Battle Fatigue Over Army Green

The U.S. military is far and away the largest consumer of fossil fuels in this country. Reducing the military’s carbon footprint is not only important for the environment, it also would make for a much more effective, efficient military. But efforts to make the military greener are being stymied by Republicans and a few conservative Democrats in Congress. This week on Sea Change Radio, host Alex Wise speaks with David Roberts, a staff writer at Grist.org, and one of the leading environmental journalists in the country, about the current political struggle to enable the U.S. military to use alternative fuels and take other steps to reduce its carbon consumption. Roberts, who’s written a series of pieces on the subject, takes us inside the Marine Corp’s Expeditionary Energy Office and tries to wade through the political morass that’s keeping these forward-thinking efforts from becoming standard operating procedure.