If We Could Pay $35 Billion to Ensure an Entire Nation Survives Climate Change, Would We Do It?

The US could repair its own history and secure an entire nation by funding the Marshall Islands’ climate survival plan. Will it?

The Marshall Islands has a detailed climate survival plan. All in, it costs $35 billion…4% of this year’s Pentagon budget. To secure an entire nation.

(Graphic adapted from the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network)

The more you learn about the Blue Pacific, the more you learn we have absolutely, literally, poisoned the hell out of large swathes of it. And we did the worst (and as yet unremediated) damage to those living in the Marshall Islands. 67 nuclear tests.

This is one of those many unaccounted for costs of “great-power competition.” It was so nonsensical, achieving nothing but increasing the stakes of arms-racing for humanity. How could so much violence be not only erased from how we account for the high price of Cold Wars, but also justified?

As Kissinger remarked:

There are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn?

Enter the Marshall Islands’ climate survival plan. You can read about it at The Grist. It’s really the first of its kind. And $35 billion strikes me as a bargain considering how much this amount would achieve compared to how much money we’re pissing away on militarism.

But also get this: