Has our species become
insane?
Helen Caldecott is the winner
of the Nobel Peace Prize and a world renowned campaigner against nuclear
weapons. She says that our species is "mentally sick... The whole society is
sick'1. We are in the grip of a death wish. She points out that 1 in
25 people are sociopaths with "no moral conscience' and these are the people
who rise to the top; who are in charge. Is she right? Have we really become
insane? There is good reason to believe so. By insane behaviour I am referring
to avoidable behaviour which will result in our own destruction and would be
seen as such if we were "in our right minds'.
There are many reasons for
the belief that much of our behaviour has become insane. Here are some of them.
1.
Nuclear
Weapons on High Alert -- 2000 nuclear
weapons are held ready for launch at the press of a button. This could happen
by accident, misunderstanding or malicious intent. It came within hours of
happening in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It came within seconds of
happening when the drunkard President Yeltsin had his finger on the button
after being told Russia was under nuclear attack. It could happen now at any
time. Is this sane?
2.
Nuclear
Arsenals -- There are seventeen
thousand nuclear weapons in existence; enough to incinerate everyone on the
planet many times over as well as destroying most of the other nine million
species we share the planet with. Is this sane?
We are not told the
destructive power of the weapons being deployed but we do know, for example,
that the 180 B61 American bombs now in Europe can be 30 times more destructive
than the Hiroshima bomb. President Obama
has recently put $537 million in his 2014 budget proposal (total cost is
expected to be $10 billion) to upgrade these bombs and make them more accurate! 2 Each bomb can destroy
a major city the size of London or New York. Is this sane? All this is totally
unnecessary. A perfectly sane alternative is available - an enforceable treaty
banning nuclear weapons. The existence of a feasible sane option compounds the
madness.
Harbouring arsenals of
nuclear weapons undermines our very humanity. As the Nobel Laureate in
Literature, Kenzaburo
Oe , declared "The most terrifying monster
lurking in the darkness of Hiroshima is precisely the possibility that man
might become no longer human."
3.
Nuclear power
and radiation -- Contamination from a
single failure at Chernobyl spread right across Europe. The struggle to keep
the lethal emissions at bay is going on still, 27 years later. At Fukushima
three complete meltdowns of reactor cores have been emitting radioactive
material for over two years and nobody knows how to stop it. If the wind had
been blowing the other way when the disaster started Tokyo would have had to be
evacuated and a large part of Japan would have become uninhabitable for 300
hundred years3. If another earthquake occurs the cooling ponds of
reactor 4 (loaded with fuel rods) could lose their coolant releasing sufficient
radiation to pollute the entire northern hemisphere 3 . Two and half years after the triple
meltdowns started the general manager of TEPCO, the responsible corporation,
announced, referring to the discharge of radioactive cooling water into the
sea, "We understand that this discharge is beyond our control and we do
not think the current situation is good." 4
Humanity
is refusing to abandon a technology which can, through a single accident,
pollute countries and continents. Is this sane?
4.
The Arms Trade -- The arms trade fuels the world's wars. It is a
major cause of human suffering. Each year, around $45-60 billion worth of arms sales
are agreed. The 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, Russia,
France, United Kingdom and China), together with Germany and Italy account for
around 85% of the arms sold between 2004 and 2011 5 . Most arms sales (something like 75%)
are to developing countries5. The leaders of selling countries are
shameless. Prime Minister Cameron recently led a bevy of arms dealers on a
selling spree to Saudi Arabia (the only likely use of weapons sold to the Saudi
government will be against their own citizens when the Arab Spring finally
arrives). Senior UK Minister Dr Cable MP took another "defense delegation' to India.
Dr Cable publicly justified the UK government's behavior by saying if we didn't
do it someone else would. This does not earn a reprieve for other criminal
activities like robbing banks. Another common justification is "The arms
industry creates jobs' -- jobs for killing people. Can any of this be considered
rational behavior by mature human beings?
5.
Wars -- Global military spending is over $1.7 trillion
dollars; more that 2/5th of this is
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