Wasteful Pentagon Spending Is Keeping the U.S. From Truly Addressing Climate Change. Tell Congress to Act!

This year, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the world has just eight years before it blazes past the tipping point of climate change. In the same year, the United States Congress approved a budget of a whopping $782 billion to the Pentagon. The U.S. military is a polluter so prolific that if it were a country, it would be the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gasses.

We have to turn this around! More than ever before, we need a massive and sustained grassroots demand that Congress stop wasting our tax dollars while enriching the military-industrial complex, and instead focus on our true national security needs – such as preventing catastrophic climate change.

Pollution-caused climate change has made extreme weather patterns such as floods, heat and cold waves, hurricanes, and wildfires increasingly common. Not only are these life threatening events, they cost the United States billions in damages every year. Water and food scarcity threaten to affect billions of people globally in the coming years.

These events do not come as a surprise. For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm on climate change, begging governments, especially those of high-emitting countries like the United States, to move away from fossil fuels and invest in decarbonization. Measures like these would take significant funding — which the United States absolutely has. In fact, the Institute for Policy Studies estimates that there is $350 billion that could be cut from Military spending without compromising national security.

We spend over 18 times more on the military than we do on the climate emergency. This is not the real security we so desperately need.

The U.S. is tragically failing its own people, and the international community. For a truly secure and healthy future, Congress must cut Pentagon spending and redirect funding towards minimizing climate impacts. Sign the petition if you agree!