Dahr Jamail was working in Alaska’s Denali National Park in the early 2000s when he decided to travel to Iraq to better cover the U.S.-led invasion of the region, on the now debunked basis that Iraq’s president was hiding “weapons of mass destruction.” “I was so aghast at how it was being covered in the corporate media,” Jamail say. “[I]t was literally an overt resource war.” This trend of resource grabs hasn’t abated in the two decades since that invasion, he says. Jamail joined the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the context behind current global conflicts, and how resource-based conflicts exacerbate — and are influenced by — the planet’s stressed ecological limits. Listen here: It’s important to note that the true justification of specific conflicts, such as the war in Iraq, are still publicly debated today. However, scientists have warned governments like the United States against contributing to them, and to instead invest the time and money in transitioning their economies to more sustainable models. Today, the total cost of ignoring this call stands at 4.5 million to 4.7 million lives and $8 trillion (to the U.S. alone) for all post-9/11 wars in the Middle East, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University. Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website, or download our free app for Apple and Android devices to gain instant access to our latest episodes and all of our previous ones. Banner…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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