Faustino quoted Helsinki and Singapore as places where people lived in apparent comfort in spite of extremes in temperature. I hardly consider either places as food bowls for the rest of the world and THAT is what climate change will effect so much, not to mention rising sea levels and resultant security.

For some perspective, Faustino, unfortunately "the chances of a major nuclear exchange between them are negligible" is based purely on hope and purely on what we know of the past - despite several documented accounts of coming close to nuclear conflict either by aggression, misunderstanding/false alarm or accident.

20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War:
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm

"The human race cannot coexist with nuclear weapons."
- Iccho Itoh, Mayor of Nagasaki, Nagasaki Peace Declaration, 9 August 1995

“To launch (nuclear) weapons against a nuclear-equipped opponent would be suicidal. To do so against a non-nuclear enemy would be militarily unnecessary, morally repugnant and politically indefensible.”
- Former US Secretary of Defence, Robert MacNamara, “Apocalypse Soon”, May/June2005

"You cannot simultaneously prevent & prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war."
- Albert Einstein

http://www.VoteNuclearFree.net
http://www.myspace.com/votenuclearfree

Hey people! - assisted by their servile 'coalition of the willing', U$ warmongers have been continuing to wage nuclear war on innocent civilian populations in the former Democratic Republic of Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan and I-rak - Gulf War 1 and the current fiasco - deploying 84tons, 1000tons and some 4000tons of Depleted Uranium (DU) ordnance on those three theatres of war. Large areas of all three countries are today contaminated by radioactive waste that is not only killing untold numbers of innocent civilians and their horribly deformed newborn and aborted foetuses, AND foreign military veterans and peacekeeping personnel, but is being uplifted in dust-storms and encircling the globe.

This latest 'strategic initiative' has greatly assisted the owners and profiteers of the Nuclear Power Industry who have discovered the ideal way for saving costs in disposing of highly toxic nuclear waste ... by giving it away to the insatiably greedy owners, 'executive' employees and shareholders of the huge U$ weapons manufacturers ... for the cost of transportation!

How's THAT for management 'efficiency' and 'forward planning'?

Ah well, as they say in the MBA program ... "Waste not, want not".

What they WON'T say in the MBA program is "What goes around, comes around"!

I think that both of these 2 "HoT" issues can b solved by just ensuring that
*Rudd* doesn't bcome a *Bilby Traitor*

I put it to U all, is *Islam* supposed to believe that the world's worst WMD abusers,
who armed saddam with agents most vile to abuse Iraqi's, Kurds & Iranians alike
have anyone's other than their own interests at heart?

No, the political/military/industrial complex must answer to a civilian authority.

But when U have a turkey in *porkie's central* who appears to invariably follow the advice of blood shedders who have, it seems plain to me, gone "PitBull" & have no intention of leaving, U end up left in a situation of hatred being perpetually fuelled by the reaction of relatives to the shedding of innocent blood.

& don't b fooled on this issue *Poppets*

If U want to bay for the blood of the *Bali Bombers*
& reckon things by an "Eye for an Eye"
then do so in the knowledge that *Al'Quaida* has a lot of catch up to do.

well may we say:
" ... alas indeed the futility of war. ... "

(some *German Blue* perhaps, ChaMomile that is.)

I simply cannot understand the mental processes behind this article. I suppose that is because I do not subscribe to the soft-left position that human nature is steadily progressing. I happen to believe that human nature has stayed at the same level, admittedly at an abysmally low level, since the beginning of recorded history, and will not change any millenium soon. I don't know how anyone can read the last ten thousand years of recorded history without coming to the same conclusion. That is why I agree with some of the other posters that nuclear weapons, so far, have been one of the greatest forces for peace in history. But for nuclear weapons it is almost certain that a major war would have been fought between Russia and America during the period that, thankfully, can be called the cold war.

Why is it so hard for women, in particular, to realise that men LOVE war. A large part of popular entertainment is sport (pretend war), businesses conduct price wars, and so on. It is in the genes, and will not disappear quickly. The only way to prevent war is to guarantee that war will result in the destruction of each side.

We are about to enter a very dangerous period in world history when the standard of living everywhere will have to be reduced because of peak oil. The usual way for nations to decide who gets a scarce resource and who gets nothing is to have a little war. Coupled with the population explosion, and the resulting wave of refugees from the third world trying to enter the west, it will be a very trying time, when we can be grateful that we have a sea boundary.

It could be that mankind is doomed. What is clear, however, is that the only way I know to prevent nuclear weapons being used would be for Russia and the US to tell the other nuclear states that any use would be regarded as an attack on both of them, and that they would then combine to pulverise the offending state.