Andrew Glikson, Canberra and District Quakers

               The Peloponnesian wars

A generation has passed since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs and, as the collective memory of their horrendous consequences is fading, a global suicide machine of some 13,000 atomic and hydrogen missiles has emerged. The young and the middle aged may perceive a nuclear holocaust as a surreal nightmare, overlooking the gruesome evidence all around including the testing grounds of New Mexico, the Marshall Islands, Novaya Zemlya (Figure 3), Kazakhstan, Moruroa Atoll, Nevada, Gobi Desert, the Nullarbor and elsewhere. 

Planetary consciousness is rare. Media cover-up blinds too many to this hair trigger in the background of the rapidly accelerating global warming. As observed by Noam Chomsky (1998): “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”  And while the atmosphere is progressively poisoned by carbon and by radioactive isotopes, sport circuses abound, fluorescent screens are replete with expressions of inhumanity. Orwellian “alternative facts” and double standards prevail.

It appears that inherent in civilization, throughout history and more recently, is the phenomenon of war, large bloodsheds performed under a range of false slogans. Now that the powers that be have constructed a fleet of some 13,000 nuclear missiles, a myriad species, including Homo “sapiens”, are placed on a hair trigger Damocles sword. consistent with Fermi’s Paradox. According to Fermi’s Paradox, the failure to date to achieve radio communication between Earth and extra-terrestrial civilisations can be attributed to their inevitable short-term self-destruction due to uncontrolled dispersion of toxic substances, contamination of air, water and land, and construction of deadly weapons. On Earth this includes saturation of the atmosphere by greenhouse gases and production of nuclear weapons.

Where does responsibility lie, for losing the sense of reverence which stone-age humans possessed toward nature and its wonderful creatures, for allowing ourselves to join a rat race where everyone can be a millionaire, for electing the mouthpieces of criminals, snake oil merchants and turncoats to control our lives.

The only hope is in a reawakening of human consciousness, as the school children under the leadership of Greta Thunberg have done.