Letter: Make the connection between war and climate change

Since Helene visited our area, there have been comments and letters and articles about the effects of carbon on our climate. In one Asheville Watchdog article , it quoted Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists: “Our best estimate is that climate change may have caused as much as 50% more rainfall during Hurricane Helene in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas.”

A letter to the editor from Ken Jones connected the dots of how oil and wars for oil have made carbon levels in our atmosphere much worse [“Connect the Dots on Storm, Climate and War,” Oct 23, Xpress].

But I want to share information on one conflict: the destruction of Gaza. Here is a quote about how carbon levels increased from all the bombings from the book Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown: “The destruction of Gaza is executed by tanks and fighter jets pouring out their projectiles over the land … but only after the explosive force of fossil fuel combustion has put them on the right trajectory. All these military vehicles run on petroleum. So do the supply flights from the U.S., the Boeings that ferry the missiles over the permanent airbridge. An early, provisional, conservative analysis found that emissions caused during the first 60 days of the war equaled annual emissions of between 20 and 33 low-emitting countries: a sudden spike, a plume of CO2 rising over the debris of Gaza.”

There is an old saying: What goes around sometimes comes around. Our endless war-making and support for other countries’ war-making are putting loads of carbon into the air. Our military is the world’s biggest producer of carbon. It is destroying our climate and home. The future will not be boring. It will be terrifying.

— Susan Oehler
Asheville