What does peace mean to you?

While both require planning, perseverance, and a steadfastness, peace stands in stark contrast to war. Peace preserves, accepts, and cherishes differences. War obliterates them.

I cannot say whether or not we are closer to living a life of peace or not, particularly when it comes down to the different cultures that make up this human world. Peace is likely not going to come from a compromise of our differences. Indeed, if even Americans cannot resolve their differences through compromise, then how can we expect the Western world to compromise on their differences with people in the East? Peace will come only when we accept the differences that exist. But acceptance is only a first step. We must cherish the differences, while at the same time making an intense effort at truly understanding why people would resort to flying planes into buildings. And so today, a decade on, how has peace influenced the debate on conflict resolution?

It amazes me that we think humans are the greatest thing in the world, but when it comes down to our differences, we will resort to violence to make sure that power stays concentrated with certain people. There is a clear discrepancy, it seems then, between doing all that we can to keep humanity alive, and then resorting to violence to kill humans when we don't agree. Of course, someone that has power might say then that it is in the interest of the broader humanity that their power is being used as violence against others, but that is unjustifiable.

Just as with many of the most complicated issues of our time, words have jumbled meanings. War can happen in the name of peace, and people convince themselves that this must be true. But what about this statement?

Since the Second World War, more than four fifths of the people killed in war have been civilians.

And despite the grief that comes with the loss of human life, there are many more dimensions that we don't think about when we think of war, and the environment is one of those things. How is the Earth's capacity for life changed when we war? Asked another way, what do our differences mean for the environment? Well, differences themselves are borne of the environment. Cultures are outcomes of environmental conditions, different ones, all over the world. This cannot be denied. And so when we resort to violence, we not only kill people, but we disturb and disrupt the ecosystems that build a culture.

There are many historical cases in which the ecological degradation has been used as a weapon to wipe people out, to oppress. In a prescient piece The environmental damage of war in Iraq from The Guardian, written eight years ago before the war, the potential ecologically degrading outcomes of war in Iraq were explored in the context of previous wars, both in the Balkans and in the Middle East:

During the 1991 war devastating damage was done to the oil industry in Kuwait. Iraqi forces destroyed more than seven hundred oil wells in Kuwait, spilling sixty million barrels of oil. Over ten million cubic metres of soil was still contaminated as late as 1998. A major groundwater aquifer, two fifths of Kuwait's entire freshwater reserve, remains contaminated to this day. Ten million barrels or oil were released into the Gulf, affecting coastline along 1500 km and costing more than $700 million to clean up. During the nine months that the wells burned, average air temperatures fell by 10 degrees C as a result of reduced light from the sun. The costs of environmental damage were estimated at $40 billion. Estimates of the numbers likely to die as a result of the air pollution effects were put at about a thousand. Since Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves of any nation on earth, the potential environmental damage caused by destruction of oil facilities during a new war must be enormous.

Other environmental effects of the 1991 Gulf War included destruction of sewage treatment plants in Kuwait, resulting in the discharge of over 50,000 cubic metres of raw sewage every day into Kuwait Bay.

Secondly, specific weapons likely to be used against Iraq will also create environmental damage. Top of the list of concern are depleted uranium (DU) projectiles.

Guess what? Depleted uranium has wreaked havoc in Iraq. Surprised?

When it comes to "just war theory", both jus in bello and jus ad bellum, how do we hold warring factions to these customs that make attempts at doing "minimal damage to the environment"? Is it even possible? The government and corporations we patronise deal with the issues of defense and war on a day-to-day basis. They in fact make a huge profit from war. The tentacles of war have weaved their way into each and every one of our communities, in all fifty states, from manufacturing to financing to politics to constitutional amendments. So how can we think about peace when war pays the bills?

There is a lack of peace within us. In fact, being peaceful and thoughtful is made to seem passive and subservient. When we find it tasteful to use guns against other people, and use guns as a sign of power and control, we will no doubt find it tasteful to use bombs to blow tops off of mountains to reach for coal - indeed this is a sign of power and control, not over people in this case, but the environment. What may be hindering our cause to find harmony and peace with nature is the violence we are able to perpetrate against our own kind. Or maybe our ability and willingness to perpetrate violence against nature, beautiful and delicate, is standing in the way of finding peace with our own kind. In the end, if we cannot find peace within us, we cannot find peace without us. 

