When they partner with war companies

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Have you ever seen an environmental organization thank a war company?

I live in Maryland where the Chesapeake Bay Foundation posts, "Thank you to Northrop Grumman for their continued support of CBF's oyster restoration work, oyster monitoring, and our environmental education programs," and The Nature Conservancy shares, "A special thanks to Lockheed Martin for investing in nature-based solutions right here in Maryland that strengthen both communities and ecosystems!"

When you see these posts, you may be tempted to thank or appreciate Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin, yourself. You may believe that they care about "environmental education" or "communities and ecosystems," as the environmental groups describe. Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are two of the largest war companies in existence. They belong to a group of ruthless profiteers producing weapons and technology primarily for the U.S. military, an institution so intentionally murderous and environmentally calamitous that the term "ecocide" was coined to describe its disastrous function.

The 5 largest U.S.- based war companies are Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon), General Dynamics, and Boeing. Their business is to supply and profit off imperialism and U.S. hegemony. When the U.S. military launched a drone strike on a civilian wedding procession in Yemen, bombed Caracas and abducted Venezuela's President, or murdered at least 175 children and their teachers in Iran, they deployed Lockheed Martin's Hellfire missiles, Northrop Grumman's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, and Raytheon's Tomahawk cruise missiles to do it. These companies produce surveillance technology for ICE and weapons for the U.S. and Israel's ongoing genocide in Palestine, building explosives like Boeing's GBU-39 bomb and General Dynamics' MK-84 Hammer that are used to evaporate people upon murdering them in Gaza.

The capital that war companies bring to partnerships with environmental organizations is generated from their life- and home-destroying products. It's from the rivers, bays, farmlands, forests, and towns that are poisoned, polluted, and demolished by their weapons. It's from the toxic waste dumped, chemicals leached, and harmful gases emitted that kill people and bio-accumulate in the soil and bodies of living things for generations. And, it's from the acceleration of climate change, as the U.S. Department of War, with its around 800 military bases and endless purchasing, showboating, and violent interventions, is the world's greatest institutional producer of greenhouse gases and consumer of fossil fuels. In spite of all this, green groups and institutions, that are ostensibly committed to protecting the Earth, unabashedly uphold war companies as worthy funders and honorable environmentalists.

For example, in my home state, Northrop Grumman is a Maryland Green Registry member, has received a leadership award from the Maryland Department of the Environment, and is celebrated by regionally-known environmental organizations, like the Living Classrooms Foundation and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF). CBF, one of the largest environmental institutions in Maryland, has been "so grateful" and sending out "BIG thanks" to one of Earth's biggest killers for over a decade. CBF clearly and publicly showcases their partnership with Northrop Grumman, which is largely focused on oyster restoration. This is the same Northrop Grumman that is being sued by the New York town of Oyster Bay for environmental contamination.

In the Chesapeake Bay, the oyster population is about 1% of its 19th century count. Northrop Grumman is "Saving the Bay," as their website proclaims, by assisting CBF with monitoring the still in progress campaign to "add" 10 billion oysters to the Bay by 2025. Notice that the Northrop Grumman-backed version of "Saving the Bay" both acts as their PR and ignores the problems making oyster lives unlivable. Oyster declines are a global problem, and the Bay's over-harvested oysters are suffering because of disease, climate change, habitat degradation, and pollution that increases eutrophication and sedimentation in the water, creating vicious positive feedback loops that further limit oyster proliferation and their water filtering capabilities.

With Northrop Grumman as a partner, CBF limits itself to a sustainability that appeals to a war company. Their public goal may be saving the Bay, but they'll be influenced again and again to avoid actions against extractive and exploitative industries. They are unlikely to systemically challenge the greatest polluters or the root causes of the Bay's degradation.

In this one life that we share, they choose to promote, praise, and protect a corporation that builds weapons for genocides and poisons ecosystems. They greenwash that corporation's reputation in exchange for capital. At best, they are making incremental improvements to parts of the Bay while supporting and profiting off murder, habitat loss, and climate change across the world. While that alone is disturbingly apathetic and soulless, do they forget that nothing happens in a vacuum? Incremental improvements become futile when you have spent so much time helping the biggest oppressors crush the people, destroy their homes, and expand U.S. imperialism. Work that maintains racial capitalism and accumulates wealth for a shrinking ruling class is not environmental work, and it will not save the Bay.

It is a painful thing to see these contradictions, to understand that everything is connected, and to be ready for what's beyond this misery before it seems so many others are. The Bay's health is dependent on our social transformation; our willingness to reject the systems that kill us and to build something better.

All this just to say, stop greenwashing war companies and be angry at the people who do. Caring for Earth cannot be in partnership with mass murder and environmental destruction.

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