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By William D. Hartung, Mandy Smithberger & Tom Dispatch

https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-is-spending-1-25-trillion-annually-on-war/

The military gravy train is running full speed ahead. - AIRMAN 1ST CLASS VALERIE SEELYE /

U.S. AIR FORCE May 7, 2019

In its latest budget request, the Trump administration is asking

U.S. AIR FORCE May 7, 2019

In its latest budget request, the Trump administration is asking for a near-record $750

billion for the Pentagon and related defense activities, an astonishing figure by any

measure. If passed by Congress, it will, in fact, be one of the largest military budgets in

American history,topping peak levels reached during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. And

keep one thing in mind: that $750 billion represents only part of the actual annual cost of

our national security state.

Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending

The world would be richer and healthier if the full costs of fossil fuels were paid, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund

Tim Dickinson May 8, 2019 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fossil-fuel-subsidies-pentagon-spending-imf-report-833035/

The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen behind the smoke stacks of the Capitol Power Plant, the only coal-burning power plant in Washington, D.C.

Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/REX/Shuttersto

The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen behind the smoke stacks of the Capitol Power Plant, the only coal-burning power plant in Washington, D.C.

Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/REX/Shuttersto

The United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense spending, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion.

The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air pollution.

Lindsay Kines / Times Colonist

An aerial photo of the old-growth forests where B.C. Timber Sales has seven pending cutblocks totalling 109 hectares. Juan de Fuca Provincial Park is along the coast and the town of Port Renfrew in the background.

Photograph By TJ WATT

Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce has joined a growing outcry against B.C. government plans to log old-growth forests near Juan de Fuca Provincial Park.

President Dan Hager said Friday that clearcutting the ancient trees will hurt tourism and damage a regional economy already hard hit by chinook fishing restrictions.

“I’m in the accommodation business in Renfrew. People ask about it. I’m the one that responds to all the inquiries that come in off the chamber email and people are asking about the trees.”

Hager said that will be put in jeopardy if B.C. Timber Sales proceeds with plans to sell off 109 hectares of the region’s old-growth forest in seven cutblocks — including two that come within 50 metres of Juan de Fuca Provincial Park.

“If I was an editor of a newspaper, I would say: ‘Canada’s tall tree capital is now Canada’s clearcut capital,’ ” Hager said.

“What kind of damage is that going to do our reputation in the long term?”

"This needs to be taken more seriously than it is right now."
—Jordan Wilkerson, lead author

That's according to a study published this month in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The paper's findings add even more weight to scientists' urgent warnings about the mounting threats of permafrost thaw.

Permafrost is a frozen mix of soil, rocks, and sand that covers about a fourth of the Northern Hemisphere—and is primarily found in the uppermost areas, where temperatures are rising more rapidly than the rest of the world.

When permafrost melts because of human-caused global warming, it pours greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) into the atmosphere, further heating the planet.

Nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than CO2, stays in the atmosphere for an average of 114 years, per the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

N2O "has conventionally been assumed to have minimal emissions in permafrost regions," the report said, citing research published in the 1990s.

But the new study's findings challenge that assumption.

The facade of the headquarters of the Department of National Defence is pictured in Ottawa, on April 3, 2013.

OTTAWA — A national-security watchdog has called for stricter controls on the Canadian military's spying, including the possibility of legislation spelling out when and how defence intelligence operations can take place.

In a report issued Tuesday, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians said National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces have one of the largest intelligence programs in Canada, yet these operations get little outside scrutiny.

The committee, which examined thousands of pages and received several closed-door briefings, found that defence agencies carry out a full range of intelligence activities, collecting information through sensitive methods including technical means, human sources and investigations.

It says these activities entail considerable risks, including possible infringements on Canadians' rights.

bY Joan Russow

Global Copliance Research Project

AWARE that NATO states have been complicit or responsible for using the following pretexts for aggressive interventions in other sovereign states

“human security" (Iraq 1991), "Humanitarian intervention" (Kosovo, 1999), “self-defence” (Afghanistan 2001), "Pre-emptive/ preventive" attack (Iraq, 2003) "Responsibility to Protect (Haiti, 2004, Libya, 2011) or "will to intervene" (Mali, 2013). Each time the pretext was discredited, a new pretext emerged.

RECOGNIZING that true security does not arise: through NATO expansion, through being a nuclear weapons alliance, and opposing the abolition of nuclear weapons, through coercing other states to increase their military budget, and purchase weapons like F 35 and armed drones, through destabilizing other nations, through setting up military bases around the world, through war games and military exercises, through circulating nuclear powered and nuclear arms capable vessel. Etc.

AFFIRMING that true security exists when all are secure, through “common security” (Olaf Palme,1982) whose objectives could be the following:

(i) to achieve a state of peace, and disarmament; through reallocation of military expenses and delegitimization of war

(ii) to create a global structure that respects the rule of law, the international court of justice, and the international criminal court,

(iii) to promote and fully guarantee respect for human rights including labour rights, women’s rights LGBTQ rights civil and political rights, migrant iand indigenous rights, social and cultural rights – right to food, right to housing, right to safe drinking water and sewage treatment , right to education and right to universally accessible not for profit health care system;

(iv) to enable socially equitable and environmentally sound employment, energy and transportation, and just transition and ensure the right to development and social justice

(v) to ensure the preservation, conservation and protection of the environment, the respect for the inherent worth of nature beyond human purpose, to reduce the ecological footprint and to move away from the current model of unsustainable and excessive overconsumption.

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/16/thawing-permafrost-emitting-higher-levels-potent-greenhouse-gas-Nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide

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