Skip to main content

It's Time to Act for True Security: The Environmental Costs of Militarisation

Help us make it happen Donate to FoD
All pennants together 2

In partnership with Sheffield Creative Action for Peace

This event explores the impacts of the military on the environment and climate change, and the urgent need to re-think security. It is a chance to hear first-hand about the effects of nuclear colonialism on people in the global south.

Leona Morgan from New Mexico will speak about the effects of uranium mining and the dumping of waste on her people and their land.

Matt Fawcett from Global Campaign on Military Spending UK will speak on the costs of military spending – both financial and environmental, how emissions from the military (7% of all carbon emissions) are largely excluded from carbon reporting and target-setting, the huge discrepancy between what is spent globally on the military (£1,982bn in 2020) and climate finance (£79.6bn in 2020), and the need to move money away from excessive military budgets to meet real human need.

A member of Sheffield Creative Action for Peace will speak about the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, signed by 86 countries, which the UK has failed to engage with, and suggest actions that can be taken locally to support it.

Speaker

Leona Morgan is an indigenous community organiser and activist from New Mexico who has been fighting nuclear colonialism since 2007.

Speaker

Matt Fawcett, formerly of Yorkshire CND, is co-ordinator for the Global Campaign on Military Spending UK. The GCOMS network seeks to highlight the opportunity cost of runaway militarism and calls for military spending to be diverted to address common human security concerns. Matt is also co-founder of the Carbon Coop, a community benefit co-operative piloting energy.

Part of our 2022 festival strand

Climate

How can we respond to the climate crisis and biosphere collapse?