Price tag to stop global warming: 1/3 of U.S. military budget
March 7th, 2008 by Jim JustLester Brown of the WorldWatch Institute estimates that we could reverse global warming – and at the same time wipe out world poverty, provide universal health care, and stabilize population growth – for about $190 billion a year, or the equivalent of a third of US annual military expenditure.
The $190 billion price tag compares with $1.2 trillion that world governments spent on military budgets in 2006. The United States splurged the most with $560 billion.
Brown told an interviewer from Planet Ark:
“Once you accept that climate change, population growth, spreading water shortages, rising food prices etcetera are threats to our security, it changes your whole way of thinking about how you use public resources.”
The $560 billion figure for U.S. “defense” spending does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, e.g. $120 billion in 2007). In addition, the United States has black budget – military spending which is not listed as Federal spending and is not included in published military spending figures. – Ed.