THE WORLD NEEDS TO BE RESCUED

(PART 2)

1. The rapid growth of nuclear arms

After a quiet period during the Cold War (1945-1991), now, with a more tolerant and available technological knowledge in a very war-weary world, various countries - some quite unstable - are acquiring or producing nuclear bombs. According to statistics, there are more than fifteen thousand nuclear weapons in the world. This is enough to eradicate and destroy all people from the face of the earth. In fact, scientists calculate that most of mankind and the ecosystem would largely be destroyed by the use of only hundred atomic bombs. in other words, less than two percent of the total.

Not so long ago, Ryan Rastergar, wrote for Global Zero, an organization committed to eliminating nuclear weapons, the following: “A 2014 report published in the journal Earth’s Future found that even a regional war of 100 nuclear detonations would produce 5 teragrams of black soot (that’s 5,000,000,000 kg!) that would rise up to Earth’s stratosphere and block sunlight. This would produce a sudden drop in global temperatures that could last longer than 25 years and temporarily destroy much of the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

“This could also cause as much as an 80% increase in UV radiation on Earth’s surface and destroy both land and sea-based ecosystems [including the plant and animal life within them] potentially leading to global nuclear famine” (“How Many Nukes Would It Take to Render Earth Uninhabitable?” GlobalZero.org, July 9, 2015).

The rapid growth of nuclear weapons among different countries is becoming more widespread. What was limited to a small group of nations - the United States of America, Russia, China, Great Britain and France - is now also part of countries like Israel, India and Pakistan. Lately, the communist unstable dictatorship of North Korea, also possesses them, and Iran will likely join this fraternity soon. Who knows how many other neighboring countries, feeling threatened by these new nuclear upstarts, are preparing their own nuclear programs as self-defense?

This is affecting the political and military stability of Asia, the Middle East, Europe, America and other parts of the world—for the intercontinental missiles North Korea is developing can potentially reach almost every continent.

Let us not ignore the reality that we live in a time-bomb place and all it needs is someone to ignite it. This is not doom-and-gloom talk. This is the reality of what many scientists and political leaders are constantly stressing.

Wikipedia describes "The Doomsday Clock" as a symbol which represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe. Maintained since 1947 by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist's Science and Security Board, the Clock represents an analogy for the threat of global nuclear war. Since 2007, it has also reflected climate change and new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity.

The Clock represents the hypothetical global catastrophe as "midnight" and The Bulletin's opinion on how close the world is to a global catastrophe as a number of "minutes" to midnight. Its original setting in 1947 was seven minutes to midnight. It has been set backward and forward 22 times since then, the smallest-ever number of minutes to midnight being two (in 1953 and 2018) and the largest seventeen (in 1991). As of January 2018, the Clock is set at two minutes to midnight, due to global threat of nuclear war, the United States not being involved in world leadership roles, and climate change, hence the importance of Donald Trump's involvement as president of the United States of America.

In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned: “The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.” The danger is obvious and imminent. The world has and is seeing the misuse of information technology and witnessed the vulnerability of democracies to disinformation.

(END OF PART 2)

to be continued…