All Or Nothing?
Most of us are now beginning to realise, that in order to guarantee our survival, we have got to bring about change! However, how long will it be before we see that in order to bring about that change we must all stand and be counted? The way to world peace and security will only be found if we all want it and if we all push together, not physically, but spiritually. Mankind as a whole - YES or NO?
In 1952 America had 1,000 bombs; Russia had just 6! In 1960 America had 20,000 and Russia 2,000! In 1985 both America and Russia have approx even numbers but the figures are staggering at some 25,000 warheads each. The total destruction in all of world war 2 was caused by 3 million tons of TNT Today's nuclear arsenal consists of 18,000 million tons of TNT - 6,000 times as much! World war 2 was spread over 6 years, world war 3 will probably last just a few hours! 6,000 times as much explosion in approx 1/25,000 of the time! This means that world war 3 would be potentially 150 million times worse than world war 2!
There are over 54,000 nuclear weapons on our planet, the total power of which equals over 1.6 million Hiroshima bombs. The Hiroshima bomb was about equivalent to 12.5 thousand tons of TNT explosive. That sounds a lot and yet the hydrogen bombs of today are over 1600 times as powerful. The most powerful hydrogen bomb exploded since, was 4,000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. The Hiroshima event was pitifully less than 1 millionth of today's total nuclear explosive potential!
Over 1,400 nuclear warheads have been tested in, on and around earth since mankind discovered them. It now takes just 1 millionth of a second to vapourize a large city like London or New York and less than 1% of the world's present nuclear arsenal would be enough to destroy every large and medium sized city in the world. Today the world's present arsenal contains enough nuclear explosive potential for every single man, woman and child on the planet, to be killed by the equivalent of 5 tons of TNT each!
An exchange of just one quarter of the world's current nuclear arsenal, 4 to 5 billion tons of TNT explosive power, would lift over 1 billion tons of dust and smoke high into the atmosphere. Fire storms, from oil refineries, chemical works and forest fires, would heat the air causing smoke to rise high into the stratosphere, above the maximum cloud height where it cannot be washed away by rain. This choking of the atmosphere would cause havoc for life on earth in the form of a nuclear winter. In this instance 25% of the sun's energy would be scattered back into space by the dust in the stratosphere. Very nearly all the remaining energy is absorbed by the smoke and soot and only a miniscule 1% of the sun's energy reaches the ground! Vegetation dies, earth's food chain collapses; the end of life on earth as we know it! Scientists have shown that essentially the same result could possibly even be achieved by exploding less than 1% of the world's current nuclear arsenal as most of smoke the producing factories, chemical and petrochemical, etc, are around cities and towns that are major primary targets.
| NUMBERS OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS |
| 1945 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
| 1952 |
1000 |
6 |
166 |
| 1955 |
2,500 |
? |
? |
| 1960 |
20,000 |
2,000 |
10 |
| 1965 |
32,000 |
5,000 |
6 |
| 1970 |
26,000 |
8,000 |
3 |
| 1975 * |
28,000 |
12,000 |
2.33 |
| 1980 * |
26,000 |
16,000 |
1.66 |
| 1982 |
26,000 |
24,000 |
Approx Equal |
| 1990 |
30,000 |
30,000 |
Approx Equal |
* America started to refine the missiles and warheads it retained in service. Older, less accurate and less powerful weapons were scrapped and replaced with more, efficient, up-to-date systems, so although the overall numbers were reduced, nuclear explosive potential was increased. There are now some 54,000 nuclear missiles on earth, the total power of which equals 1.6 million Hiroshima bombs, and the problem is that, having so many missiles, it's gone beyond all reason! At the moment Britain have about 1 thousand nuclear warheads, so do France and so do China. Other countries are also aspiring to get on the bandwagon. Most people say "When it does happen I don't want to be left behind!" But why let it go that far? The deterrent theory may have been all very well at one time but the latest generation of nuclear weapons are designed for a first strike, the idea being to hit your opponent's missile silos before he can launch his own missiles. Increased accuracy has made this possible. The emphasis is therefore now on somebody making the first move to stand any chance of winning. Through some crazy twist in current nuclear strategy, circumstances no longer deter a pre-emptive attack but actually encourage one. If there is an accident, a world crisis, a misunderstanding, or maybe a combination of all three, that's our lot. Family, friends and pets. All the work that we've done, our house, our children, our investment, all opportunity lost and destroyed! And all because our world leaders can't engineer a stability for life on earth without nuclear weapons.
Through machine, or human, error, earth has been on the brink of global catastrophe at least twice (and these are only the times we've been told about). On one occasion, world war 3 nearly occurred when Strategic Air Command's early warning system displayed incoming soviet missiles that were not really there. Bombers were launched and on their way to Russia, carrying nuclear weapons to deliver for real. Earth was within a few minutes of nuclear disaster. Luckily no missiles were launched before the error was realised, and the bombers were recalled just in time, but it doesn't inspire confidence. There are now 4.5 billion people on earth, one person for every year of the planet's evolution. The people that are in favour of nuclear weapons number peanuts in comparison and such world policy should concern all people! Why is it that we're in such a predicament? Humanity must change its attitude towards itself and the planet if we are going to guarantee survival!
When we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy mankind at least ten times over, why spend 1,000,000 a minute, world-wide, on making it eleven. In fact calculations and research have shown that, as stated above, due to nuclear winter, mankind could be totally wiped out with just one percent of the world's current nuclear arsenal! Therefore we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy every human-relative life form on our planet, not just once but a hundred times over, and still the world is spending one thousand, five hundred, million dollars (1,500,000,000) a day on more. On average, ten new warheads are made everyday, there are no current plans to stop production on either side. Under shadowing this, resources are piled into chemical, bacterial and genetic warfare research, laser and particle beam weapons, goodness knows what in the conventional vein of weapons, we're grossly mismanaging world resources. How much do we actually waste on the potential to get wasted? See This Kind Of Product. It's a bit of an eye-opener and one has to ask why is it that we can't recognise when enough is enough?
Most people conclude that nuclear weapons are bad news, but perhaps feel that there is nothing one can do about it, so it's tough luck! However, aiming for worldwide disarmament on behalf of common interest, if the chance came up and we could perhaps hold a world-wide referendum, how many people would actually put their names on the line? The fact is, you never know when it could be our last chance! If we give all, we will achieve all, if we give nothing, we will achieve nothing and we cannot expect to achieve what we are not prepared to work for. It would be nice to leave Earth in 'one peace', as we found it!