NOT Green At All

David Sirota has a great article, "The Pentagon's Attempt to Greenwash the Military," posted on Salon.com. He writes, in part,

Yes, military brass led by U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus have lately been mounting a PR campaign to convince America that the gas-guzzling armed forces are now helping solve burgeoning environmental crises by "going green." Officials are specifically touting their success reducing energy and water consumption at bases, and they are promoting an initiative to make sure "half of all energy that the navy and marines use afloat, ashore and in the air will come from non-fossil fuel sources." For this effort, they have been landing periodic -- and fawning -- coverage in the New York Times, USA Today and National Public Radio, among others.

Coming from a Pentagon that is the largest single consumer of energy in America, these modest steps are long overdue and commendable. But absent deeper behavioral change, these initiatives are laudable only in the sense that it's laudable, say, for a wealthy Hollywood star to retrofit one of his seven Hummers or for a growing coal company to donate a drop of its profits to a tree-planting charity...

In my opinion, the US military could become the most "environmentally-friendly" institution in the world and yet they still wouldn't qualify as green. Why? Because war itself destroys ecosystems, wastes finite resources and contributes significant amounts of pollution. These factors negate almost every earth-friendly strategy that could be employed.

If our elected and military leaders genuinely want to go green, then the first step along that path is to quit making war!! If we could accomplish that, then the rest would be a helluva lot easier.