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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The real issue about nuclear weapons
Message-ID: <1276@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Dec-84 17:47:16 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1276
Posted: Thu Dec 13 17:47:16 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 19:01:30 EST
References: <29200165@uiucdcs.UUCP> <333@ut-sally.UUCP>  <> 
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 52
Summary: 


>>Please give an example of a catastrophe greater than Nuclear Winter
>>that humanity has survived (even relatively).  And don't weasel out of it by
>>claiming WWII was a nuclear war because the USA dropped its whole
>>nuclear arsenal in that war.  We are talking about the possible
>>elimination of animal life from the world, here, and the certain
>>elimination of civilization.
>
>>Who is it that should take reality seriously?
>>-- 
>
>>Martin Taylor
>You should pay more attention to reality than irrational slogans.
>
>Examples of worst catastrophes that humans have survived:
>        The last Ice Age.
>
>But that is not the point of the article that Mr Taylor so easily ignores.
>The point is that weapons aren't significant. Nuclear devices introduce NO
>fundamentally new form of suffering to mankind that we haven't already 
>experienced. The peoples of sub-Saharan Africa are today suffering from what
>would probably kill more people after a world-wide nuclear war than the blast
>effects and radiation that form the basis of most irrational fears. And the
>disruption of economy and agriculture that causes famine certainly wasn't 
>>introduced by nuclear weapons. 
>
>WWII DID bring death, famine and maiming injuries to probably over 100 million
>people and all with conventional human destruction. The bombs of Hiroshima and
>Nagasaki are insignificant. 
>
>People who loudly declaim nuclear weapons and ignoring the real issue in favor
>of assuaging their upper class guilt with irrationality. 
>
>    Robin D. Roberts                     (213) 450 9111 x 2916

Isn't there a degree of irrationality in proclaiming the last Ice Age
(during which the climate was quite good over much of the world) as
a greater disaster than the possible elimination of all animal life?

Granted we all will die in the end, perhaps it doesn't matter that we
may all do it in the same few months.  But from the point of view of
humanity (or animalkind), I think dying along with all our children
is a worse disaster than famines or Ice Ages.

The fact that the Nuclear Winter simulations are not perfect does not
mean that they are false.  The better the simulations since the original
publication, the worse seem to be the results.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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