For the US Military, Fossil Fuel is the ‘Lifeblood.’ Here's What that Means for the Planet.

Trending Globally: Politics and Policy

The B-2 Spirit, known as the ‘Stealth Bomber,’ is one of the most advanced aircrafts in the US military. It has a fuel efficiency of about 4.2 gallons per mile. (That’s not a typo; it’s less than one mile per gallon.) Burning a full tank of gas in a B-2 releases roughly 250 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That’s more than 50 times what the average car releases in an entire year.

And that’s just for one trip, for one plane in the US military – the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuel.

“The size of that consumption is kind of hard to get your head around,” says Neta Crawford on this episode of Trending Globally.

Neta Crawford is a professor of political science at Boston University and co-founder of the Costs of War project, which is housed at the Watson Institute. The project works to uncover the financial, human, political, and environmental costs of America’s post-9/11 wars. This year Trending Globally has teamed up with the Costs of War project to explore what they’ve found.

On this episode you’ll hear from Neta Crawford on her groundbreaking work calculating the size and scope of the US military’s carbon footprint. In the process of uncovering the extent of the military’s fuel consumption and carbon emissions, she also traces the long and complex relationship between national security, fossil fuels, and climate change.

Learn more about Neta Crawford’s work.

Learn more about the Costs of War Project.

Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts.