Your workout leggings, your morning commute, and the fertilizer to grow your food — what do they have in common? They're all fossil fuel legacies of war. In this episode, we connect the dots between the military and the climate crisis, tracing how wartime decisions made decades ago still shape and pollute our everyday lives.

We sit down with Neta C. Crawford, professor of international relations at the University of St. Andrews and author of The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War, to unpack a staggering blind spot in our global emissions picture: the military. We also follow the money with Commons co-founder Sanchali Pal to understand how the U.S. kept military missions out of the Kyoto Protocol, and what that means for climate targets today. We also hear how our community feels about using their money to avoid funding wars they don't support. 

Episode rundown:

• (00:22) - The US military is the world's single largest institutional fossil fuel consumer.

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Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Braden Marazzo-Nowicki, Diana Holguin, Drew, Julia Nolasco, Fionaa Bhatia, Nicole Collins
• Research: Makenna McBrierty
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham