I've just watched the Nic Marks video at:
(http://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index.html)
He mentions that Costa Rica (the happiest country on the planet apparently! see my previous blog!!?) abolished its army in the 1950s so that it could spend more on social welfare. The comment got me thinking: If the USA did the same thing how much money would they have to make their country and the rest of the world a fairer more ethical place. The answer was astounding.
According to wikipedia (yes I know the pitfalls of wiki) the US military budget for 2010 is estimated to be 1.03 trillion dollars. That is about 627 billion pounds sterling. To the Americans (the British trillion is different) one trillion is a million million or one thousand billion. If you want to see what a trillion dollars looks like then go to this link:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12754
In 2006 the Stern Report estimated that the global adaptation costs due to climate change were approximately $31 billion. Is that a day's US spending on defence?
In his Reith Lecture in 2007 Jeffrey Sachs claimed that US military spending (at that time $620 billion) was 'more than the rest of the world put together'. Sachs went on to say that malaria killed two million children in Africa every year and that to provide 300 million anti-malaria bed nets which 'cost a mere five dollars and last five years - that's one dollar a year' would cost just $1.5 billion dollars. But hey the US did have a budget of $4.5 (yes there is s point in there) billion dollars for African aid in 2007 (Sachs again)!
Something's wrong - isn't it?
Hi Martyn,
ReplyDeleteI was suprised by Costa Rica myself, I was even more surprised to find out about the abolition of the military; I think this is a key point to our species evolving, or at least growing up.
In David Orr's latest book he talks about the US military budget, and to be frank its startling, for instance:
..."the world now spends $1.2 trillion each year on weapons and militarism and is, unsurprisingly, less secure than ever. The US alone spends 46% of the total, or $17,000 per second, more than the next 22 nations combined. It maintains 737 military bases worldwide but is presently losing 2 wars and is threatened to start a third." p195, Down to the Wire confronting Climate Collapse
What's required is a sea change, in the words of Orr ..."most of our heroes are violent men. Our national holidays mostly celebrate violence in our past." p201, same book.
But what most people don't recognise is the interconnections, this is largely due to their ignorance which in large part is their own fault, but is perpetuated by misconceptions in our society, and its many failings, which the North or West has yet to even admit to; yet alone to it's own citizens. Page 197-198 in the same book discuss this, essentially;
...."to maintain economic growth, the powerful must have access to the oil and resources of the third world nations, whether those nations like it or not. Global trade, often to the disadvantage of poor nations, requires the use of military forces to patrol the seas, enforce inequities, strike quickly, and maintain pliant governments willing to plunder their own lands. The result is animosity that fuels global terrorism and ethnic violence. The power of envy and the desperate search for a "better life" requires the "haves" to build higher fences to keep the poor at bay..."
These are pretty easy to understand cannary in the coal mine situations.
I did have some more stuff, but I thought it'd be better off if they weren't aired here.