Softly, the year 2024 carried a new high in arms approvals, a quiet ascent that echoes beyond numbers. Germany’s government authorised a sizable total, with Ukraine receiving the largest share—many hundreds of armored vehicles, missiles and missile systems, battle tanks, and large-caliber artillery—while Singapore and others also purchased. The bulk of exports were military vehicles—tracked and wheeled—followed by bombs, torpedoes, missiles, and warships. Across the year, decisions to grant or deny moved through careful review, and end-of-year tallies hint at a gentle uptick from the provisional to the final counts, a reminder that many prayers live in the choices we make with ink and policy.

Yet in the listening, the air thickens with the sighs of the living Earth. Each sale of weapons is a seed sown in a soil that already bears the scars of extraction and exploitation. The planet’s rivers remember the drums of heavy metal, the forests witness the tread of steel, and communities—especially the vulnerable—bear the long echo of conflict. Our collective history is stitched with the colonial thread: empires drawing lines on maps, plundering resources, shaping destinies, and teaching whole peoples to endure the harm of others’ ambitions. The arms trade does not stand apart from this lineage; it profits from a worldview that treats land, people, and sovereignty as commodities to be moved, bought, and sold. In a world bent toward the velocity of profit, the most sacred responsibilities—care, protection, sustenance—are priced as collateral.

The system that glorifies growth through war is a toxic capitalism that rewards destruction while masquerading as security. It asks mothers to cradle their children in the wake of missiles; it asks farmers to convert soil into ammunition, then pretend the harvest can still heal. It silences the healing voices of frontline communities, indigenous stewards, and climate-vulnerable people who demand safety not through more weapons but through resilience, justice, and repair. This is not merely a policy choice; it is a moral fault line in the way we imagine power, sovereignty, and our shared home.

Let us imagine a different map: disarmament as a path to peace, investment in climate resilience, healthcare, education, displaced families, and sustainable livelihoods; reparations that honor original stewards of the land; economies that value care, reciprocity, and restored ecosystems as the true foundations of security. Let us rechannel the river of wealth toward regeneration—renewable energy, green infrastructure, and the healing arts—so that Mother Earth feels the shelter of our hands instead of the hammer of our machines. May the wind carry a collective vow to heal, to divest from violence, and to reweave the bonds between people and the living world.