The
world now the faces the very real possibility of a nuclear war
between the U.S. and North Korea that the entire
world would lose. In addition to massive loss of human life
resulting from even a limited exchange of such weapons, the already
overstressed populations of other species we all depend upon for
survival would crash if forced to also deal with the environmental
effects, accelerating our headlong
rush toward extinction.
Complicating
any attempts to avoid such a scenario is the delusion that surviving
it is still possible, along with an apparent unwillingness by both
adversaries to accept responsibility for the costs. This is a special
case of the threat we already face as a species, where large groups
of consumers are unwilling to accept the impossibility of perpetual
growth or the responsibility for its pursuit crippling our planet's
ecosystems to the point where further damage will reduce our ability
to survive.
The
most rational way to deal with both threats is for everyone to
recognize their costs, agree that they are unacceptable, and commit
to doing whatever it takes to eliminate them. We would have to admit
that no one is better than anyone else in the sense even the last
person to live would not be "winner," but rather the most
pathetic loser in the history of the world. As a minimum, the two
people facing off today must admit this fact and believe it.