Fox had a little reportage dealing with terrorism, and the host came to the conclusion that he couldn’t understand how people can believe climate change to be worse than terrorism.
Ok, so let’s start on the terror front. So far, their greatest success was using our own stupidity against us. 9/11 was well planned on their part, but it couldn’t have succeeded without useless airport security (all part of the wonders of economics, security spending doesn’t generate great returns…). We knew airport security was important before 9/11, we just didn’t do it. The other “success stories” came from primitive bombs. The events were terrible in their own right, but not significant in magnitude unless your view them under the selective “terror microscope” where hundreds of thousands of dead in Africa are ignored in favor of some thousands in the West.
So, how far can terrorists take it? Well, let’s say they rustle up a real nuclear weapon (not a much-hyped but useless dirty bomb which won’t produce casualties over and above those from the initial conventional explosion). I don’t think there’s any chance that will happen. But let’s say they get one. Obviously it won’t be a ICBM. It’ll be a small man-portable device. They position it in a major city. They blow it. Everything goes great for Osama. The small nuclear blast (by any modern standards) kills hundreds of thousands. There’s a huge cleanup bill. That’s nasty. It’s the ultimate worst-case scenario for what terrorists might achieve (aside from colluding with evil space aliens that provide them with Death Spores) and yet it doesn’t add up to wiping out a city, much less civilization as we know it. So terrorists fail the apocalypse test.
Ok, next scenario. We need to worry about “rogue states”. Iran could have a couple of primitive longer-range nukes soon. First off, there is NO evidence that any regime with the potential to get nukes would use them unilaterally just to wipe out some unbelievers. While xenophobic politicians would have us believe Iran is controlled and populated entirely by suicide bombers who would love to blow up their babies if only it could give an infidel a paper cut, the real world couldn’t be more different. People in Iran are largely reasonable. They don’t like the U.S, and have a general mistrust of the Western world. Fair enough. There’s the little business of the Shah to remember. The West was indeed out to make Iran their bitch. Having been in that situation, Iranians are pretty clear on one thing: it won’t happen again. But nobody, least all the Mullahs, have shown a tendency to launch suicidally insane attacks. There’s no historic precedent. No nothing. Just people flapping their mouths. I’m more afraid the U.S will launch nukes, with the crazy talk of some presidential candidates, and all that crap about pre-emptive nuke strike policies. Yet even if Iran decided to launch their arsenal it would at best kill a few million people. At best. And again; that won’t happen. So again, no apocalypse.
Last you have China. While China has the nukes, there’s no nation on earth more pragmatic than China. China’s very unlikely to start WW3. No apocalypse here.
And with all of these threats, you can’t get intelligence services to agree on even the basics. No evidence of Al-Quaeda acquiring nuclear material… and now, even Bush’s own intelligence services are telling him Iran isn’t developing nukes… to say “opinions are divided” would be putting it mildly.
On the other hand, you have the linked events of global warming and energy scarceness (which occurs because we use up materials, and that use creates global warming). Scientific opinion is virtually unanimous. Don’t listen to me, look at the bulk of research. It’s man-made and so it’ll keep happening until we stop burning stuff. Plant life is pretty fragile. Harsh temperature swings will wreak havoc with food output. In Australia, we’ve noticed. Elsewhere, expect to notice soon enough. Fertile land will decrease. Desertification will increase. Lack of energy will make transport of foodstuffs, farming of foodstuffs, and making of fertilizers (all dependent heavily on oil) difficult and expensive. And it’ll get more and more difficult and expensive. Add to that the population explosion and the fact that we’re operating at close to peak capacity food production as it stands and one thing becomes clear: there won’t be enough food for everyone.
Famines have always been better at killing people than any other catastrophe including war (but excluding disease, in some circumstances). And when there’s not enough food to go around even here in the West, people are going to get upset. People are going to do what they can to get food. Society deteriorates. Thin veneer of civilization goes out the window when it comes to getting food for our kids. Anarchy, warfare over remaining resources, mass starvation… how many dead? Millions? Billions? It’s impossible to tell, but the potential is there for near-total collapse of modern society. Yes, that’s the worst case. But it’s not unrealistic, especially if we keep going at this rate. It’s not unprecedented either; civilizations have wiped themselves out in the past by using up their natural resources. When push comes to shove, they couldn’t develop technology to adapt quickly enough. And there their stories ended.
Apocalypse? Probably not, at least in the total sense. Though those of us unlucky to be alive to experience it may not see a big difference.
So yeah, I think climate change is worse than terrorism. I think it’s potentially worse than pretty much everything that could happen to us that we have the power to change. The sad thing is, if worst comes to worst not even saying “I told you so” will bring much relief.
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