So we know that the world of 1913 was much more intelligent then the world of 2013. Just try telling a scientist in 1913 that CO2 was a pollutant. They would have thought you were a clown. The big problem our species faces this time is that we are living in the nuclear age. And nuclear weapons and reactors have proliferated enough so that any new global war means game over in the long run. And in this situation, what do our modern clowns worry about ? Climate change.
I have predicted this for a time. War is coming—world war that will change everything. It will be fought in cyberspace as well as outer space. It will be total war. We better be ready! We could lose this one.
For justa-hairyape — maybe global warming, the current climatological fear of liberals, will counteract nuclear winter, the previous climatological fear of liberals? /sarc
We don't have any way to objectively test either theory in advance, but I think it's pretty obvious that solar disruptions cause more problems in our atmosphere than CO2 emissions, and as bad as a nuclear war would be, I have major doubts about whether nuclear weaponry is capable of destroying the planet. Realistically, the only nuclear war we're likely to fight in the near future would be if a terrorist group got a nuclear bomb, and turning North Korea, Afghanistan or Pakistan into a sheet of glass isn't going to affect world climate.
China is a whole different ball game. I would not want to fight a major war against a nation that considers population reductions to be a positive outcome, and has a billion people with many “extras” with which to repopulate vacant spaces.
Turning the Chinese into profitmaking capitalists makes a whole lot more sense than fighting a war with them. It worked with the Japanese after World War II in converting their Bushido warrior code into aggressive free enterprise, and it might just work with China.
If it doesn't, we have a major problem on the eastern horizon.