a nuclear attack in your lifetime?

[Ordray]

True. The funding will come eventually, especially if the Straits of Hormuz are ever shut down as has been threatened by Iran.

[Magn]

Well, since there's enough oil in North America to power the US and Canada for a few hundred years yet, I'm not worried about peak oil.

You assume a protectionist economy which we haven't had so far.

Alberta (Canadian province that has the lion's share of the tar sands) is selling it's oil to whoever will buy as it is managed by private companies (who also take the lion's share of the profits, but Right Wing minded Albertans don't mind being screwed over as long as it's by the private sector it seems).

There is no reason to doubt that the US will do the same with any oil reserves it has.

So don't think NA reserves. Think worldwide reserves.

Furthermore, the oil we burn for energy is oil that doesn't get used for manufacturing many materials that are made from oil (ex: rubber, plastic).

So we aren't only depleting oil energy by using oil, we are depleting a slew of man-made materials as well.

In a way, we are lucky here (in my province) in that we produce hydroelectricity and it is managed by a state owned company.

First of all, you can't really export hydroelectricity (because of dissipation) and furthermore, it is a public company so it is sold to locals for peanuts (as opposed to artificially raising the price to almost match the alternatives). It's infinitely renewable to boot.

If we drove electric cars here, we'd pay less for "gaz" than we do right now with oil.

China has a village that is 88% solar powered at this very moment.

Renewable energy is the future.

[hllwrld]

////

[goodz]

hydroelectricity is largely exported... Canada sends tons of electricity to the USA. I think in line of about 4 billion a year.

Sure we send 40 billion a year in oil to the USA. But 4 billion in electricity is still a fair chunk...

[Madchess]

nuclear attack, no not in my lifetime, doesn't matter how ****ed up the world becomes,
the country that drops a nuke can look forward to beeing attacked by half of the world and beeing boycutted by the rest.
I'd say anyone with the talent to hold onto power, even on a tiny scale will tink twice before trowing their own lifes away this way,
there is no way you can avoid beeing the target of everyone else if you throw a nuke today.

Even in the unlikely senario that someone mannage to nuke the rest of the world and thus avoid retalitation it means nuclear winter and the end for themself aswell.
And why should anyone bother when it is oblious that bankrupting a country is much more effective and don't get yourself fried in the process.

[hllwrld]

via szilard's engine I would nuke the pyramids or some such

[lastunicorn]

nuclear attack, no not in my lifetime, doesn't matter how ****ed up the world becomes,
the country that drops a nuke can look forward to beeing attacked by half of the world and beeing boycutted by the rest.
I'd say anyone with the talent to hold onto power, even on a tiny scale will tink twice before trowing their own lifes away this way,
there is no way you can avoid beeing the target of everyone else if you throw a nuke today.

Even in the unlikely senario that someone mannage to nuke the rest of the world and thus avoid retalitation it means nuclear winter and the end for themself aswell.
And why should anyone bother when it is oblious that bankrupting a country is much more effective and don't get yourself fried in the process.

If everyone acted logically all the time, then I'd agree with you.

[Madchess]

well it takes a whole lot of people to fire a nuke, even if some loonie dictator got hold of something and wanted to use it do you think everyone would be cool about that realicing it means the end of their lifes and likely their country and culture?
I think not. Someone would try to stop it, either the staff, the military, the scientists or the ones supposed to be dooing the actuall launch somewhere before it could be launched.

The biggest risk of a nuclear attack I think comes from the western countries which convinced part of their population that the wars in Irak and Afghanistan with everything that happened up to this date could be justified because they was and is the good guys. I do hope and believe that it is not possible to convince the masses about launching nuclear attacks on other countries so I still would say it is not gooing to happen.

[lastunicorn]

If every group of people who might get their hands on a nuke in the world acted logically, then I'd agree with you.

[KuhaN]

If anybody ever ships a nuke to another country, itll be because of religious reasons (actually because of anger, but theyll use religion to get everybody on equal footing, if u know what i mean).

[hllwrld]

everything is perfectly logical; don't laugh, but that's just how it looks

[flutterby]

Anyone see what happened in North Korea?

[Hurlin]

Sabre rattling because they have a new leader .... did it last time as well .....


Except this time it f u c k e d up and exploded =)

[freemehul]

There will never be another nuke dropped unless we are throwing them at alien invaders. The consequences are too great.

some people don't care about the consequences

I see it as more likely that a nuke will be dropped in our lifetime than discovering life on another planet

[freemehul]

So no, unless they figure out an ultra stealth "can't figure who launched the darn thing" system for nukes,

didn't the U.S. lose one of their stealth planes recently? ;)

there are numerous historic lessons about how empires won and lost with the accidental spread of technology, the most famous example is the first punic war:

http://www.unrv.com/empire/first-punic-war.php

or how the romans got their quinquiremes

I don't see stealth technology as making that much of difference though. However it might not be an accident, but a trick, similar to how the Canadians sold faulty and rigged nuclear technology to the Russians in the cold war, which caused a nuclear explosion in Siberia. Anyhow all will be revealed eventually, I'm quite sure of that. Even if it were a trick, it would only delay the inevitable.

However stealth technology does not disguise intent and motive, so dharans point of Mutual Assured Destruction is more important than technology, but like I said, some people don't care about the consequences. MAD is not a deterrent for messianic psychopaths with delusions of grandeur. Moreover the mask of sanity and manipulation of psychopaths has fooled more people before. The most famous example of that being Neville Chamberlain. But I'm willing to bet, that me being prophetic will fall on deaf ears for a lot of people here, as there quite a number of little Chamberlains running around on these here boards.