We are the heroes of our own mythology.
This year, we find ourselves even further under the nuclear threat. Russia’s mad leader, unhappy with the outcome of his own war, is threatening to use nuclear weapons as a matter of course. No doubt, the US and its allies are preparing a devastating pre-emptive attack, in the event that it looks like Putin is going completely off the rails. And, speaking of “off the rails” – look at today’s republican party and ask yourself how comfortable you are, with any of your fate resting in their hands.
It has been frustrating and a bit sad to watch the atom scientists advance their stupid “doomsday clock” in ever-refined increments, as they try to come to grip with the realization that their project implies a sort of predictive power, but it’s predicting something that may no longer be on the table. What do I mean? The old cold war scenario of the US and Russia rolling back the silo doors and launching a blur of missiles is probably also cold war era bullshit like the “bomber gap” and “missile gap” – while the US was definitely ready and capable of destroying civilization, Russia was probably capable of making a big mess of itself and getting millions killed. We don’t know because we didn’t find out, but it seems as though Russian/Soviet competence has been severely over-estimated; but as an excuse to spend trillions on “defense”, it was good enough.
As I write this, though, Beau (on youtube) is talking about how 1.5 million people will need to relocate from Miami, FL, as the waters close over it in the next 60 years. And the governments of the world, most notably the US’, response has been to continue increasing the use of fossil fuels while claiming to be planning for how to eventually stop. It reminds me of the junkie who keeps saying they’re going to quit, but don’t want to throw away any perfectly good heroin, so they’ll quit something after they’ve shot up their current supply. Uh huh.
Meanwhile, the US, which has been lavishly proliferating nukes around the world, is making secret baby steps toward arming Australia, to counter-balance China. Because China hasn’t got enough problems of its own in the form of incipient flooding due to climate change. In other words, as the atomic scientists might say, “we are 125 127ths from midnight.”
Happy Stanislav Petrov Day!
Yes, not happy times.
– The only encouraging item among those on your list: Australia is not building anything, I’d venture to say. The idea is, they are going to develop a nuc industry and build twelve hulls with reactors, and all the facilities this entails, starting from zero (they ever had a single reactor, OPAL, and that’s it as far as I know).
Personally I don’t believe it, and I’d bet on the idea being quietly buried after some years of costly boondoggles, with politicians looking shifty and whistling every time someone mentions it.
– But the most terrifying thing you mentioned is indeed this: no government has yet done the math on the places that will have to be evacuated (either for part of the year or for good) in a relatively short time, due either to sea flooding or ambient heat rising excessively, or other assorted horrors. When someone does and the cat is truly out of the bag… expect panic, it’s not going to be just Southern Florida.
If you can think of any better way that a small organization of socially-minded scientists can try to convince politicians not to do stupid things, I would be genuinely interested in hearing it.
Sincerely,
A socially-minded scientist who tries to convince politicians not to do stupid things
There’s an entire industry making a killing from overstating foreign threats.
@invivoMark:
I agree with Feynman that, once the idea was had, it was inevitable someone would do it. And Feynman thought it was inevitable there would be a war. I don’t think Teller’s obsession with fusion helped the situation any. But it all seems inevitable – humans won’t put down a weapon of such value.
The US has cheerfully violated the NPT – especially the part about disarming – and that’s also a resounding statement of “too late” (also: so much for “democracy”) basically the statement is “we don’t care what anyone thinks we are not giving them up.”
The people who should be doing things have nothing they can do; their power to influence events has been carefully mooted. That is the worst sign of them all and it shows how responsive (not at all) our leaders are going to be on this issue. It is extremely depressing.
@outis:
No, it’s not just going to be southern Florida, but southern Florida is going to be one of the first to be unignorable by the U.S. The City of Miami is only about 6′ above sea level, and it’s built on porous limestone. Not only has the weight of the buildings been sinking parts of downtown over the decades, but the rock being porous means that sea walls won’t work: sea water will just seep back through the rock and flood the city that way. And previous attempts at trying to retain fresh water have made some of the issues with land in the area subsiding even worse.
The U.S. may be able to ignore tropical islands getting entirely swept under the waves. Miami sinking is a different matter. Of course, the people in power haven’t entirely ignored it… they’ve already moved everything they care about out of the downtown core and left it to the people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.
I don’t know what this means. That Congressional offices can’t change things? Or that we can’t change what our Congressional offices do?
Both of those statements would be patently false, if either one is close to your meaning. Congressional staffers are easy to reach out to, and if you set up a meeting, most will patiently listen and take notes. Their bosses use information they get from their staffers to set their agenda when they work out the yearly federal budget and pull sections in and out of package bills.