I believe that if we find peace within ourselves and where we are, we can radically redefine notions of "progress" and "community." When I say peace, I in no way mean complacency. When I say peace, I mean that we recognise, understand and internalise our place in the world, our place in our communities, our place within our families, and our place in our own minds and bodies. Being at peace doesn't necessarily mean being satisfied with where we are ethically and morally; clearly, given our increasingly complex world, much of the complexity of which is man-made, there are ways in which we need to be redefining what it means to interact with each other, what it means to be a good citizen and a good steward. As a society as a whole, we are far from the ethical, moral and spiritual heights we need to be at to fully understand our impact on other humans, as well as the environment. There is no way we can envision a sustainable future when we find peace in violence. But if we can find peace in where we are materially and in physical place, we will have reached some level of peaceableness with the environment. Peace with the environment allows us the time to think and appreciate about its marvels, of which humans are one. Such a peace will not allow us to use violent force against any aspect of our environment, humans included. 

What does peace mean to you?

War and the Environment - "Green" death machines

As I've mentioned previously, there are limits to what you can get away with in a "just war," and this is the basis of just war theory. Yet when one thinks of war, one rightly thinks about destruction - destruction of physical objects, destruction of lives, destruction of nature. At the same time, what goes on in the military during non-war time is equally damaging to the environment, and people around the world. In the end, however, no matter how much the killing machine reduces its environmental impact through measures like efficiency, or building solar panels, there is a schizophrenia about these actions - under no conditions is war benign to the environment, and under no conditions is preparing for war benign, either. But you may have come across this article, in which it is stated that the US military wants to go "net zero" for energy, water, and waste.

What are interesting, but sad, really, are the military's definitions of "net zero." For energy, that means that they'll just produce on site what they need, which is a lot (the US military uses as much energy as the entire country of Nigeria, with a population of one-hundred and forty million people). For water, "net zero" means that they'll purify the water they use before they reintroduce it into the watershed (this sounds good, credit given, but I am wary of the accounting), and for waste, "net zero" means "no landfilling" bur rather converting waste into things with "resource value." Hmmm...

So the military "cares" about the environment and is at the same time preparing to kill other people and destroy lives elsewhere when it inevitably does go to war? What is the difference between humans and the environment? And when does the environment go out of the window? Of course, when we the military feels the pinch to say "mission accomplished." Gone then is the care for the environment, because if success requires another building to be blown up with a missile made from metals and toxic chemicals, then, so be it.

What is a discouraging about all of this is that since the military is such a massive institution and organisation in the US, with expenditures and presences dwarfing the sum of the expenditures and presences of all of the other militaries of the world, any portrayal of the US military doing anything "green" is lauded and commended with no thought that the very notion of war is unsustainable. Would a "green" military entice more people to join it? Would it result in committing to it more young minds and hearts, who will wield a gun in promotion of peace and "environment"? With that in mind, consider the following headline:

"Green Hornet to take Flight on Earth Day."

The Navy will demonstrate the 'Green Hornet,' an F/A-18 Super Hornet powered by a 50/50 biofuel blend, on Earth Day, April 22, at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., as part of its Energy Strategy.

You can read more here, here, here, here.

Do you find anything wrong with this? Is there something contradictory and morally depraved about this? I think so, and so does Matt, who told me about it. He said, "Last year, National Geographic ran an optimistic article, 'First Green Supersonic Jet to Launch on Earth Day.' It was a Navy F/A-18 Super "Green" Hornet(!) I was wondering how many things we could find morally/ethically wrong with this event and its implications - living plants harvested and chemically transformed to fuel a death machine to be launched on a day dedicated to our plant and the life it supports."

 couple of weeks ago the U.S. Army announced that it was on the verge of identifying a group of bases to adopt a net zero policy for energy, water and waste, and now we can all stop holding our breaths. The U.S. Army’s net zero bases were just announced and the program is even more ambitious than it first appeared. Net zero energy, water, and waste are assigned to six bases each, and two bases have volunteered to go net zero in all three categories. For those of you keeping score at home, that doesn’t actually add up to twenty, because some bases are going net zero in two categories. In any case, the point is to position the U.S. Army as a showcase, leader and learning center for sustainability, not only for the rest of the military but for the civilian world as well.

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/12txM

Some thoughts on violence

I get nervous when I see a gun. I get nervous because of what it represents in our and of our society, and the power it gives to the one that owns it, and the fear it instills in the ones that don't. I see a gun as a manifestation of our deep insecurities, and a manifestation of an understanding that what we do is not in the best interest of people and nature. A gun is a symbol of a life being forced upon us rather than a life lived in peace with what is environmentally, and consequently socially, acceptable. I don't want to get into a debate over what is acceptable; indeed, all of this blog has been dedicated to drawing these boundaries and extending our imaginations. Yet, as Jay Griffiths has written about beautifully and sadly in the current issue of Orion, guns and violence have been used against people and nature in West Papua for decades now. These unarmed people have fought to preserve their way of living and their mountains from the onslaught of the violence of mining. This is just one example of countless examples.

