Some environmental impacts of war
The death, maiming, and disruption of civilian life are expected parts of war. But wars leave an aftermath of pollution that can last for decades. News media are reporting a massive oil spill in the Mediterranean as a result of Israeli bombing of a major power plant in Lebanon. Reports are that approximately 20 miles of coastline are affected, but Lebanese officials can’t inspect the area until hostilities cease. The UN can’t assist in controlling the spill until Israel’s war planes stop bombing. The road to the garbage dump was bombed, and there are also reports of fires in garbage heaps. Incineration of mixed garbage at uncontrolled temperatures will usually produce a variety of long-lived highly toxic chemicals such as dioxins. This kind of pollution side-effect of war is the norm.
Let’s touch base on several continents to see some war pollution. A good resource is American University’s ICE, Inventory of Conflict and Environment, the source of some of my information below.
Europe: The 1999 NATO bombing in Pancevo (a Serbian city in the former Yugoslavia) deliberately targeted fertilizer and chemical plants as well as a refinery. An unknown toxic mix of dangerous chemicals was released. See the American Friends Service Committee website for more info.
Asia:
In Afghanistan water resources and soil fertility have been damaged. In addition, the wars in Afghanistan have left it littered with land mines, making many areas very dangerous.
In the Philippines, the US military has a record of heavy environmental pollution in Subic Bay. (see ICE weblink above).
Africa: In the Democratic Republic of Congo, what is called “Africa’s world war” began in the late 1990s. The Shinkolobwe mine (the mine that yielded the uranium used to create the bombs for Hiroshima and Nagasaki) combined with the chaos of years of war has resulted in a stream of pollution from the mine. In addition, people are mining by hand, exposing themselves to high levels of radioactivity as well as mining accidents. (See the Amnesty International article on the Shinkolobwe mine.) Other problems are squatters who crossed the border from Rwanda into the national park that is a gorilla reserve. An unstable government cannot protect its borders or enforce its laws. The National Geographic reported in 2004 that rangers in national parks are murdered by poachers.
North America: The US war machine was responsible for more nuclear detonations than any other nation on earth. The pollution spread around the globe, and hundreds of thousands of US soldiers were exposed to unknown doses of radioactivity in the tests. The National Institute of Medicine concluded that the cold war nuclear test detonations are directly responsible for leukemia and thyroid cancer. Studies of other kinds of cancer have not yet been completed.
Central America: The El Salvador civil war resulted in a ‘scorched earth’ policy carried out against rebels with US funding. Fragile forests were damaged that have not yet recovered (see ICE link).
South America: In Colombia the US ‘war on drugs’ resulted in spraying pesticides on thousands of acres of land used for food production. The scorched earth policy there is reminiscent of Vietnam, though there is less gunfire. The after-effects of broadcast aerial spraying of herbicides on Vietnam have still not been properly studied.
Environmental issues are human rights issues.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
