just pure boredom. And it's also directed.
[02:23]
C
Just so I'm understanding this correctly, let's say a company goes out to a forward operating base, they bring a big supply of bullets, mortar rounds, artillery rounds, grenades, everything, whatever they don't use, instead of just bringing it back with them when they return to the main base, it's just blown up in the field. Yeah, you dispose of it by blowing it up. It just is kind of like a self feeding cycle.
[02:49]
B
They actually are instructed to blow up all of their excess ammunition when they are on a forward operating base before they bring it back to the central hub. And this is basically to justify ongoing expenditures. It is an industry, it is a for profit corporation, or at least it acts as such. So you have to continue to get rid of everything that you have in order to justify why you are getting more money the following year. So, for example, we leave Afghanistan, yet the defense budget continues to go up and up and up. And it's the same thing with all the oil. When they're out there, they're told to dump all the oil so then they can refuel once they go back to the base. It's just a completely senseless, wasteful exercise. Just for profit. Just for profit. And it's all been really clear watching the wars today, how big of a polluter war is. What is less obvious, what's more invisible, is the pollution that's ongoing in relative peace time. I mean, every single base is a story of not only legacy contamination, but current ongoing toxic dumping, munitions testing. The toxic contamination of just cleaning the engine parts of the Boeing Pegasuses, the B52 bombers, the Bradley fighting vehicles. Just to clean those engines is doing an untold amount of damage. So this is relative peacetime, just to maintain the arsenal of the weaponry.
[04:11]
C
Hundreds of military bases across the country, including one here on Whidbey island in Washington State, have a toxic legacy from forever chemicals that are threatening the lives of families to this day.
[04:22]
A
The DoD revealed that in March of this year, they notified more than 2,000 agricultural operations across the country about potential PFAS contamination.
[04:31]
B
And then when you have these jets, I mean, the US military has air forces that are five times bigger than the next, you know, the next five biggest air powers combined. That alone, I mean, the amount of waste and emissions that are just being used just to fly around in pointless patrols, just to maintain mission readiness. I mean, just to wrap your mind around that, comparing to the average Australian driver, it would be comparable to like 20 years driving straight to one flight mission of a Boeing Pegasus.
[05:02]
A
And you made this film over several years. How difficult was it to get information about how the US military was contributing to emissions?
[05:12]
B
It's extraordinarily difficult because for the longest time they have obscured all of their data under the pretense of national security, just as they carved an exemption for their emissions back during the 1997 Kyoto treaties. And so all the data from the movie comes from its independent scientists trying to quantify the life cycle emissions and things like this, because the military still will not incorporate that data. So it's really tough to wrap your mind around. All we actually know is how much oil they consume.
[05:44]
A
And you mentioned that when the US counts its emissions, the military is exempt. How did that happen?
[05:50]
B
Yeah, in 1997, the Clinton administration, during the first attempt for all countries to convene to try to address climate change seriously and to try to curb and count their total emissions and work together to try to curb those cooperatively, the US Carved an exemption for its military. And so all other countries followed suit.
[06:09]
C
I am very pleased that the United States has reached a truly historic agreement with other nations in the world to take unprecedented steps to address the global problem of climate change. It reflects a commitment by our generation to act in the interest of future generations.
[06:26]
B
And so it wasn't until the Paris accords in 2015 that this was a voluntary measure. Why would any country voluntarily put up their military emissions if the United States refuses to? And so every single year after year after year at these COP conferences where all these delegates are patting themselves on the back, no one is actually talking about the totality of our emissions. Therefore they are a farce.
[06:51]
D
Speaker Pelosi, you just presided over a large increase in the Pentagon budget. This Pentagon budget is already massive. The Pentagon is a larger polluter than 140 countries combined.
[07:03]
A
And you actually went to one of the cops, Cop 26 in Scotland. In your search for answers on this. What did you take away from that conference?
[07:12]
B
You know, I took away that there's a huge problem with the entire neoliberal establishment where it's an obsession with free market capitalism and an obsession with individual rights, while you are completely ignoring the main drivers of the problem, the main perpetrators, and you're actually including them as the solution to the very problem they are exacerbating.
[07:34]
C
I don't see what we're doing in any way or, you know, increasing the defense budget as being something that's inconsistent with climate action. I really don't. And maybe just add that national security
[07:46]
B
advisors all tell us that the climate crisis is a national security matter. It was panel after panel of people literally saying the military is the solution
[07:59]
D
for climate change, while on the other
[08:02]
B
side of their mouth they're saying, no, we shouldn't count their emissions. I mean, they, they refuse to answer a simple question about whether or not the military should be included in this. And instead they're saying it's the solution. It's really ceding to this inevitability that there's no imagination. And so that's where we're in. We're in a collective suicide death spiral led by liberalism that has basically just given up any sort of control to the military.
[08:31]
A
Coming up, what happened when Abby went head to head with some of the military's top brass? So Abby, in putting together this documentary, you did try to go to the military for answers. You were a guest at an international war games event. You spoke to a number of high ranking military officials. What was your experience trying to extract a response from them?
[09:03]
B
I mean, it's like beating your head against a brick wall because these people are so obsessed with their self preservation and they just justify their position in, in this huge apparatus where, you know, I'll ask them these pointed questions about have you ever thought about how these war games hurt marine life? And they'll say, you know, I don't know if these war games are worth it to the environmental cost. But then in the next breath they'll be like, but we have to train, we have to get the oil, we have to drill. And you're just like, you can see their brains working real time to try to kind of absolve and like justify what they are doing.
[09:35]
C
I would push back a little bit and say I don't. Personally, I think it has to be a balance we have to exercise, we have to train, but we also want to respect the environment and make sure that we're not doing harm.
[09:45]
D
How could you say that though, when you guys are using live ordinance dropping, you know, actual real missiles using live ammunition?
[09:51]
B
I mean, the thing is they just feel like they have no choice because, you know, these, these people are taught military brass, they've never been asked a difficult question in their life. They're pampered as hell and but you see their brain short circuiting.
[10:01]
D
It does seem like a contradiction for so many nations to get together, to not deal with an actual existential threat of environmental collapse and climate change and instead exacerbate the problem because military is such a large contributor to pollution and climate change.
[10:17]
C
Really the purpose of what we're doing here with RIMPAC is to build these capable, adaptive partners that can help uphold international norms and rules.
[10:25]
B
But it is just so insane that I'm surrounded at these conferences by access journalists who are extensions of the military industrial complex. There's no real journalism being done and everyone just acquiesces and thinks that the status quo is all great, that the military should be this dominant force that is polluting the hell out of the planet. And destroying any ability at a sustainable future. And no one's questioning these people. It's insane.
[10:51]
A
And the mainstream climate movement spent years campaigning against fossil fuel companies, coal and oil. Tell me a bit more about why you think the military has remained such a peripheral subject.
[11:02]
B
Yes, I think that for decades neoliberalism has not only co opted the environmental struggle, the progressive movements, and tried to essentially hijack the language and fold it into the same systems of oppression that we're trying to fight and mobilize against. But this has all been very revealed and exposed in the last couple of years, the collapse of all, all these international norms and rules. And so I think people are realizing, at least in my lifetime, kind of the foundational current that's driving all of this, which is capitalism. And so all of us have been isolated and siloed into these movements without understanding how all of them connect. Just as Americans and Australians are kind of unaware of our imperial role in the world. And so it really kind of takes us getting a bird's eye view and just saying, wait, wait, we are all children of this military empire. And no, I don't want to be complicit anymore. I don't want to collaborate with this. I want a peaceful future for Australia and the United States. I don't want to host nuclear submarines basically threatening China's doorsteps like that doesn't need to be the inevitability of the future here.
[12:08]
A
Yeah, in the film you talk about expansion into the Arctic as well as US military buildup in regards to China. So how do you think those are going to escalate and what impact do you think they will have on the climate?
[12:20]
B
I mean, it's going to have devastating impacts on the climate because another aspect of this is the great power competition and the continuous military buildup around the world that encroaches countries like Russia and China and then their reaction to it. So because of the belligerent nature of my government to continue to encroach on these countries, they are responding.
[12:40]
C
I preach the Arctic heavily. It is the place that most don't care about and they just don't understand what's up there for minerals, natural gas, rare earth, oil. And the Russians actually trying to mark claim to that territory and try to control that body of water, so we cannot relinquish that. So space.
[13:00]
B
You know, I think that it's going to have an enormous effect when we're seeing, look at the Iran war today, the intentional targeting of oil depots, the black soot, the black rain, all of this is going to be generationally felt. It's not going to be isolated to Gaza and Lebanon or Iran. So we haven't even felt the brunt of what the, you know, the cataclysmic effects of this war that is ongoing, which we know is explicitly about oil. I mean, this is the thing about this military industrial complex. It necessitates its own. I mean, the expansion of the military comes hand in glove with these wars, right? I mean, when you acquire all the natural resources, when you go after Venezuela and Iran and explicitly state that it's for pillaging and plundering their oil supply, and then it further justifies the expansion of the military that's pillaging and plundering the oil supply. I mean, it's just a self fulfilling prophecy.
[13:52]
A
What kind of responses have you been getting here in Australia as you've been touring the film?
[13:57]
B
I have been to Perth where they're going to set up one of the Oka's sites to host nuclear subs and people are really upset. I mean, I went and saw the beautiful coral reefs that are inevitably going to be dredged. Everywhere I go across Australia, it's the same story as everywhere in the rest of the world where US military bases are housed. People do not want them there. People understand the risk and it's not coming from China. It's coming from the armed soldier that's dumping their pollution overboard. It's coming from the PFAS contamination that's housed at the base in your backyard. The media is telling us to be terrified of Hamas and about China. And what I'm seeing are people are terrified of a world where genocide has become the status quo and our leaders say nothing. And so this is incredibly motivating to see so many Australians standing up and saying, no, they are not going to accept nuclear submarines hosted here. No, they're not going to accept their country as a battering ram in this inevitable madness. And it's very inspiring and I continue to be motivated by everyone that I meet that's trying to push out U.S. bases.
[15:06]
A
Well, Abby, thank you so much for speaking with me.
[15:09]
B
Thank you so much, Ruby. I appreciate it.
[15:14]
A
Abby's film Earth's Greatest Enemy is out now.
[15:26]
E
Also in the news, authorities are investigating whether bird flu is behind a mass mortality event at a South Australian island called Borden rock. More than 80 dead and sick greater crested terns were found on the island. Experts say it mirrors what's happened overseas with the outbreak which has caused significant illness and deaths in poultry, wild birds and mammals. And the prime minister is under pressure from the opposition to stand aside Northern Territory Labor MP Luke Gosling as an envoy for Defence, Veteran affairs and Northern Australia. Gosling was charged last week over an alleged assault on the Northern Territory's administrator, a role equivalent to state governor. Gosling has declined to comment as the matter is before the courts. I'm Ruby Jones.
[16:06]
A
This is 7:00am thanks for listening.