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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
On January 28, 2016, US Army base Fort Hood, in Texas, broke ground on the Army's largest-ever hybrid solar and wind-power project. The USD 100 million project's 63,000 solar panels and 20 massive wind turbines will supply half the base's electricity needs “at a lower price than the power generated by fossil fuels,” saving USD 168 million. A week before, the US Navy, well along in its goal of 50% renewable energy by 2020, first used biofuels in its Great Green Fleet. These milestones came in the same month that the Pentagon, on January 14, released a new directive on “Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience.”
1 The short article is a revised and updated version of Andrew DeWit, “2014 The Burden: Fossil Fuel, The Military, and National Security,” Anthropology Review Database, February 1, 2016.
2 See Todd Pruden, “Ground breaks for largest Army renewable energy project to date,” Fort Hood Sentinel, February 4, 2016.
3 On the Great Green Fleet, see the US Navy website.
4 See the Directive at the Federation of American Scientists website.
5 See Rowan Scarborough, “Pentagon orders commanders to prioritize climate change in all military actions,” Washington Times, February 7, 2015.
6 A short clip from the documentary as well as a summary of its content is available here.
7 On the event, see “THE BURDEN: A Film About National Security and Climate Change,” New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association.
8 See Peter Lehner, “The Burden: New Documentary Illustrates Impacts of Fossil Fuels on the U.S. Military,” March 30, 2015.
9 The film's director, Roger Sorkin, makes this point at 39:00 minutes during the December 17, 2015 Reinvent roundtable (with Carl Pope, Bill McKibben, and others) on “Confronting the Full Foreign Policy Implications of Climate Change”.
10 See “Veterans Join CA Assembly Members to Screen Energy Security Documentary in Sacramento,” Operation Free, Press Release, (nd).
11 On this indispensable role, representing a global public good, see Andreas Goldthau, “A Public Policy Perspective on Global Energy Security,” International Studies Perspectives, February 1, 2012.
12 On seaborne trade volumes, see the graph on p. 7 of “Review of Maritime Transport 2015,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, October 15, 2015.
13 On this, see Izabella Kaminska, “Petrodollars as the new vendor-financing feedback loop of hell,” FTAlphaville, February 5, 2016.
14 The evidence is overwhelming. See for example hurricane expert Jeff Masters' February 8, 2016 analysis of how unprecedented were the wind-speeds and intensification of Hurricane Patricia in October of 2015. Jeff Masters, “Hurricane Patricia's 215 mph Winds: A Warning Shot Across Our Bow,” Wunderblog, February 8, 2016.
15 See Sorkin's bio.
16 See the Mabus bio.
17 On Sharon Burke's roles, see the “New America welcomes Sharon E. Burke as senior advisor to international security program,” New America Press Release, May 8, 2014.
18 See Daniel Gabriel, “Anthony Zinni's Hard Truths,” The American Conservative, June 9, 2015.
19 See Anthony Zinni, et al, “US military refuses to be ‘too late’ on climate change,” October 29, 2014.
20 See p. 95 Donald Rumsfeld, “DOD FY 2004: Annual Report to the President and the Congress”.
21 See, for example, Sara Flounders, “The Pentagon, The Climate Elephant. The US Military Machine is the World's Worst Polluter of Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” Global Research, December 1, 2015.
22 Total fuel use by global airlines is available on p. 4 “Economic Performance of the Airline Industry,” International Air Transport Association (IATA), June 5, 2015.
23 On marine transport, see p. 11 of “Repowering Transport,” World Economic Forum, Project White Paper, April 2011.
24 See “Passenger travel accounts for most of world transportation energy use,” US Energy Information Administration, November 19, 2015.
25 Adam Liptak and Coral Davenport, “Supreme Court Deals Blow to Obama's Efforts to Regulate Coal Emissions,” New York Times, February 9, 2016.
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