The Green Zone by Sanders, Barry - Book Report/Review Example

?The Green Zone Contents Introduction 3 Facts & Findings 4 Remedies offered in the book 7 Conclusion 8 Works Cited 9 Introduction The danger of the ever-growing threats of global warming has made the whole world cautious about our surrounding environment. The causes of the environmental hazards can be many, among which the explosions are regarded as a significant one. Thermal effects and blasts take place to some extent in every type of explosion, whether nuclear or conventional. However, the emission of ionizing rays is a situation that is unique to nuclear explosions. This emission can be of two types, particulate and electromagnetic, and is radiated not only during detonation but continues its effects afterwards. People have taken steps to restrict the emissions from the factories and automobiles but the radiations from these explosions can’t be restricted and the book “The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism” by Barry Sanders is based on this theme which claims, the U.S military contributes greatly towards the overall degradation of the environment causing harm to the animals & humans. Barry is a Fulbright Senior Scholar Grant recipient and he is the author of eleven books like A is for Ox: Violence, Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man’s Land, Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History, the Silencing of the Written Word, and Electronic Media (Sanders & Davis). The author accuses the U.S. Military for causing hazards to the nature as they are one of the prominent sources of pollution because they use non-renewable fossil fuels on earth. Sanders who has been nominated for the Pulitzer prize twice, explains in his 2009 book, that U.S. military emits 750000 tons of radioactive waste on a yearly basis. Further he adds that we all know how to combat the environmental harm by applying the methods of compost, recycling, banning the use of plastic bags, using solar energy & restricting the unnecessary usage of electricity. But we have no idea how to eliminate militarism from the whole world. In simple terms it can be said that militarism is the primary threat to nature. As long as militarism exists, we are unprotected. “Green Zone” is based on research collected from documents leaked or provided by military itself. “Green Zone” is the first to present a complete analysis of the link between ecological degradation and militarism. The book includes a motivating introduction by renowned scholar Mike Davis. Facts & Findings In his book Sanders states, "By turning nuclear waste into weapons, the Pentagon offered proof of true Yankee ingenuity. On the one hand the Pentagon had found a solution to a huge storage problem and, on the other, it had created a new and powerful, highly useful category of weaponry. And the solution came with a bonus for arms manufacturers, for the military could offer all their nuclear waste to them free of charge. Up to that point, arms makers had to use the non-radioactive alternative, tungsten, as a penetrator, most of which they mined in China, and that proved very expensive." (Smith) Reports say that the rate of disability among the veterans of World War I and World War II was 5 %. Again the rate of disability for Vietnam War amounted to around 10%, Sanders says"...more than half (56 percent) who served in Gulf War I have permanent medical problems....the long-term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence." The U.S. mil­i­tary is the “sin­gle largest source of pol­lu­tion in this coun­try and in the world”, as was stated by Sanders. Whenever we discuss the effect of pollution on our envi­ron­men­t, we seem to forget the military forces operating across the earth who contributes most towards the disturbance of the ecological balance of the planet. Sanders describe this situation as urgent which needs to be taken care of very soon. He further argues that, the world would still remain prone to cli­mate & environmental dis­as­ter, even if all the individual on Earth takes all the “green steps” prescribed by the experts, due to the huge destructive effects that militarism has been causing since the starting of warfare. The book comprises of few shocking data that will force us to think about the consequences we are going to face in the near future- 1. An aver­age vehicle consumes 1,680 gal­lons of fuel in three years. However, an F-16 fighter jet uses1, 680 gal­lons of fuel per hour, at peak thrust. (Vance-Ocampo) 2. Ura­nium in the depleted form is used in the tips of most of the bombs that was exploded off-late in the warfare across the world, particularly from 1991. It caused more than thousand defor­mi­ties of chil­dren and birth defects. The defects comprises of cell damage, miss­ing limbs, organ mal­func­tion, visual impair­ments and mem­ory loss. Depleted ura­nium emits and leaves traces of radioac­tiv­e particles for more than 4.5 bil­lion year. The vic­tims not only include only the people in war-zones; the sol­diers return their homeland with every sort of incurable, infectious diseases and can­cer that have been caused due to the depleted ura­nium. These diseases pass on to the next generations as occurred in the incidents of Hiroshima & Nagasaki—the effect of cell struc­ture damage continues for the unborn kids of the victims. 