We are all paying a large price for having the world's largest and most active military.
At a minimum, the US Military alone uses as much energy as the 140,000,000 people of Nigeria. It is the single largest consumer of energy in the world, and single largest greenhouse gas emitter, and enjoys an exemption from all international greenhouse gas agreements.
Follow me across the jump.
Other estimates say that the real usage is much higher:
Just how much petroleum the Pentagon consumes is one of the best-kept secrets in government. More likely, observes Barry Sanders, no one in DoD knows precisely. His unremitting effort to ferret out the numbers is one of the most thorough to date. Sanders begins with figures given by the Defense Energy Support Center for annual oil procurement for all branches of the military. He then combines three other non-reported military oil consumption factors: an estimate of "free oil" supplied overseas (of which Kuwait was the largest supplier for the 2003 Iraq war), an estimate of oil used by private military contractors and military-leased vehicles and an estimate of the amount of bunker fuel used by naval vessels. By his calculation, the US military consumes as much as one million barrels of oil per day and contributes 5 percent of current global warming emissions. Keep in mind that the military has 1.4 million active duty people, or .0002 percent of the world's population, generating 5 percent of climate pollution.
Yet, even this comparison understates the extreme military impact on climate change. Military fuel is more polluting because of the fuel type used for aviation. CO2 emissions from jet fuel are larger - possibly triple - per gallon than those from diesel and oil. Further, aircraft exhaust has unique polluting effects that result in greater warming effect by per unit of fuel used. Radiative effects from jet exhaust, including nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, soot and water vapor exacerbate the warming effect of the CO2 exhaust emissions.(6) Perversely, then, the US military consumes fossil fuel beyond compare to any other institutional and per capita consumption in order to preserve strategic access to oil - a lunacy instigated by a series of executive decisions.
http://truth-out.org/...
This accounts only for direct use, and does not account for manufacturing, transport and delivery, commuting of personnel (on their dime) , uses by contractors (which has increased dramatically), and so on. Nor does this account for usage of chemicals that cause greenhouse gasses.
Nor does it account for deforestation.
Vietnam's forest cover has shrunk from 44 percent of the country's
total land area in 1943 to 28 percent or 9.3 million hectares
today. During the Vietnam War, US military actions destroyed an
estimated 4.9 million hectares of forest cover. Currently, the
country's remaining two million hectares of natural forests are
being reduced at a rate of 100,000 to 200,000 hectares per year.
http://www1.american.edu/...
Additionally the US military is the world's single biggest polluter.
The world’s largest polluter, the U.S. military, generates 750,000 tons of toxic waste material annually, more than the five largest chemical companies in the U.S. combined. This pollution occurs globally as the U.S. maintains bases in dozens countries. In the U.S. there are 27,000 toxic hot spots on 8,500 military properties inside Washington’s Fairchild Air Force Base is the number one producer of hazardous waste, generating over 13 million pounds of waste in 1997. Not only is the military emitting toxic material directly into the air and water, it’s poisoning the land of nearby communities resulting in increased rates of cancer, kidney disease, increasing birth defects, low birth weight, and miscarriage.
http://www.projectcensored.org/...
It can surely also be argued that if the US military was vastly reduced in size, other nations would also reduce theirs.
A lot here has been written about personal responsibility with regard to which car people choose to drive, or whether we eat meat or not, etc; this is our collective responsibility that we simply refuse to address.