It was a great movie, watched before going to bed, thinking about it first thing this morning when I woke up. I agree, also, that the ending was perfect, the only possible way they could have ended it. (I say that about Hitchcock's "The Birds," too. Only possible ending, no matter how unsatisfying some people find it.)
I watched this movie last night, then listened to this podcast right after. You and Tom Nichols had a really fantastic discussion that provided solid context for this movie, which is so important. I thought it was so interesting that the "professional" security folk had a range of human reactions to this incident but still executed their jobs. It seemed that the civilian parts of this -- mainly the SecDef and POTUS seemed far more unmoored here. Also interesting that you can see all of the technology to track, to shoot down, to manage the nuclear decision didn't include a way to keep the civilian part of government in contact with their counterparts quickly and sharply.
This movie gripped me from the very beginning and I haven't gotten it out of my mind yet. Really appreciate being able to hear from Mr. Nichols directly on this great film.
It's an interesting look at how government functions. For people who believe things are always under control it's a shock to find out something didn't work. For people who think government is always incompetent, we see people behave cold and professionally under maximum stress.
What we should take away from this is there are people - just people - who take on the task of doing the best that they can to protect the rest of us. We entrust them with everything and expect them to get it right all the time. We assume they'll get it right and that we have golden dome like protection for any stupid thing we do. We elect someone who wants to be a dictator and we think that we can simply vote him out if he becomes a dictator. The magical system we correct our mistake for us.
thanks for clear 'reality' clarificiation....we all need continual Re-mind-ers that we are NOT as 'In control" of all imagined, assumed, wanted, wished for, etc..... - as animals living in human forms.
we live casually in 'blinded' trust, more so with tech & internet & overblown digital 'access' for other things we daily depend on to claim 'we are safe', 'we are richer', ' we must survive', etc. we dont actually !
keep helping us return to sanity, to whatever we can experience [thru bodies we claim 'we are' vs. 'egos' we dismiss we act "as if" & thru...
all wise, spiritual, 'teachers-gurus-religious clergy ...' can do no more than repeat - accept, adapt," Be Here Now "
and" do no more harm than all we-they are doing already "
but gotta 1st admit we are not in as much Control, have Power, are Aware, or Courageous to act with Caring..as we want to claim...he he
"'Everyone has seen the mushroom clouds; they’re almost iconographic,” said Abigail Solomon-Godeau of the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“But very few people have seen photographs of keloid scarring or people with radiation-related leukemias – what the atomic bomb did to people. The mushroom cloud stands for a visceral view of man, but most people don’t understand the human sacrifice, the human element.”
In 1982, Ms. Solomon-Godeau assembled a more personal, more human view of the bomb’s effects. With the aid of five friends, the freelance critic and curator created “The War Room,” a photo documentary featuring pictures taken by U.S. military and Japanese photographers in Nagasaki and Hiroshima."
And what is truly frightening is that Fat Man and Little Boy would be classified as merely small tactical nukes today. The fusion bombs we have now are much, much more powerful!
I'm a few years older than Tom and have spent my entire life within 25 miles of a military installation and for the last 40+ years in San Diego. We were one of four targets on North Korea's map in the last Trump administration, so pretty much nuclear ash in the first strike. In the 50's and 60's the thought was that this would knock us back a few years, but we'd recover with large areas of the country contaminated. A good example of that perspective is the book Alas, Babylon. As Tom has said many times, the nuclear threat has fallen on the list of concerns for Americans, but for some of us over 60 it's never gone completely away. I'll probably watch this, but I need to get emotionally ready for it. I do take issue with Tom's perspective on climate change because it looks like our models underestimate the impact of what we are doing to the planet. Fast or slow the planet will be much less friendly to human life in the future.
1. I thought the ending was brilliant. Any other ending would have made the whole movie meaningless.
2. For me Rebecca Ferguson playing the captain was 100% on target..even more than Tracey Letts..she was 100% professional and cool as a cucumber.. I've seen several people handle situations (non nuclear) and it amazed me how they could coolly and calmly act during extremely serious situations when so much could go wrong with dire consequences.
that assumption that everyone would react w/ emotions, or self-survival-above-all-else or even with-out ego --- or image-self-control -- is not correct.... for everyone.
