"The Pentagon’s 2026 budget – and climate footprint – is set to surge to $1tn thanks to the president’s One Big Beautiful Act, a 17% rise on last year."
"Military emissions are closely tied to military spending."
"The budget bonanza will push the Pentagon’s total greenhouse emissions to a staggering 178 Mt of CO2e, resulting in an estimated $47bn in economic damages globally, according to new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute (CCI), a US-based research thinktank, shared exclusively with the Guardian."
You were very wise not having children. It is, for me, a very odd and strange cocktail of emotions generated as I look on, watch and observe my kids who will never see retirement and my grandchildren who will never see their children go through their school years, should they have children, or get to live lives like our generation was too extremely privileged to enjoy. To watch people of all ages going about life as usual unaware of what they will not get to experience as life past less than a decade from now - the toddler just learning to walk, the T-ball player just hitting his first home run, the girl hoping to get on the cheerleader squad, the lawyer wannabe student just being accepted to Harvard, the young entrepreneur just being granted approval to open his business, and all in-between not realizing our planetary hospice state.!!! Most not wanting to know and refusing to accept the truth of the matter and thusly embracing the obvious denial they see as their only means of response. On this planetary situation, Too much too little too late for life to try again.!!!
Ya know, Guy... I ABSOLUTELY love your sarcasm laden sense of humor (the only true thing of value these days). So far, this LOSER administration IS winning helping to make ALL life on this planet the loser which will include them as well. I would really like to live long enough to watch as they receive the blame for all environmental collapse they so desperately want to (unknowingly) put themselves into position to accept and see the reactions they display as they do so. Oh, to be that proverbial 'fly on the wall'.!!! Reminds me of the scene in the movie 'What About Bob?' when the elderly couple, floating in their boat on the lake, begin to ecstatically rejoice as Dr Leo Marvin's house, that he had unethically bought from under them, exploded into oblivion with Dr Leo Marvin looking on in utter unbelievable exasperation as debris falls around him. It's the knowing there is nothing they can do to try to prevent what they are unaware is coming to them, and us all also. At least we will hopefully be around and able to entertain (morbidly speaking) with the futile efforts they make trying to prevent and fix what they kept putting off and will be unable to stop the results of the PO effect storm of accumulated effects non-addressed encroaching climate catastrophe. Because of the anguish these types of non-realistically minded people have forced on those of us who can blatantly see what is tsunamically rising upon all life on Earth, I really hope we all get to see the look of absulote despair they will show as they realize there is nothing they can do about what is about to take them out as well.!!! I apologize for this dark, despair-laden rant, but this is best it is going to be in a time where the least of nothing will be done about it. Wasteful overconsumption by overpopulation has been made irrelevant by its results.!!! Let's just love and comfort one another until those who don't and won't come to haul us away, them thinking that will fix the problem. I again apologize for venting my pent-up despair from recognizing for many years this upcoming end-result. I think they call it 'the Cassandra Effect'.
“In 2017, the US military bought about 269,230 barrels of oil a day and emitted more than 25,000 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide by burning those fuels. The US Air Force purchased US$4.9 billion worth of fuel, and the navy US$2.8 billion, followed by the army at US$947m and the Marines at US$36m.”
The statistics quoted above predate the USA's proxy war in Ukraine, the attacks on Iran and Yemen or the industrial scale slaughter being inflicted on occupied Palestine.
I've added this analysis to my blog post titled: "Warmongering and the Climate Crisis" which is laden with statistics on this ecocide/genocide.
I used to say that I have lived in two war zones, Occupied Ireland and post-revolutionary Mozambique, which was being destabilised by the original Apartheid state to the south.
I forgot to include the war on the environment, mea culpa.
Climate collapse and violent inter national military conflicts both have the same root cause: TOO MANY HUMANS using/depleting too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including plastic, GHGs, and climate collapse. We are now 3,000 times more numerous than were our self-sustaining/ecologically balanced migratory Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestral clan/band members. Thanks for all of your well referenced contributions, but you continue to ignore the prime cause behind all of it: TOO MANY HUMANS. Have a blessed day and cool evening!
Your comment is mostly true. Yes - too many humans. But correcting this now will only worsen the inevitable. Guy is not ignoring the human species contribution. It is no longer relevant. There is no level to which the human population could be brought that would bring any positive result. People immeiately ceasing to fossil fuels would begin an immediate geometric progression of disastrous temperature rise as aerosols from the burning of fossil fuels falls out of the atmosphere and no longer reflect a certain percentage of the heat generating rays from the sun, thusly preventing heat accumulation in the oceans and land masses. Within a week or so, the heat emanating from the land surface and accumulating in ocean waters would begin to generate the rise of temperatures to levels no life on this planet could endure. Also, as human populations die off because food plants to feed humans and the animals they consume cannot grow, there will quickly be no one to maintain the 460+ nuclear power plants scattered over the globe. These will begin imploding in short order with no one to curtail the continuous outpouring of ionizing radiation, thusly eradicating ALL life on this planet. It takes around 60 years to properly shutdown a nuclear power plant. There are more than 460 of them with more coming online every year. I'm quite certain a global effort to properly shut down all of them will never occur. Should there be any intelligent space-faring life willing to venture near what remains of this once-life-laden planet, the only way they would learn it had ever been so is by the grossly unimaginable and unnatural levels of radiation exuding from it, rendering it unapproachable. What a legacy we have collectively created. It is certain.!!! It is irreversible.!!! It is unstoppable.!!! And all that can now be done is to make the best out of what little and short future left to us. But, hey, none of us have the promise of tomorrow anyway.!!!
The experiment has already been done with the dramatic decrease in CO2 and aerosols with the COVID-19 shutdowns worldwide, and I know of no such doomsday heat build-up. Correct me if I’m wrong. When we lived in nearly contiguous migratory Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands of 150 or less (Dunbar number), our populations were steady as a result of that migratory lifeway. When sedentary grain agriculture took over, the surplus of energy in grains led to a population increase and no inter-clan competitions and predators were eliminated, so, now, we are 3,000 more numerous and 165,000 new innocent lives are brought into being daily. What could go wrong? Everything.
It is BOTH overpopulation AND overconsumption. Every one of the 165,000 new humans born today will strive to consume the natural resources available to him/her and bear more copies of him/herself. Dwindling water resources are due to every human containing 10 gals and grain industrial agriculture along with meat animals holding vast quantities as well. Even the poorest nations are huge consumers, when compared to their ancestors.
But wait, there's always more with me!
"The Pentagon’s 2026 budget – and climate footprint – is set to surge to $1tn thanks to the president’s One Big Beautiful Act, a 17% rise on last year."
"Military emissions are closely tied to military spending."
"The budget bonanza will push the Pentagon’s total greenhouse emissions to a staggering 178 Mt of CO2e, resulting in an estimated $47bn in economic damages globally, according to new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute (CCI), a US-based research thinktank, shared exclusively with the Guardian."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/17/trump-pentagon-emissions?fbclid=IwY2xjawMJ_DlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFHMUY2Ym1MNlhSRlRHcFNiAR4LHnsc_nky_9gE1wSH1VzFerp0KJXvQwne0gt-_ArHp-7QQFjHA0tgmZ5dIg_aem_yjyxMnBjD2BJ7TrG36Gbmg
“I apologize for this dark, despair-laden rant”
Why? You’re making perfect sense to me.
You were very wise not having children. It is, for me, a very odd and strange cocktail of emotions generated as I look on, watch and observe my kids who will never see retirement and my grandchildren who will never see their children go through their school years, should they have children, or get to live lives like our generation was too extremely privileged to enjoy. To watch people of all ages going about life as usual unaware of what they will not get to experience as life past less than a decade from now - the toddler just learning to walk, the T-ball player just hitting his first home run, the girl hoping to get on the cheerleader squad, the lawyer wannabe student just being accepted to Harvard, the young entrepreneur just being granted approval to open his business, and all in-between not realizing our planetary hospice state.!!! Most not wanting to know and refusing to accept the truth of the matter and thusly embracing the obvious denial they see as their only means of response. On this planetary situation, Too much too little too late for life to try again.!!!
Bravo Jack, a master class in summation.
It reminded me of my blog on "Hospice" that features one of Guy's video's on the topic.
https://kevinhester.live/2019/06/24/navigating-hospice-at-the-edge-of-extinction/
Perfectly stated. Your frustration is shining through.
Yay! We’re winning!
Ya know, Guy... I ABSOLUTELY love your sarcasm laden sense of humor (the only true thing of value these days). So far, this LOSER administration IS winning helping to make ALL life on this planet the loser which will include them as well. I would really like to live long enough to watch as they receive the blame for all environmental collapse they so desperately want to (unknowingly) put themselves into position to accept and see the reactions they display as they do so. Oh, to be that proverbial 'fly on the wall'.!!! Reminds me of the scene in the movie 'What About Bob?' when the elderly couple, floating in their boat on the lake, begin to ecstatically rejoice as Dr Leo Marvin's house, that he had unethically bought from under them, exploded into oblivion with Dr Leo Marvin looking on in utter unbelievable exasperation as debris falls around him. It's the knowing there is nothing they can do to try to prevent what they are unaware is coming to them, and us all also. At least we will hopefully be around and able to entertain (morbidly speaking) with the futile efforts they make trying to prevent and fix what they kept putting off and will be unable to stop the results of the PO effect storm of accumulated effects non-addressed encroaching climate catastrophe. Because of the anguish these types of non-realistically minded people have forced on those of us who can blatantly see what is tsunamically rising upon all life on Earth, I really hope we all get to see the look of absulote despair they will show as they realize there is nothing they can do about what is about to take them out as well.!!! I apologize for this dark, despair-laden rant, but this is best it is going to be in a time where the least of nothing will be done about it. Wasteful overconsumption by overpopulation has been made irrelevant by its results.!!! Let's just love and comfort one another until those who don't and won't come to haul us away, them thinking that will fix the problem. I again apologize for venting my pent-up despair from recognizing for many years this upcoming end-result. I think they call it 'the Cassandra Effect'.
“In 2017, the US military bought about 269,230 barrels of oil a day and emitted more than 25,000 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide by burning those fuels. The US Air Force purchased US$4.9 billion worth of fuel, and the navy US$2.8 billion, followed by the army at US$947m and the Marines at US$36m.”
The statistics quoted above predate the USA's proxy war in Ukraine, the attacks on Iran and Yemen or the industrial scale slaughter being inflicted on occupied Palestine.
I've added this analysis to my blog post titled: "Warmongering and the Climate Crisis" which is laden with statistics on this ecocide/genocide.
I used to say that I have lived in two war zones, Occupied Ireland and post-revolutionary Mozambique, which was being destabilised by the original Apartheid state to the south.
I forgot to include the war on the environment, mea culpa.
https://kevinhester.live/2022/05/13/warmongering-and-the-climate-crisis/
Well stated, Kevin (aka Mr. Good-News). Thank you!
Climate collapse and violent inter national military conflicts both have the same root cause: TOO MANY HUMANS using/depleting too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including plastic, GHGs, and climate collapse. We are now 3,000 times more numerous than were our self-sustaining/ecologically balanced migratory Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestral clan/band members. Thanks for all of your well referenced contributions, but you continue to ignore the prime cause behind all of it: TOO MANY HUMANS. Have a blessed day and cool evening!
Your comment is mostly true. Yes - too many humans. But correcting this now will only worsen the inevitable. Guy is not ignoring the human species contribution. It is no longer relevant. There is no level to which the human population could be brought that would bring any positive result. People immeiately ceasing to fossil fuels would begin an immediate geometric progression of disastrous temperature rise as aerosols from the burning of fossil fuels falls out of the atmosphere and no longer reflect a certain percentage of the heat generating rays from the sun, thusly preventing heat accumulation in the oceans and land masses. Within a week or so, the heat emanating from the land surface and accumulating in ocean waters would begin to generate the rise of temperatures to levels no life on this planet could endure. Also, as human populations die off because food plants to feed humans and the animals they consume cannot grow, there will quickly be no one to maintain the 460+ nuclear power plants scattered over the globe. These will begin imploding in short order with no one to curtail the continuous outpouring of ionizing radiation, thusly eradicating ALL life on this planet. It takes around 60 years to properly shutdown a nuclear power plant. There are more than 460 of them with more coming online every year. I'm quite certain a global effort to properly shut down all of them will never occur. Should there be any intelligent space-faring life willing to venture near what remains of this once-life-laden planet, the only way they would learn it had ever been so is by the grossly unimaginable and unnatural levels of radiation exuding from it, rendering it unapproachable. What a legacy we have collectively created. It is certain.!!! It is irreversible.!!! It is unstoppable.!!! And all that can now be done is to make the best out of what little and short future left to us. But, hey, none of us have the promise of tomorrow anyway.!!!
The experiment has already been done with the dramatic decrease in CO2 and aerosols with the COVID-19 shutdowns worldwide, and I know of no such doomsday heat build-up. Correct me if I’m wrong. When we lived in nearly contiguous migratory Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands of 150 or less (Dunbar number), our populations were steady as a result of that migratory lifeway. When sedentary grain agriculture took over, the surplus of energy in grains led to a population increase and no inter-clan competitions and predators were eliminated, so, now, we are 3,000 more numerous and 165,000 new innocent lives are brought into being daily. What could go wrong? Everything.
There were many examples of local and regional heating during COVID. Fortunately, they did not have global results. Those will be here too soon.
Brilliant contribution to the debate Jack.
Pauline made a video about the nuclear component of this catastrophe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boxYjxgWjV0
Bingo!
I have written and spoken many times about human-population overshoot. Blog posts on the topic date to 29 August 2007: https://guymcpherson.com/the-end-of-civilization-and-the-extinction-of-humanity/
Thank you for continuing to follow my work, Dr. Miklashek.
It's not overpopulation that's the issue, it's overconsumpiton by us wealthy white western 1%ers.
It is BOTH overpopulation AND overconsumption. Every one of the 165,000 new humans born today will strive to consume the natural resources available to him/her and bear more copies of him/herself. Dwindling water resources are due to every human containing 10 gals and grain industrial agriculture along with meat animals holding vast quantities as well. Even the poorest nations are huge consumers, when compared to their ancestors.
I highly doubt a poor starving Palestinian child consumes as much as a rich white American doctor.
Too many wealthy humans consuming too much of everything!