Saturday, September 15, 2007

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Lebanon: the environmental impact of the conflict with Israel

A year since the war between Israel and Hezbollah [...] in Lebanon, the consequences on the environment are still calamitous and putting the lives of thousands of people in the country at risk.

Source: Equilibri.net / Lebanon: the environmental impact of the conflict with Israel


  • 70% of the South Lebanese depend on subsistence farming. But 90% of their arable land has been effectively mined by Israel's intensive use of cluster bombs.

  • Wildlife severely harmed and tourism devastated due to extreme pollution of coasts and water resources.

  • Article also details clean-up efforts.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

War. Pollution. Religion.

Contra



For years, concern about global ecology has been perceived in Israel as a luxury that the country cannot afford while it is in the midst of an existential security struggle. Some people noted, and rightly, that preventing a single war in [the Middle East] would contribute a great deal more to the environment and our health than all the environmental campaigns of all the green organizations put together. [...] Jews and Muslims alike, have become entrenched in petrified doctrines and archaic views of "holiness," especially the sanctity of land, that have nothing in common with the needs and lives of human beings under changing political and ecological conditions.

Source: Greener than the pope - Haaretz

the U.S. military is the world’s largest consumer of oil and the world’s largest polluter. America is also addicted to war for oil [...] The 101st Airborne Division really did name a Base Exxon and a Base Shell somewhere in the deserts of Iraq! [...] “men lead us to war for enough oil to continue to go to war for oil.”

Source: Dissident Voice : Oil Wars: Fueling Both U.S. Empire & Ecocide

Pro



The IUCN-World Conservation Union [Wikipedia] recently named Israel the nation with the highest percentage of preserved land in the Mediterranean region. [...] a major portion of the Israeli open space which was included in the organization's survey is also used in military training exercises. [...] Military activity in these areas impacts nature, but most of the damage is minimal due to a unique agreement between the IDF and the Israel Nature & National Parks Protection Authority (INNPPA). [...] the general trend, in which animal and plant species in the region are becoming extinct, has not been halted.

Source: Water Cooperation in the Middle East

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