Book Reviews: Scorched Earth

August-September 1995

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

The military's assault on the environment

reviewed by Howard Stiff

Scorched Earth

by William Thomas, New Society Publishers, 1995, 227 pp., ISBN (paperback) Can 1-55092-239-4, $19.95; USA 0-86571-294-8, $16.95

Perhaps we should not be surprised that care for the environment does not figure highly on the miltary's agenda, but the scale of damage throughout the world-in peace or war-is underestimated or purposefully ignored; from "accidental" radioactive contamination at military bases to deliberate experimental damage of the world's environment. We already know a bit about the toxic wartime assaults on the globe through tactical defoliation, gene, germ and nuclear warfare. In his book, Scorched Earth, Thomas points out that, through the pollution that occurs as a result of testing, manoeuvers, accidents, toxic dumping, uranium mining, processing and disposal, the military onslaught on our Earth Mother does not subside, even in peacetime.

Consider the consumption: a conventionally-powered aircraft carrier consumes 150,000 gallons of fuel per day; in less than an hour's flight, a single jet launched from its deck consumes as much fuel as a North American motorist burns in two years.

Consider the impact: NATO's plans for 40,000 low-level training flights including 10,000 supersonic sorties this year generates acoustic pollution that is destroying the way of life in Labrador, Canada; immoral destruction of animal life through target practice and animal experimentation.

Consider the danger: a nuclear-powered Trident submarine that may now dock at Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental Test Range (thanks to Canadian taxpayers' contribution of $11 million for a new jetty) carries 196 nuclear warheads, each at least 10 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The UN reports that 150,000 islanders have died from the detonation of 250 nuclear warheads over the Pacific, which erased six islands from the face of the ocean. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War estimates that atmospheric testing will cause 2.4 million cancer deaths.

Consider the hazardous waste: a toxic time-bomb of 15 railway boxcars carrying 400 tons of mustard gas dumped into the ocean off Vancouver Island after WW II; 15% of the former Soviet Union's territory is now estimated to be unfit for human habitation; the top 10 weapon-makers are listed 133 times by the Environmental Protection Agency as party to the 100 worst Superfund sites in the US.

Worried about the ozone layer? Secret ozone-depleting fuel additives designed to reduce the telltale exhaust signature are sprayed directly into the atmosphere by B-1 Stealth bombers. Application rate and total amount exhausted remain classified.

Consider the cost: a single B-2 bomber costs $1 billion; a Sea-Wolf submarine $2 billion; a single kilo of tritium $15 million; the program to render Earth uninhabitable through massive detonations of Trident II nuclear warheads $40 billion.

Consider the clean-up: decontamination of radioactive and toxic wastes at nuclear weapons research and production plants in the US alone will cost $400 billion, 30 times the US Department of Energy's entire annual budget. Service charge per nuclear warhead produced in the US: $2.5 million.

Accessible and compelling, William Thomas' encyclopedic account of military atrocities ranges across North America, Europe, the former Soviet bloc, the Middle East and the Pacific as he reveals the magnitude of environmental havoc incurred in the name of defense. While noting the extensive economic and political power of the military-transnational connection and the fact that military sites are not monitored by environmental protection agencies, Scorched Earth also documents the growing citizens' movmement-often led by women-for military clean-up and conversion, including lawsuits, alternative manufacturing and a redefinition of environmental security for the '90s.

A US Navy veteran, sailor, writer, video producer and long-time peace and environmental activist, William Thomas co-founded the Gulf Environmental Emergency Response Team involved in environmental clean-up in Kuwait shortly after the Gulf War.