Activists tend to see the climate crisis and US militarism as two separate issues. However, the hard-hitting documentary Earth’s Greatest Enemy persuasively argues that, in fact, the two are inextricably connected. But not only because many of Washington’s countless wars – especially in the Middle East – have been linked to securing and maintaining American control of and access to oil. It’s more insidious than that, because in the process of protecting Big Oil’s interests and profits, the Pentagon is the planet’s single largest user and emitter of fossil fuels. So, in a circular and psychopathic way, the US Armed Forces are enormous contributors to the climate emergency, as enforcers, enablers, and perpetrators.
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Ed Rampell was named after legendary CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow because of his TV exposes of Senator Joe McCarthy. Rampell majored in Cinema at Manhattan’s Hunter College and is an L.A.-based film historian/critic who co-organized the 2017 70th anniversary Blacklist remembrance at the Writers Guild theater in Beverly Hills and was a moderator at 2019’s “Blacklist Exiles in Mexico” filmfest and conference at the San Francisco Art Institute. Rampell co-presented “The Hollywood Ten at 75” film series at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and is the author of Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States and co-author of The Hawaii Movie and Television Book.
