How You Can Prevent Nuclear War

I am going to tell you how you can stop a nuclear war in this post. It won't be easy, but dying of radiation sickness is probably worse. 


My research for this blog takes me to interesting places on the internet at times. One of those is the F.A.S., Or the Federation of American Scientists. Here is a link to their site.
http://www.fas.org/pubs/tar.html

Here is what they say about themselves:


"The founding mission was to prevent nuclear war. While nuclear security remains a major objective of FAS today, the organization has expanded its critical work at the intersection of applied science and security to include the issues of bio-security, building technologies, conventional arms sales monitoring, energy security, government secrecy, international science partnerships, learning technologies, and terrorism analysis."



I like their ideas, because I would like for life on earth to survive and maybe even human life and some kind of decent civilization. Out of control nuclear proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons, as a tool for countries to maintain or improve their status in the world, are not good ways to do this.


I have not begun to read all of their extensive site, but I am getting the impression that they have missed a big contribution to the likelihood of nuclear war. That is the contribution of the average citizen of countries that have nuclear weapons, and even the average citizen of countries that do not have nuclear weapons. The things that you and I do every day in the process of living our lives can affect whether we have a nuclear war.


One of the reasons that our leaders have nuclear weapons is to keep their jobs. Even fairly dictatorial leaders, like those in the USA, Russia, and the UK, (:-) know that they will not keep their jobs if the people of their country get too dissatisfied with them. We are all used to a certain standard of living that is much better than the rest of the world and we want to keep it. 


One of the things that keeps that standard of living so high is the use of large quantities of fuel. The amount of fuel used in your country goes down, so does your standard of living. I got a good look at that during the Middle East oil crisis. 


Rationing was done by even or odd numbers on license plates. Long lines formed at the pumps all the time. Fights broke out in line if someone cut in. People stole and switched license plates. Our politicians got an earful from the voters. 


Our leaders know they will be out if they don't keep the fuel flowing to us. 


Even if we don't have our own private swimming pool and palatial mansion, we use much more fuel than the rest of the world does. Some of that is pretty scandalous waste, if you consider that it may cause a nuclear war to start. It is time for us to take a look at how we live and how we use resources. 


Are you willing to die for the "right" to drive around in a heavy multiple passenger car every day by yourself? How many lives is it worth to keep the thermostat on your heater up a few degrees? These are only the beginning of the decisions we need to reconsider.