3. On Baghdad, around 800 Tom hawk cruise missile were exploded from the period of 20th to 21st March, 2003. It means nearly one bomb every four min­ute were dropped which amounts to 800 pounds of ura­nium (depleted) in every 3,000 pound bomb. In simple terms, U.S dropped 320 million tons of poison on Baghdad in just two days. 4. The United Nations & the Pentagon approximated that around March & April of 2003, the British and US forces deployed almost three to four million pounds of shells that was made up of heavily depleted uranium. 5. The military expenses of U.S are slightly more than 50% of the entire nation’s budget. Their military uses nearly 80% of the total energy consumed by the whole country. This implies that even if the country starts surviving without cars, electricity and all the people stops using energy still that would contribute to the reduction in energy consumption by only 20%. 6. Scientists categorize depleted uranium as pyrophoric which is a substance that ignites immediately when exposed to air containing oxygen and burns at a very high temperature that can be in the range of 3000 to 5000 centigrade. This provides the shell or missile to pierce the toughest of armor. While burning, the extreme heat produces millions of small particles which are referred to as radioactive powder of uranium oxide aerosol infecting whichever surface it gets settled on. Winds carry these tiny elements at distant places. The February 2006 issue of the “London Sunday Times” revealed that after few days of "Awe and Shock," the emission detectors at Britain found evidences of a four-fold spear in the air born uranium. The people of Iraq are always exposed to these radiations & the citizens especially the kids inhale these substances through, their nose, their pores & their mouths. 7. The animals & plants also absorb the radioactive emissions, which makes uranium an everlasting part of the food cycle. According to the United Nations Environmental Program, once the depleted uranium mixes with the soil, it pollutes the groundwater by a hundred times. 8. One of the valuable quotes by Sander in his book states “When we declare war on a foreign nation, we now also declare war on the Earth, on the soil and plants and animals, the water and wind and people in the most far-reaching and deeply infecting ways.” 9. Vehicles used by the military don’t bother for CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) estimates, or fuel emissions of any kind. They consider fuel economy as a luxury. They refer to energy consumption by the terms of "gallons per minute", "barrels per hour” and "gallons per mile”. One can realize that the military are regarded as "assets” of the nation, which operates in a boundary less, restraint less & restriction less world both in terms of the pollutants they produce and the energy they consume. 10. Navy consumes a huge amount of energy for its non-nuclear & nuclear aircraft carriers. CVA-62, which was recently decommissioned, used to consume 134 barrels of fuel per hour, when it reaches its top speed. The carrier possesses a crew of 2,300 and 4.1 acres of flight deck. In 1991 during its voyage through the Persian Gulf for nearly fourteen days, the carrier used up to two million gallons of fuel. At every four day, an additional amount of one million gallons of fuel was consumed whose 50% was used in the supply of the ship’s jets. Remedies offered in the book Sanders offer a remedy to the devastation of nature caused by the military, which is “The End of War. He states “We must begin to see war as an outmoded method of solving political problems,”…The movement related to anti-war pledges should turn into a “No-War” pledge taking the support of those people who think that, if action is taken now without equivocation, with dedication and determination, it might still become possible to survive on earth for a few more decades. Conclusion Though the book discusses a controversial topic still the author has managed to address such a situation which was visible to us since a long time but we hardly cared about the consequences. The human civilization have witnessed several wars, among which the two most notable are the World War 1 and World War 2. We still can find paralyzed and deformed generations of a victim who had suffered losses and his whole generation would have to bear that. The book makes us conscious that war is not protecting us from enemies; rather war itself is the enemy. Even the continuous nuclear testing that happens at some special zones of various countries are no lesser harmful than bomb explosions. In both the cases the depleted uranium gets mixed in the air, water and soil making it toxic. It is the root cause of various new types of diseases which are incurable. We can’t blame terrorism every time for the destruction of our environment. The main issue is the weapons and more importantly, the war. Until and unless we stop the usage of weapons, missiles and various carriers used for the warfare, the people on the earth can’t remain safe. Our only motto should be nonviolence and peacemaking by saying “No” to war. This Book contributes greatly towards a mass awakening movement. The next time when we get to hear about issues of global warming, we should firstly raise our voice for banning militarism. Works Cited Sanders Barry & Mike Davis. The green zone: the environmental costs of militarism. AK Press, 2009. Print. Smith Mark E. THE GREEN ZONE (BOOK REVIEW): THE USA AGAINST LIFE. Medialeft. 2009. Vance-Ocampo Shan­nan. Book Review: “The Green Zone”. Unbound. 2012 Read More