An Abandoned Catastrophe [please let me know what you think]

[BitterSweet]

Nowadays on news we hear about the Iraqi War, swine flu, murders, etc. However we rarely hear about the catastrophe of nuclear weapons. With as many as 30,000 nuclear bombs in the world, how could we sit back and rest? About 30% of nuclear weapons in the world are possessed by the United States. Those numbers must be decreased promptly as possible.

 

Our President Barack Obama has said the following:

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

 

I believe that the United States should take an action immediately and lead the world. Unfortunately our ancestors are the beginning of this bitter-sweet discovery. The first bomb was possessed by U.S. We must not blame them and we must stick to the present and future, not the past. We must change the world.

[Lan(r)12]

While your intentions are noble, you are naive in your thought that if we begin total disarmament, other countries would follow.

 

MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction) is the only thing that keeps some countries from blowing us off the face of the Earth.

 

It would be amazing to not have ANY weapons on Earth, but that is a childish, inconceivable dream.

 

I hope you understand.

[iNow]

I wonder how many times they're going to start the same thread. IINM, one of them has already been deleted by the staff:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/search.php?do=finduser&u=22095

[swansont]

I wonder how many times they're going to start the same thread. IINM, one of them has already been deleted by the staff:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/search.php?do=finduser&u=22095

 

Please use the "report post" button to call this to our attention, rather than noting it in a thread

[Mr Skeptic]

So its a catastrophe waiting to happen (or maybe it has saved billions of lives by preventing wars). But rather than just complaining, do you offer any solutions?

[CaptainPanic]

The large majority of nuclear weapons are possessed by a TWO countries: USA and Russia, (Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states handed over their weapons, and all other countries have under 400 warheads which is a lot, but not enough for the destruction of a nation the size of a continent).(wikipedia - List of states with nuclear weapons)

 

Therefore, if Russia and the USA agree together to reduce their weapons, which can be achieved through simple diplomacy, then you can proceed with a MAD on a slightly smaller scale. You can still destroy all major cities, but you can also assure that some part of the land will not be turned into a giant parking lot, thus assuring that humanity and life in general can at least make a re-start after the war hawks had their say.

[SH3RL0CK]

Nowadays on news we hear about the Iraqi War, swine flu, murders, etc. However we rarely hear about the catastrophe of nuclear weapons. With as many as 30,000 nuclear bombs in the world, how could we sit back and rest?

 

You have some very large underlying assumptions that you need to address. I presume this thread to have a very large probability of being spam and that you will never return, so I am only going to ask a few questions for now to point out your possibly flawed assumptions...

 

Why do you consider nuclear weapons held by the USA to be a threat? Why not sit back and rest considering these weapons are in relatively safe hands? Why not take comfort that these nuclear weapons quite possibly prevents additional carnage along the lines of WWII? You call nuclear weapons a catastrophe...considering they have yet to be used (except at the end of WWII) where is the catastrophe? Also, you need to explain the "catastrophe" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as it can easily be argued that the use of these weapons saved millions of lives.

 

About 30% of nuclear weapons in the world are possessed by the United States. Those numbers must be decreased promptly as possible.

 

Why must these be decreased at all? And if so, why promptly? What is the harm in maintaining the status quo? Considering the rise of nuclear proliferation by less-than-stable nations, why shouldn't the USA increase its stockpile? And develop the SDI/Star Wars technology?

 

 

Our President Barack Obama has said the following:

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

 

I believe that the United States should take an action immediately and lead the world. Unfortunately our ancestors are the beginning of this bitter-sweet discovery. The first bomb was possessed by U.S. We must not blame them and we must stick to the present and future, not the past. We must change the world.

 

I really doubt the President was talking about nuclear weapons in the above quote.

[BitterSweet]

sorry, i didn't want to post a really long thread.... anyways...

I believe that as long as a nation possesses nuclear weapon, the others will for many sees it as a power. The way I see is that if you have a force to destroy or threaten another, then that is a power. I'm pretty sure that is a very common belief.

 

Another reason to reduce: Terrorism.

there have been cases of smuggling, and Al Qaeda has said to "perform another Hiroshima" to US. They must be secured.

 

Though there are many other reasons, such as biological and environmental effects, I also believe that the nuclear weapons should be reduced because it is against Einstein's purpose. He hoped for nuclear power to provide electricity to support poor countries.

[SH3RL0CK]

BS - You really should step back from the propaganda and really think hard about this issue. It helps to be cynical about people because the world isn't a perfect place.

 

Nukes are a way to power regardless of whether or not the USA has them. Their potential for destructions is obvious even before they were developed during WWII. The USA, USSR, Great Britian, Germany and Japan (all major combatants) had nuclear weapons development programs. For various reasons, primarily due to the lack of resources, only the USA actually developed them during the war. Don't think for a moment that Al Queda wouldn't acquire nuclear weapons if they could regardless of whether or not the USA had them.

 

The weapons in the USA are secure (despite claims otherwise); especially after the events of 911. Therefore, by your logic there is no need to disarm.

 

Nuclear weapons do not preclude any nation from developing a peaceful nuclear program. You should look up the Eisenhower "Atoms for Peace" program sometime for a better understanding of the history behind the peaceful use of nuclear science.

 

In short, I don't beleive you to have provided any legitimate reasons for disarmament of USA's nuclear stockpile.

[CaptainPanic]

I believe (meaning I'm not sure about it) that you can power a purpose-built nuclear facility with plutonium from bombs. Which means that while we dismantle bombs, we can actually use the energy.

 

The beauty of this is that there is a real chance that we use up all the nuclear material - again I'm not sure though - because there is a limited amount of uranium on earth. Numbers vary, and it depends on the technology used, but some claim that at the current rate + growth of nuclear power, the uranium will be depleted in under 100 years.

[SH3RL0CK]

Now the use of the plutonium for other purposes (i.e. electricity production) might be a good argument for dismantling some of our nuclear weapons. I agree we certainly don't need as many as we currently have; and uranium/plutonium are rare and valuable elements. Not sure if I agree Uranium will run out...but I agree that as we use more of it, it will eventually become more expensive (and valuable) up until we start filtering it out of seawater. Heh, maybe 50 years from now we start dismantling our nuclear stockpile and selling the plutonium so that we can pay off the outrageous debt Congress has saddled on us.