U.S. military base environmental harms fall disproportionately on colonized, poorer people of color
Evidence
The overrepresentation of U.S. bases in current and former colonies means that the environmental damage caused by bases tends not to be shared equally. Consistently, those most often harmed—such as the Chamorros in the Northern Marianas and Guam—are economically and politically disadvantaged or marginalized groups, indigenous peoples, the poor, and non-Western people of color. Bases in Italy, Germany, Britain, and elsewhere in Europe have also caused environmental damage, of course, but the military is increasingly interested in moving some of its bases from western Europe to poorer countries in eastern Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. And part of that interest stems from those countries’ limited environmental regulations. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 426
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- ADDENDUM: Directly extends the ‘Grafting & Growth’ article’s structural-narrative lens: here the harm is distributed along colonial infrastructure lines, an environmental-justice corollary to the tamarisk tree’s air-conditioning and root-graft metaphors.
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: what specifically drives relocation to weaker-environmental-regulation countries, and how much of it is deliberate cost-shifting versus organic cost pressure?
Related
- Military bases concentrate environmental harm in poorer non-Western communities (similarity 0.94)
- Overseas bases cause environmental damage, crime, displacement, and colonial relations (similarity 0.85)
- Colonies and U.S. territories suffer the worst base environmental damage (similarity 0.84)
- Colonial and semicolonial territories suffer the worst base environmental damage. (similarity 0.83)
- U.S. military base creation has repeatedly displaced indigenous island peoples into poverty. (similarity 0.81)
- Worst base pollution coincides with places lacking full constitutional protections. (similarity 0.81)
- Base site selection tracks landowner powerlessness more than strategic need. (similarity 0.80)