I’m sat in my room, in Taiwan, in what should be one of the coldest months of the year, wearing nothing more than a thin long-sleeve tee and a maxi dress.

Granted, Taiwan is classed as a sub-tropical island, but generally speaking, it still got cold in winter.

According to a government website, summer has lengthened by 27.8 days and winter has decreased by 29.7 days.

All that to say, maybe we really ought to be looking at this climate change thing before those of us in the global south broil to death.

Or get drowned out of our homes by rising sea levels.

Or starve due to climate change related famines.

For a first, I suggest getting rid of all militaries and abolishing the police while we’re at it. If that latter is a step too far for some, I suggest de-militarizing the police to start.

Why?

• Militaries account for at least 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That was according to experts in 2022.
  One might reasonably suspect that the percentage has gone up with Russia’s attack on Ukraine and Israel’s bombing of Palestine, and the tension between the US and China stepping up war games.
  Worse, and utterly baffling, they’re apparently exempt from agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Accords.
  The US defense department is the world’s single largest consumer of oil, vomiting out more greenhouse emissions than entire countries. Like Sweden, Portugal, or Denmark.
• Consumption of fossil fuels aside, there are a lot of resources that go into making war paraphernalia. From bombs to fighter jets to uniforms to drones.
  People really out here shaming other people for buying their cell phones new and not saying a thing when militaries are out there updating their fighter jets on the regular, and killing people to boot.
• Everyone worried about “organic” certifications when “bombing the fuck out of a place” not only kills people, cannot overstate that bit, but also not only contaminates the environment, often in lasting ways (Agent Orange, anyone?), but rebuilding afterwards also consumes immense amounts of resources.

And onto the police.

The police get a lot of money. A lot.

Frex, the Boston City Council approved about 4.3 billion dollars for the operating budget of Boston Police Dept.

They also are getting increasingly “well-armed”, often with military grade equipment.

And for all those resources, despite LA spitting out more than 11 thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, there’s been no reform in the cases of police brutality and no stop to police murders.

Arguably, the militarization of the police has made us less safe, not more. Particularly for certain communities.

Anyway.

In general, it seems clear that asides from controversial bits like “war is bad, invasion is bad, bombing the fuck out of a place is very bad”, environmentalists might consider joining the protests to support de-militarization of the police and ceasefires across the world if they haven’t already.

Also maybe consider writing your politicians about defunding the military.

I suspect any success at moving the needle further away from “militarize militarize militarize” and “bomb it all” will do more, on average, than obsessing over whether stainless steel resuable containers or glass are more sustainable, something I’ve found myself wondering over the last day.