MAPW President Dr Bill Williams 'They make a wasteland and call it peace'
MAPW President Dr Bill Williams has a front page feature on the ecological consequences of war, published in this week's Medical Observer (11 January 2010).
'That war wreaks ecological devastation is hardly a new observation' writes Dr Williams. '[T]he first century Roman historian Tacitus famously described the military approach of his age as "they make a wasteland and call it peace". In our era, the rapidly escalating environmental impacts of war are a critical public health concern'.
First outlining the civil costs and financial burden of continued war, Dr Williams' article moves to consider the specific environmental consequences of conflict past and present: 'the direct ecological impacts of war are diverse, with preparatory, immediate and residual components. Exposure to long-lived isotopes in radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing during the '50s and '60s is expected to result in a total of 2.4 million human cancer deaths - a generational toxic legacy from 'war practice' half a century ago, reported in the IPPNWi-IEER 1991 study 'Radioactive Heaven and Earth'... The direct impacts of mass bombings on cities, industrial infrastucture and agriculture are obvious. More insidious are the long term leftovers: the landmines and cluster munitions in Cambodia, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the heavy metal, low-level aplha-emitting depleted uranium in Kosovo and Iraq, the dioxins from defoliant use in Indochina.'
'Two further environmental threats imperil human life and habitat in this century', writes Dr Williams, 'global warming is likely to be the next great conflict driver...' [while] 'a more acute planetary hazard comes in the shape of nuclear weapons. Humans need to act on the understanding that integrated planetary life-support systems - climate included - cannot be seized or protected by force.'
Health professionals can read the full Medical Observer article by registering online. Otherwise, if you would like to read the full article, please contact Nancy Atkin at mapw [at] mapw [dot] org [dot] au or 03 8344 1637
