Anti-war and global justice mobilizations are being organized for Washington DC, September 23-26. Actions, marches and rallies have been called to confront the unjust and illegal war in Iraq and economic policies pushed by the World Bank that kill thousands everyday while destroying the Earth’s life support systems. In addition, U.S. military policy in Iraq and “war for oil” mentality, and the World Bank’s pro-fossil fuel practices are exacerbating the global warming crisis. Climate change and anti-war activists have the opportunity to come together at these protests to show the connections between war and climate change, and advance the U.S. movement against global warming and global war.

How Will Global Warming Lead to Global War?

According to the United Nations, over the past decade climate change has been responsible for nearly 500,000 people killed, over 2.5 billion impacted and economic losses of over $690 billion. Ninety-five percent of climate change casualties belonged to countries of middle to low-level income. Rising sea levels will soon displace over 100 million people living in low-lying areas, including entire islands in the South Pacific.

The United States, as the world’s largest polluter producing 25% of annual global carbon emissions, refuses to sign on to any international climate change treaties. Instead the U.S. is waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to monopolize some of the world’s largest remaining oil and natural gas supplies, ensuring U.S. hegemony over these resources, and furthering its agenda for global domination.

The Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (SEEN) writes that the World Bank, entrusted in 1992 by the Rio Earth Summit to promote sustainable energy development, has instead spent $28 billion on fossil fuel projects. (Seventeen times more than they spent on renewable energy.)

The U.S., with defacto veto power over the World Bank in June of 2005 appointed Iraq War architect Paul Wolfowitz as the Bank’s new president. Following the July, 2005 G-8 meeting, Wolfowitz announced that the G-8 had put the World Bank in charge of financing a “new framework for mobilizing investment in clean energy and development.” Ken Newcombe, the Bank’s Carbon Finance Business Manager stated that proposals for this “new framework” would be discussed at the fall meetings of the World Bank this September in Washington, DC. SEEN points out that over 80% of the World Bank’s fossil fuel projects exported oil to G-8 countries.

As long as neoliberalism and oil fuel the world’s economies, global warming and resource wars will continue to intensify, leading to widespread instability and violence. “In a world already riven with imperialist war, and by economic and military tensions, the potential for [global warming induced] upheaval to spark armed conflict, including the ultimate spectre of nuclear annihilation, is not a morbid fantasy, but all too likely,” stated Paul McGarr in his article “Capitalism and Climate Change.”

A 2003 report by the U.S. Pentagon agrees, stating, “…abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism… Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life. Once again, warfare would define human life.”

Governments, corporations and international bodies like the World Bank, entrenched in the neoliberal model, cannot and will not move toward real solutions to the oncoming climate crisis. The solution will come in the form of a global grassroots movement that unites to take real action to stop global warming and its catastrophic impacts. Join us in DC September 23-26.

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Global Justice Ecology Project advances global justice and ecological awareness by identifying issues, creating strategies, organizing campaigns, building alliances and disseminating photographic images that demonstrate the interconnections between the social and the ecological, promoting a crucial holistic analysis to unify and strengthen movements.

http://www.globaljusticeecology.org