WILL RUSSIA USE A NUCLEAR WEAPON TO BRING ABOUT AN END TO THE WAR WITH UKRAINE?

 

Yesterday in my car I was listening to Maine Public Radio’s discussion on Russia’s threat to use a nuclear weapon in the Ukraine war.   The consensus was that we are closer than we have ever been since Nagasaki to another nuclear weapon being used against a civilian population.

The question was posed, what would happen if Putin dropped a nuclear bomb in Ukraine in order to bring about immediate surrender and an end to Russia’s war?

The answer was unanimous: Nothing.  

The United States and other Nuclear nations would be afraid of escalating into an all-out nuclear holocaust.   There would be talks and sanctions and condemnation, but there would be no military response. 

Russia has the largest nuclear stockpile in the world, and the largest yield nuclear weapon: the Tsar thermonuclear bomb.  The United States has the second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, but enough to bring about a mass extinction. 

When I read American Prometheus, the story of Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the first atomic bomb, a small paragraph stood out to me.  The mathematicians had decided that there was a small chance that the nuclear explosion could cause a chain reaction that would ignite the atmosphere rendering earth a dead planet.  When pressed for a statistic the answer was “not zero.”    Yet Oppenheimer and the scientist pressed ahead.  Just before the bomb was exploded the scientist were taking bets as to the yield, but Enrico Fermi, in a little graveyard humor, was taking bets the atmosphere would ignite. 

Where am I going with this?   Fucked if I know. 

But a Casandra warning: There are enough nuclear weapons stockpiled on this earth to bring about a mass extinction – many times over.   What could possibly go wrong?

The Ol’Buzzard

 

AUGUST 6, A DAY THAT SHOULD LIVE IN INFAMY

On October 6, 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb that detonated 1900 feet above Hiroshima, Japan killing 140,000 civilians incinerating 2/3 of the city.  

Words aren't enough

the Ol'Buzzard

2034

 

Many fiction writers start from present conditions and extrapolate into the future.  Some of these forward-seeing narratives fall into the science fiction genre, some into spy novels, and some, like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, a warnings of a dystopian future.  The book 2034 is such a book.

  

James Stavridis is a retired Navy four-star admiral.  He was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, and the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, he commanded a Navy destroyer squadron and an aircraft carrier battle group in combat. He holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

 

2034 is a book about brinksmanship between the Chinese and U.S. Navys that escalates to a military confrontation; and the hawkish attitudes of a few men in power that lead to a nuclear exchange.

 

Stavridis brings in the geo-political involvement of Russia, Iran, and India.

 

There are numerous references to weapons systems that may only be familiar to men and women with knowledge of Naval warfare, but the story is riveting, realistic, and a real page-turner.

 

2034 is a Cassandra warning of the near future and the danger of nuclear weapons controlled by a few unstable men.

 

2034 is a must read

the Ol’Buzzard

 

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

 

There have been five extinction events in the history of the earth. Three of them took place over hundreds of thousands of years and were the result of changing climate, one resulted from a volcanic eruption, and one from an asteroid strike.

   

Elizabeth Kolbert’s book The Sixth Extinction documents the loss of birds, animals, and sea life taking place at an extreme rate.  

 

Kolbert argues that we are in the midst of an extinction event caused by climate change.   She only deals peripherally with the human causation resulting in climate change, instead documenting the extinction of life taking place across the globe.

 

Undoubtedly we are past the point of arresting climate change.  There was a time we could have prevented this, but we did not have the resolve.   We are now seeing only the earliest extreme weather events that are a roadmap of things to come.  

 

We are at a point where the climates change is self-sustaining.   As the Greenland ice cap and the arctic ice melt, tundra buried for millions of years is emerging and emitting carbon diode which adds to the greenhouse effect increasing global temperature, increasing the melting rate.  It is not beyond credulity that within the next one hundred years the human race could be a nocturnal species.

  

I am not worried about climate change, because creative scientists on the upper end of the IQ scale will drag the rest of us into a sustainable environment.   Though we may have a massive extinction event of plants and animals in our familiar environment, the human race will be ok.    

 

The elephant in the room is not climate.   Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads; the US 5,428; France 290; China 350; UK 225; Israel 90; Pakistan 165; India 160; North Kores 20.  

A total of 12,705 nuclear warheads, each one capable of mass destruction, exist in the hands, and at the whim of a few men. 

 

Think Donald Trump!

The sixth extinction 

 

The human race is not responsible enough to control this kind of apocalyptic power.  The term Mutually Assured Destruction is a prediction, not a deterrent.

THE STATE OF THE NATION

Seventeen kids killed in Florida in yet another school shooting.   The White House in confusion trying to cover for an infantile President.   Gun nuts raving in letters-to-the-editor in local newspapers.  Climate change regulations being undermined by deniers.  Nuclear war being threatened by both the United States and North Korea.    A ridiculous crisis unfolding every day.  

And I am thinking about posting a slow cooker recipe!

Forgetaboutit

the Ol’Buzzard

FIRE AND FURY

LIKE THE WORLD HAS NEVER KNOWN!

