January 19
GUEST: Alan Robock, American
climatologist and Distinguished Professor in the Department of
Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University, talks about the
existential dangers of nuclear weapons as well as his
conversations with Fidel Castro.
Alan Robock
- writings published and talks with Fidel Castro
Nowhere
To Hide: How a nuclear war would kill you
Alan helps us conceptualize what a nuclear war would be like. In some ways, this is like trying to think logically about our own death. It is irrefutable and inevitable, but still so far beyond our conception as to be a perpetual mystery.
But nuclear war is closer to a suicide then a natural consequence of living. The leaders of the Democratic Party have been planning for war in Ukraine for a long time. The coup that brought down its democratically elected president in 2014 was only the tip of the iceberg of US intervention.
There was surprisingly little said about the possibility of a nuclear war when Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt were picking Ukraine's next leaders. Their phone call in 2014, accessible to anyone with an internet connection, is a first hand account of how oblivious our national leaders are about taking on larger risks. They are both imperialist schemers, concentrating on how to reverse Ukraine's last election and put in a US puppet government.
How do we get rid of this element in the Democratic Party? And are the Republicans any better? They can't imagine a nuclear winter that would bring an end to life on earth. The are focused on short term gains in influence and power, good little soldiers of the empire. Who would have thought that a failure of imagination could bring about the end of our species?
