Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones, and you're listening to seven AM. It's
Speaker 1: the largest institutional emitter in the world, a bigger polluter
Speaker 1: than one hundred and forty countries, and yet its emissions
Speaker 1: are hidden from sight. Now, a new documentary is exposing
Speaker 1: the impact of the US military empire on the planet.
Speaker 1: The waist, the billion dollar budgets, and the political maneuvering
Speaker 1: that's kept it all out of the public eye. Today,
Speaker 1: journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin on what the world's biggest
Speaker 1: war machine is doing to our earth. It's Monday, August three. Abby, Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to seven AM.
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Could you start by talking to me a bit about
Speaker 1: just the scale of the US military, the bases, the infrastructure,
Speaker 1: the supplies, the sheer size.
Speaker 3: Just when you're looking at the bases right the base
Speaker 3: is alone, we're talking about eight hundred to one thousand
Speaker 3: military installations that our US ran all around the world.
Speaker 2: We don't actually know the true count.
Speaker 3: But when you're looking at the pollution of just maintaining
Speaker 3: this global military empire, the emissions that it brings, just
Speaker 3: the consumption of oil every single day is two hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy thousand barrels on paper, and that alone makes
Speaker 3: the US military as an institution the largest polluter in
Speaker 3: the world. I mean, wrap your mind around that. That
Speaker 3: is a larger polluter than one hundred and forty countries.
Speaker 3: And that's not even including the life cycle emissions. When
Speaker 3: we're talking about industry polluting in terms of extracting rare
Speaker 3: earth minerals, manufacturing all of the weaponry that we see,
Speaker 3: and then of course the application of the weaponry war
Speaker 3: it's completely unquantifiable.
Speaker 2: And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 1: And so there's the fossil fuels, the oil that's actually consumed,
Speaker 1: and then, as you mentioned, there are all these other
Speaker 1: ways that the military contributes to the climate crisis. One
Speaker 1: is the impact of the actual weapons being detonated. In
Speaker 1: your film, you show how ammunition is actually blown up
Speaker 1: on base by the US military when it's unused, instead
Speaker 1: of being returned to the Manufacturer's talk me through that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's called the million dollar minute, and this is
Speaker 3: something done out of just pure boredom, and it's also directed.
Speaker 4: Just so I'm understanding this correctly. Let's say a company
Speaker 4: goes out to a forward operating base, they bring a
Speaker 4: big supply of bullets, mortar rounds, artillery rounds, grenades, everything
Speaker 4: whatever they don't use. Instead of just bringing it back
Speaker 4: with them when they return to the main base, it's
Speaker 4: just blown up in the field.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you just those of it by blowing it up.
Speaker 5: It just is kind of like a self feeding cycle.
Speaker 3: They actually are instructed to blow up all of their
Speaker 3: excess ammunition when they are on a forward operating base
Speaker 3: before they bring it.
Speaker 2: Back to the central hub.
Speaker 3: And this is basically to justify ongoing expenditures. It is
Speaker 3: an industry, it is a for profit corporation, or at
Speaker 3: least it acts as such, so you have to continue
Speaker 3: to get rid of everything that you have in order
Speaker 3: to justify why you are getting more money the following year. So,
Speaker 3: for example, we leave Afghanistan, yet the defense budget continues
Speaker 3: to go up and up and up.
Speaker 2: And it's the same thing with all the oil.
Speaker 3: When they're out there, they're told to dump all the
Speaker 3: oils and then they can refuel once they go back
Speaker 3: to the base.
Speaker 2: It's just a completely senseless, wasteful.
Speaker 3: Exercise, just for profit, just for profit, and it's all
Speaker 3: been really clear watching the Wars today, how big of
Speaker 3: a polluter war is what is less obvious, what's more
Speaker 3: invisible is the pollution that's ongoing in relative peacetime. I mean,
Speaker 3: every single base is a story of not only legacy contamination,
Speaker 3: but current ongoing toxic dumping munitions testing, the toxic contamination
Speaker 3: of just cleaning the engine parts of the boat Pegasus,
Speaker 3: is the B fifty two bombers, the Bradley fighting vehicles,
Speaker 3: just to clean those engines is doing an untold amount
Speaker 3: of damage. So this is relative peace time, just to
Speaker 3: maintain the arsenal of the weaponry.
Speaker 5: Hundreds of military bases across the country, including one here
Speaker 5: on would be Island in Washington State, have a toxic
Speaker 5: legacy from forever chemicals that are threatening the lives of
Speaker 5: families to this day.
Speaker 3: The DD revealed that in March of this year they
Speaker 3: notified more than two thousand agricultural operations across the country
Speaker 3: about potential p fast contamination. And then when you have
Speaker 3: these jets, I mean, the US military has air forces
Speaker 3: that are five times bigger than the next you know,
Speaker 3: the next five biggest air powers combined that alone, I
Speaker 3: mean the amount of waste and emissions that.
Speaker 2: Are just being used just to.
Speaker 3: Fly around in pointless patrols, just to maintain mission readiness.
Speaker 3: I mean, just to wrap your mind around that. Comparing
Speaker 3: to the average Australian driver road, it would be comparable
Speaker 3: to like twenty years driving straight to one flight mission
Speaker 3: of a Boeing Pegasus.
Speaker 1: And you made this film over several years. How difficult
Speaker 1: was it to get information about how the US military
Speaker 1: was contributing to emissions.
Speaker 3: It's extraordinarily difficult because for the longest time they have
Speaker 3: obscured all of their data under the pretense of national security,
Speaker 3: just as they carved an exemption for their emissions back
Speaker 3: during the nineteen ninety seven Kyoto treaties.
Speaker 2: And so all the data from the movie.
Speaker 3: Comes from independent scientists trying to quantify the life cycle
Speaker 3: emissions and things like this, because the military still will
Speaker 3: not incorporate that data. So it's really tough to wrap
Speaker 3: your mind around. All we actually know is how much
Speaker 3: oil they consume.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that when the US counts its missions,
Speaker 1: the military is exempt. How did that happen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in nineteen ninety seven, the Clinton administration, during the
Speaker 3: first attempt for all countries to convene to try to
Speaker 3: address climate change, seriously and to try to curb and
Speaker 3: count their totals and work together to try to curb
Speaker 3: those cooperatively. The US carved an exemption for its military,
Speaker 3: and so all other countries followed soon.
Speaker 6: I am very pleased that the United States has reached
Speaker 6: a truly historic agreement with other nations in the world
Speaker 6: to take unprecedented steps to address the global problem of
Speaker 6: climate change. It reflects a commitment by our generation to
Speaker 6: act in the interest of future generations.
Speaker 3: And so it wasn't until the Paris Accords in twenty
Speaker 3: fifteen that this was a voluntary measure. Why would any
Speaker 3: country voluntarily put up their military missions if the United
Speaker 3: States refuses to. And so every single year after year
Speaker 3: after year, at these COP conferences, where all these delegates
Speaker 3: are patting themselves on the back, no one is actually
Speaker 3: talking about the totality of our emissions.
Speaker 2: Therefore they are a farce.
Speaker 3: Speaker Pelosi, you just presided over a large increase in
Speaker 3: the Pentagon budget. This Pentagon budget is already massive. The
Speaker 3: Pentagon is a large polluter than one hundred and forty
Speaker 3: countries combined.
Speaker 1: And you actually went to one of the cops COP
Speaker 1: twenty six in Scotland and your search for answers on this.
Speaker 1: What did you take away from that conference?
Speaker 3: You know, I took away that there's a huge problem
Speaker 3: with the entire neoliberal establishment, where it's an obsession with
Speaker 3: free market capitalism and an obsession with individual rights while
Speaker 3: you are completely ignoring the main drivers of the problem,
Speaker 3: the main perpetrators, and you're actually including them as the
Speaker 3: solution to the very problem they are exacerbating.
Speaker 4: I don't see what we're doing in any way or
Speaker 4: you know, increasing the defense budget as being something that's
Speaker 4: inconsistent with climate action.
Speaker 2: I really don't imever.
Speaker 6: Just to add that of national security advisors all tell
Speaker 6: us that the climate crisis is a national security matter.
Speaker 3: It was panel after panel of people literally saying the
Speaker 3: military is the solution for climate change, while on the
Speaker 3: other side of their mouth they're saying, no, we shouldn't
Speaker 3: count their emissions. I mean, they refused to answer a
Speaker 3: simple question about whether or not the military should be included.
Speaker 2: In this, and instead they're saying it's the solution.
Speaker 3: It's really ceding to this inevitability that there's no imagination,
Speaker 3: and so that's where we're in.
