Earth’s Greatest Enemy (2025) exposes a shocking hidden truth about the U.S. military – that it is the largest consumer of oil and the largest polluting institution in the world. The documentary shatters the idea that we can make progress on global climate goals without addressing how capitalism and imperialism necessitate endless destruction, overproduction, and profit.
Earth’s Greatest Enemy poses the question: how can a country whose existence depends on death and destruction claim to be working towards carbon neutrality, or even a fully renewable future?
The film is directed by Abby Martin, an independent journalist known for The Empire Files, who worked with her husband, veteran and anti-war activist Mike Prysner, on the project. Earth’s Greatest Enemy takes Martin and Prysner across the world to document atrocities from the hidden corners of the U.S. empire. They interview individuals – from South Carolina to Palestine to Japan to Alaska – to understand the system’s impacts and how people are fighting back.
The 2-hour film is a dizzying presentation of the scale of this problem, rattling off shocking fact after shocking fact about how the U.S. military operates with impunity… with seemingly no end in sight. The film conveys the urgency of the matter through a barrage of stories and information, but some may feel debilitated by watching this and wondering, “what can I do?”
Only a political perspective can move from the challenge this film poses into practice and avoid a sense of doom and despair. We must look to ourselves and each other as the solution. Only we can build the movement needed to end the machine of capitalism, war, and climate destruction.
The good news is that people all over the world are trying to find ways to build a new, better system that puts people’s lives and the environment above war and profit.
The film also shows that we must organize on an international basis. The U.S. empire does not exist only on U.S. soil – it extends to every corner of the planet. In the belly of the beast, it is up to us to connect with movements abroad, to build towards and achieve total global transformation.
The movie is an excellent tool for activists to arm themselves with stories and facts about the intertwined nature of the fight for global socialism and the fight against climate change, and a great tool to share these facts with others in our lives.
Earth’s Greatest Enemy is being screened in select independent movie theaters in the U.S. and is available upon request for individual screenings in other locations. Invite your friends to see it with you or organize your own screening!