There have been five major extinctions charted through the geological record.   That the sixth extinction awaits somewhere in the future is not a question but fact.   Whether that event results from an asteroid impacting the earth or the moon; or the sun boiling away our atmosphere leaving the earth like its sister planet Mars; or a cataclysmic volcanic event…    The question is not if, but when and how. 

There is a new scenario to add to the mix.    3.2 million years ago, a creature came down from the trees and found it could grasp a stick in its tactile hands and beat the brains out of other animals and creatures like itself. 

The 1.6% genetic difference between human and its closest relative in the great ape family allowed development of a creature that has been able to bring most animal groups to the verge of extinction, destroy the rain forest, pollute the rivers and lakes and oceans of the world and contaminate the very air that sustains life on earth.

The earth was able to adjust to man’s destruction for 3 million years.   Then in the early 1900’s, only 100 years ago, the population of man exceeded one billion: thirty years later two billion, thirty years later four billion… five billion, six billion, seven billion; and by 2050 the world human population is charted to reach nine billion.    The ability of the earth to support the consumption of food, water and natural resources required by this human virus is finite.

Only seventy years ago, in the 1940’s man traded the stick in his hand for a nuclear bomb.  Now instantaneous mass destruction brought on by human error or madness is possible.  

For sixty years the sanest among the race have held the reigns on nuclear destruction while building a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the entire earth seven times over.   

The fear has always been that at some point in the future this power would fall into the hands of a person or persons unstable enough to pull the trigger: fire and fury like the world has never seen.

Seventy-two years later, on the anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have two psychotic narcissists being goaded by their minions to unleash Shiva the destroyer of worlds – not understanding that the world they will destroy is their own.

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

The world has been through five major extinctions: Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic/Jurassic, and the Cretaceous.   I won’t go into the evolutionary progression at the end of each period; but each extinction has been the results of climate changes, volcanic eruptions or asteroid/meteor impacts.

These extinction periods happened gradually due to circumstances that kicked off changes, that became self-sustaining and progressed over a time line of from twenty-five to two hundred million years - resulting in a drastic restructuring of life on this planet.

 

The sixth extinction is not going to be caused by a natural phenomenon, but as the result of a destructive life form with the ability to bring about rapid atmospheric, oceanic and climate change.

Animal, bird and insect species are going extinct at an alarming rate due to the destruction of rain forest.  

Most African large animals are endangered due to poaching and decrease of natural habitat.  

Trump sons

There is over fishing in the oceans and whale populations are barely surviving. 

  Carbon dioxide emissions from cars, power plants and animal populations are increasing the surface temperatures resulting in glacial melt, which results in exposing long frozen tundra which releases methane and carbon dioxide – that self-perpetuating system that could eventually sustain its own change.   

 The human population is increasing at an almost exponential rate resulting in more consumption, more waste products and more habitat expansion; with famine and water shortages predicted in the foreseeable future.  

Chemical pollutants are in every phase of our water and food supply: the breast milk of Greenland Inuit women, that depend on whale and seal fat in their diet, is so polluted that it would be classified hazardous by the EPA. 

Now on top of that, mankind has the ability of mass destruction with nuclear weapons.  

We are not a dependable creature to have such power.  Up until now, men with some degree of restrain have has control of these weapons; but it only takes one fanatical religious group or one or two unstable individuals with launch codes to bring about almost immediate world destruction – Kim Jong-um… Donald Trump?

We are in the process of the sixth extinction – and it will not take millions of years. 

What can we do about this?

Judging by the history of mankind I would say enjoy yourself while you can, because eventually mankind will have to bend over and kiss its own ass good-by.

Have a good day

the Ol’Buzzard

A DAY OF INFAMY

We lost 3000 people on 9-11 and our nation was horrified.   







On August 6, 1945 a United States B-29 bomber released a nuclear weapon over Hiroshima Japan.

The bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, exploded 1900 feet above the city instantly killing 140,000 of the 350,000 inhabitants, completely destroying 2/3 of the city.

This was an attack on a civilian population, not a military encounter. 

We don't teach this in our history classes; but we should never forget. 

the Ol'Buzzard  

KILL THEM ALL AND LET GOD SORT IT OUT

At 11:02 am on August 11, seventy years ago today, the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, Japan killing 70,000 civilians of the 270,000 population. 

We easily call similar atrocities genocide, mass murder or terrorism.   In our case we search for justification for this slaughter claiming a high ground that it saved American lives, and we are always the good-guys – manifest destiny. 

We must remember the winners get to write the history; and it goes down as genocide if you are the looser but justifiable if you win

If you are logical you could see how some middle-eastern nation exploding nuclear weapons in New York and Chicago could use the same argument of justification that we use for Japan. 

 It is human to personalize a vendetta as justified when it might affect us.   My mother was a Navy Hospital Corpsman and a member of the very first group of Waves sent into a war zone in WW-II: she was deployed aboard a hospital ship in the Pacific; and my stepfather was in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed.  Their loss would have been traumatic for me but I cannot justify the mass extermination of almost a quarter of a million men, women and children (non-combatants) in an act of racial genocide perpetrated by my government. 

I do understand emotion and war time mentality; for in Vietnam I readily bought in to the notion of KILL’EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT IT OUT.

BUT

This is a poor statement for the human race that we are readily capable of looking for justification for the butchery of our own kind.  

the Ol'Buzzard