By World BEYOND War, October 14, 2021
A broad and growing coalition of peace and environmental organizations has announced plans for an event on Thursday, 4 November, in Glasgow.
WHAT: Announcement of a Petition to COP26 Demanding that Militaries Be Included in Climate Agreement; colorful banners and light projection.
WHEN: 4 November 2021, 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Buchanan Steps, on Buchanan Street, in front of the Royal Concert Hall, north of Bath Street, Glasgow.
Over 300 organizations and 20,000 people have signed a petition at http://cop26.info addressed to COP26 participants that reads, in part, “We ask COP26 to set strict greenhouse gas emissions limits that make no exception for militarism.”
Speakers at the event on 4 November will include: Stuart Parkinson of Scientists for Global Responsibility UK, Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition, Alison Lochhead of Greenham Women Everywhere, Jodie Evans of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, Tim Pluta of World BEYOND War, David Collins of Veterans For Peace, Lynn Jamieson of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and others to be announced.
“Our purpose here begins with making people aware of the problem,” said David Swanson, Executive Director of World BEYOND War. “Imagine a limit on dangerous items you can carry on airplanes that makes an exception for nuclear weapons. Imagine a diet that limits your calories but makes an exception for 36 gallons of ice cream an hour. Here the world is all gathering to impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions that make an exception for militaries. Why? What possible excuse it there for that, unless killing people in the short term is so important to us that we’re willing to kill everyone in the long term. We need to speak up for life, and soon.”
“War and militarism are amongst the unnamed enemies of our ecosphere,” said Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition. “The U.S. military is the biggest single consumer of oil on the planet, and the last two decades of war have polluted on an almost unimaginable scale. It is a scandal that military emissions are being excluded from the discussion. If we want to end warming we need to end war.”
“War is obsolete. There is no doubt, the quicker we get rid of it, the quicker we improve the climate,” added Tim Pluta, World BEYOND War Chapter Organizer in Asturias, Spain.
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