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"Air Power and the Environment:
The Ecological Implications of Modern Air Warfare"
The Conference of:
The Air Power Studies Division,
King’s College London
and
The Royal Air Force
Centre for Air Power Studies
26 and 27 August 2009
Environmental responsibility already lies at the forefront of our western world perspective and is constantly growing in importance. Ecological activism, which used to be a fringe movement, has now become mainstream. In 2007 Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize (and an Oscar!) for their efforts to raise environmental awareness. Greenpeace, which uses "non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems," alone has no fewer than 220,000 members in the
As a consequence, governments and their armed forces will doubtless be paying more attention to the serious ecological ramifications of conflict. Some already are. The Global Strategic Trends paper published by the MoD’s Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) illustrates the importance now being placed on these matters by cutting-edge British strategists.
Balancing strategic and operational needs with both military and environmental ethics is certainly not impossible, and responsible armed forces, including the Royal Air Force, are already thinking deeply about how best to balance what superficially seem to be (but actually are not) competing imperatives.
This innovative conference – the first on this topic in the
The organisers intend the conference – to be held at the historic and prestigious Royal Air Force College – to attract practitioners, policy-makers, academics and also university students (for whom attendance will be free upon presentation of a student id card), and for it therefore to wrestle analytically with big air power-related themes and topics at the heart of current strategy and security debates.
The conference proceedings will be published subsequently in book form by the Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies.
Topics include:
· Climate change and security
· Strategies to prevent, mitigate, and redress war's environmental consequences
· Warfare and environmental law
· The historical targeting of oil and industrial infrastructure
· Contemporary targeting strategies for oil and industrial infrastructure
· Environmentally harmful / acceptable ordnance
· Decommissioning and disposal of ordnance
· Aviation fuel management
· Air forces and carbon emissions
· Air forces and alternative fuel sources
· Air forces and resource / waste management
· Real versus synthetic training
Conference Convenor:
Dr Joel Hayward
Dean of the Royal Air Force College
Programme
(click HERE to read the speakers' biographies)
Day 1: Wednesday 26 August 2009
1030 Introduction: Dr Joel Hayward
1045 Conference Welcome: Air Chief Marshal Stephen Dalton, CB BSc FRAeS FCMI RAF, Chief of the Air Staff (Designate), RAF
1100 Keynote Address: Victor W Sidel, MD, "The Impact of War on the Environment, Public Health, and Natural Resources”.
1200 Mr Peter Lee, "Just War and the Environment: Rethinking Proportionality"
1245 Lunch
1345 Lieutenant Colonel Chris Rein, USAF, “The Environmental Impact of the US Army Air Force's Production and Training Infrastructure on the Great Plains"
1430 Dr Toby Thacker, "Environmental Considerations in the Planning for the British Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1939-1945"
1515 Tea
1545 Dr Sebastian Ritchie, "The flooding of Walcheren Island, October 1944"
1630 Ms Evelyn Krache Morris, "The Forest and the Trees: Aerial Herbicide Spraying and the Environment"
1715 Close
1900-2100 Conference Dinner (all)
2100-2300 Bar (cash)
Day 2: Thursday 27 August 2009
0900 Keynote Address: Dr Phillip S Meilinger, “The Role of Air Power in Reducing Collateral Damage in War”
0945 Colonel Mark A Olinger, US Army, “Air Power and the Targeting of a Nation’s Energy Based Sector”
1030 Coffee
1100 Air University, Panel Discussion, "Air Power: Environmental Security for AFRICOM"
Simultaneous papers:
1200 Speaker A Mr Dimitrios Ziakkas, "Building Synthetic Training
in the Air”
Speaker B (Tedder Room) Ms Tara Smith, “Legal Obligations and Voluntary
Commitments: Should the Weakness of Environmental
Humanitarian Law be a Cause for Concern?”
1245 Lunch
1345 Speaker A Ms Heather Hrychuk, "The Canadian Air Force's
Environmental Evolution"
Speaker B (Tedder Room) Mr Jim Morgan and Mr Terry Yonkers, "Air Power and
the Environment within Combat Threat Zones:
A Mission Support Contractor's Perspective"
1430 Speaker A Lieutenant Colonel Dr Michael J and Ms Sarah A
Masterson, “Fighting the Good (Green) Fight?"
Speaker B (Tedder Room) Mr Tamir Libel, “Environmental Considerations
and Israeli Air Power thought”
1515 Closing Address: Air Chief Marshal Stephen Dalton, CB BSc FRAeS FCMI RAF, Chief of the Air Staff (Designate), RAF
