The Doomsday Clock is an internationally recognized design that conveys how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making. First and foremost among these are nuclear weapons, but the dangers include climate-changing technologies, emerging... Read More
We ran outside and saw gray clouds billowing over the ridge to our west. Smoke was already visible in the air around us. We knew in an instant that it was a wildfire, and the wind was blowing it straight toward us.
In the August issue of Rolling Stone ("Global Warming's Terrifying New Math"), Bill McKibben provides clarity about the amount of carbon dioxide in the coal, oil, and gas reserves currently owned by companies and countries worldwide. The key number is the 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide that will be emitted by burning these existing reserves over the next decades.
All participants in this Roundtable recognize the dangers associated with nuclear energy, and have discussed its expansion in terms of manageable risk. We all nonetheless agree that such an expansion is justified by the dangers of climate change.
Food production requires adequate soils, climate, and water. Roughly 70 percent of the freshwater appropriated by humans worldwide is used for food production. In the absence of trade, people rely on local freshwater resources to grow food. However, when water limitations constrain food production to the point that there is not enough food for everyone, the trade of food commodities provides a mechanism by which regions can compensate for inadequate local water resources.
A prominent theme running through several essays in this Roundtable has been security. Wang Haibin has discussed the ways in which people of different economic classes perceive the risks to personal security that are posed by climate change and nuclear energy.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists concluded in 2007 that climate change poses almost as serious a threat to human survival as nuclear weapons do. Citing both perils in its decision to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock, the Bulletin noted:
Accidents at nuclear power facilities are rare. And even in an incident as serious as the one that occurred last year at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the damage was ultimately contained within certain limits.
In 1954, Lewis Strauss, then chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, gave a speech in which he famously predicted that "our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter." Whether he was talking about fission reactors or a secret fusion project is unclear, but he was wrong in either case. What did turn out to be too cheap to meter, however, was water.
Two days short of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak's resignation, Al Jazeera published an article, headlined "A Kingdom of Silence," that contended an uprising was unlikely in Syria. The article cited the country's "popular president, dreaded security forces, and religious diversity" as reasons that the regime of Bashar al-Assad would not be challenged, despite the chaos and leadership changes already wrought by the so-called Arab Spring.
Nuclear energy has attracted renewed interest in recent years, partly because of its ability to generate electricity while producing only negligible emissions of greenhouse gases.
Climate scientists like to think of themselves as wise planetary physicians, explaining to the world what they have learned about climate and advising humanity on how to cope with the challenge of climate change. This metaphor can also appear attractive to policymakers and the public. Consider the appealing similarities between deciding what you should do about your weight and what the world should do about global warming. You can ask your doctor's opinion, but it is you who will determine your target weight. You can also ask your physician to recommend actions to reach that target.
