Friday, January 12, 2018

Climate Change and Nuclear Armageddon


I've had a busy week, ending with a workshop on climate change.
 
I never had the opportunity at the workshop to share my thought on the "climate change" paradigm:

Although I think climate change is an important and pressing issue, I find it an inappropriate trope for encapsulating the human made apocalypse that seems to be right around the corner, and that apocalypse looks most likely to be nuclear.

And, of course, I find it quite interesting that climate change and atmospheric testing are never spoken in the same sentence, although it was the Cold War scientists who studied fallout that produced so much of what we know about the world's atmospheric activities (a.k.a., "climate").

Climate anonymizes and disassociates the destruction wrought by deliberate human exploitation and destruction.

Not a whole lot of interest in tales of nuclear Armageddon I'm afraid. Too controversial, which may be why the academic literature that does exist on nuclear tends to be very high quality.

Climate is palatable. Nuclear a lot less so. Perhaps most significant of all is the fact that climate change gives us time. We have the illusion of the possibility of control. Not so with nuclear anymore I'm afraid.


A commentator at this blog left a link to a story addressing escalating concerns about an inadvertent nuclear war, launched either by malicious hackers or malicious presidents. The first link is to a Chatham House report documenting the risks of a nuclear cyber-attack while the second link is to the news coverage of an outright rebellion by former nuclear launch officers:
Beyza Unal and Patricia Lewis (January 2018). Cybersecurity of Nuclear Weapons Systems Threats, Vulnerabilities and Consequences. Chatham House, https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/publications/research/2018-01-11-cybersecurity-nuclear-weapons-unal-lewis-final.pdf

Craw, Victoria (Jan 12, 2018). Nuclear launch officers write open letter about President Trump, amid claims cyberhacks could lead to ‘unintended’ nuclear launch. News.com.Au. Available, http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/nuclear-launch-officers-write-open-letter-about-president-trump-amid-claims-cyberhacks-could-lead-to-unintended-nuclear-launch/news-story/31e82d4451a4d398a7fce3b7e785dbde#.cgf1v

SEVENTEEN former nuclear launch officers have signed an open letter calling for President Trump’s access to the “proverbial red button” be restricted amid fears his “petulant mood swings” could lead to a nuclear strike.

It follows a similar letter calling for restrictions on the nuclear chain of command written while Trump was on the campaign trail. One year into the presidency, the nuclear officers say “the reality of this presidency is worse than we feared.”

...“We and our nation cannot abide being hostages to the mood swings of a petulant and foolish commander-in-chief. No individual, especially Donald Trump, should hold the absolute power to destroy nations. That is a clear lesson of this presidency and one that we, as former stewards of the launch keys, embrace with full conviction,” the group said.
No entity, including a president, should hold the absolute power to destroy nations.

However, Emergency Powers are used by too many politicians and juridical types to afford individuals with the power to destroy nations. I discussed this in a post here on the emergency powers acts http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2016/05/emergency-powers-under-crises.html

Yet, this fundamental contradiction in our western democracies posed by emergency powers is largely unknown to citizens.  Just as the relationship between atmospheric testing and climate has been dis-associated, so also has the rise of executive power been dis-associated with tyranny.


11 comments:

  1. Nuclear roulette. Ther are the aged reactors. The economic instability. The increases in natural disasters. There are the Diminishing returns, for the corporations and oliagrchs, that makes more war so very attractive to them. If nuclear roulette were played with a six-shooter, there is only about one chamber left between us and the bullet. One chamber left, between us and nuclear armageddon. There will be no surviving higher organisms, on earth. We are deeply into the ten generation rule, pointed out by Caldicott. It was also.observed in the blue butterflies by Fukushima, a few years ago.

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  2. Trustworthy paleoclimatologists as well as those who study the sun and its cycles claim we are entering a long, cooling phase. That means famine among other things. I believe this is real. Sure, nuclear incidents are a bad thing. But like the climate or climates it seems out of our control though the fact that it appears to be in human hands is seductive and misleading. We could go through a very destructive time that decimated life on this planet. It has happened before. Meanwhile we are headed into very cold times, and largely this is unknown. A significant drop in the sun's irradiance leads to increased volcanic activity and earthquakes. We had better decide to deal with what we know is going to happen than dwell too much on things that might. That is unless someone knows a sure fire method for making the nuclear go away!

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  3. Just turn off the nuclear reactors, dumb ass. What a grandiose fop. Into a self-aggrandizing fantasy world. A severe narcissist, or worse. Like all the nutcases of it's ilk. Extreme personality disorders and disconnection from reality. I think a lot of them simply, live in a bubble. Sit around on their fat asses, and watch fox mostly. When they get sick, some of them pull their heads out of their asses. Racist scum too.

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    1. I hope you will let us know immediately after you have turned off some nuclear reactors though I suppose it will be big news on CNN. Best of luck as you may encounter some resistance!

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    2. People like Willy actually believe nuclear poisoning of the earth, and nuclear war, are acceptable options. People have now gotten all of the insanely dangerous, expensive and psychopathic nuclear reactors in California shut down finally. Obispo closing 2019. Willy seems to be a bot. Maybe it's just the irrationality, and narcissism it projecta

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  4. Seems like the devils and NIHILISTS always go for the most psychopathic choices.

    "In his first year in office, President Barack Obama gave a landmark address in Prague in which he famously affirmed “clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” The commitment to total nuclear disarmament was a major departure from the George W. Bush administration — the first time, in fact, that the United States had declared a nuclear-free world a major policy goal.

    Now, eight years later, it’s the Trump administration’s turn to lay out its nuclear weapons policy. And according to a pre-decisional draft of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) obtained by HuffPost, Trump’s Department of Defense has gone a decidedly different route: new nukes, for no good reason."

    From huffpost australia

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    Replies
    1. Unlike you I know no devils or NIHILISTS. Where do you find them?

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  5. Willy the armchair fox hound and nihilist. Willy. Several nuclear plants have been shut down. Several mote will be, because it's is insane and psychopathic. Narcissists like you are more deaf to sociopathic tendencies because, it is part of your culture.

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  6. To people like willy, the environment is disposable, people are disposable, nukes are ok, even though there are alternatives. It's an easy way to pad his and others pocketbook with bloodempire money. It's all part of his great American way. The great American way that has turned america, so many other places into nuclear and chemical sewers. Genocides are acceptable to him. It is all part of progress.

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  7. People like Willy actually believe nuclear poisoning of the earth, and nuclear war, are acceptable options.

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  8. People like Willy actually believe nuclear poisoning of the earth, and nuclear war, are acceptable options. People have now gotten all of the insanely dangerous, expensive and psychopathic nuclear reactors in California shut down finally. Obispo closing 2019. Willy seems to be a bot. Maybe it's just the irrationality, and narcissism it projecta

    ReplyDelete

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