Earth’s Greatest Enemy: The Pentagon’s Toxic Legacy

By Denis Hay  

Description

Earth’s Greatest Enemy exposes the U.S. military’s environmental impact – and why Australia’s unquestioning support must be challenged.

Watching Earth’s Greatest Enemy is a deeply disturbing experience.

Journalist Abby Martin’s documentary confronts viewers with a reality largely missing from mainstream climate debate: one of the world’s greatest sources of pollution and environmental destruction is also one of its most politically protected institutions – the United States military.

The film’s official description calls the Pentagon “the world’s single largest institutional polluter.” That claim is confronting, but the broader case does not depend on rhetoric. Government records, academic research and the experiences of affected communities reveal an enormous environmental footprint involving fossil fuels, toxic chemicals, contaminated water, destroyed ecosystems and the lasting consequences of war.

The film can leave viewers feeling depressed and powerless. Yet powerlessness is precisely what entrenched institutions depend upon. The purpose of confronting these facts should not be to surrender to despair, but to understand what must change – and how citizens can help change it.

The climate cost hidden behind military power

Public discussions about climate change commonly focus on household electricity use, petrol cars, air travel and consumer choices. These issues matter, but concentrating almost entirely on personal behaviour allows powerful institutions to escape scrutiny.

The Pentagon operates aircraft, warships, armoured vehicles, global supply chains and hundreds of military installations. Fighter aircraft and aerial refuelling tankers can consume extraordinary amounts of fuel during a single operation.

Research by Brown University’s Costs of War project estimated that the U.S. military produced approximately 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions between 2001 and 2017. More than 400 million tonnes were attributed to war-related fuel consumption. In 2018 alone, Pentagon emissions were estimated at approximately 56 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent – more than the total emissions of many countries. (Brown University Costs of War)

The Pentagon’s own climate plan reported that its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in 2021 represented about 76 per cent of U.S. federal government emissions and were equivalent to approximately one per cent of total U.S. emissions in 2020. The document also reported reductions from earlier levels, but the remaining footprint is still enormous. (U.S. Department of Defense)

These figures do not capture the complete climate cost of militarism. They may exclude parts of military supply chains, weapons manufacturing, bombed buildings, burning oil facilities, destroyed forests and the carbon-intensive reconstruction that follows war.

The Pentagon may recognise climate change as a threat to military operations, but making bases more resilient to extreme weather is not the same as confronting militarism’s contribution to the crisis.

Military pollution is more than carbon

The environmental damage caused by military activity extends far beyond greenhouse gases.

Military bases and training areas can contaminate soil and groundwater with fuel, solvents, heavy metals, explosives and toxic firefighting chemicals. One particularly serious problem involves PFAS—persistent synthetic chemicals that remain in the environment for decades and have been associated with harmful health effects.

In 2025, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that the Department of Defense expected future PFAS investigation and cleanup costs to exceed US$9.3 billion. The estimate had more than tripled since 2022 and was expected to increase as the full extent of contamination became known. (U.S. Government Accountability Office)

The 2021 fuel leaks at the Navy’s Red Hill facility in Hawai‘i provide a devastating example. According to the Government Accountability Office, the leaks contaminated drinking water serving approximately 93,000 military personnel and civilians. A further accident in 2022 released hazardous firefighting-foam concentrate into the facility and surrounding environment. (U.S. Government Accountability Office)

In Vieques, Puerto Rico, decades of U.S. Navy exercises left areas contaminated by former military activities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed the former training area on its Superfund National Priorities List, reserved for some of America’s most serious hazardous-waste sites. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

These are not isolated mistakes. They demonstrate the environmental risks created when military necessity is repeatedly placed above public health, Indigenous rights and ecological protection.

War continues killing after the bombing stops

The destruction of war cannot be measured only by battlefield casualties.

Bombing can destroy hospitals, sanitation systems, electricity networks, farms and water supplies. Toxic remnants, unexploded weapons and contaminated land may remain dangerous for generations. Reconstruction consumes vast quantities of cement, steel, fuel and other resources.

Brown University researchers estimate that the post-September 11 wars involving the United States have contributed to at least 4.5 to 4.7 million direct and indirect deaths across affected war zones. The estimate includes between 3.6 and 3.8 million people believed to have died indirectly because war damaged economies, healthcare, food supplies, infrastructure and the environment. More than 38 million people were displaced. (Brown University Costs of War)

These figures should be described carefully. They do not mean every death was caused directly by an American weapon or solely by the United States. Multiple governments, armed groups and historical forces were involved. Nevertheless, the scale exposes the catastrophic consequences of wars initiated, expanded or sustained by U.S. military power.

The environment is not separate from human survival. Poisoned water, ruined farmland and destroyed health systems kill people just as surely – although often less visibly – than bombs.

