How Peace, Global Justice, and Faith movements Can Unite to Stop the War on Terra

The war on terror and the war on terra are one and the same. we need to resist them accordingly. The war on terror and what is happening to the Earth’s ecosystems are directly connected. Wars of aggression - especially in Iraq and Afghanistan – are being fought plainly and obviously for oil resources, and the use of that oil impacts directly on the climate. This important connection is being made more and more.

Groups like United for Peace and Justice and the Canadian Peace Alliance, leading North American peace networks, endorsed the December 3, 2005 global day of action on climate change. So we're starting to see a real evolution of the movement beyond solely peace issues, to also looking at issues that impact our ability to survive on this planet.

Mobilizing for the Climate

From November 28 to December 9 Montreal hosted an international UN climate conference which launched discussions about what comes after the 2008-2012 timeframe of the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto calls for 6% emissions reductions below 1990 levels. In Canada's case, since we've gone up about 24% it's actually much more significant.

The international scientific community is saying we need 60% to 80% reductions. So how are we going to get there? Leading up to Montreal there were a lot of concerns about the fact that the US government negotiators and Exxon “observers” would attempt to sabotage any further action beyond Kyoto. Despite their best efforts to do so, some progress was made in the negotiations. All told, there were about 10,000 delegates to the conference. On December 3, there were over 40,000 people in the streets in an extremely energized march despite the subzero temperatures. Significantly, on the same day, demonstrations were held in 30 countries around the world. While we have much further to go, the movement to stop climate chaos is clearly reaching new levels of organization.

People were mobilizing on every continent, including Antarctica. And you know when Antarctica starts mobilizing, you're in a good position as a movement. I haven't seen this level of mobilizing in the level of regions and different places since February 15, 2003 - the day of the largest global protests in history. While there were not as many people in the streets as on February 15, we are definitely starting down a very important road for the movement, where a critical mass of people are taking to the streets in record numbers to stop climate chaos.

One reflection of this shift in thinking is the November 11, 2005 front page story on the Toronto Star which read “Canada Faces Climate Crisis.” The story is on a report commissioned by the Canadian Government, which is very critical its action – or inaction – so far to address climate change. The report calls for a number of things, including very aggressively addressing the issue of climate change. The report also calls on industry to take a much more constructive approach - in other words to stop being part of the problem.

Climate Connections

One thing we are also seeing around the world is that more people are making the connection between global warming and global justice. Places like Tuvalu are going underwater because of rising sea levels. This isn't the future, this is happening now. They are already trying to figure out where to move their population, because thanks to climate change Tuvalu is not going to physically exist anymore - at least not above sea level.

There also has been a lot of analysis of New Orleans with regard to climate change, and it's important that we are making those connections, and making the links to Iraq. In Bangladesh in 2004, 2.4 million people were left homeless in flooding which submerged 1/3 of the country. That puts New Orleans in context. Bangladesh in particular is at severe risk from the rising sea levels being brought on by climate change. The main difference, other than the impact in terms of sheer numbers, is that with New Orleans and Katrina, climate change literally hit home in the US.

What we are seeing from Bangladesh to New Orleans to Tuvalu is that it's people with darker skin, it's people in the Global South who are most dramatically impacted by climate change. But it's also the North, predominantly white, that is causing most of the problems in the first place. So it's important to note that when we are talking about climate change that there are underlying issues of systemic racism and environmental justice.

To give an example, I was one of hundreds of thousands of people who protested at the G8 in Scotland over the summer of 2005. The G8 talked a lot about Africa, and reducing poverty and eliminating debt. But what came out loudly and clearly at the G8 Alternatives Summit and the protests, was that it is not the Global South that owes the North, it is the North that owes the South. Particularly, when you take into account ecological debt.

Climate Change is a Peace Issue

Because of the burdens that we are placing on the people in the Global South by way of our lifestyle. In the fossil fuels that we're burning, in the wars that we're waging against Iraq and Afghanistan, and the threatened wars against Iran and Venezuela and everywhere else that the oil is abundant, the aim is to maintain this way of life.

