What do you fear most? The proliferation of Nuclear Weapons or Global Warming.?

Question

Think hard before you come to a conclusion.....

Answer 1

Global warming, for two reasons:

1) so many countries have nuclear weapons that they are already prolific, and we are still alive and the impact of these weapons is (to date) minimal.

2) In the event of a nuclear war, human life would be almost entirely wiped out within a matter of weeks (if not from the direct explosions, then from the radioactive fallout, pollution of food sources and from the nuclear winter - a result of the immense dust clouds that would be thrown up from the blasts). The suffering would be contained to a month or so.

In the event of global warming and massive climate shift, the suffering would be dragged out of years, maybe even generations. Starvation and disease will proliferate. The overall impact will be less severe than the nuclear holocaust (i.e. life and humankind will cope better with global warming than nuclear war), but on an individual basis the misery caused would be over a MUCH greater period (the analogy is: would you prefer to die by a gunshot to the head - quick and painless, or a slow agonising death by being roasted alive?). I fear burning to death, I fear a long drawn-out suffering, and thus I fear the impact global warming will have on us all.

Answer 2

Nukes, definitely! Because the temperature of the earth has increased less than 7/10 of 1 degree (C) from 1880 to 2005. That is an increase of about 1 degree (F) in 125 years. You may choose to believe that is global warming or you may not. Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1.gif There are numerous charts all over the internet showing the same. Some say that 1 degree is enough to impact the global climate, others say it's not. Most proponents of global warming think the earth's temperature has risen much more than that and don't even know that it has only risen by 1 degree. But the charts do not lie as do the proponents on both sides of this issue. The average temperature in the Antarctica is 109 degrees below zero. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica#Climate It seems to me 108 below (one degree warmer) is still pretty cold and not enough to melt anything. But there are those that say it will.

Back in the '70s all the hype was about global COOLING and another ice age was coming. I remember that they blamed pollution for that too. They said that all the pollution was darkening the skies and not as much sun was coming through so the earth was cooling off. It took many years to discover that they were mistaken and it was all just hype. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling So when someone says, "the sky is falling" don't believe everything you hear on either side of the issue. There are Spin Doctors galore out there.

Most of the time people will form an opinion and not really be informed about the subject with which they become so opinionated about. So it's best that you not form your opinions from other's opinions, (as in this forum) but on the facts presented. (Many do not provide any proof or links to prove their point, just their opinion.) With that said we do have a responsibility to do our part by doing whatever is within your power to keep our planet alive and well.

I hope that helps...

Answer 3

Neither one.

We've been under the threat of nuclear war most of my life.Every time a new country obtained nuclear weapons there was a wild pattering about as everybody played duck and cover for a while. I don't believe any nation is going to launch a nuclear attack because they know what the results would be. Frightened people react badly and a retalitory strike would be massive. Nobody wants to be at the recieving end of that.

A limited nuclear terrorist attack seems more likely but still not so much that I am worried about it. The problems of actually moving a nuclear weapon around undetected make that very unlikely. In the event that it did occur, it would be a single blast. Devastating, yes. But cataclysmic, no. More than likely it would be a dirty bomb rather than a true nuclear blast and could be dealt with. The repercussions would be immense though. 99% of the world would suddenly turn totally anti terrorist out of fear of becoming the next victim and revulsion at the use of such a weapon. Terrorists would no longer have anywhere to hide.

Global warming is really climate change. To date there is no scientific proof that mankind is causing it and there is little known about the true effects of the change. A few things are certain though, change happens and will continue to happen for a couple billion more years. Running around in circles, flapping your arms and shouting will not help at all. Random and pointless activities like the Kyoto Protocols are not going to do any good and may even be harmful in the long run. The earth is not going to heat up like Venus, its physically impossible. Land mass is going to change but it will not all disapear, it may not even decline in area. We may even see MORE arable land as a result of climate change. We will most certainly see more rainfall as greater amounts of water are introduced into the atmosphere. It is entirely possible that desert regions will shrink considerably. They will not increase in size!

Over all, I regard both topics of your question as mostly political tripe intended to spark reactions in order to manipulate the gullible. Until far better proofs are offered I am not going to be bothered with such things. The reactionaries who are running around in circles, flapping their arms and shouting are simply people who have the unrealistic idea that nothing ever changes and never should. That is an irrational viewpoint.

Answer 4

I fear that they both come hand in hand. As global warming affects the availability of food and drinkable water there will be more and more small skirmashes around the world. With more small countries going nuclear there is a bigger risk of a small war becoming a nuclear war. A nuclear war, even on a small scale can itself speed up global warming. So I fear both equally and believe that within my lifetime(I'm 25) I will see at least one nuclear bomg used out of aggression and will see an area of the world start face severe problems resulting from global warming.

Answer 5

The nuclear winter is caused by "ash" and other debris in the atmosphere caused by atomic explosions reflecting light back out into space. Sure it would "cool" the planet, but the "ash" would soon fall back down to the surface and then we would still have the high CO2 levels. The Cooling from a "partial" nuclear winter (assuming we dont shoot all the bombs) would be minor and tempoarary. To use this approach we would have to continually set off atomic bombs to replace the ash that settles as fallout back to the surface. Establishing a world with a continual high level of radioactive fallout would probably be far worse than global warming. Eventually the public would get tired of cancer etc and we would go back to having global warming as before. The nuclear winter doomsday would only result in at worst a decade or so of significant cooling. That would be bad enough to wipe out most of the agriculture for a decade, but after that the climate would return to near normal. Much of the nuclear winter is caused by soot from things burned by the A-Bombs. That burning will all be additional CO2 in the atmosphere that will still be there after the ash settles.

Answer 6

Whilst they are both of concern, nuclear proliferation is only an issue when someone decides to push the big red button.

Global warming may or may not be a myth, but it is hopefully something we can come to terms with and try to slow down.

On this basis, global warming has the biggest fear factor.

Answer 7

Nicely war might happen ...but then again it might not. Global Warming, I believe, is just the earth 's temperature going up a bit and it can just as easily go down again. Nothing to worry about really.

Like Pearl Horbor, the real threat can go unseen, unnoticed..until it is too late.

The real threat is neither Nuclear War or Global Warming but the end of cheap oil. May not seem much but our whole society runs on cheap oil and when that runs out we are in BIG trouble.

It has taken us 125 years to use half the world oil...and it will take us just 25 years to use the other half.

Try to imagine a world without oil. Starvation, riots. energy wars. It really is the end of civilisation as we know it.

Answer 8

We have years to deal with Global Warming but a Nuclear War could start tomorrow at the drop of a hat.

Answer 9

Nuclear Weapons are definitely a bigger threat. They are now in the hands of people who riot and march over a few cartoons or comments from a few thick people in CBB, not to mention people who think that their god lives down a well and have asked him to destroy Israel. At least in the cold war the Russians were not motivated by religion, and willing to die for their version of it. Global Warming will not wipe out the planet in a couple of hours.

Answer 10

The UK has just closed down two nuclear power stations.
All the windmills - sorry wind turbines - in use will not replace the power these two generated even when the wind is blowing.
The power they generated will mean more gas fired power stations with their CO2 emissions but a least unlike coal fired ones they will not release on that foul stuff and CO2 - including large amounts of radioactivity in case you do not know that.
This puts us in the hands of Russian gas suppliers.
Which is worse - you choose!
RoyS