Why military emissions remain difficult to see

Military emissions are not entirely absent from international climate accounting, but they remain inadequately disclosed.

The Paris Agreement requires countries to provide national greenhouse-gas inventories. However, military fuel use is often grouped into broad categories instead of being separately identified. Governments may also restrict information on national-security grounds, while emissions from international aviation and shipping fuels are reported separately rather than included in national totals.

The Conflict and Environment Observatory found that military-emissions reporting remains inconsistent and frequently lacks the detail required for meaningful public scrutiny. (CEOBS military-emissions framework)

This creates a serious double standard. Governments demand that families accept higher energy costs, change their behaviour and reduce emissions while military operations receive far less public examination.

A genuine climate policy must include transparent accounting for military bases, operations, exercises, procurement, weapons manufacturing, conflicts and post-war reconstruction.

Australia is not merely an innocent bystander

Australians should not view Earth’s Greatest Enemy as a documentary about another country.

Successive Coalition and Labor governments have tied Australia increasingly closely to U.S. military strategy through Pine Gap, the Marine Rotational Force in Darwin, expanded air operations, weapons cooperation and AUKUS.

Australian Defence documents show that U.S. Force Posture Initiatives include expanded fuel storage, aircraft facilities, ammunition infrastructure and support for U.S. aircraft at RAAF Base Tindal. Similar development supports the U.S. Marine presence in northern Australia. (Australian Department of Defence)

From as early as 2027, HMAS Stirling in Western Australia is expected to host a rotational presence of up to four U.S. and one British conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines under Submarine Rotational Force–West. The Australian Government is investing billions of dollars in the supporting infrastructure. (Australian Department of Defence)

Governments insist these arrangements respect Australian sovereignty and strengthen deterrence. Those claims deserve open examination, not automatic acceptance.

When Australian territory, ports, airfields, intelligence facilities and fuel infrastructure become integrated into U.S. military planning, Australia also shares responsibility for the environmental risks and human consequences of that system.

Calling these arrangements “rotations”, “joint facilities” or “force-posture initiatives” does not answer the fundamental democratic questions:

• Could these facilities support a war that Australians had never approved?
• Who makes the final decision about how they are used?
• What environmental liabilities could Australia inherit?
• Would their presence make Australia safer – or turn Australian communities into strategic targets?
• Are complete emissions and contamination risks being publicly disclosed?

These are not anti-American questions. They are pro-democracy, pro-sovereignty and pro-peace questions.

Australia has already experienced military contamination

Concern about the environmental risks of military facilities is not hypothetical.

Australia’s Department of Defence operates a national program addressing PFAS contamination on and around Defence properties. Communities near bases including Williamtown, Oakey and Tindal have faced restrictions, uncertainty and diminished opportunities for using affected land.

At Swartz Barracks near Oakey in Queensland, Defence acknowledges that PFAS has travelled beyond the base through drainage systems and groundwater. Alternative drinking water has been supplied to eligible residents, and further groundwater investigations and remediation planning continue. (Australian Department of Defence)

This history should make Australians cautious about accepting further military expansion without rigorous environmental assessment, transparent monitoring and enforceable responsibility for cleanup.

China’s military response did not arise in a vacuum

China’s military expansion, pressure on Taiwan and territorial disputes should not be ignored or excused. However, portraying China as the sole cause of Indo-Pacific militarisation produces a dangerously incomplete picture.

The United States maintains major forces and alliances across the region and is expanding military infrastructure, logistics, missile systems and access agreements. Its own Pacific Deterrence Initiative describes investments designed to strengthen U.S. force posture, infrastructure, presence and readiness against China. (U.S. Department of Defense)

SIPRI researchers describe the expanding undersea competition between China and the United States as a security dilemma: each side presents its military buildup as defensive, while the other interprets it as threatening and responds with further expansion. (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)

China is therefore responding not only from its own ambitions and nationalism, but also to decades of U.S. military presence, alliances and expanding facilities across its surrounding region.

Acknowledging this does not mean endorsing every Chinese government policy. It means recognising that peace requires understanding the fears and actions of all sides. Australia’s growing role as a platform for U.S. military operations risks deepening this cycle instead of helping to resolve it.

If every new missile, submarine and military base is justified as a response to the other side, the arms race has no logical endpoint.

What could Australia do differently?

Australia does not have to choose between passive dependence on Washington and isolation from the world.

A genuinely independent foreign policy could:

1. Require parliamentary approval before Australian forces or facilities support overseas wars, except when Australia faces an immediate attack.
2. Publish comprehensive data on military emissions, fuel consumption, pollution and environmental remediation.
3. Conduct independent environmental and safety assessments of all U.S. military activities in Australia.
4. Reassess AUKUS and the expansion of foreign military access to Australian territory.
5. Strengthen regional diplomacy, arms-control negotiations and conflict-prevention institutions.
6. Support a nuclear-weapons-free region and reject participation in nuclear war planning.
7. Redirect skills and productive resources from unnecessary weapons projects into renewable energy, climate resilience, public transport, housing and environmental restoration.
8. Guarantee that affected communities and Traditional Owners have genuine decision-making power – not merely consultation after decisions have been made.

