this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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Biden has started going down the road of electricifying the military. But of course, slimming down the military is the kind of holy cow neither mainstream party would touch. We are seeing a quasi-worldwide military push anyway, which is unsurprising in the wider context of missing global climate action.
I was referring to burn pits that I've vaguely heard of, feel like they'd still be a pretty large problem
There's more important issues than burn pits tbh:
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We don’t actually abandon our allies that often. Maybe only once a decade or so.
More of the problem comes from the US military being say the third largest consumer of desel in the US, coming in after only two railroads. While reducing fuel useage is important from a climate standpoint, it also comes with major tactical and strategic benefits given how much logistics it takes to ship fuel around the world to an active war zone where the enemy tends to like to blow up your fuel trucks and depos. Given the nature of 19year old drivers dealing with large truck fueled on someone else’s dime just hybrids that shut down the eingine when idle would probably save hundreds of millions in taxpayer money a month.
Aircraft fuel is a bit more of a trick, but while fuels make from atmospheric carbon are more expensive, compared to the cost of the planes and cost of maintaining thouse planes it’s not all that bad and could theoretically allow for some proformance benefits if they’re ever willing to give up on also being able to use traditional jet A in an emergency.
Politically while a strong military has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, and reducing fuel useage strengthens the military, nowadays the MAGA crowd is more concerned with screwing over any part of the military they perceive as “woke”. See also trying to ban trans people from it and the refusal to take care of any promotions until they ban service members from traveling to get abortions, becuse why would you not want your soldiers to be indisposed for a year or more after getting raped for a kid they don’t want.
In short, keep Republicans away from congress and the White House and things will probably sort themselves out in time. Keep Shell and BP away from DC and it will sort itself out far quicker.