And Here We Go: The Iran War Is Also A Climate War

I’ve been waiting for this. I knew it had to be coming, I’m just surprised it took this long

The Iran War Is Also A Climate War

War makes climate change worse in many ways, and vice versa. The human costs of the United States-Israel attack on Iran—the hundreds of people who have died, including a reported 175 young girls and teachers killed at the Shajareh Tayyibeh primary school—are a tragedy. The mounting economic risks—disrupted supply chains, rising energy prices, shaken stock markets—are ominous. The danger that this war of choice launched by two nuclear-armed states will escalate further, drawing in powers across the region and beyond, is alarming. And threaded through each of these concerns is the fact that modern warfare is inextricably linked with climate change.

The linkages flow in both directions. Wars unleash gargantuan amounts of planet-warming emissions: Russia’s war in Ukraine, for example, has generated emissions equal to the annual emissions of France. Those extra emissions drive deadlier heat, drought, storms, and other impacts that wreck livelihoods, destabilize economies, and spur migration, making armed conflict more likely. The British intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 warned in January that climate disruption and biodiversity loss, if left unchecked, will cause “crop failures, intensified natural disasters, and infectious disease outbreaks… exacerbating existing conflicts, starting new ones, and threatening global security and prosperity.”

The outbreak of any war is bad news for the climate, just as the election of politicians hostile to climate action is. The climate implications of this new war are not the center of attention at the moment, but they are essential context for understanding what’s at stake. At a time when civilization is hurtling toward irreversible climate breakdown, to overlook the climate consequences of three of the deadliest militaries on Earth going to war would be journalistic malpractice.

As with most wars, so with climate change: The poor and the innocent suffer most. Climate change is not peripheral but structurally embedded in modern warfare. Journalists cannot fully and fairly cover a war this carbon intensive, destabilizing, and consequential if its climate dimensions are treated as optional add-ons rather than core fact.

They want every Journalist to be part of the cult, look at every issue in terms of climate doom.