How US Militarism Supercharges the Climate Crisis

A veteran living in a tent in Los Angeles plays the piano, while explaining that hydraulic fluid from helicopters he worked on while in the Army caused nerve damage to his fingers. He wants to play the piano as much as he can before he is no longer able to. Just before the opening credits roll in, he puts it bluntly: “My life is so fucked.”

Such intimate personal narratives from the frontlines of the interwoven crises of militarism and environmental destruction are at the center of a new documentary, Earth’s Greatest Enemy, by Abby Martin and Mike Prysner. The feature-length film attempts to show the full scope of the military’s destruction of the planet. 

The US military is the single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels. Its operations and global sprawl of bases have poisoned communities throughout the United States and all over the world. Yet, it is barely required to report the environmental destruction it is fueling. Under the Paris Agreement, which is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, participating nations voluntarily report their military emissions, and militaries were exempt from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Growing proposals to “green the military” are rife with complications.  

Martin and Prysner weave together stories from some of the communities most devastated by military pollution, along with stories from inside the high-level gatherings where military officials, politicians, and weapons industry leaders make planet-altering decisions. The filmmakers don’t refrain from using data sets and expert analysis of larger trends to make their point, but where they most drive the message home is when they urge viewers to see the people and the humanity devastated by the combined threats of militarism and climate crisis.

Early in the film, Martin explains that she was a college student when the United States invaded Iraq, and it contributed to her becoming a journalist. Prysner is a veteran. A portion of the film shows the lingering effects of the war. Environmental toxicologist, Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, explains that the countless munitions used in the US invasion of Iraq polluted the country with metals, including lead and depleted uranium. These contaminants have seeped into the country’s soil and air, causing rates of breast cancer, lung cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma to double, and even triple in some parts of the country. Through her research, she uncovered that children with birth defects from the invasion’s pollution have large amounts of titanium in their hair samples. She adds that titanium has been found in the lung tissue of US soldiers who lived on bases in Iraq. 

It is a brutal revelation that the lack of accountability for the military’s carbon bootprint and industrial-level pollution comes with casualties in addition to the estimates of those killed in its wars — soldiers and civilians alike. As Savabieasfahni puts it, “We are all connected in such a deep way. These bombings and this destruction have been an attack on humanity. It is heartbreaking to see all of that under such assault, and then left to rot.”

Meanwhile, at the US Marine base, Camp Lejeune, Martin explains that multiple sources of toxic chemicals — including leaking fuel tanks and improper waste-disposal practices — contaminated water wells on the base. For decades, military officials ignored warnings that the water was contaminated and told residents on the base that it was safe to drink. Thousands of servicemembers and their families were exposed to contaminated water.

A survivor of the contamination, Kim Ann Callan, walks the audience through a cemetery near the base known as “Baby Heaven,” explaining how she has taken it upon herself to document the deaths of babies who died from the contamination.

Callan’s story and its greater implications are amplified as the film recounts the stories of communities around bases — from Maryland to Florida to Alaska to New York — whose water and environment have been contaminated by military activity. 

It documents in real time the Red Hill crisis in O’ahu, where fuel from an underground naval facility leaked into the island’s main aquifer in 2021. As the film shows, this recent example of the environmental threat the military poses is part of a longer history of US military activity in Hawai’i, destroying Indigenous lands. From Hawai’i, the film travels to Okinawa, which the United States has militarily occupied since WWII. Smaller than Rhode Island, Okinawa is the site of 32 US bases, and continues to see more base construction, with the military tearing up the island’s sensitive coral reefs and forested hilltops.

Speaking on the many different contaminants found on and around military bases throughout the United States, researcher Pat Elder explains, “together they create a fantastic cocktail of deathly contamination and people must know that the United States military is unchecked.”

Interspersed with montages of US troops throwing trash into the ocean or blowing up unused munitions in the desert, each story is a gutting reminder that, like victims of war, victims of the climate crisis will not be nameless and faceless. Everyone harmed by militarism and its environmental consequences has a story to tell.

Yet the film refuses to give in to despair. It calls on viewers to fight for our collective future. It shows Native Hawaiians using their traditional dances, songs, and chants to protest the Navy, and Okinawans putting their bodies on the line to slow down trucks used to transport earth dug up for base construction. The film highlights the powerful movement against Israel’s destruction of Gaza, forest defenders resisting militarization of police in Atlanta, climate activists demanding accountability at COP26, and so many other forms of resistance. By exposing the connections between the war machine and the climate crisis, as well as their human toll, the film urges viewers to join in that resistance for a more peaceful, sustainable planet.