
U.S. Military emits more greenhouse gases than Portugal, study finds - onetimemanytime
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-conflict-usa/u-s-pentagon-emits-more-greenhouse-gases-than-portugal-study-finds-idUSKCN1TD2SD
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newsbinator
Not that this means anything, but I was curious about the relative sizes just
in terms of people:

Portugal population: 10.3 million

US Military: 1.3 million active duty + 800,000 reserve

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onetimemanytime
Or you can look it by spending: ~$700 BILLION a year and obviously it involves
moving and sailing around. Portugal's entire GDP is around $240 Billion (not
budget, GDP)

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wjnc
So they actually get quite limited bang for buck. Or are pretty low CO2
intensive compared to a regular economy with people in it. Or manage to spend
a lot on contractors that are not adequately accounted for, or ... A global
carbon tax accounted for at a company level would alleviate this problem of
comparisons. And is unfeasible (alas).

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onetimemanytime
contractors is my guess. Most of that $700B goes to arms manufacturers and
providers.

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SomeOldThrow
Either our current conception of the nation state changes, or civilization
dies violently.

Meanwhile, the New York Times front page is filled with discussion of Iran and
not a thing about climate collapse.

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nostrademons
> Either our current conception of the nation state changes, or civilization
> dies violently.

This doesn't seem like an either/or to me. IMHO the most likely outcome is
that our conception of the nation state will change just as civilization dies
violently. Same event - just as the nation state was born out of war, it'll
die in war.

This doesn't necessarily mean that all of humanity is going to die. Rather our
_conception_ of what it means to be "civilized" \- which for most people is
synonymous with "developed nation" \- will die, and there will be new social
organizing principles with new dominant technologies.

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onetimemanytime
is it against the rules to ask why was this flagged? It's a Reuters story,
based on a Brown University study and about a topic this community is
interested. Ideally everyone should be interested but that's a different story

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RandomInteger4
Does Portugal have a military?

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INTPenis
The title is a bit skewed, should of course be US defense for us who don't
view the Pentagon building as representative of the whole DOD.

But the message, if true, is very poignant. I'm of course part of the choir as
green liberal anti war but this affects us all.

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onetimemanytime
I changed the title, if the mods let it be. In the original story it was
Pentagon and can confusing.

(Even if you filled the Pentagon with cows, I doubt it would surpass Sweden
and Portugal's greenhouse gases :) )

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craftinator
Yeah, inaccurate and clickbaity headline.

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IanCal
It's the key finding of the study, I don't see how it's clickbait (surely the
opposite, it's telling you upfront what the topic and answer is rather than
"you won't believe who ...").

Do you have something more substantial than "inaccurate" as a critique of the
study?

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PhasmaFelis
The clickbait part is saying "the Pentagon" when they mean "the US military."
A casual reader may assume the headquarters building alone produces that much
gas, which is obviously false.

Of course the excuse is that "the Pentagon" is often used as a metonym for the
Department of Defense. But that means the leadership specifically. You might
say "the Pentagon ordered fifty F-35s," but never "the Pentagon invaded
Afghanistan." It's a really awkward phrasing at best, and I can't imagine that
it's not deliberately deceptive. Are the facts not shocking enough?

