It is one of the terrible ironies of this moment that at the same time that we are seeing reports that carbon dioxide emissions jumped 6% between 2009 and 2010 (with the United States and China leading the pack as linked economies), military budgets for traditional warfare are skyrocketing. People seemed to be still deluded into thinking we will fight the next war with missiles and aircraft. The climate war is here, but we are unprepared.
The solution is not to ask ministries of defense to cut their budgets and dedicate that money to planting trees. We all know that as good as the intention may be, such an approach will never work. The only solution is to redefine the concept of “security” and increase the amount of spending within defense ministries on environmental issues. Innovative countries like Korea are capable of making the transition. The only question is whether they can do it quickly enough.
Some individuals may disdain the idea of working closely with the military or “militarizing” the issue of the environment. I would argue that we really do not have any choice at this point.
