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Comment by MyKneeGrows | Hacker News Reader

Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades. 750,000 tons of toxic waste every year in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuels, pesticides, defoliants, lead and other chemicals.

And hey we got the PRC military adding the equivalent of the German Navy, every year, in ships to their roster. No they don't run on solar panels in case you were wondering.

So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there.

And I haven't even started on the companies that PRODUCE equipment for these large forces.

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>Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades

Source?

> So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there.

Your footprint is a drop in the ocean because you're one of 8 billion people on earth. Just from that figure alone it's obvious that a you can't do much by regulating your own consumption. However, telling people to do whatever they want and it doesn't matter because they're 1 in 8 billion is the wrong message to send, because if all 8 billion people follow your example that would lead to a massive increase in pollution.

https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-240876060...

https://weaversway.coop/shuttle-online/2020/04/us-military-w...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.h...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report...

>https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-240876060...

The headline does not seem to be supported by the article, which mainly consists of various pollution figures for the US military but lacks comparison to other entities. The closest it gets to that is saying the US military produces "more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined". Overall it makes a convincing case that the US military is a large polluter, but not that it's "World’s Biggest Polluter".

>https://weaversway.coop/shuttle-online/2020/04/us-military-w...

It's a blog for a coop chain. A skim of the article reveals the same problem as the previous: lots of facts and figures about how much the US military pollutes, but not many comparisons required to make the claim that they're the largest.

>https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.h...

>https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report...

Both seem to focus on the US military producing more co2 than many countries. I'm not sure how this is supposed to support the claim that they're the biggest polluter. The bay area probably produces more co2 than "many countries" (eg. Liechtenstein and Tonga), but that doesn't mean they're the biggest polluter in the world.

try this (PDF d/l): https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/Pe...

"...the DOD is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest institutional producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world. From FY1975 to FY2018, total DOD greenhouse gas emissions were more than 3,685 Million Metric Tons of CO2 equivalent."

"World's largest institutional user of petroleum" is both more precise and pretty damning.

it is far too late for individual action. it is major manufacturers and producers that need to act, because there are only tens of thousands of them (which can be regulated, with enough will) and not billions of individuals, who cannot.

holding individuals accountable for ignored environmental externaities of producers is a dead end. people will buy/consume the cheapest thing made available to them.

> if all 8 billion people follow your example that would lead to a massive increase in pollution

Most people don't follow GP's example because they can't, not because "they're getting the right message". And you bet that as soon as they can, they will. Why? Because most people don't care about the "message", whatever you believe it is. The ones who actually do something about it are the ones who would regardless of any mass-targeted "message". Going one step further, I'd say that it would be better if everyone realized that they can't do anything on their own because that might actually get people to work together, and that's the very reason why the common message is that "everyone should do their part": because that's how you keep people from working together.

>Going one step further, I'd say that it would be better if everyone realized that they can't do anything on their own because that might actually get people to work together,

Do people actually believe this? ie. "everyone will just buy a tesla on their own, so we don't need government intervention"?

>that's the very reason why the common message is that "everyone should do their part": because that's how you keep people from working together.

That's awfully cynical. During the pandemic there were multiple PSAs telling people to "do their part" by staying home, wearing masks, etc. Was that also some sort of conspiracy to keep people from working together?

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