(AFP report) British arms manufacturer BAE Systems is designing "environmentally friendly" weapons, including "reduced lead" bullets, "reduced smoke" grenades and rockets with fewer toxins, The Sunday Times said...
Other initiatives include developing armoured vehicles with lower carbon emissions, safer and more sustainable artillery and even recycling or composting waste explosives, the newspaper added. "Weapons are going to be used and when they are, we try to make them as safe for the user as possible, to limit the collateral damage and to impact as little as possible on the environment," Debbie Allen, BAE Systems' director of corporate social responsibility, was quoted as saying.
The US Army has its own website dedicated to the topic of sustainable warfare.
Now you would expect us at Greenpeace to be behind this kind of thing. You know us Greenies, more concerned about the yellow-bellied sapsucker's survival than that of human beings, right? Home of the "Save the planet, kill yourself" concept, right?
Well, sorry, but that's those other greeny guys. Peace is our second name and it's not enough to make those munitions Green -- they've got to get peaceful as well. So when they perfect the lower-carbon armoured vehicle that fires only organic flower seeds, the reduced-smoke grenade that only explodes into blossom, and the no-lead, no-metal nerf-bullet that reduce not just collatoral damage but direct damage as well, we'll be first in line to cheer.
In the meantime, there's 480 VERY environmentally unfriendly US Nuclear weapons stationed in Europe. Take action here to boot them back to their own backyard.