Why Environmental Groups Must Oppose War

Feb 23, 2023 | We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review
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The US government has been involved with fighting or funding wars for much of the past 80 years, so the question for us, as Americans, is not new.

Usually, we are told all about “national security”, or “defense of democracy”, or stopping some crazed irrational power-hungry dictator. However, there is (too often) a deeper geostrategic and economic rationale behind what is going on: a struggle for ownership, control, and access to natural resources, the extraction of which causes tremendous, long-term ecological damage.

But if the public had more “say” in questions of war and peace, and the corporate class had much less say, then conjuring up support for vicious war-making ventures would not be so easy. In an effort to oppose the corporate motivation for war, W.A.T.E.R. (as well as many others) has endorsed “Move-to-Amend” (MTA), which aims (through a Constitutional amendment) to rein in corporate political power by asserting elections must not be bought by money under the guise of free speech, and that people, not corporations, have Constitutional rights. MTA has written a succinct summary of the economic corporate interests in Ukraine.

Should an environment-protecting group like W.A.T.E.R. get involved in issues of international war? Or conversely, should W.A.T.E.R. “stay in its own lane”?