One’s immediate thought on looking at any of the multitude of photos of the devastation of Gaza is a profound sense of sorrow and grief at the capacity of humans to wreak such destruction and suffering.

There is mind-numbing despair at the plight of children who have lost everything – their parents, other family members, their own health, their education, their fun, their society, their future.

As catastrophic as this is, it is not even the full picture of the harm being wrought in the destruction of Gaza.

One can’t help wondering also: when rebuilding eventually starts, where will whole neighbourhoods of rubble go?

It will need new neighbourhoods of rubble simply to hold it all, or that very useful waste dump – the ocean. Moving it all and starting again will be part of a hidden problem in the war on Gaza – its greenhouse gas emissions.

The carbon costs of war and its preparations are of increasing concern to civil society, as rapid greenhouse gas emissions reductions become increasingly urgent.

Military emissions

The Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) estimates that the world’s militaries may be responsible for 5.5 percent of global emissions, “a proportion so great that it can no longer be ignored”.

A study released on 6 June from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), “A Multitemporal Snapshot of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Israel-Gaza Conflict,” examined........

© Pearls and Irritations