A year of war in Eastern Europe. I will not discuss the horrors. They were intensively discussed in the entire media. From the attacks on the civilian population, to the destruction of the utility supply infrastructure, to collective graves. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed, millions of citizens who lost all their possessions, more than 8 million of refugees. Children left without parents, old people whose children died on the front. A tragedy as we did not imagine that we can still live in a century of unprecedented technological development. A ravaged, destroyed territory, a continuous polygon to test the military forces.
According to estimates, the first year of the war in Ukraine directly led to the release into the atmosphere of almost 50 million tons of greenhouse gases. Indirectly, it is difficult to calculate, but the carbon emissions for the manufacture of military equipment and ammunition are huge. The destruction caused by the intense bombardments will require enormous resources, first of all to clean the land of ruins and then to build the destroyed buildings and infrastructure, estimates consider emissions equivalent to over 50 million tons of carbon. The impact on the flora and fauna remains to be evaluated with great care, the effects of the war affecting terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
The irrationality of the war went so far that a nuclear power plant became the central object of the threats. Threats with the use of nuclear weapons did not take long to appear at the top level. In these extremely turbulent times, the environment has become a marginal topic, climate change is treated as a fad. Maybe we don't understand the military, but in my opinion, not even a conflict between civilizations can neglect the terrible impact it has on the environment. The impact is for everyone. No one can win when they disregard nature. More rationality would be welcome. War no longer has either economic or regenerative virtues. It is just a horror, a mistake of human behavior.
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