Climate Collateral

War has always devoured life. It turns humans into those worthy of life and those who can be killed without thought. It flattens thousands of complex human beings into a faceless enemy. It snarls out slogans of ‘country’ and ‘land’ that are heralded as more important than human life. It buries the brutality of broken bodies behind the jargon of ‘collateral.’ Sadly, this is nothing new and we have seen it all unfold again in the horrors of the Ukraine war. But today, there is another sense in which war is devouring life since it is destroying the life of our planet’s biosphere and the lives of future generations.

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An F-35A Lightning II assigned to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona prepares to be refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 161st Air Refueling Wing.

Staff Sgt. James A. Richardson Jr./Air Force (public domain)

An F-35A Lightning II assigned to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona prepares to be refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 161st Air Refueling Wing.