Some personalities, characters, trained and disciplined people can act as they perceive is 'best' at that moment w/o all the movie-story-lines-dramas people enjoy watching and assuming 'everyone else must be like this too'...
…..& they may be labeled as "reckless”, “stupid”, crazy or destructive-BAD-guys… Later…
by those who didn’t agree with their calm, reasoned actions - that resulted in damage, death, destructions, ‘apocalypse’ et allll
Later - only after - survivalists, critics, commentators, story-tellers, historians... all who LATER can re-view and see a broad & wider whole-r scene of all factors In-volved ... tell different perspectives, of course !
what cannot be known, seen, admitted at the precious un-retrieve-able dangerous moments.
That we so easily Mix up & down what is Real, possible and probable, and what we Imagine, want, assume instead is our dangerous false mind-set...the default... the dangerous ways we protect our own images, egos and defend or blame...then..later
We - animals act similarly w/o our story-line-words-mind-films - act as best they can then see what IS HAPPENING there, then, and later may go away hungrier or mauled or dead [spirits still go somewhere].
Why humans persist in lying to ourselves and anyone who will listen that we can do better and are smarter than un-human-trained-tamed species do may be Wrong! after all.
it is just self-ego-idea-glorificatiion that we enjoy playing games and telling stories to fit what we wish were true. fools that we are ....
I agree. And I liked the way the movie handled the persons and personalities. And the different person dynamics. My own experiences in some situations is that the movie's portrayals were very real.. bit did not overdo it. Perhaps it was even underdone. But I think that made the film focused on the process in the midst of people's day and personal issues.. underpressure in a very tight time window
I didn't sleep the night we watched this movie. This is what happens if the smart people who know what to do are in charge and things don't go well. Just imagine what happens when clowns with flamethrowers are monitoring nuke launches and trying to hit a bullet with a bullet. Gasp!
Voting matters. This is just one of the myriad of reasons why.
In many ways this film is the reverse of Fail Safe. In that film, it's the US that is responsible for an accidental launch. In this one, we're the victims (although we can't be sure if the launch was accidental or deliberate).
So, given the utter destruction of everything resulting from a nuclear war, you have to wonder, what is the point in having these weapons? Yes, they may deter someone else from attacking us. But they also may cause an attack by someone who fears us doing a first strike.
I've never understood the rationale. I suppose we need a few of them for the North Koreas and Irans. But we could have deterrence with 20 warheads on a couple of submarines.
And for the youngsters, during the Reagan years, it really did look like we were going to have a nuclear war with the Soviets, now known as the Russians.
With Trump saying "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" back in 2016, what do you think is going to happen now that he is absolutely and completely bonkers and the theme is retribution?
I really think we'll be lucky if he doesn't set off a nuke before the end of the year. That'll be one way that will stop talk about the Epstein files.
As a person who lives in the city that is the first strike (in the movie) I was both alarmed and non-plussed at the same time.
Growing up we were told that this city would be the first strike. Not joking.
And somehow I was able to internalize this threat and go about my business: 1) Learning to bike with no hands; 2) Mastering Mario Brothers on our gigantic television; 3) Seeing revival films in the local theater; 4) going to camp to see my East Coast friends.
All before the age of eighteen.
Point being- this film is very flawed and yet extremely compelling. Oscar contender for directing and screenplay- calling it now.
I am perhaps a bit older than you are, as when I grew up we had regular drills where we hid under our wooden desks at school (you know, in anticipation of the incoming nuclear missiles). Lewis Black aptly and humorously describes it here:
I do not share your view that the film is very flawed, except possibly to this extent: The film does not disclose that the most likely culprit for launching a rogue nuclear missile is the United States of America.
Oscar contender for sure. Kathryn Bigelow is a great filmmaker.
When I say ‘flawed’ I mean it in the best sense of the word.
It poses a scenario that is plausible, but I would not react the way the main characters react. At least I don’t think so.
