5 comments on The Bullroarer - Friday 25th April 2008
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I think the bigger question has to be whether big ticket military spending should get priority over clean tech investment. I'm not sure we need supersonic aircraft and submarines, seeing as how OBL lives in a cave. I recall East Timor's Gusmao wanted to spend the oil royalties on F16 jets. Good thing Australia controls their pocket money not that that's colonialism.
If Kunstler is right and everything will turn to crap in the next five years then the military budget could be redirected to a forced program of renewable energy building with green job training. This is not so different to building hydro dams post WW2. We're now extremely grateful for them but they would be politically impossible today. To those who say let the market decide priorities I'd point out the military budget isn't market based.
Suppose instead of spending $1 bn on the next lot of military hardware we installed say 200 MW of green electrical generation. After a few years it will make a significant difference. Alternatively that $1 bn worth of planes, subs or tanks will have crashed a few times, burned lots of fuel and Osama will still be in his cave.
Don't look now, but the government is about to commit $16 billion to a new fighter jet. That's right - $16 billion - almost as much as next year's petroleum trade deficit!