It’s an issue of volume. Offices hear from a huge range of interests, and their staff are massively overworked and underpaid. If you don’t nag them loud and often, then your issue gets ignored.
There isn’t a cabal of lizardpeople with an ineffable agenda pulling on secret strings to control everything. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just a lack of informed, rational decision-making.
I know it’s depressing, and I know that change seems impossible. But consider that there are FAR more people with advanced science degrees working on and around Capitol Hill than ever before. We’ll never win every battle, but that doesn’t mean we’re not making progress somewhere.
invivoMark@#6:
I don’t know what this means. That Congressional offices can’t change things? Or that we can’t change what our Congressional offices do?
The latter. The machine is run-away. Congress isn’t exactly controlling the nuclear arsenal, it seems to have gone its own way. And Congress isn’t enforcing any budgetary controls on it, either. It’s an actual “deep state” scenario, I think – there’s a government that actually doesn’t listen to anyone and does whatever it wants. Witness how the pentagon flipped Congress off regarding its budget audit, “oh, we won’t be doing that. We can’t. Sorry.”
Congressional staffers are easy to reach out to, and if you set up a meeting, most will patiently listen and take notes. Their bosses use information they get from their staffers to set their agenda when they work out the yearly federal budget and pull sections in and out of package bills.
I’m with you on the first part. But the second…? Rather obviously, attempts to rein in the “defense” budget have accomplished nothing.
But you asked for something realistic that can be done. I think the best we can hope for is to push along the line of “reasonable deterrent” – it is rather obviously not necessary or helpful to be able to burn the entire planet to death. What is necessary, now that the nuclear genie is out of containment, is a “deterrent” that is sufficient to hurt any enemy severely enough that they won’t get frisky. Our submarine deterrent is good enough for that.
Another realistic meme to push is that inter-service rivalry is so much bullshit, and it is no longer appropriate for the army to have their nukes, and the navy theirs, and the air force theirs (which is the case right now) – our nuclear deterrent can and should be downsized, taken from the respective services, and placed under control of a non-military structure with authority divided between the military, the executive, and congress. If the US is going to burn the world, everyone involved should sign the decision.
Now, is any of that likely to happen? Downsizing to a reasonable deterrent is eminently rational and affordable but I don’t see anyone likely to turn off the nuclear money-valve.
There isn’t a cabal of lizardpeople with an ineffable agenda pulling on secret strings to control everything. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just a lack of informed, rational decision-making.
You are correct. It’s a cabal of really creepy, lazy, ultra-nationalist nutbags with control of the secret strings and an ineffable agenda.
I have noticed remarkably little Congressional discussion of nuclear budget or deterrent, on either side of the aisle. Simply getting that topic on the floor would be interesting. It’d give the Joe Manchins of the world a chance to posture about “the need for defense.” But someone can say “defending yourself does not require being prepared to kill the planet. You need sufficient force to deter the other guy, and that’s 5 ballistic missile subs.”
I know it’s depressing, and I know that change seems impossible. But consider that there are FAR more people with advanced science degrees working on and around Capitol Hill than ever before. We’ll never win every battle, but that doesn’t mean we’re not making progress somewhere.
Fair enough. Is there anything I can do? My days of talking to policy-makers ended in the 90s.
There are plenty of smart people pulling in this row already, IMO. BTW, that’s why I think the “doomsday clock” is sad and pointless. We’re about to stew in our own juices and moving the hands around on an imaginary scale only generates a few clicks for the media.
Midjourney portrait of Stanislav Petrov. Extra eyes added!
jenorafeuer@#5:
No, it’s not just going to be southern Florida, but southern Florida is going to be one of the first to be unignorable by the U.S. The City of Miami is only about 6′ above sea level, and it’s built on porous limestone.
Sounds like one of those “temperature-fueled mega hurricanes” is about to show Tampa how to believe in climate change.
outis@#1:
The only encouraging item among those on your list: Australia is not building anything, I’d venture to say. The idea is, they are going to develop a nuc industry and build twelve hulls with reactors, and all the facilities this entails, starting from zero (they ever had a single reactor, OPAL, and that’s it as far as I know).
Personally I don’t believe it, and I’d bet on the idea being quietly buried after some years of costly boondoggles, with politicians looking shifty and whistling every time someone mentions it.
That’s one possibility. The other is that the US and Australia are going to cook up one of those “loaner” arrangements like we did with the brits. We’ll know if the Australian subs are Trident/Polaris compatible, or whatever they call it: the british fiction is that those nukes are “theirs” but they’re in american missiles and the warheads are made in USA.
I’m very afraid that’s exactly the kind of shit the US will get up to, to “balance China” etc.
Meanwhile, Putin keeps dangling nuclear threats. Exactly the definition of “nuclear blackmail” and why it’s a bad thing. Nuclear weapons are allowing Putin to carry on a war of aggression while simultaneously saying “but Russia is off the table. You’d better not respond to our aggression or we may nuke you.” It’s a perfect case study of why these monsters should not be allowed to be. And, it’s a perfect example of how hard it’s going to be to ever take them from any government that has them.
South Africa and Libya both stood down their nuclear programs and – well, not so good for them.
Congressional offices will listen to the voices of their constituents, especially when re-election is on the line.
Like I said, it’s a matter of volume. On nuclear disarmament, we’re fighting over half a century of propaganda, corporate lobbying, and patriotic oorah nonsense. But the average voter is in favor of spending less on our nuclear arsenal. Politicians are comfortable with increasing spending on nukes because their offices aren’t being flooded with people telling them to stop. But if that were to change, there’s no reason that cutting our stockpile couldn’t become a bipartisan issue.
That’s literally the purpose of the “doomsday clock.” The Bulletin doesn’t profit from “clicks” – they’re a nonprofit, they legally can’t – they want people to call their representatives.
Are you kidding? You’re one of the most powerful people in the world: an older white man who votes in a purple state. If you think your opinion doesn’t count, try being almost anybody else.
Just about the worst thing we can do is to encourage people to believe that things are hopeless, that their voices don’t matter, and that it doesn’t matter who wins in the next election. Because that’s exactly what the
lizard people who run the deep statecorporate and military interests and the propagandists want us to believe.I’m doing the best I can to keep this country from burying itself and the rest of the world in a fascist, anti-environmentalist hellscape. There are lots of other folks out there trying their best, too, and our second greatest enemy (next to Republicans) is apathy.
There is a greater incentive, for everyone involved with a missile launch system, to make it not work than there is to make it work.
Let’s suppose you’re the electrician tasked with wiring up the button on the President’s desk. Whether you do it right or wrong, the most likely scenario is it will never, ever be tested in an actual situation.
If it does get tested, and you did it right, you in all probability are not going to get congratulated on your handiwork and its importance to the war effort; because if the other side have not launched their missiles first, they will do so the moment the one you helped launch shows up on their instruments, and you’re brown bread. But if the launch system ever does get tested, and it does not work, and the other side have not launched their missiles first, then you are the hero who saved the world from nuclear annihilation. That’s a lot of ifs, but one of them you have control over.
There almost certainly will be exercises; but at such times, the system will be carefully segmentated, with other deliberate disconnections to prevent an actual missile from being launched. And the people responsible for setting up the exercises and restoring everything afterwards have all the same incentives.
And the person sitting with his finger on the button must have thought about all this, and about what will happen if the launch fails, as it’s very likely to because there are so many people involved and every one of them has more to gain if it fails than if it succeeds. The people at home, and the other guy in the other palace with his finger over the other button, wired up by people with exactly the same incentives to make it not work, will all be watching.
And if the missiles don’t go off, what was ever the point in having them? How many people died because money was spent on those expensive, yet useless, weapons instead of on their welfare?
I’m almost confident enough that the launch systems have been riddled with sabotage at all levels to say blithely, “bring it on, motherfuckers” and let everyone see just what a colossal waste of everyone’s time and resources the whole nuclear weapons business has been.
I wouldn’t fall into the trap of saying nuclear weapons, indeed the entire cold war, was a waste. The frequency and intensity, particularly in terms of the percentage of populations dying, of wars is way down historically.
Yes, there are a whole lot of wars. There always have been. Only in the 20th century do we hear about the smaller, often more tragically brutal and deadly, conflicts. These tend to be driven by religious, ethnic, or tribal differences. A million dead in Rowanda in 100 days using machetes … mankind has never needed high technology to mass murder … it doesn’t get much more terrifyingly up-close-and-personal than murder with garden tools.
The good news is any individuals odds of dying violently are waaaay down over the last 75 years. It is easy to forget that as far s violent death goes, not to mention disease and malnutrition, things were statistically much worse a thousand years ago.
Thankyou. Shared. Well writ.
PS. @ ^ lorn : I’m sure those will be very consoling stats to all the people facing violent deaths now from war, famine and violence. You think that statistical trend looks like continuing?
This video?