Security should mean more than preparing for war. It should include secure housing, healthcare, clean water, reliable energy, stable employment, a safe climate and peaceful relations with neighbouring countries.

Australia can afford human and environmental security

Political leaders frequently suggest that Australia must choose between environmental restoration, social services and national security because the government has “run out of money”.

That is misleading.

The Australian Government is the sovereign issuer of the Australian dollar. It cannot involuntarily run out of its own currency in the way a household, business or state government can. Its real constraints are available workers, expertise, equipment, technology, energy and natural resources – and the inflation that may result when spending exceeds those productive limits.

The important question is therefore not simply, “Where will the money come from?” It is:

What should Australia’s real resources be used to achieve?

Resources committed to military expansion cannot simultaneously build public housing, restore damaged ecosystems, staff hospitals or construct renewable-energy infrastructure. Australia has the financial capacity to fund peacebuilding and environmental repair. What it requires is political commitment and careful management of real resources.

A safer society is not created merely by possessing more weapons. It is created by ensuring that people and the planet have what they need to survive and flourish.

From despair to collective power

Earth’s Greatest Enemy is difficult to watch because it reveals the enormous scale of the system confronting us. No individual can personally stop the Pentagon, dismantle hundreds of military facilities or reverse decades of environmental damage.

But history shows that major institutions change when informed citizens organise, speak publicly, support affected communities and make political silence impossible.

Ordinary people have helped end wars, prohibit weapons, protect land, expose government misconduct and force industries to clean up pollution. These victories were rarely immediate. They began when people refused to accept that destructive policies were inevitable.

Viewers can respond by:

• Sharing the documentary and discussing its evidence.
• Contacting federal MPs and senators about military emissions and foreign bases.
• Supporting peace, climate and anti-nuclear organisations.
• Demanding parliamentary debate over AUKUS and U.S. military access.
• Listening to Indigenous and local communities affected by military contamination.
• Asking environmental organisations to include militarism in climate campaigns.
• Challenging media reporting that treats every military expansion as automatically necessary.

Despair tells us that nothing can change. Democracy begins when citizens reject that message.

Conclusion: protecting the planet requires confronting militarism

The central lesson of Earth’s Greatest Enemy is not that the United States is uniquely evil or that other militaries cause no harm. It is that the world’s most powerful military institution operates on a scale unmatched by any other—and receives far less environmental scrutiny than its impact demands.

Its fossil-fuel consumption, toxic contamination, global infrastructure and wars impose costs that extend far beyond national borders. Australia cannot condemn climate destruction while offering increasingly unconditional support to the military system helping to drive it.

Protecting the planet requires more than cleaner consumer choices. It requires confronting the political and military structures that consume extraordinary resources, intensify international tensions and leave communities living with poisoned water, ruined land and the consequences of war.

The documentary may make us feel powerless. But seeing the system clearly is the first step towards changing it.

The choice is not between national security and peace. The choice is between a narrow idea of security built around permanent militarisation and a broader human security founded on cooperation, environmental survival and social justice.

Which future should Australia help create?

Frequently asked questions

Is the U.S. military the world’s biggest polluter?

The precise ranking depends on whether researchers measure emissions, fuel use, toxic waste, supply chains or the environmental effects of war. However, available evidence establishes that the Pentagon is one of the world’s largest institutional fossil-fuel users and greenhouse-gas emitters.

Are military emissions excluded from the Paris Agreement?

They are not subject to a simple blanket exclusion. Countries must report national emissions, but military data is often aggregated, incomplete or protected on security grounds. International aviation and shipping emissions are also treated separately, leaving major gaps in public accountability.

Does opposing U.S. bases mean opposing the American people?

No. Criticism of military policy is not hostility towards Americans. Many American veterans, scientists, environmental campaigners and peace organisations also oppose militarism and Pentagon pollution.

Would reducing military spending leave Australia defenceless?

Australia requires an appropriately equipped defence force. The real debate concerns what threats Australia should prepare for, whether current policies make conflict more likely, and how much security comes from diplomacy, regional cooperation and climate resilience rather than expensive power projection.

What can one person realistically achieve?

One person rarely changes national policy alone. Individuals become politically effective through education, voting, public advocacy, community organising and coordinated pressure on institutions.

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Reference

About the Documentary Earth’s Greatest Enemy: The US military is ‘Earth’s greatest enemy’

This article was originally published on Social Justice Australia