Speaker 2: We're in a.
Speaker 3: Collective suicide death spiral led by liberalism that has basically
Speaker 3: just given up any sort of control to the military.
Speaker 1: Coming up, what happened when Abby went head to head
Speaker 1: with some of the military's top brass So Abby, in
Speaker 1: putting together this documentary, you did try to go to
Speaker 1: the military for answers. You were a guest at an
Speaker 1: international wargames event. You spoke to a number of high
Speaker 1: ranking military officials. What was your experience trying to extract
Speaker 1: a response from them.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like beating your head against a brick wall,
Speaker 3: because these people are so obsessed with their self preservation
Speaker 3: and they just justify their position in this huge apparatus
Speaker 3: where you know, I'll ask them these point of questions
Speaker 3: about have you ever thought about how these wargames hurt
Speaker 3: marine life? And they'll say, you know, I don't know
Speaker 3: if these wargames are worth it to the environmental costs.
Speaker 3: But then in the next breath they'll be like, but
Speaker 3: we have to train, we have to get the oil,
Speaker 3: we have to drill, and you're just like, you can
Speaker 3: see their brains working real time to try to kind
Speaker 3: of absolve and like justify what they are doing.
Speaker 2: I would push back a little bit and say I don't.
Speaker 3: Personally, I think it has to be a balance.
Speaker 5: We have to exercise, we have to train, but we
Speaker 5: also want to respect the environment and make sure that
Speaker 5: we're not doing harm.
Speaker 3: How can you say that, though, when you guys are
Speaker 3: using live ordinance dropping, you know, actual real missiles, using
Speaker 3: live ammunition. I mean, the thing is, they just feel
Speaker 3: like they have no choice because you know, these people
Speaker 3: are taught military brass, They've never been asked a difficult
Speaker 3: question in their life.
Speaker 2: They're pampered as hell, but you see their brain short circuiting.
Speaker 3: It does seem like a contradiction for so many nations
Speaker 3: to get together to not deal with an actual existential
Speaker 3: threat of environmental collapse and climate change and instead exacerbate
Speaker 3: the problem because military is such a large contributor to
Speaker 3: pollution and climate change.
Speaker 4: Really, the purpose of what we're doing here with RINPAK
Speaker 4: is to build these capable, adaptive partners that can help
Speaker 4: uphold international norms and rules.
Speaker 3: But it is just so insane that I'm surrounded at
Speaker 3: these conferences by access journalists to our extensions of the
Speaker 3: military industrial complex.
Speaker 2: There's no real journalism being done, and everyone.
Speaker 3: Just acquiesces and thinks that the status quo is all great,
Speaker 3: that the military should be this dominant force that is
Speaker 3: polluting the hell out of the planet and destroying any
Speaker 3: ability to sustainable future, and no one's questioning these people.
Speaker 1: It's insane, and the mainstream climate movement it's meant years
Speaker 1: campaigning against fossil fuel companies call in oil. Tell me
Speaker 1: a bit more about why you think the military has
Speaker 1: remained in such a peripheral subject.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that for decades, neoliberalism has not only
Speaker 3: co opted the environmental struggle, the progressive movements and tried
Speaker 3: to essentially hijack the language and folded into the same
Speaker 3: systems of oppression that we're trying to fight and mobilize against.
Speaker 2: But this has all.
Speaker 3: Been very revealed and exposed in the last couple of years,
Speaker 3: the collapse of all these international norms and rules, and
Speaker 3: so I think people are realizing, at least in my lifetime,
Speaker 3: kind of the foundational current that's driving all of this,
Speaker 3: which is capitalism. And so all of us have been
Speaker 3: isolated and siloed into these movements without understanding how all
Speaker 3: of them connect, just as Americans and Australians are kind
Speaker 3: of unaware of our imperial role in the world, and
Speaker 3: so it really kind of takes us getting a bird's
Speaker 3: eye view and just saying wait, wait, we are all
Speaker 3: children of this military empire. And no, I don't want
Speaker 3: to be complicit anymore. I don't want to collaborate with this.
Speaker 3: I want a peaceful future for Australia and the United States.
Speaker 3: I don't want to host new nuclear submarines basically threatening
Speaker 3: China's doorstep. Like that doesn't need to be the inevitability
Speaker 3: of the future here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the film, you talk about expansion into the
Speaker 1: Arctic as well as US military build up in regards
Speaker 1: to China. So how do you think those are going
Speaker 1: to escalate and what impact do you think they will
Speaker 1: have on the climate.
