NATALIA DE CAMPOS, ndcampos at gmail.com, @BrazilDemocracy
Natalia de Campos is with the New York City, grassroots group Defend Democracy in Brazil, which is organizing a series of actions on Brazil, Climate, the Amazon and the United Nations. The group states: “[Current Brazilian President Jair] Bolsonaro’s policies and pronouncements have led to a surge of arson in the Amazon rainforest, as well as the assault on indigenous territories and protected areas. These policies include non-enforcement of existing environmental protections, evisceration of the governmental bodies tasked with environmental enforcement, systematic attempts to weaken environmental laws and protections of indigenous territories, and installation of Ministers who are representatives of the economic interests destroying the rainforest.”
Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept recently wrote the piece “Military Build-up and War Contribute to Climate Emergency.”
DAVID SWANSON, davidcnswanson at gmail.com, @davidcnswanson
Swanson is director of World BEYOND War, which is taking part in climate actions with StrikeDC Monday. He states: “The U.S. military is one of the biggest polluters on earth. Since 2001, the U.S. military has emitted 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases, equivalent to the annual emissions of 257 million cars on the road. The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest institutional consumer of oil ($17B/year) in the world, and the largest global landholder with 800 foreign military bases in 80 countries. …
“As the environmental crisis worsens, thinking of war as a tool with which to address it threatens us with the ultimate vicious cycle. Declaring that climate change causes war misses the reality that human beings cause war, and that unless we learn to address crises nonviolently we will only make them worse.
“A major motivation behind some wars is the desire to control resources that poison the earth, especially oil and gas.”