So the Montreal climate conference was a watershed moment, and not just for the environmental movement. Climate change is really a much broader issue. This is not and can not be purely an environmental issue. It's a survival issue. And in our activism, whenever we address peace and Iraq, we need to be talking about climate change in the same breath, because of how deeply interrelated these issues are. When we are addressing immigration and refugee issues, we need to recognize that over half of the refugees in the world today had to leave their homes because of environmental crises. If we are not addressing climate change as much as possible in our regular activism, the rest of it becomes a bit of a moot point, because of how severe the crisis really is.

The International Panel on Climate Change is regularly revising its estimates of the impacts of climate change, because we are constantly seeing effects now that were not anticipated to occur for another 10, 20 or 30 years. The melting of the permafrost is a startling example of this, as are the recent revalations to the rapidly diminishing ice in Greenland.

The Meridian Report

There is a report put out by the Meridian Institute in the UK, which looks at feedback mechanisms and climate change. Take the oceans, for example. They are able to absorb a certain amount of CO2. But as the ocean temperatures rise, they are able to absorb less CO2. So you start to get a positive feedback loop, which means that as the temperatures rise the oceans absorb less CO2. As a result, our emissions begin to have a greater impact, because more greenhouse gas emissions end up in the atmosphere.

What we are beginning to see is that the more that feedback increases the more climate change becomes independent of our emissions. If we allow things to go too far, emissions reductions are not going to be enough to stop climate chaos. And on this, time truly is running out.

What the Meridian Report is calling for is a shift away from the policy approach and the activism strategy of focusing exclusively on emissions reductions, and start looking at reducing the actual CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. This will be a significant shift in thinking, even in the activist community.

Throughout geological history there used to be a very steady connection between the fluctuations in temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations. But now the two have become delinked as a result of how rapidly we are polluting the planet with greenhouse gases. What we see as a result is the gases are emitted and 10 or 20 years later we begin to see the impacts of those emissions. So even if we stop burning all fossil fuels right now, 20 or 30 years from now we will feel the full impact, perhaps longer. This is all the more reason for us to act now, given the effects of climate change we are already witnessing around the world.

Climate Change, Peak Oil, and War

There was a bill passed in the US in 2005 to make it easier to build more oil refineries and increase refining capacity. This is directly related to what is going on in Iraq, but is also designed to squeeze out the last bit of oil that is still left in the US itself. This raises the issue of peak oil, which was covered in some detail in the Summer 2005 issue of the ACTivist.

In the 1950s there was a geologist named M. King Hubbert who made a prediction, which turned out to be accurate, that oil production would eventually peak and then begin a permanent decline. Demand for oil would continue to increase, but the available supply would decline. Hubbert accurately predicted the (US) oil crisis in the 1970s. The difference between then and now is that in the 1970s the oil crisis was primarily caused by political factors. Also, the problem then was oil supply domestically for the US.

At the time, the US was able to import more oil or obtain it through imperial or economic conquest to offset the effects of peak oil domestically. But now we're reaching global peak oil. The general consensus in the geological community seems to place peak oil between 2000 and 2010, so we are likely right in the middle of it, so to speak. Even the US Army and CEOs like Mike Lazaridis, of Research in Motion (of Blackberry fame), have recognized peak oil is happening. The nature of peak oil predictions is that we won't know the precise timing of the global peak until we are past it. Like climate change, with peak oil we cannot afford to wait until it is too late. To both issues, the solution is the same. We need to kick our intertwined addictions to oil and war. This means a dramatic reduction in energy use is needed in the West, and in North America in particular.

With the peak of global oil production, especially as demand continues to increase, there is no where we can import from, unless we can find some on Mars, which hasn’t happened just yet. While climate change is a huge issue, we are also reaching a point in time where oil is becoming increasingly scarce. In addition to extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina, the summer of 2005 also brought us dramatic a increase in oil prices. Granted, there is price-gauging going on, but the root of it is that the oil is running out. When it comes to peak oil, it is not a question of if, but when. Even some of the more fringe predictions of when the oil is going to peak, predict 2030.

While oil running out may benefit our efforts to combat climate change, by default, it is also exacerbating imperial wars for oil. Because oil is increasingly hard to come by, the people with the most power in the world want to make sure they control what’s left. It’s interesting to note, that before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before 911, Cheney and the Bushies knew about peak oil. Perhaps not surprising, given their deep ties with the oil industry. This point is very important to keep in mind for our strategies to address peace and climate change.

