Found in Fark with the tag, Ironic. Appearances to the contrary, it is not from The Onion:
BRITISH arms manufacturer BAE Systems is designing "environmentally friendly" weapons, including "reduced lead" bullets, "reduced smoke" grenades and rockets with fewer toxins, The Sunday Times said.
Other initiatives include developing armoured vehicles with lower carbon emissions, safer and more sustainable artillery and even recycling or composting waste explosives, the newspaper added.
"Weapons are going to be used and when they are, we try to make them as safe for the user as possible, to limit the collateral damage and to impact as little as possible on the environment," Debbie Allen, BAE Systems' director of corporate social responsibility, was quoted as saying.
But Symon Hill, from Campaign Against Arms Trade, described the policy as "laughable".
"BAE is determined to try to make itself look ethical but they make weapons to kill people and it's utterly ridiculous to suggest they are environmentally friendly," he told the newspaper.
BAE Systems' policy is reportedly endorsed by Britain's Ministry of Defence, which defended the concept of "green munitions" as not a contradiction in terms. The US Army already has its own sustainability website. (News.com.au)
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This appears on the surface to be laughable. And it might very well be simply some kind of PR stunt to downplay the reality of weapons = death + destruction.
But I think that any thinking with regards to lessening the environmental impact of weapons use could be a good thing.
Consider depleted uranium. Last I looked into it, there appeared to be very good evidence that DU shells could release aerosolized uranium in the immediate area of their target upon impact, possibly causing long-term contamination of soil, water, and beyond.
A trend in not just thinking about immediate benefit (DU shells are highly effective over conventional shells) could reduce "collateral damage" in warfare. But to reiterate, the potential for "enviro-friendly weaponry" to be a PR scheme of similar stature to the term "collateral damage" does not slip past me.
Edmund: I agree with you. It's both laughable and makes the point that war also despoils the environment in many ways. The DU example is especially pertinent as are landmines. The US has been a bad actor in both. Someone buys these products, after all.
While your point is a valid one, it is a matter of context and larger perspective, the old "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" issue.
Sure, sure, but...
They're not going to stop having wars because they're bad for the environment. This isn't going to get anyone an A+ on the green score card, but shouldn't we be approaching this on the principles of "Every Little Bit Helps" and spreading green norms throughout society?
Even if it's all greenwash, the fact that they feel the *need* to greenwash is a good thing.
Brings to mind those enhanced rad weapons ("neutron bombs") that do such a good job of minimizing collateral property damage.
Courtney, Edmund: I agree that on some level this is a puzzle. All things being equal, would we rather have green weapons than not? I think the answer to that is yes, but I also think that the required premise, "all things being equal" is problematic.
Would I rather that a random killer killed people quickly or slowly and painfully? Obviously the former. Would I rather a pedophile abused a child tenderly or brutally? Obviously the former. Etc. Cleaner ways of killing don't seem to me to get at the moral problem here, and of course there is the negative effect of the PR bonus that results by the tactic.
It's a little like the bioethics examples of five people in a lifeboat with enough food and water for four. As an abstract model for resource allocation it seems plausible, but what it does is rip the difficult questions of fairness, equity and who gets what out of the real world and place them in the asocial and apolitical world of the lifeboat. Too much is missing to analyze things this way, although it does isolate certain issues.
Likewise, in this case, certain issues of importance are isolated, the despoiling of the environment by war. The question has an obvioius answer in isolation but in context it appears, well, laughable.
Jesus, that's grim.
I wrote about stuff like this a while back, as a parody of WorldChanging's "Bright Green Future." Amazingly enough, I thought I was overstating things.
You might be surprised how many weapons - shells, etc - get used in training. If they're making these things not to poison the environment around army training areas, that's great. Less lead, etc, in the water and the ground can only be good for everyone.
Ridger: I'm not at all surprised. In fact I've written a couple of papers on the subject (under my real name, of course).
Would this also mean that bodies would be returned home to their loved ones in biodegradable or reusable body-bags?
Sorry guys;that was a bit of a
conversational ender .My crustry old mind is still open Revere which is why I continue to look at you and your blog.Cheers,Mara
tympanachus -
That's not what the enhanced rad weapons were for. That was what the poodle press reported.
The point of the "neutron bomb" was to emit a burst of radiation that could penetrate the hulls of Warsaw Pact AFVs which were fitted with NBC countermeasures.
The problem was the operational role of the Warsaw pact tank reserve. The attack waves to be sent against a NATO MLR ("main line of resistance") were "fire and forget". The Soviet assumption was that they'd be chewed up badly enough not to be of any immediate use.
That reserve was the "Sunday Punch", held back behind the lines until a penetration was reported. Then it would exploit the breach. All the way to the Channel Coast if possible. If you could bankrupt that, you'd bankrupt the Warsaw Pact attack against your MLR as well. But getting man-killing levels of radiation through the armored hulls in a hurry meant high flux densities of neutrons.
CR: "That was what the poodle press reported."
You're talking about the days when the press had some teeth and did not lay about licking their balls like Fox et al.
ERWs are population killers. Public shame about that fact is probably our best excuse for not deploying them. We did encourage the Jews to stockpile plenty of them. I wouldn't be surprised to see us desperate enough for some enhanced quiet and sufficient oil out of the ME to someday implore the Jews to enlighten their neighbors with them.
I did effects calculations for a DOD contractor during the time this was being sorted out. The side effect you mention was of considerable interest but not the rationale.
The Russians née Soviets certainly have a bunch, both strategic and tactical - probably for the same reason they have weaponized smallpox; worried about the Chinese hordes (who also now have some of both) and strangely unconcerned about blowback. Just like Obama sin Ladin will be when he gets his hands on some and dreams great things as he dozes before the fire in his cave on the edge of the Himalayas.
tympanachus -
When it came to technical issues, they were always poodles.
And most of them were about everything else, as well. It comforts us to think otherwise. But guys like Edward R. Murrow were the exception rather than the rule even back in the day.
Now, of course, they're as extinct as allosaurs, in the States.
And BTW, that weaponized smallpox? The motivator there wasn't China so much as the U.S.. Policy, after a nuclear exchange with the States, was to put in a second strike of smallpox. If memory serves, Gorby signed those standing orders himself.
But you're right about the manic unconcern of the Soviet ruling elites with blowback. Funny how people who are so smart in some ways can also be so good at self-deception.