These past few days have been interesting. They have been days in which masculinity and dominance has been celebrated, ones in which introspection and asking "Why?" have been superseded by the thoughts of retaliation and revenge. Regardless of your stance on the issues,what I can say is that the events of the past few days have changed absolutely nothing, but rather they have further entrenched us in a continued violence that will to wreak havoc on lives, human, non-human and non-sentient. The environment, the ground and air and water that sustains us, will of course be impacted on negatively, despite the "just war theory," which I have written about previously. I can see that in the flag-waving of recent days, many lives and minds and hearts have fully accepted the manner in which we choose to end the fear that pervades our daily lives.

The world I want to live in is one without guns and violence, toward nature and people. It is of course something that has been written on and acted upon by countless, yet violence still surrounds us and pervades our minds. When we look at and make objects themselves with capacity to harm, we are compelled to pull a trigger or push a button that will blow someone or some place up.

I hope to have conveyed over the past months that there is actually no difference between environmental issues and social issues. They are one and the same. Committing violence against people is the same as committing violence against the land, air and water. Violence towards land, air and water is the same as violence towards people; it does not take a logical leap to make the connections. The world I want to live in is one without the fear of consuming toxins in my drinking water.

Peace and the deficiencies of anthropocentrism

I was struck by this painting by David Ward, a prisoner here in the State of Michigan, whose work Ode to a dying ideal was showcased along with the art and writing of many other prisoners in Michigan at one of the best events that comes through this University. The Prison Creative Arts Project does wonderful things.

 

I was struck so much that I put a bid on it (click on the photo to see the detail of the border), and won, without even thinking once about my "not buying anything" policy...different issue, one that we can talk about later. What I wanted to write about today was exactly what Ward is getting at with his painting. We cannot go a minute now without listening to people being killed, either people in Iraq or Afghanistan (where it is almost certain that more people have been killed than has been reported in the media here), or people that are being killed so that their voices can be silenced, i.e. in places like Yemen and Libya. People are being silenced here, too. 

I have written at length about peace and the environment, initially provoked by a discussion about Just War Theory with Professor Richard Tucker (more here, here, here), and then subsequently by a piece written by Hendrik Hertzberg about Gabrielle Giffords' shooting. I re-read what I wrote a few months ago, and my mind has not changed. 

It is interesting how all ecological degradation has stemmed from our anthropocentric ethical structure, which dictates that we will do whatever it takes in the interest of humans, more likely than not at the expense of the environment. There are a couple of deficiencies of this ethical framework that I can think of off the top of my head, which I want to discuss. Firstly, I find it amazing that we think humans are the greatest thing in the world, but when it comes down to our differences, we will resort to violence to make sure that power stays concentrated with certain people. There is a clear discrepancy, it seems then, between doing all that we can to keep humanity alive (anthropocentrism), and then resorting to violence to kill humans when we don't agree. Of course, someone that has power might say then that it is in the interest of the broader humanity that their power is being used as violence against others, but that is unjustifiable. In this case, we don't act anthropocentrically.

Secondly, although it may be more manageable for us to think that we should act in the best interest of humans, particularly from an "evolutionary" standpoint, we inevitable degrade what it is that sustains us. We want to protect our own, and if that means that we need to blow off the top of a mountain to get coal so that our homes can be heated in winter, so be it. But if we think about the longevity of humanity, certainly blowing off of the top of a mountain and consequently polluting streams and rivers is in no way protecting our ability to further ourselves. Anthropocentrism, in this case, just has the ability to cave in on itself, particularly when it comes down to an ever-burgeoning population and the struggle to keep ourselves alive in the future. The future that we have envisioned for ourselves, full of batteries and gizmos and computers, is no less violent toward nature than our present society.

The very act of war itself is unsustainable in the truest sense of the word, while at the same time flying in the face of anthropocentrism. Peace does seem to be a dying ideal.

War and the Environment - Analogies to trash

A few weeks ago, Serge asked me to define the words "trash" and "waste." I had a hard time doing that on the spot, probably because definitions can start getting blurry over time. It is interesting, how in many walks of life, when you start prodding for answers, you just end up with more questions. One definition of "trash" that I can think of is that trash is a byproduct of human activity in which natural resources have been concentrated and modified so much so that they cannot be re-introduced into the environment in a (close to) non-impactful way. 

