The Green Zone: The Envi­ron­men­tal Costs of Mil­i­tarism

2012 Book Review by Shan­nan Vance-Ocampo
from Unbound

The Green Zone: The Envi­ron­men­tal Costs of Mil­i­tarism by Barry Sanders, AK Press, 2009

In the wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy and for those of us con­cerned about envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and how to work against it, this book is an impor­tant read. It asks the cen­tral ques­tion: what about the envi­ron­men­tal costs of mil­i­tarism? Usu­ally we count bod­ies, or peo­ple, bud­get num­bers, or years of a con­flict. But what if we counted the costs to Creation? What does war and mil­i­tarism do to the envi­ron­ment? What about the recent mil­i­tary quag­mires and their envi­ron­men­tal dam­age in places like Iraq and Afghanistan? This book answers these ques­tions. The answers are shock­ing and should call us to even greater atten­tion and urgency around peace­mak­ing in our time. Sim­ply put, mil­i­tarism is the #1 threat to Creation. Click here to read the full article