The High Cost of War

I am interrupting my series of posts on the Olympics due to the Russia-Georgia conflict. Today I would like to examine the environmental impacts of war. There are the obvious issues such as air/ground pollution, destruction of forests and diversion of government money into war. There is also the issue of buried land-mines of course. I don't feel the need to cover these topics as the impact is fairly obvious. Instead I’ll try to dig a little deeper.

War generally involves indiscriminate destruction of land and surrounding environment. Two examples include the dropping of two atom bombs on Japanese cities at the end of the 2nd world war and the spraying of Agent Orange in Viet Nam.  Both of these examples were initiated by the United States and resulted in extreme environmental damage and civilian tragedy lasting more than a generation.

One impact of war is the weakening of basic services and infrastructure within a country. This often results in water shortage, cooking fuel shortage and waste mismanagement during and after the war. The Iraq war resulted in cooking fuel shortages and led to residents cut down trees in order to cook. Inadequate water management can result in bacterial contamination, water loss via leaks (pipe damage), inadequate irrigation of cropland, food shortage and soil erosion.

Another issue is the mishandling of radioactive material and other hazardous substances. For example, in 2003 two hundred barrels of uranium oxide were stolen from a nuclear plant south of Baghdad. The contents of the barrels were dumped into rivers then local residents used the containers for storing basic amenities. Iraq's nuclear inspector now believes that one thousand people could die of leukemia.

Another war-related issue is the threat to biodiversity resulting from large numbers of displaced refugees. Mountain gorilla population and habitat were threatened after the Rwanda genocide as displaced refugees returned to an overpopulated country and were forced to inhabit the forest reserves.

One of the biggest war threats to the environment has been the manufacture and test of dangerous weapons. The contaminants from military sites are slowly distributing into the environment. Disposal of nuclear waste is one of the more significant global problems.

I could go on and on about the damage caused by war but I will stop here. Let's hope for a quick end to the Russia-Georgia conflict.  I have been suspicious of Putin for several years now and I worry about the similarities between present Russia and Nazi Germany (I won't elaborate here).

Comments

[YogaforCynics]

I'd say the situation is even worse when the entire reason for a war is environmentally destructive: i.e. control of oil supplies, so that we can continue burning gasoline instead of finding alternative energy sources as well as alternative modes of travel.