Speaker 3: I mean it's going to have devastating impacts on the
Speaker 3: climate because another aspect of this is the great power
Speaker 3: competition and the continuous military build up around the world
Speaker 3: that encroaches countries like Russia and China, and then their
Speaker 3: reaction to it. So because of the belligerent nature of
Speaker 3: my government to continue to encroach on these countries, they
Speaker 3: are responding.
Speaker 7: I appreci the Arctic heavily. It is the place that
Speaker 7: most don't care about, and they're just don't understand what's
Speaker 7: up there for minerals, natural gas, rarer oil and the
Speaker 7: Russians actually trying to mark claim to that territory, to
Speaker 7: try to control that body of water, so we cannot
Speaker 7: relinquish that space.
Speaker 3: You know, I think that it's going to have an
Speaker 3: enormous effect when we're seeing look at the Iran war today,
Speaker 3: the intentional targeting of oil depots, the black soot, the
Speaker 3: black rain, all of this is.
Speaker 2: Going to be generationally felt.
Speaker 3: It's not going to be isolated to Gaza in Lebanon
Speaker 3: or Iran. So we haven't even felt the brunt of
Speaker 3: what the you know, the cataclysmic effects of this war
Speaker 3: that is ongoing, which we know is explicitly about oil.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is the thing about this military industrial complex.
Speaker 3: It necessitates its own existence. I mean, the expansion of
Speaker 3: the military comes hand in glove with these warps, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, when you acquire all the natural resources, when
Speaker 3: when you go after Venezuela and Iran and explicitly state
Speaker 3: that it's for pillaging and plundering their oil supply, and
Speaker 3: then it further justifies the expansion of the military. That
Speaker 3: pillaging and plundering the oil supply. I mean, it's just
Speaker 3: a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: What kind of responses have you been getting here in
Speaker 1: Australia or as you been touring the film.
Speaker 3: I have been to Perth where they're going to set
Speaker 3: up one of the Oaks sites to host nuclear subs,
Speaker 3: and people are really upset. I mean, I went and
Speaker 3: saw the beautiful coral reefs that are inevitably going to
Speaker 3: be dredged. Everywhere I go across Australia, it's the same
Speaker 3: story as everywhere in the rest of the world where
Speaker 3: US military bases are housed. People do not want them there.
Speaker 3: People understand the risk and it's not coming from China.
Speaker 3: It's coming from the armed soldier that's dumping their pollution overboard.
Speaker 3: It's coming from the pifa's contamination that's housed at the
Speaker 3: base in your backyard. The media is telling us to
Speaker 3: be terrified of Hamas and about China, and what I'm
Speaker 3: seeing are people are terrified of a world where genocide
Speaker 3: has become the status quo and our leaders say nothing.
Speaker 3: And so this is incredibly motivating to see so many
Speaker 3: Australians standing up and saying no. They are not going
Speaker 3: to accept nuclear submarines hosted here. No, they're not going
Speaker 3: to accept their country as a battering ram in this
Speaker 3: inevitable madness. And it's very inspiring and I continue to
Speaker 3: be motivated by everyone that I meet. That's I'm trying
Speaker 3: to push out us bass.
Speaker 1: Well, Abby, thank you so much for speaking with me.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Ruby appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Abby's film Earth's Greatest Enemy is out now. Also in
Speaker 1: the news, authorities are investigating where the bird flu is
Speaker 1: behind a mass mortality event in a South Australian island
Speaker 1: called bored and Rock. More than eighty dead and sick
Speaker 1: greater crested turns were found on the island. Experts say
Speaker 1: mirrors what's happened overseas with the outbreak, which has caused
Speaker 1: significant illness and deaths in poultry, wild birds and mammals,
Speaker 1: and the Prime Minister is under pressure from the Opposition
Speaker 1: to stand aside Northern Territory Labor MP Luke Gosling as
Speaker 1: an envoy for Defense that are in affairs and Northern Australia.
Speaker 1: Gosling was charged last week over an alleged assault in
Speaker 1: the Northern Territories Administrator, a role equivalent to state governor.
Speaker 1: Gosling has declined to comment as the matter is before
Speaker 1: the courts. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.