By Kirsi Kujala
Unite the Armies is a project run by a non-profit organisation called The Green Association for the Preservation of Life (Vihreä Elämänsuojelun liitto). The campaign aims to turn around the increasingly alarming development of our planet by uniting the armies to help regain the natural balance of our planet. The campaign was launched in 2014 by Finnish professors U.B Lindström and Eero Paloheimo.
Signs of a climate disaster are quickly emerging around the world in the form of increased hurricanes, floods, drought, and pollution. Environmental catastrophes are followed by humanitarian crises, like the refugee wave from Syria to Europe. The Syrian civil war was preceded by a drought that was worst the country has seen in nearly 1000 years. Environmental experts like Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, have confirmed the current drought in Syria, which has lasted about 15 years, is far outside of natural climate cycles. While its agreed that the drought was not the only, it was one of the most influential of the bundle of complex, interrelated factors that lead to the Syrian civil war.
It is clear that if no action is taken sooner than later, the Earth, followed by humanity, will be in a place of no return.
On the level of global politics, it is commonly accepted that national defence forces are called to action when a sudden or unexpected natural disaster takes place to help the accident victims. The Unite the Armies campaign aims to release this same potential to prevent the ongoing slower, but larger and fairly imminent natural catastrophe taking place sooner than later. In our petition to the United Nations it is suggested that the United Nations will make a global initiative to ensure that all the defence forces under the United Nations will direct a portion of their resources to fight the existing environmental catastrophes and help restoring the balance of our planet, first starting with their own national concerns. One of the greatest international goals that Finland could be participating in could be for example clearing the Baltic Sea from oil and plastic waste and building a proper filtration system to prevent further toxic waste from poisoning the water reserve. A vast project like this would naturally require co-operation within the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea. Goals like this can be achieved in co-operation between the United Nations and global humanitarian and environmental organisations.
Needless to mention, the mere manpower and resources that national defence forces hold are immense. Finnish defence forces alone hold a wartime troop strength of 230,000 trained soldiers with a treasury of thousands of vehicles, including over 100 fighter aircraft. A few examples of how these resources could be used are cleaning oceans from toxic plastic and oil waste, the reforestation of deserts, and protecting endangered species from illegal hunting.
The United Nations already holds a vast army of peacekeepers. Our goal is to form an army of greenkeepers whose agenda is to protect life, globally. Finland is one of the least populated countries in the world with 6 million inhabitants. Imagine what the defence forces of Russia, China or the US would be capable of.
Read more and sign the petition at: http://unite-the-armies.org/
