Why Climate Change Trumps Nuclear War
One of many disturbing moments in the first “presidential” “debate” between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump one week ago at Hofstra University came when the latter contender proclaimed dismissively that nuclear war, “not climate change,” posed the greatest threat to humanity today. His comment elicited no response from Mrs. Clinton or the debate moderator. There were no audible gasps from the audience.
Trump is wrong. Global warming is a bigger threat.
This might at first seem like a wild assertion. After all, a thermonuclear war – triggered, say, by escalated U.S. conflict with Russia and or China under a Hillary Clinton administration – would lead in one fell swoop to the death of billions. It would bring about the complete or almost complete eradication of human life and a habitable Earth (see the gruesome projections at Nucleardarkness.org). It would probably be best not to survive such a Holocaust. (It was nice to see Trump momentarily distance himself from longstanding U.S. policy of the right to first use of nuclear weapons. Too bad he backtracked and probably didn’t even know what he was saying anyway).