 It is interesting to think that with most of the objects we use in our daily lives, it is the concentration of natural resources that makes that object useful to us - a few molecules here and there of iron oxide is utterly useless to us from a material standpoint, but when concentrated and modified, it can form solid iron, which can then be tempered and modified to form high-strength stainless steel. Such a concentration of material, resources and power is necessary in the age of modern warfare. One molecule here and there of a dioxin is harmless to the environment, but concentrated amounts of dioxins, such as in Agent Orange, when sprayed on vast swaths of land, can maim, disfigure and kill ruthlessly. Natural radioactivity from the heavy elements is natural, and radioactivity from our life-sustaining force, the Sun, is too, natural. But when concentrated, natural radioactive materials can be forged into forces of monstrous environmental, social and psychological harm. In the same manner, trash is generally made of resources that exist in diffuse natural states. These materials, when violently extracted and modified and treated, are morphed into objects that are functional in our society. Such a modification changes the inherent properties of the material in its natural state, either making the end product toxic or deadly to us, or to something else in the world.

It is also interesting to think of concepts of the "justness" of trash, in the same way people conceptualise "just wars." The concept of proportionality, which (somehow) dictates and regulates the amount of force that is "right" to be applied, can also be applied to something like trash. It seems like significant amounts of trash are created for objects of mostly little ethical or moral value, as is the case in a consumerist society. I contend that the value of many of the objects we create, which also end up as trash or waste, cannot fulfill the requirement of proportionality of use. Yet in spite of such violence, for most people, it is difficult to imagine a world without objects that end up as trash. The remains of both modern warfare and trash are degraded natural landscapes, degraded human landscapes, polluted air, polluted water, and injustice served to people least deserving of it.

War and the Environment - Just War Theory

I want to state clearly that I am resolutely against violence of all kinds - towards all living and non-living beings. Provoked by a discussion with Professor Richard Tucker, I will be writing for the next few days on the environmental impacts of war. (When I say "war," I mean the use of violent force.) I will be writing about environmental considerations during war, the environmental impacts of the military during non-war times, the environment as a non-combatant, the use of nuclear materials in war, the waste of life and environment because of enriched nuclear materials, as well as the current use of nuclear waste in Iraq as munitions. I believe this has several connections to waste and trash, which I hope to address implicitly and explicitly over the next few days. I start off in this series by writing a bit about what is called "Just War Theory," (JWT) which is a body of thought that has been built over many centuries, and how the environment can be considered in this. This post is based off of the writing of Mark Woods, "The Nature of War and Peace: Just War Thinking, Environmental Ethics and Environmental Justice."

JWT talks about circumstances in which the use of war is "justified," and how so. There are two important sets of considerations that have been elaborated on now for a long time. The first is jus ad bellum, which lists a set of considerations that must be taken into account before engaging in war - just cause, proper authority, right intention, reasonable hope for success, proportionality, last resort. The second set of considerations is jus in bello, which lists a set of considerations that must be taken into account while engaging in war. This involves asking questions like "What will do the least harm to X if I need to accomplish Y, given that I am already in the war?" It is important to note that many of these traditions and considerations come from customary international law, as well as international treaties (although these treaties have "very little legal bite," as Woods notes). Woods notes that these traditions and treaties attempt to regulate the conduct of war through outside enforcement, which of course, is close to impossible. Further, these theories and treaties have never been invoked to protect the environment before, during, or after war, even though the Geneva Conventions as well as ENMOD expressly prohibit means of warfare intended or expected to "cause widespread, long-term and sever damage to the natural environment." In fact, such actions are viewed as war crimes. Woods extends JWT to incorporate the environment. Woods argues that since "the jus in bello criteria of discrimination and proportionality can be used to regulate military force against civilian targets, it seems possible to regulate the use of military force against environmental targets." In fact, it would be extremely useful and powerful to think of the environment as a non-combatant. He makes a very interesting observation by noting that many military conflicts have been started because of mistreatment of unarmed, non-violent communities and groups of people. If JWT holds, is it justifiable to have armed environmental interventions to protect the Amazon rainforest from deforestation?

My thoughts on this are the following: I do not think it is possible to "expend all other possibilities and options," which is a reason why states may go to war. But if they do, it is close to impossible to regulate conduct during war. (This can be clearly seen by the use of white phosphorous by the Israeli forces during its recent war with Gaza.) The environment is always degraded during war, and whether we like it or not, people's lives and their outcomes are based on the fact that we live on the land, we drink water, and we breathe air. Modern chemical warfare necessarily degrades these things - no nation has ever gone to war to beautify the nature of the enemy territory. Destruction of structure, man-made and natural, is an incontrovertible outcome of war. It is absolutely not possible to understand the lasting consequences of chemical warfare on the environment. Furthermore, the preparation for war itself necessarily degrades the environment. More thoughts on this next time.