Global warring redux

New report compares military and climate spending

Posted by David Roberts at 4:09 PM on 31 Jan 2008

Read more about: politics | international politics | national security | climate

The Institute for Policy Studies has a new Foreign Policy in Focus report out: "The Budget Compared: Military vs. Climate Security." As you'd expect from the name, it's a close look at how federal dollars are allocated for military vs. climate protection, and as you'd expect from, you know, being awake, there's an enormous disparity. It's pretty astonishing nonetheless. Here are the reports major findings:

• FINDING: For every dollar allocated for stabilizing the climate, the government will spend $88 on achieving security by military force.

• FINDING: The government is allocating 99% of combined federal spending on military and climate security to military security.

• FINDING: During the last five years the ratio of military security to climate security spending has averaged 97 to 1.

• FINDING: In FY 2008, as well as during the past five years, the government has allocated for climate security only one percent of what it has devoted to military security.

• FINDING: The U.S. government budgeted $20 to develop new weapons systems for every dollar it requested to develop new technologies to stabilize the climate.

• FINDING: We will devote 50 times as much to arming the rest of the world as to helping it prepare for and avoid global climate catastrophe.

• FINDING: The government allocates just 2% of the international assistance budget for both military and climate security to stabilizing climate.

For story: Global warring redux
9 Comments | Post a Comment

End the Empire

Doing anything about global warming (or education, health care, and entitlements) will continue to be difficult as long as the military budget is off the table. As this article by Chalmers Johnson http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174884 and his "Blowback" trilogy show, we are choosing to devote massive resources to ineffective and counterproductive security measures while taking a pass on solving just about all of our other serious problems. We could cut $500 billion from our defense spending, still spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined, achieve better security and free up a lot of cash for good works at home. Sure it's politically impossible right now, but someone needs to popularize the academic work of Johnson and others so that we can have a serious political discussion about the choices: continuing to fund an ineffective war machine that spreads fear and violence throughout the world or end deficit spending, fund clean energy programs, provide universal health care, and secure adequate funding for social security, public transportation, education, and so on.

by Hal 9000 at 5:20 PM on 31 Jan 2008

do the math

It's worse than 88:1. The report uses $647B (483+142+25) representing national defense budget for 2008.

As Johnson finds, the truth is closer to $1T:
"The Department of Defense requested $481.4 billion for salaries, operations (except in Iraq and Afghanistan), and equipment. They also agree on a figure of $141.7 billion for the "supplemental" budget to fight the "global war on terrorism" -- that is, the two on-going wars that the general public may think are actually covered by the basic Pentagon budget. The Department of Defense also asked for an extra $93.4 billion to pay for hitherto unmentioned war costs in the remainder of 2007 and, most creatively, an additional "allowance" (a new term in defense budget documents) of $50 billion to be charged to fiscal year 2009. This comes to a total spending request by the Department of Defense of $766.5 billion.

But there is much more. In an attempt to disguise the true size of the American military empire, the government has long hidden major military-related expenditures in departments other than Defense. For example, $23.4 billion for the Department of Energy goes toward developing and maintaining nuclear warheads; and $25.3 billion in the Department of State budget is spent on foreign military assistance (primarily for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Republic, Egypt, and Pakistan). Another $1.03 billion outside the official Department of Defense budget is now needed for recruitment and reenlistment incentives for the overstretched U.S. military itself, up from a mere $174 million in 2003, the year the war in Iraq began. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently gets at least $75.7 billion, 50% of which goes for the long-term care of the grievously injured among the at least 28,870 soldiers so far wounded in Iraq and another 1,708 in Afghanistan. The amount is universally derided as inadequate. Another $46.4 billion goes to the Department of Homeland Security.

Missing as well from this compilation is $1.9 billion to the Department of Justice for the paramilitary activities of the FBI; $38.5 billion to the Department of the Treasury for the Military Retirement Fund; $7.6 billion for the military-related activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and well over $200 billion in interest for past debt-financed defense outlays. This brings U.S. spending for its military establishment during the current fiscal year (2008), conservatively calculated, to at least $1.1 trillion."

And that doesn't include arms exported and the whole arms industry being stimulated in China, etc., by U.S. harms spending.

by ids at 6:00 PM on 31 Jan 2008

And it's worse

Read this and don't pay attention to the human suffering, but consider the environmental consequences.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JB01Ak02.html

BTW, the Chinese military budget is only about 1/10th the US military budget.

Don't know about the French, English, Germans, Japanese and Canadians, or the Indians and Pakistanis.

patrick in Beijing

by bookerly at 6:14 PM on 31 Jan 2008

Actually, that''s better than I thought...

...I thought the ratio for U.S. military spending compared to climate security spending would be like 5 or 6 thousand to one, at least.

by Tasermons Partner at 6:46 PM on 31 Jan 2008

Take away

Take away a mere 5 percent of military spending and put it into incentives supporting energy policy that would make foreign oil unecessary to the US economy.

I bet cancelling the Iraq-tastrophe would save 30% of the military budget.

No more oil use, no more funding terrorist coffers and regional resentment. The war on terror would be rendered obsolete. Security enhanced, money saved, GHG canceled.

All we have to do is drive plugin hybrids, recharged by the solar panels on the garage, is that too much to ask? I think it's a sacrifice that patriotic security conscious americans would be happy to make.

Even motorhead hotrodders can have their thunderbeasts, just run them most of the time on plugin hybrid power. Rev up the old ICE ocasionally to impress.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:55 AM on 01 Feb 2008

50 billion

I propose that 25 billion from defense and 25 billion from subsidies for coal,oil, nuclear, and fuel farming corporations be diverted to a fund to incentivize renewable energy and conservation.

Put a third of this into direct incentives for distributed wind, solar, and biogas generated power. Every power company could then pay 23 cents per kwh to the producers of solar, wind, or biogas generated power. Like Wisconsin electric does now, voluntarily, for solar power.

Put a third of it into buying plugin hybrids for government service, the best deal for taxpayers negotiated with mass production contracts with US auto manufacturers. For vehicles to be manufactured or converted in the US.

Put the other third into conservation. Geo heat exchange heating/cooling, cogeneration and waste heat recovery, mass renewable electric transportation, light rail and buses. And bike lanes and trails. And smart grid projects that match supply and demand without burning more fuel in a power plant.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 8:09 AM on 01 Feb 2008

Military Spending Is Green

First of all Army guys wear green.

Ok, that's a joke...get it...Army...green...

Anyway, the most advanced technology comes from Defense spending. So, all your nanotech and nonsuch that's gonna bail your butts out of the ecomess is coming from G.I. Joe's budget.

Get with the program, soldiers.

by jabailo at 9:32 AM on 01 Feb 2008

Need funds, not new tech...

Anyway, the most advanced technology comes from Defense spending. So, all your nanotech and nonsuch that's gonna bail your butts out of the ecomess is coming from G.I. Joe's budget.

We already have the means now. Though further technological advances would certainly be nice and helpful, it's not absolutely necessary.

What we do need however, is more funds...which the military has more than enough of already.

by Tasermons Partner at 11:51 AM on 01 Feb 2008

Next

With all the need for silicon to get those solar cells to work, does that mean you guys are now going to invade the middle east for sand? And for sunlight?

by MarkUK at 12:10 PM on 01 Feb 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.