Compassion Speaks: Earth's Burden of War

by M. Doretta Cornell, RDC

While the human and economic casualties of war are often discussed and assessed, little attention is given to the devastating impact that armed conflicts have on Earth itself.  As creatures dependent on Earth for our survival, we need to pay more attention to this, especially in this era of increasingly negative human impact on our environment.

Compassion also calls us to think about this and act to prevent further destruction: compassion for the human victims of war, of course – but also compassion for all God’s creatures, animal, vegetable – and the planet itself.  Compassion calls us to recognize the inherent value of all creatures as expressions of God, and to be attentive to the needs of these creatures.  In this case, our own well-being and that of our descendants are also at stake.  Because those least able to fend for themselves are the greatest victims of war, we also have an obligation in justice to end this depravation of Earth.

Impact 1: Habitat
The most evident environmental impact of war is the destruction of habitat, for humans as well as birds and animals.  Vietnam is the “poster-child” for this: the United States’ defoliation of large sections (about one-seventh of South Vietnam’s land mass, according to World Watch, back in 2008) of jungle and river basin foliage destroyed many trees and created desert land in what had been jungle.  In addition to human victims of resultant cancer and other diseases,  domestic and wild animal populations were decimated, and residual toxins entered the food chain through soil and water to continue the damage for decades.

The bombing in Afghanistan not only has destroyed a great part of the agricultural lands of the country, causing current and future havoc on food for the people, it also has destroyed and disrupted the habitats of rare indigenous animals, like snow leopards, cheetahs and gazelles.
A United Nations Environment Program report on Afghanistan’s environmental issues, back in 2003, claimed "widespread land and resource degradation, including lowered water tables, desiccation of wetlands, deforestation and widespread loss of vegetative cover, erosion, and loss of wildlife populations" as a result of the war.  Vast populations of birds used to fly from Russia and other areas to the north through Afghanistan in migration.  Local observers note that there are very few such migrations now (see CounterPunch).  Such changes in the land and non-human inhabitants of the country foreshadow a bleak recovery and huge investment in rehabilitation, if and when the actual fighting ends.   

Impact 2: Refugees
Another environmental effect of war comes from the refugees.  Fleeing the conflict areas in fear of their lives, large numbers of people migrate quickly into safer areas, where there is often little sanitation or agricultural support for them.  People already ready living at a subsistence level are then stressed to provide for themselves and also for the multitude of new neighbors.  The current conflict in Syria has put renewed stress on the environmental as well as social and economic resources of Jordan and Lebanon, as well as northern Iraq, places already severely taxed by refugees from the recent wars in Iraq.

Impact 3: Water and Land
Of course, the weapons of war themselves wreak severe environmental damage.  Water sources are polluted by leaching from ammunition, including depleted uranium (which does less damage than might be expected, since it is not disseminated in the air) and chemical defoliants.  Tactics of war, such as clear-cutting forests or disrupting the enemy’s roads and reservoirs also creates lasting environmental damage.  One happy reversal of such a tactic is the restoring of Iraq’s marshes, which Saddam Hussein had drained to deter how opponents.  Most other habitats, human and animal, are much more difficult to restore, if possible of restoration at all.

This  is just a brief summary of the damage war causes Earth.  The full costs, human and environmental are far too extensive to recount here. 

As we consider the policies of our government, make choices in elections, and decide what to bring to the attention of our elected officials, let’s be conscious not just of human needs but also those wider needs of future generations and Earth itself.