Consider the greatest threats to life on Earth. If you were to peruse the newspapers or spend any time listening ot talking heads in the MSM, or bloviating Congressmen, Senators, and ex-Senators, it would be clear: Anthropogenic Global Warming is the greatest single danger to life on Earth that mankind is facing today. This is utter nonsense, not least because even the most excitable proponents of the AGW thesis do not predict a runaway greenhouse effect to destroy the biosphere. As far as can be discerned frm their pronouncements, the greatest danger seems to be that the global temperature will rise a few degrees, sea levels will rise, perhaps as much as a meter, the arable belt will shift away from the equator, and climates will change, sometimes in a direction that will increase human discomfort. The possibility of relatively rapid climate change must be taken seriously but we have time to develop technological responses to climate change and our most important tools that can mitigate the effects of climate change are dependent on increasing global wealth. In other words, rich people can much more easily adapt to climate change than poor people. The more rapidly the global economy recovers and accelerates from this recession, the better off we will all be, including the planet. The AGW advocates reveal their ideology most in their fevered rush to slow the economy through the immense tax scheme known as cap and trade.
If AGW is not the greatest existential risk we face, what is?
There are a number of dangers, some to the biosphere itself, others just to homo sapiens, and others primarily to technological civilization.
Bill Joy discussed the threats to the biosphere and to homo sapiens in his seminal article: Runaway nanotech (the gray goo threat) could dissolve the biosphere. Unfriendly AI (Artificial Intelligence) far smarter than mere humans, could decide they don't need us as pets or colleagues and that the resources of the universe could be better used to support computation than organic life. Novel genetically enhanced or invented life forms could destroy all human life on the planet. (Think of an Ebola like virus with a ten day incubation period and easy transmissibility.) These are human derived threats which we should deal with proactively, though if the past is any guide are unlikely to gain much attention until the threats materialize.
A different order of magnitude would be that class of dangers about which we can do nothing. An errant asteroid could end multi-cellular life on the planet. A nearby star could go Supernova. The Yellowstone supervolcano could explode. Until we have moved off the planet and begun spreading through space, the human race will be at risk of encountering the Great Filter.
With all of that as preamble, the fact remains that there are dangers that could derail and destroy civilization and send us into a new dark ages. These are dangers that we have the wherewithal to address but choose to minimize or ignore at our own great risk.
Our economic downturn, as deep as it has already been, is unlikely to present such a risk, but if mismanaged and compounded, the gap could easily expand, reversing the civilizing effect of the enlarged core of the post-war years. Ari Shavit posits a plausible future history where Iran obtains a nuclear capability and uses it to advance its version of civilization; one outcome that is predictable is $200 barrel oil. Barry Rubin offers a somewhat more nuanced and well grounded scenario of a more confident Iran with the bomb, one outcome of which would be elevated oil prices (since Iran requires higher oil prices to thrive and ideologically believes we should be paying them tribute in any case.) Despite all the talk of green energy, such a surge in energy prices will ensure that America is enervated and depressed for the foreseeable future. Does civilization depend on America, or the West thriving? That is a worthwhile question that I would prefer to see discussed as a hypothetical. Yet high oil prices is perhaps the least of our concerns when considering the problem of radical Islamic states (especially Iran and Pakistan, should the Taliban prevail.)
There is a reasonable case to be made that a minimal number of nuclear warheads exploded in the "proper" place could effectively destroy the United States.
One Second After is one of the gloomier, though compelling, reads I have spent time with. An EMP blast might, or might not, have the devastating effects that William Fortchen supposes. Imagine America with no electric power for months to years, and 95% plus o four transportation permanently disabled. It is a terrifying picture.
[John Walker offers some reason to believe that the worst effects of an EMP would be less than William Fortchen's worst case scenario:
This is a compelling page-turner, which I devoured in just a few days. I do believe the author overstates the total impact of an EMP attack. The scenario here is that essentially everything which incorporates solid state electronics or is plugged into the power grid is fried at the instant of the attack, and that only vacuum tube gear, vehicles without electronic ignition or fuel injection, and other museum pieces remain functional. All airliners en route fall from the sky when their electronics are hit by the pulse. But the EMP Commission report is relatively sanguine about equipment not connected to the power grid which doesn't have vulnerable antennas. They discuss aircraft at some length, and conclude that since all commercial and military aircraft are currently tested and certified to withstand direct lightning strikes, and all but the latest fly-by-wire planes use mechanical and hydraulic control linkages, they are unlikely to be affected by EMP. They may lose communication, and the collapse of the air traffic control system will pose major problems and doubtless lead to some tragedies, but all planes aloft raining from the sky doesn't seem to be in the cards. Automobiles and trucks were tested by the commission (see pp. 115–116 of the Critical Infrastructures report), and no damage whatsoever occurred to vehicles not running when subjected to a simulated pulse; some which were running stopped, but all but a few immediately restarted and none required more than routine garage repairs. Having the highways open and trucks on the road makes a huge difference in a disaster recovery scenario. But let me qualify these quibbles by noting that nobody knows what will actually happen: with non-nuclear EMP and other electromagnetic weapons a focus of current research, doubtless much of the information on vulnerability of various systems remains under the seal of secrecy. And besides, in a cataclysmic situation, it's usually the things you didn't think of which cause the most dire problems.]
Despite the slightly more optimistic take by John Walker, the salient point is that an EMP attack on America, indeed on any advanced technological society, would be devastating and quite possibly a civilization killer. The worst effects, shutting down the electrical grid for months to years, could be mitigated at much less expense than the feeble attempts suggested to halt AGW (which would impoverish us, in any event, while not solving the problem, even if one supposes the problem exists as stated.)
Civilization is a thin veneer that survives because of constant attention to its defense. One Second After was most interesting in depicting how easily our civilization could collapse if the lights were turned off and communications and transportation came to a stand still.
While there are certainly other, unknown threats (unknown unknowns, as per Donald Rumsfeld, much maligned for simply stating a truism) the differences between the threat posed by AGW and such threats as nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, EMP attacks (or a natural EMP event produced by a solar storm, which could have the same devastating effects) are revealing of the psychological meaning and importance of the threats.
AGW as the great threat has several virtues. It can be assigned to the fault of the West, an eventuation resulting from Civilization itself. (Note how in all the discussions of AGW, the inconvenient fact that China now surpasses the United States in CO2 production and that India is catching up, and that neither ocutnry is expected to adhere to any anti-AGW protocols, is simply ignored.) It offers a convenient access point for the enlightened ones (Al Gore, Henry Waxman, et al) to increase their power, wealth, and control for the best of reasons, (to save the planet and to save us from ourselves.) Further, it offers easy repentance; by changing your light bulbs (damn the mercury in compact fluorescents!) you can atone for your sins against Gaea. It is an elegant solution to a narcissistic dilemma. If you feel guilty for your wealth and need acceptance and applause from your enlightened cohort, fighting the good fight against AGW costs little (the bill will come due down the road, but will primarily be paid by the poor who will be out of sight and therefor out of mind) and doesn't require much actual work or sacrifice.
Perhaps the struggle to protect ourselves from EMP, a now known danger, is not taken with much concern by the left because if an EMP event were to occur, it would solve the AGW problem and return us to an idealized state of nature?
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