Are we waltzing Mat

The last nuclear testing in the US was done on September 23, 1992. By 1996, it became standardized that global powers would not test. Ending the standoff of the Cold War, all the nuclear powers of the world recognized what Oppenheimer realized - Nuclear weapons are an existential threat to all that live on earth, including humans.

Donald Trump’s announcement that he would resume nuclear testing should alarm all of us.

Strongmen like to throw their power around in intimidating one-upmanship. The US rachets up the threatening rhetoric and Russia responds to the challenge. Neither Trump nor Putin has stability or self-control enough to make sure they do not set off WWIII, a hot war that could end all life on the planet.

Today’s nuclear war heads, like the W-93, produce blasts 1,000 times as strong as the as the bombs used in Hiroshima. Bombs like that level everything – killing people, animals and destroying vegetation and buildings for a huge radius around the blast site. But the damage caused by radiation released into the atmosphere travels wherever the winds blow. It poisons the air, ground, and water supply over huge areas. Then humans breathe the radiation filled air and illnesses like cancer soon follow.

The story of Chernobyl tells of the lasting and irreversible damage small amounts of radiation creates for many years. Radiation does not simply go away. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Threats of nuclear testing and usage are a dangerous tool of intimidation. They speak to a great inability of a leader to negotiate differences. Sabre rattling is dancing with destruction. Where is the Art of the Deal in the nuclear race?

In a 1959 movie, Gregory Peck and Anthony Perkins were cast as Australian naval submarine officers who leave their wives, Ava Gardener and Donna Anderson, and set out to find livable areas that would sustain human life following a catastrophic all-out nuclear war that had already destroyed large swaths of land and sea around the world.

The movie was On the Beach by filmmaker Nevil Shute. The theme song in the movie was Waltzing Matilda. It was a riveting movie, scary by all measure, and gave plenty to think about in the years following Hiroshima.

There are lists of the existential threats that will annihilate all life, leaving only viruses and cockroaches.  Climate Change is first on the list. Nuclear proliferation is second.

Interesting that denial of climate change is widespread, yet there are island countries already not habitable because of rising water levels. Major storms and droughts destroy land, crops, gardens and livestock, making places unlivable. A Nuclear Winter, described as a severe and prolonged global climatic cooling effect, is hypothesized to occur following a large-scale nuclear war. Nuclear debris could block all sunlight, ultimately causing the demise of all that lives on earth.

Pandemics are on the list of existential threats. We see the death that happens in pandemic. Now with major research for vaccines halted and quack cures being touted, we will likely be in deep trouble when the next pandemic occurs. And there will be another one.

Artificial Intelligence is also on the list. AI is the same “wild west” as computers were thirty years ago. For all the good computers do, we have seen the harm they can do. Like computers, AI is also unregulated. Pandora is out of the box again. Harm is coming, along with the good, if not reigned in.

The Existential Risk Observatory is a non-profit foundation of physicists and other research scientists in Amsterdam founded in 2021. It is self-funded and its purpose is to keep the public informed about growing risks that could impact the world with negative consequences. They think the current risk of human extinction is unacceptably high. Manmade risks, like AI, manmade pandemics, and nuclear weapons are a lot riskier than natural risks, since they are preventable, at least in theory.

Whatever metaphor you choose – like sticking your head in the sand, hanging on to denial or dismissal of science and research - is playing with fire. 

We are Waltzing Matilda in a lot of areas. We have lost the sense of being stewards of all God created, forgetting that this one earth is our only home.

The people who want to “burn the whole house down” will be destroyed alongside  the rest of us. Letting it happen without a fight is bad for all creation.

Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com