Photo credit: Mike Hastie
Military air shows are a wa$te – of our tax dollars, jet fuel, pilots’ skills, and greenhouse gas emissions. Begun in 1946 when CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 210 ppm, these extremely loud, polluting Navy and Air Force aviation stunt shows spew out invisible toxic emissions contributing to our current climate crisis, when CO2 has reached 425 ppm, well above the safe upper limit of 350 ppm. The No MAS! Campaign engages veterans, climate, environmental, faith, and civic groups around the United States. This year we have organized protests in 8 locations from Brunswick, Maine to San Diego, California. We call for an end to all US military air shows. The US military is the world’s single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels. NONE of those fuels need to be used for entertainment. See below for information and tools to protest, and end, military air shows in your area. No Military Air Shows!
Hosting a presentation of VFP’s Climate Crisis & Militarism’s educational slideshow provides many under-appreciated facts about the military’s role in worsening the climate crisis and can help convince your audience to call for the end to military air shows.
To request a presentation, please click here.
View/download this handy 10-point guide: No MAS! How To Protest a Military Air Show
Please click on the links below to access resources, articles and videos to support your actions.
- PBS Interview: Protestors call for cancellation of the Miramar Air Show
- “Disneyland of War” short documentary
- Clip from “War Machine”
Two short videos:
- The US military is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels
- The true cost of the military-industrial complex
Articles:
- Sample OpEd - Opinion: The U.S. military’s impact on the climate crisis is STILL rarely mentioned. Here’s what you should know.
- No MAS! Military Jets and the Climate Crisis
- Inconvenient Truths About Military Air Shows
- Opinion: Airshow protest highlights Pentagon's carbon footprint
- The Problem With the Blue Angels
Case Study: Miramar Air Show in San Diego and San Diego Veterans For Peace, Chapter 91
Chapter 91 in San Diego has been protesting the annual Miramar Air Show since 2016. We began by focusing upon the military’s glorification of war and its overt appeal to youths as young as 8 years old as it allowed kids to aim automatic weapons at each other and climb atop tanks, romp inside helicopters and “fly” Top Gun jets. We sought community support, and, although we did receive some local media attention, we found ourselves with few allies. That changed in 2021 when we refined our focus to that of the Blue Angels as gross polluters. We had three local climate/social justice organizations endorse us and attend our actions. We saw that we were connecting with an issue beyond Peace groups. We amplified our efforts to gain supporters earlier in 2022 and ended up with 18 local organizations endorsing our actions!
We did this by educating the San Diego public. This, in spite of San Diego’s reputation as a military town. You too can do this if your community is affected by one of the nearly 65 scheduled “big banner”* military air shows in 2023. AND we will gladly help you! We will help you develop allies and amplify your voices. Focusing on pollution makes the argument more easily understood to climate activists. Please contact Dave Patterson at dpatterson998@yahoo.com for additional information.
*Here are links to 2024 “big banner” Military Air Shows: