To the editor;
In June, 2019, Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs published, “Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War.”
It concluded the Pentagon is “the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and the single largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world.”
The report says in 2017, “the Pentagon’s greenhouse gas emissions were greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of entire industrialized countries such as Sweden or Denmark.”
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute tracks global military expenditures. Their 2019 yearbook reports the 2018 world military expenditure was US$1.8 trillion, 2.1 per cent of world gross domestic product or US$239 for every person on Earth.
In 2018, the USA spent US$649 billion on military expenditures, 36 per cent of the global total, and 2.6 times more than the next highest spender, China.
Would reallocating 10 per cent of the US military budget to healthcare, education, and environmental protection make America great again?
Robert M. Macrae
Environmental Technology Instructor
Castlegar, B.C.