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Over a century before we reached the brink of ecological catastrophe, Rabindranath Tagore had a glimpse of where we might be headed. Tagore, an Indian author and cultural reformer who lived during the period of British colonialism, was among the last of a generation able to examine the industrialized world from the outside. He issued one of the earliest and most eloquent warnings about the precarity of a world sustained, like ours today, on the twin pillars of industrial consumption and industrial warfare. On a sea voyage to Japan in 1916, Tagore witnessed an unfathomable event that seems almost mundane to us today: an oil spill. To him, it was a jarring image of an earth destroyed by humanity’s unbridled pursuit of power, now supercharged by the tools of modern science.

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It may not come as a surprise that the largest industrial military in the history of the world is also the single biggest polluter on the planet. A recent study from Brown University’s Costs of War project surfaced this startling fact: The U.S. Department of Defense has a larger annual carbon footprint than most countries on earth. With a sprawling network of bases and logistics networks, the U.S. military is the single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world aside from whole nation-states themselves. “Indeed, the DOD is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world,” the report notes. If the Pentagon were a country, it would be the world’s 55th biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. And its main purpose — warfare — is easily its most carbon-intensive activity. Since the present era of American conflicts began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. military is estimated to have emitted a staggering 1.2 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. For comparison, the entire annual carbon emissions of the United Kingdom is roughly 360 million tons.

That massive additional burden on the planet might be justifiable were it all being done in the name of vital national security interests, but the biggest components of the U.S. military’s carbon dioxide footprint have been in wars and occupations that were almost entirely unnecessary. To put it crudely: The U.S. poisoned the planet for vanity projects.

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the United States decided to embark on an endless war and occupation. The costs have been tremendous: The Taliban was revived from near-death, at least 110,000 people have been killed, and the environmental toll has been massive.

In addition to emitting millions of tons of carbon dioxide during the war, the U.S. military footprint contributed more directly to the immediate destruction of the Afghan environment. Deforestation has accelerated amid the chaos of the war and, through trash burning and other means, the U.S. armed forces released toxic pollutants into the air that are blamed for sickening Afghan civilians and causing chronic illnesses among U.S. veterans.

The environmental havoc wreaked by the war in Iraq has been even worse. Not only did the war lead to a spike in carbon dioxide emissions through U.S. military activity, it resulted in the widespread poisoning of the Iraqi environment through the use of toxic munitions and the same so-called burn pits on military bases that were used in Afghanistan. The environment has become so toxic in some places that it has led to elevated rates of cancer, as well as crippling birth defects — terrible individual punishments inflicted on innocent future generations. A British doctor who co-authored two studies on the environmental impact of U.S. military operations in Fallujah said that the city’s population suffers “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.

Much of this impact can be blamed on the use of depleted uranium munitions by U.S. forces. Despite vowing to cease their use, a study by the independent monitoring group Airwars and Foreign Policy Magazine found that the military continued to use the toxic munitions during its most recent bombing campaign in Syria.

makhzoumi foundation - providing food and water assistance, medical care, psychosocial support, and other necessities

lebanon emergency relief - providing food, baby supplies, medication, sleep and hygiene necessities, and financial assistance

lebanese food bank - runs food and water security initiatives across the country

basmeh & zeitooneh - running various educational and psychosocial programs, providing food and water packages, shelter and sleeping supplies, and hygiene products

lebanese red cross - provides medical care, supplies for hospitals, search and rescue operations, and necessities for displaced people

lebanon solidarity collective - works with other grassroots networks to provide food, necessities, medical care, and financial assistance; runs additional long-term bioremediation projects

voices of the unseen - coalition of organizations working to provide food, clean water, hygiene products, weather-appropriate clothing, and medical supplies

islamic help's lebanon appeal - runs clinics and shelters, as well as providing water, food, hygiene products, and winter supplies

anera - provides food, water, hygiene supplies, shelter and weather necessities, and medical care, as well as running agricultural programs

islamic relief's lebanon emergency appeal - provides food, water, necessities, medical supplies

baitulmaal - operates a mobile clinic and provides food, water, shelter, and hygiene supplies

azahir - providing meals, sleeping supplies, baby and hygiene products, medical care, and pyschosocial support with a focus on children and families

jibal - coordinates community kitchens and food supply for shelters

foodblessed lebanon - providing meals and non-perishable food parcels

egna legna besidet - providing support for displaced migrant workers, including food, health supplies, clothing, and financial assistance

nation station - a Beirut-based community kitchen (provides about 1,000 meals daily)

beit aam - community space in Beirut currently serving as a hub for volunteer workers and supply gathering

queer mutual aid lebanon - providing housing and financial assistance to queer and trans people

In the colossal, cathedral sized water tank beneath the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, several heads of Medusa have been used as pillar bases for the past 1.500 years. It is not entirely known where the heads came from, but they were believed to be taken from some other Roman ruin. The heads are upside down or sideways to inhibit the power of the Gorgon Medusa's gaze.

Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, the UN Independent International Commission said in a new report on Tuesday.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian children, including serious physical and psychological harm by the Israeli security forces since 7 October 2023 resulting in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 children.

The Commission, which concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, resulting in unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.

The Commission has also documented incidents of sexual and gender-based violence targeting Palestinian children, often during arrests or in detention, causing severe physical and mental harm.

Consistent with the Commission’s previous findings on sexual violence committed against Palestinians, Israeli security forces used sexual violence as a tactic of war to punish, instil fear, and treat the bodies of Palestinians, including children, as instruments of collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities, the report concluded.

The Commission reiterates that the deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.

You have all watched some of the worst crimes against humanity be livestreamed to you for years. Do not compromise with this.

West Papua faces a hidden political and humanitarian crisis. Conflict over the right to self-determination and sovereignty over accelerating industrial development has led to repression, extrajudicial killings, torture and disappearances. An extensive network of state and corporate security forces targets activists, clergy, students, local politicians and customary leaders through intensive military intelligence operations. The United Nations estimates that there are between 60,000 and 100,000 internally displaced people in West Papua since violence escalated in 2018 — up to 2 per cent of the population of 5.6 million. This mass displacement is largely driven by foreign investors and their palm oil plantations, often located on traditional land that local people fiercely defend. These plantations are often heavily militarised and frequently the site of human rights violations. Britain’s military and financial institutions are entangled in the exploitation and repression of West Papua. The British government supports the Indonesian military through arms exports and jungle warfare training, while British companies and investors profit from mining, gas extraction and plantation projects that local people staunchly oppose.