Two films on the mounting dangers of our short-sighted, hyper-militarized energy policy
A few months ago, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks explained why the Pentagon lists climate change as an urgent and growing national security threat.
“A question I hear often is, ‘Why does the Department of Defense care about climate change?'” Hicks said during an address to the U.S. Military Academy this past August. “Climate change is a national security issue, and for the national security community, that declaration is not controversial — it’s fact.”
Pointing to the global acceleration of extreme heat waves, droughts, accompanying famines, rising sea levels, catastrophic floods, and ever-more devastating superstorms resulting in mass displacement, Hicks explained that “dire environmental conditions can create humanitarian crises [and] make nations vulnerable to instability, competition, and conflict … with profound implications for U.S. defense policy.”¹
If you’re interested in digging deeper into the relationship between climate change, global conflict, and the increasingly dangerous intersection of U.S. military policy and energy policy, we urge you to check out the two documentaries below: Roger Sorkin’s eye-opening film The Burden and the acclaimed doc Blood & Oil featuring and based on the work of renowned Nation magazine defense correspondent Michael Klare.
THE BURDEN: FOSSIL FUEL, THE MILITARY, AND NATIONAL SECURITY
“An outstanding film that breaks through the partisan rhetoric that has stymied long overdue efforts to address climate change.”
— Richard Lazarus | Professor, Harvard Law School
Filmmaker Roger Sorkin’s The Burden tells the fascinating story of how U.S. military leaders have been aligning themselves with environmental experts and climate activists to push back against climate deniers and amplify the grave national security stakes of human-caused global warming. The Burden is the first documentary of its kind to detail how oil dependence has emerged as our greatest long-term national security threat – and how the U.S. military is uniquely positioned to bolster a clean energy economy to enhance global security. The Burden is now available to purchase in a variety of formats. If you’d like to book a public screening of the film, please fill out this form and we’ll get back to you soon.
Blood & Oil: The Militarization of U.S. Energy Policy
“Michael Klare’s analysis of the role of oil in U.S. foreign policy since 1945 is indispensable to an understanding of the critical problems we face. I hope this lucid and historically accurate film is widely seen.”
— Chalmers Johnson | Author, Blowback
In Blood & Oil, Michael Klare, the defense correspondent for The Nation and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington D.C., offers a riveting look at the accelerating militarization of U.S. energy policy since World War II; clarifies how America’s drive to control the global flow of fossil fuels has led to endless war and the undermining of democratic movements around the world; and details how all of this has been deceptively spun and sold to the American public by U.S. political leaders and a largely complicit corporate news media. Blood & Oil, first released in 2008, remains as relevant as ever as unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza threatens to spark wider war in the Middle East. Blood & Oil is now available to purchase in a variety of formats. If you’d like to book a public screening of the film, please fill out this form and we’ll get back to you soon.
