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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Environment
Lorraine Mallinder

‘Elephant in the room’: The US military’s devastating carbon footprint

Boeing's KC-46 aerial refuelling tanker conducts receiver compatibility tests with a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, in Seattle, Washington, on July 12, 2016 [File: Christopher Okula/ US Air Force/via Reuters]

The US military is vast in scale, with a carbon footprint larger than any other institution on earth. But when it comes to disclosure of its emissions of greenhouse gases, it’s been kept off the books – and has been let off the hook.

“It’s the elephant in the room,” said David Vine, author of, Base Nation: How US Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World. “It operates with this kind of cloak of invisibility despite having a long track record of very serious damage.”

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