Terrorism is #3

A previous rant in this blog discussed how terrorism has fallen behind the economy the top threat to Americans. In reality, both of these are behind the environment. Dan Nocera of MIT points out in a recent publication that we “are a world out of balance. We seek immortality at the individual level and are oblivious to the health of our humanity at a global level.” Our R&D spending for health is 30 times what we spend for energy science.

One of the minor problems we face per James Anderson of Harvard is that that the current level of CO2 in our atmosphere now ensures sufficient heating to melt the Arctic summer ice cap within the next decade. The ice in the Arctic Ocean acts as a heat shield for our planet by preventing the flow of warm ocean currents to the furthest reaches of the northern hemisphere. ... Much of the world’s industrial centers and population are situated near coastline, which will be submerged under the water accompanying the 7 meter (~25 feet) rise in ocean levels with the collapse of the Greenland ice cap. … not to mention that Europe will be a lot colder. The Europeans and others will probably just move over here. Maybe we do need that military.