Breathing War
“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. ”
As our minds overflow with images of war in Ukraine, what is left out of the conversation is the parallel environmental catastrophe unfolding alongside horrific human suffering. Forests surrounding Chernobyl are burning. In the Donbas region – known for its coal mines and heavy industry, hundreds of miles of mine shafts have flooded, releasing toxic chemicals and, likely, nuclear radiation from underground tests conducted in the 1970’s. Elsewhere in Ukraine – already notorious for terrible air quality, the bombing of industrial plants, munitions depots, fuel storage, and metallurgical factories spew poisons into the air as raw sewage and toxic chemicals pour into rivers and ocean.
Particulate matter from buildings pulverized by bombs and shelling – including from asbestos, which was legal in Ukraine until 2017, is already circulating in global winds. All of us are absorbing infinitesimal flecks of PM 2.5 (particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 microns) which enters the lungs and then the bloodstream to permanently lodge in our vital organs. In the words of Neta Crawford of the Costs of War Program at Boston University, It's a toxic stew that's been aerosolized. As with the Chernobyl meltdown of 1986, we are all down-winders.
Our alarm, like our greed, is narcissistic: environmental devastation is dramatically under-reported and unaddressed. According to an article this week in The Hill, in Ukraine, Over a dozen globally important “Ramsar” wetlands, forests, protected areas, homes to endangered and threatened species have suffered grave impacts. Our grotesque dissociation continues as calls grow louder for more fracking, and ramped-up extraction of oil and coal.
Who will pay – who should pay – for these lasting environmental calamities after the bombing ends? The effects of war are cumulative, incremental and multi-generational, what author Rob Nixon calls Slow Violence. Alas, but not surprisingly, the U.S., U.K., France and Canada continue to lead the world in refusing to apply principles of humanitarian law to protect the environment.
The mind that justifies tyranny over Earth will justify tyranny over humans. Leaders who focus on ‘protecting our lifestyle’ or, worse, on staying in power, are not worthy of our votes or our trust. In today’s world, the only legitimate purpose of leadership is to live the question of how to serve all life, all people and the global ecosystem.