When Cheney was Chairman of Halliburton, he made a speech at a London Institute of Petroleum Autumn lunch in 1999, where he admitted the reality of peak oil, and hinted at ways of addressing it. According to Cheney, “oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from… the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.” Hence Afghanistan’s strategic importance as an oil pipeline route from the Caspian Sea, and the central importance of the oil reserves in Iraq and Iran. It is also important to note, given the current sabre-rattling, that Iran has the world’s second largest proven natural gas reserves (after Russia). Natural gas is expected to peak globally 5 to 10 years after oil.

Uniting Against the Climate Crisis

However, the Bushies are desperate. They know that their power depends on some kind of resource that allows them to control the global economy. From their perspective, if you start having wind turbines popping up all over the place, you can’t control that. People will power and empower themselves. The last thing they want is a movement empowered and off the grid. It would mean the end to their stranglehold on the planet. This is one reason there is such a strong effort to establish nuclear energy as the “clean” choice. Nuclear power is one of the most undemocratic forms of technology in existence.

We need to find a way of making this one movement. And we are taking important steps in that direction with peace networks like United for Peace and Justice in the US and the Canadian Peace Alliance and others recognizing climate change as a peace issue. We need to make those links even stronger.

Another realm that is contributing to the growth of the movement to stop climate chaos is making the links between climate change and faith. With Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and other faiths there is a direct connection to respect for the earth, and all of creation. This is particularly true when it comes to Muslims, because of the connections between the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (and potentially Iran) for the fossil fuels that are causing climate change in the first place. There is a potent connection there, and hopefully the emerging climate change movement can build and expand on the links the peace movement and Muslim communities have made over the issues of Iraq and civil rights.

There was also a strong First Nations presence at the climate conference and protests in Montreal. The Inuit, for example, are raising awareness about how they are losing a culture that has existed for millennia within a generation. The permafrost, on which their entire culture depends, as well as the ice sheets for hunting and subsistence survival, is melting. Right now. We are not talking about days, weeks, months, years from now. It is happening now.

Environmental Racism and War

This brings us back to the issue of environmental racism. Because it is not yet affecting the predominantly white areas of North America as severely as marginalized populations with darker skin, needed actions are not being taken.

This brings us back to the war as well. The people who are most responsible and culpable for perpetuating climate change and the war on Iraq and all these other imperial adventures are quite racist. If not consciously, then at least on some level through their actions they have demonstrated that this is the case. From the impacts of their policies to the way they train the troops. We’ve heard from many war resisters, again and again, how as US soldiers they have been trained to view everyone in the Middle East as terrorists. This is the kind of policy imperial powers have been putting forward, and have been putting forward for generations. We have also heard from war resisters that securing the oil fields was one of the first tasks once on the ground in Iraq. This has led us to the point we are at.

Personal and Corporate Change Needed

We also need to change our own lifestyles. Carbon Activism for Beginners, by Guy Dauncey on activistmagazine.com goes through a range of things we can do in our personal lives to stop climate chaos, including reducing our home energy consumption, different ways of traveling (or not traveling as the case may be), and becoming vegetarian. Eating beef in particular has a huge impact on the climate. A lot of the beef that is eaten in North America, for example, comes from cows that are raised in Brazil, where the Amazon is being clearcut to make room for them. Not only does this deplete forests which would help absorb greenhouse gas emissions, but large-scale cattle farming is a significant source of methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas.

There is a wide variety of different ways that we can be more environmentally friendly in terms of climate change in our own lives. And that’s important, but at the same time we have to demand that governments and corporations change. Exxon-Mobil is an important example, in that they have for a long time denied that climate change is even happening. They’ve been spending millions of dollars lobbying against action on climate change and against the Kyoto Protocol; shipping so-called scientists – basically hired guns – around the world to rebut the arguments who say climate change is happening. It is critically important to note, and the media is thoroughly complicit in this, that while there are thousands of scientists who say that climate change is a huge concern, and there are 3 that they fly around the world who say “well… we’re not so sure… maybe it is… maybe it isn’t… we need to wait and see”, the media gives equal airtime to both viewpoints. Precisely the same thing has happened in the coverage of peace and war, where a handful of retired generals receive over 90% of the airtime and the millions of people in the streets get the rest. Is that really “balanced”? Well, maybe on Fox News.

The reality is that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus to the point where scientists are becoming advocates and activists on the issue, essentially because they feel they have to.

One thing that ACT for the Earth is supporting is a program of Freeliving.org to put on workshops to teach people to make their own rooftop wind turbines. This takes us back to one of the core strategies of Gandhi, which used the spinning wheel to show that we have the power ourselves to totally change everything. We have the power to transform society and how we use energy. There is no reason we can’t make our own wind turbines. If our governments and corporations aren’t going to do it, fine. Let’s do it ourselves.

Yes, we are running out of oil, but there is this energy all around us from the sun that we hardly even tap into. There’s geothermal energy, and many more possible energy sources. Yet we aren’t moving anywhere near quickly enough, because governments and industry clearly aren’t taking climate change seriously enough. While we are calling on them to take a much stronger position on this, we really need to push the envelope and see what we can do ourselves as well.

A New Moment for the Movements

We need to recognize that the demonstrations that emerged in Montreal and around the world are just a new beginning, and we need to look beyond. It is very important that we mobilized towards Montreal, but we also need to organize more international days of action, and find ways of taking action every day of our lives.

We need to weave every movement together, because climate change is an issue that impacts everything. Iraq does as well, but in many ways they are the same issue.

With climate change, peak oil and smog seen increasingly as something society needs to address, the nuclear industry sees this as an opportunity. “We need clean air, climate change is getting serious, but hey, we’ve got your power right here.” They are going to be doing everything in their power to put nuclear front and centre as a power source. And of course, in light of the US’s nuclear first strike policy, this is very serious in terms of nuclear weapons as well. It is all part of the same issue. Nuclear power is very much on the radar of the environmental movement, and needs to be with the peace movement as well. The Canadian Peace Alliance in 2004 passed a resolution against nuclear power in Canada. So there is that kind of base to build on and hopefully work in concert with the environmental movement on.

Particularly over this next year the nuclear industry in Canada is going to be doing everything it can to revive itself, so we need to be resisting them every step of the way as they try and reactivate power plants, and build new ones.

Atomic Politics

And there is already a lot of pressure on governments to let them do so, because the reality is that we are very voracious users of power. In Ontario the government has committed to shutting down the coal-fired plants. That means the power has to come from somewhere. In their eyes the easiest way to address that is nuclear. That’s not the truth, but it’s what the provincial government is being lobbied heavily to believe. The public sentiment is already there against nuclear power, we just need to tap into it and mobilize it, in the same way we’ve mobilized for peace and against corporate globalization. That said, any intent Iran may have to follow the path of nuclear power is no justification for a US-led attack, especially given the fact that the US has hypocritically put the use of nuclear weapons on the table for such a conflict.

There is a tangible overlap between political power and electric power. There are very inherent connections between the two in terms of how the power is concentrated. We’re really building a movement for democracy, whatever element of it we are focusing on, whether peace or climate change.

We invest heavily through the Canada Pension Plan in Cameco, a Canadian Company which is the world’s leading uranium supplier. A bulk of this goes to the US, and it doesn’t take a chemist or a physicist to compare this with the amount of depleted uranium used by the US in its War on Terra in Iraq. In short, peace and climate change are isses that we have a responsibility, an ability, and an opportunity to address holistically in Canada and around the world.

Walden Bello has a saying that “we need less civil society and more civil disobedience.” The reality is, things change when people take to the streets, and are willing to stay there and chain themselves to things and be arrested if need be. As the infamous TV chef Emiril says, it’s time to kick things up a notch.

Dylan Penner is the Executive Director of ACT for the Earth, a member of the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, and Editor of he ACTivist Magazine. This article is adapted from a seminar he gave at the Canadian Peace Alliance 20th Anniversary Conference on November 12, 2005 in Ottawa, Canada. ACT for the Earth is currently organizing for the next international day of action to Stop Climate Chaos on November 4, 2006.