Bad News on Greenhouse Gases

The news a couple days ago said that targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions have not been met. On the contrary, they've risen, rather than fallen. The figures for greenhouse gas emissions for 2009 were 5 percent higher than the figures for 2008. And thus the "tipping point," the time by which something has to be done before there is an irreversible problem, is coming sooner than had been thought (I think the original date was 2020).

So it looks like Mankind has not been taking this problem seriously enough. This calls into question, in my mind, whether Man is going to prove to be smart enough to avoid wiping himself out.

Well, actually, we do not really know what the consequences of global warming will be, beyond the simple fact that ocean levels will rise and that will cause flooding of coastal areas (and even of whole nations in the case of some small Pacific island nations). Of course that will be a disaster, and clearly we have not even been looking closely at just what that scenario will involve, because we haven't seen anything that would scare us enough, that would jolt us into more energized (or maybe I should say "panicky") action.

I wrote, in another posting, that I was reassured, in my view of humanity, by the fact that we have thus far not blown ourselves and each other up with atomic and hydrogen bombs. The statistics are that the US has produced 70,000 nuclear bombs—which could have destroyed the world several times over. Currently, "The USA and Russia each have 2,000 to 2,500 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert right now." That sounds encouraging, as to our having enough wisdom to avoid destroying each other; but (to go on to give the bad news): first, the same article (http://www.rense.com/general47/global.htm) also says that's only the number on hair-trigger alert.

The five major nuclear powers currently have more than 20,000 nuclear warheads in their arsenals. . . . But this does not include a number of intact Russian nuclear warheads of indeterminate status--possibly as many as 10,000. Of the more than 30,000 intact warheads belonging to the world's eight nuclear weapon states, the vast majority (96 percent) are in U.S. or Russian stockpiles. About 17,500 of these warheads are considered operational.

Also,

There have almost been accidental nuclear wars several times in the past. There can be an accidental nuclear war anytime.

I suggest reading this article (link above). To include more of it would be getting off my subject. Maybe my bottom line vis-à-vis nuclear weapons is that the jury is still out. So maybe even there we should not heartily declare "Well we were sensible enough to avoid disaster"; and it's less clear that we're going to do the right and necessary things to avoid a global climate crisis.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein

My Verdict on Mankind--After 68 Years

Regular readers of my blog, if they happen to be very thoughtful people (or if they have the leisure and curiosity to do so), may have thought about what view of humanity is implicit in much of what I write.

If so, it's probably pretty clear to those people that I have a somewhat cynical view of human intelligence and rationality. For example, in the recent political season I was complaining about how easily people allow themselves to be manipulated by slogans--which always oversimplify issues—and other superficial, simplified, or downright wrong ideas. I feel that critical thinking is in short supply.

But we've somehow survived some major crossroads situations. When I was a young child in school, the Soviet Union had recently developed atomic bombs, and—remember, this was the Cold War, and a time of hysterical fear of Communism at home and abroad—the U.S. truly believed that the Soviets might attack the U.S. with nuclear-armed missiles. So our grade-school classes had bomb drills. In my school, we all moved into the corridors—away from windows, I guess. Evidently in some other schools it was "get under your desks and tuck your head down."

Well, at least for 60 years, mankind has managed to avoid mutual nuclear annihilation. To put it mildly, that's reassuring, and helps improve one's view of human rationality.

Now, however, we face a new set of challenges, like global warming. It remains to be seen whether nations can collectively move to preserve our planet from disaster this time. So maybe the jury is out on some questions.

Has there been progress? I think that nowadays we have higher standards, in some respects, for how we treat one another. On the other hand, remember that World War I was supposed to be "the war to end all wars." Then, after we had another world war, the United Nations was established to end armed conflict between nations. But we've failed, in almost a century since the First World War, to end war. We haven't had another conflict on a global scale in the 65 years since WW II, but the count of wars that have occurred worldwide in the last 50 years is astonishing. One problem there is that one thing has not changed: I feel that military, Pentagon types are overgrown boys who like their toys (they call them "weapons") and always want more and more destructive toys. But that is starting to go off on another subject.

I think that, in more general human affairs—how nations govern themselves, what wars are waged and what wars averted, what persecutions and genocides occur—humanity will manage to muddle through as it has for thousands of years. That is, we as a species will survive, but in the course of things there will be a lot of misery and killing caused to humans by humans.

So that is where my thinking has arrived, after a few decades of my life--not that I'm really quite old enough to be talking like a bona fide elder. I'm confident my perspective on things does not seem way out of step, or irrational. For another man's very thoughtful and thought-provoking view, read An Essay on Man (1773 - 1774) by Alexander Pope.

Update, September 9, 2011
I have to admit I get saddened and maybe discouraged by the innumerable and unceasing examples of human greed, selfishness, stupidity--and Man's capacity to lie. Think what a different world it would be if human beings could not lie, and you knew you could believe everything anyone said! Of course that's not going to happen.

But just now, if you look at the political situation in the US, it looks as though we've got plenty of obstacles in the way even of our being able to govern ourselves intelligently and effectively. And, as to global warming, I expect the planet to become a less and less habitable place as the consequences of global warming march on unchecked.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein