It is ironic that mankind spends billions of dollars to search for life on other planets, but blows up trillions in killing life on Earth. The ongoing wars are leaving a heavy trail of destruction with lakhs of people killed, injured or displaced. But the immediate and cumulative impacts of wars are also borne by the built and natural environments.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 caused immense loss of lives and property. Over two lakh people perished and tens of thousands were maimed or afflicted with radiation-induced lifelong diseases like cancer and deformities. The toxic gases released by the explosion contaminated ecosystems, land and water, affecting plants and animals alike.
US President Harry Truman, who ordered the bombing, justified his decision on the ground that it was to hasten the end of the Second World War and save American lives. At that time, critics asked whether Asian lives don’t matter. A similar question is being asked about the Persian Gulf now.
During the Vietnam war (1961-1975), the US used the herbicide Agent Orange and napalm bombs to flush out, maim or kill Viet Cong guerrillas who hid in mangroves and swamps. One report suggests that about 4 lakh tonnes of napalm bombs and 75 million litres of herbicides were used to create intense infernos and decimate vast swathes of Vietnam’s forests, mangroves and rice fields. Virtually all living organisms from large mammals to fish, birds and earthworms were affected and food chains were disrupted for years. The prolonged war led to soil degradation, contamination of water courses, loss of biodiversity, spread of invasive species and hydrological changes, many of which continue to linger despite the lapse of decades.
A 2024 study led by Professor Daniel Hryhorczuk on the environmental impacts of Russia’s war in Ukraine notes that apart from the loss of over 5 lakh human lives and displacement of more than a crore people, the war imposed a heavy cost on Ukraine’s environment with damages estimated at over $56.4 billion.
Apart from widespread chemical contamination of air, water and soil, about 30 percent of Ukraine now has landmines and unexploded ordnance. Landscape destruction, shelling, wildfires, deforestation and pollution have adversely affected 30 percent of Ukraine’s protected areas. Russia’s seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam pose risks of long-term environmental catastrophe. Most of these impacts threaten human health.
The ongoing wars are a massive setback to the hard-wrought Paris Agreement’s goals of restricting global temperature rise to 1.5-2oC above pre-industrial levels. The Initiative on Greenhouse Gas Accounting of War estimates that due to the military operations, fires, higher fuel consumption and destruction of energy and other infrastructure, the first four years of the Russia-Ukraine war have emitted about 311 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, with damages from this alone estimated at over $57 billion.
Right now, the attacks and counter-attacks in the Gulf region are causing immense damage to the energy infrastructure. The infernos caused by bombing oil refineries have led to contamination of air, land and water. ‘Black rain’ has already affected Tehran, where many residents have reported breathing problems.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Israeli-US attacks have damaged some of Iran’s nuclear assets, sparking fears of radiation risk in the wider region. The sinking of an Iranian frigate near Sri Lanka and damage to other ships including oil tankers in the war zone threatens marine ecosystems and biodiversity due to oil spills, release of hazardous cargo and metal contamination that can threaten coastal ecosystems and livelihoods for years to come.
The war has already extracted a heavy price on heritage sites in Iran and Lebanon. Despite Unesco’s appeals to Israel and the US countries to exclude these areas from destruction, many globally recognised places have suffered severe damages. This includes the 400-year-old Qajar-era Golestan Palace in Tehran, the 17th-century Chehel Sotoun palace and the Jama masjid in Isfahan. Buildings close to the famed Khorramabad Valley, noteworthy for its prehistoric caves and rock shelter dating to 63,000 BC, also suffered damages.
Iran—like India, Egypt, Iraq and Greece—boasts of an ancient civilisation dating back millenniums. During the Iraq invasion in 2003 and later, the US forces caused extensive damage to the ancient Babylon city, which housed one of the wonders of the ancient world. Yet, when the Taliban destroyed the sixth-century Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan not long before in 2001, the world including the US had expressed outrage. Now, there is stoic silence behind the erosion of millenniums of cultural progress—which is a betrothal to generations to come.
A witty retort often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi makes the point pithily. When asked by a reporter about his opinion on Western civilisation, he supposedly replied: “It’s a good idea.” When the law of the jungle reigns, it’s civilisation that recedes. What’s happening in West Asia right now is nothing short of such a giant leap backwards.
K N Ninan | Former Professor, ISEC, Bengaluru and Lead Author, GEO-7, UNEP Nairobi
(Views are personal)
(ninankn@yahoo.co.in)