Kathryn Bigelow has done a masterful job in the reaction shot. I could go on and on about why she deserves an Oscar for the impossible- bringing out the best of every actor with screen time.
Also,
I am all too familiar with the ‘duck and cover’ because a tornado might hit anytime. We don’t get tornadoes here. So- what was the point of that?
Kathryn Bigelow is not prolific, but when she turns a lens, with the heavy lift of writers, she changes minds.
Maybe the scariest part of the movie is that the president is played by Idris Elba and things still go to shit. If hottie President Elba can't handle the pressure, how the fuck can the senile sociopath slob currently squatting in (whatever remains) of the WH?
First, thanks for alerting me to this movie, it's now on my watch list.
Second, Tom can worry about nuclear war but AGW is also an imminent threat as it is accelerating wildlife population declines that humans have been driving faster than the declines seen in the runup of the Permian Extinction event. That took 60,000 +/-48,000 years while ours is taking a couple hundred years. In fact, if enough foundational species enter functional extinction, we could enter the runaway extinction event that would collapse civilization that will end us in the very near future. For the scale of this threat, consider the following:
- Human biomass is estimated at 0.06 GtC, that of our livestock at 0.1 GtC while that of all wild mammals at 0.007 GtC
- 5% of the world's population uses 25% of earth's production. For all to live at our SoL, we'd need either 5 earths or increase earth's production 5X, both are impossible.
In fact, if we don't reduce the human load while replacing this extractive economy with a sustainable one then your fear of a nuclear war is also increased as we fight for the ever decreasing resources. Global warming is NOT about a few degrees increase, it's about changing ecosystems faster than evolution can accommodate and human activities preventing wildlife from migrating to livable regions.
Your use of fractions of GtC reminded me of an overheard phone conversation. The guy behind the counter at the oil change place was lamenting that we were supposed to get up in arms about CO2, which makes up only 0.04% of the atmosphere. He further said that we were expected to change our way of life because that number is up by a factor of 2 from a century ago. I checked his numbers from climate science-oriented websites and they were about right.
Thinking that maybe I could provide some context if I got the chance, I spent a few minutes looking for how much CO2 would have to be present to be toxic, estimating that 4% would probably be deadly, and even 1% would be a bad time. Yet we seem to be well outside the range of greenhouse gases literally making us sick.
Ultimately the moment passed, and I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, as I was in fact getting my oil changed, and therefore part of the problem.
I have to admit that knowing or quoting numbers, even to a person who understands practical math (like me or the oil change tech), doesn’t motivate a change in behavior. It’s unfair to ask this of you, Jeff, but have you found an example of a tangible effect of climate change that has happened and has motivated you or people around you to change behavior?
The point is that GtC was the best way to equate humans, humans' livestock and every wild mammal as a quantity. It wouldn't make sense to count every mouse, shrew, etc. Therefore, you can use these numbers to conceive of the absolute imbalance that humans have created in our ecosystems that require a balance to function properly otherwise they collapse.
The example that you're looking for is the Permian Extinction that was the result of global warming that took 60,000 +/-48,000 years for that period's ecosystems to collapse whereas we are doing it within a few hundred years, since the Industrial Revolution. We have accelerated population declines, at least 73% since the 1970s, that portend that collapse can happen at any moment all that being necessary is for enough species to enter functional extinction.
Search "population decline" for insects, amphibians, mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, etc. Understand that these declines are NOT due to global warming per se, but to human overpopulation, our extractive economy, pollution, etc. with global warming causing weather pattern changes faster than evolution can accommodate and human development preventing wildlife to move to more favorable locations. So, it isn't the temperature per se but its effects on the weather system via a warming climate.
I hope that that helps a bit. However, most people don't give a shit as polling shows that they are concerned only about the "economy" and how expensive shit is.
Yep. We're in the diminished, uncomfortable one now. People really need to read about the Permian Extinction. However, for me, it isn't about us, it's about our nonhuman victims. They suffer and die for our pleasure and that is the definition of evil, IMO.
They would suffer and die quicker in a nuclear war. I'm a supporter of transitioning off fossil fuels. But a nuclear war would wipe everything we care about away quickly.
And continuing the degradation of every ecosystem that exists, the collapse of wildlife populations, due to our extractive economy, human overpopulation, GHG emissions, etc., is a great way to increase the risk of nuclear war because that degradation forces people to look elsewhere for the resources that they need to survive, including nations choosing to use their military to take what they need and forcing their targets to defend themselves with nuclear weapons if they have them.
I don't see the connection. You solve the nuclear risk by reducing the number of nukes each nation has. This has nothing at all to do with reducing CO2 emissions.
It has everything to do with reducing CO2 emissions. The connection is that conflict increases when resources dwindle. I've stated why, global warming is changing ecosystems, degrading them, faster than life can accommodate thus threatening collapse. When enough species enter functional extinction it's over, civilization will collapse and we won't survive.
It was a great movie, watched before going to bed, thinking about it first thing this morning when I woke up. I agree, also, that the ending was perfect, the only possible way they could have ended it. (I say that about Hitchcock's "The Birds," too. Only possible ending, no matter how unsatisfying some people find it.)
I watched this movie last night, then listened to this podcast right after. You and Tom Nichols had a really fantastic discussion that provided solid context for this movie, which is so important. I thought it was so interesting that the "professional" security folk had a range of human reactions to this incident but still executed their jobs. It seemed that the civilian parts of this -- mainly the SecDef and POTUS seemed far more unmoored here. Also interesting that you can see all of the technology to track, to shoot down, to manage the nuclear decision didn't include a way to keep the civilian part of government in contact with their counterparts quickly and sharply.
This movie gripped me from the very beginning and I haven't gotten it out of my mind yet. Really appreciate being able to hear from Mr. Nichols directly on this great film.
It took me a week to get to this podcast. Excellent discussion. Thank you both.
Excellent discussion. Thank you for this.
Two of my favorite people, Tom Nichols and Sonny Bunch, discussing a provocative film and the treacherous times that it inhabits.
It's an interesting look at how government functions. For people who believe things are always under control it's a shock to find out something didn't work. For people who think government is always incompetent, we see people behave cold and professionally under maximum stress.
What we should take away from this is there are people - just people - who take on the task of doing the best that they can to protect the rest of us. We entrust them with everything and expect them to get it right all the time. We assume they'll get it right and that we have golden dome like protection for any stupid thing we do. We elect someone who wants to be a dictator and we think that we can simply vote him out if he becomes a dictator. The magical system we correct our mistake for us.
thanks for clear 'reality' clarificiation....we all need continual Re-mind-ers that we are NOT as 'In control" of all imagined, assumed, wanted, wished for, etc..... - as animals living in human forms.
we live casually in 'blinded' trust, more so with tech & internet & overblown digital 'access' for other things we daily depend on to claim 'we are safe', 'we are richer', ' we must survive', etc. we dont actually !
keep helping us return to sanity, to whatever we can experience [thru bodies we claim 'we are' vs. 'egos' we dismiss we act "as if" & thru...
all wise, spiritual, 'teachers-gurus-religious clergy ...' can do no more than repeat - accept, adapt," Be Here Now "
and" do no more harm than all we-they are doing already "
but gotta 1st admit we are not in as much Control, have Power, are Aware, or Courageous to act with Caring..as we want to claim...he he
repeat the above msg more often too plse !
Watched House of Dynamite and its rough. Then found Threads at the internet archive Threads, 1984
https://archive.org/details/1984-threads-remastered/1984+-+Threads+(Remastered).mkv
yeah. really rough.
"'Everyone has seen the mushroom clouds; they’re almost iconographic,” said Abigail Solomon-Godeau of the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“But very few people have seen photographs of keloid scarring or people with radiation-related leukemias – what the atomic bomb did to people. The mushroom cloud stands for a visceral view of man, but most people don’t understand the human sacrifice, the human element.”
In 1982, Ms. Solomon-Godeau assembled a more personal, more human view of the bomb’s effects. With the aid of five friends, the freelance critic and curator created “The War Room,” a photo documentary featuring pictures taken by U.S. military and Japanese photographers in Nagasaki and Hiroshima."
https://www.mcall.com/1984/11/02/photographers-artists-search-for-the-human-face-in-the-mushroom-clouds-over-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
In one of my past lives, I exhibited The War Room in Columbus, Ohio.
We don't remember, but images of the bomb and aftermath were heavily controlled and not part of the public discourse.
And what is truly frightening is that Fat Man and Little Boy would be classified as merely small tactical nukes today. The fusion bombs we have now are much, much more powerful!
I'm a few years older than Tom and have spent my entire life within 25 miles of a military installation and for the last 40+ years in San Diego. We were one of four targets on North Korea's map in the last Trump administration, so pretty much nuclear ash in the first strike. In the 50's and 60's the thought was that this would knock us back a few years, but we'd recover with large areas of the country contaminated. A good example of that perspective is the book Alas, Babylon. As Tom has said many times, the nuclear threat has fallen on the list of concerns for Americans, but for some of us over 60 it's never gone completely away. I'll probably watch this, but I need to get emotionally ready for it. I do take issue with Tom's perspective on climate change because it looks like our models underestimate the impact of what we are doing to the planet. Fast or slow the planet will be much less friendly to human life in the future.
1. I thought the ending was brilliant. Any other ending would have made the whole movie meaningless.
2. For me Rebecca Ferguson playing the captain was 100% on target..even more than Tracey Letts..she was 100% professional and cool as a cucumber.. I've seen several people handle situations (non nuclear) and it amazed me how they could coolly and calmly act during extremely serious situations when so much could go wrong with dire consequences.
that assumption that everyone would react w/ emotions, or self-survival-above-all-else or even with-out ego --- or image-self-control -- is not correct.... for everyone.
Some personalities, characters, trained and disciplined people can act as they perceive is 'best' at that moment w/o all the movie-story-lines-dramas people enjoy watching and assuming 'everyone else must be like this too'...
…..& they may be labeled as "reckless”, “stupid”, crazy or destructive-BAD-guys… Later…
by those who didn’t agree with their calm, reasoned actions - that resulted in damage, death, destructions, ‘apocalypse’ et allll
Later - only after - survivalists, critics, commentators, story-tellers, historians... all who LATER can re-view and see a broad & wider whole-r scene of all factors In-volved ... tell different perspectives, of course !
what cannot be known, seen, admitted at the precious un-retrieve-able dangerous moments.
That we so easily Mix up & down what is Real, possible and probable, and what we Imagine, want, assume instead is our dangerous false mind-set...the default... the dangerous ways we protect our own images, egos and defend or blame...then..later
We - animals act similarly w/o our story-line-words-mind-films - act as best they can then see what IS HAPPENING there, then, and later may go away hungrier or mauled or dead [spirits still go somewhere].
Why humans persist in lying to ourselves and anyone who will listen that we can do better and are smarter than un-human-trained-tamed species do may be Wrong! after all.
it is just self-ego-idea-glorificatiion that we enjoy playing games and telling stories to fit what we wish were true. fools that we are ....
I agree. And I liked the way the movie handled the persons and personalities. And the different person dynamics. My own experiences in some situations is that the movie's portrayals were very real.. bit did not overdo it. Perhaps it was even underdone. But I think that made the film focused on the process in the midst of people's day and personal issues.. underpressure in a very tight time window
I didn't sleep the night we watched this movie. This is what happens if the smart people who know what to do are in charge and things don't go well. Just imagine what happens when clowns with flamethrowers are monitoring nuke launches and trying to hit a bullet with a bullet. Gasp!
Voting matters. This is just one of the myriad of reasons why.
I'll stick with "FAIL-SAFE" as the definitive "what the f*ck do we do now" nuclear holocaust movie.
In many ways this film is the reverse of Fail Safe. In that film, it's the US that is responsible for an accidental launch. In this one, we're the victims (although we can't be sure if the launch was accidental or deliberate).
So, given the utter destruction of everything resulting from a nuclear war, you have to wonder, what is the point in having these weapons? Yes, they may deter someone else from attacking us. But they also may cause an attack by someone who fears us doing a first strike.
I've never understood the rationale. I suppose we need a few of them for the North Koreas and Irans. But we could have deterrence with 20 warheads on a couple of submarines.
And for the youngsters, during the Reagan years, it really did look like we were going to have a nuclear war with the Soviets, now known as the Russians.
With Trump saying "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" back in 2016, what do you think is going to happen now that he is absolutely and completely bonkers and the theme is retribution?
I really think we'll be lucky if he doesn't set off a nuke before the end of the year. That'll be one way that will stop talk about the Epstein files.
That’s bleak,
As a person who lives in the city that is the first strike (in the movie) I was both alarmed and non-plussed at the same time.
Growing up we were told that this city would be the first strike. Not joking.
And somehow I was able to internalize this threat and go about my business: 1) Learning to bike with no hands; 2) Mastering Mario Brothers on our gigantic television; 3) Seeing revival films in the local theater; 4) going to camp to see my East Coast friends.
All before the age of eighteen.
Point being- this film is very flawed and yet extremely compelling. Oscar contender for directing and screenplay- calling it now.
I am perhaps a bit older than you are, as when I grew up we had regular drills where we hid under our wooden desks at school (you know, in anticipation of the incoming nuclear missiles). Lewis Black aptly and humorously describes it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnN8nKSzIBU
I do not share your view that the film is very flawed, except possibly to this extent: The film does not disclose that the most likely culprit for launching a rogue nuclear missile is the United States of America.
Oscar contender for sure. Kathryn Bigelow is a great filmmaker.
When I say ‘flawed’ I mean it in the best sense of the word.
It poses a scenario that is plausible, but I would not react the way the main characters react. At least I don’t think so.
Kathryn Bigelow has done a masterful job in the reaction shot. I could go on and on about why she deserves an Oscar for the impossible- bringing out the best of every actor with screen time.
Also,
I am all too familiar with the ‘duck and cover’ because a tornado might hit anytime. We don’t get tornadoes here. So- what was the point of that?
Kathryn Bigelow is not prolific, but when she turns a lens, with the heavy lift of writers, she changes minds.
Maybe the scariest part of the movie is that the president is played by Idris Elba and things still go to shit. If hottie President Elba can't handle the pressure, how the fuck can the senile sociopath slob currently squatting in (whatever remains) of the WH?
First, thanks for alerting me to this movie, it's now on my watch list.
Second, Tom can worry about nuclear war but AGW is also an imminent threat as it is accelerating wildlife population declines that humans have been driving faster than the declines seen in the runup of the Permian Extinction event. That took 60,000 +/-48,000 years while ours is taking a couple hundred years. In fact, if enough foundational species enter functional extinction, we could enter the runaway extinction event that would collapse civilization that will end us in the very near future. For the scale of this threat, consider the following:
- Human biomass is estimated at 0.06 GtC, that of our livestock at 0.1 GtC while that of all wild mammals at 0.007 GtC
- 5% of the world's population uses 25% of earth's production. For all to live at our SoL, we'd need either 5 earths or increase earth's production 5X, both are impossible.
In fact, if we don't reduce the human load while replacing this extractive economy with a sustainable one then your fear of a nuclear war is also increased as we fight for the ever decreasing resources. Global warming is NOT about a few degrees increase, it's about changing ecosystems faster than evolution can accommodate and human activities preventing wildlife from migrating to livable regions.
Your use of fractions of GtC reminded me of an overheard phone conversation. The guy behind the counter at the oil change place was lamenting that we were supposed to get up in arms about CO2, which makes up only 0.04% of the atmosphere. He further said that we were expected to change our way of life because that number is up by a factor of 2 from a century ago. I checked his numbers from climate science-oriented websites and they were about right.
Thinking that maybe I could provide some context if I got the chance, I spent a few minutes looking for how much CO2 would have to be present to be toxic, estimating that 4% would probably be deadly, and even 1% would be a bad time. Yet we seem to be well outside the range of greenhouse gases literally making us sick.
Ultimately the moment passed, and I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, as I was in fact getting my oil changed, and therefore part of the problem.
I have to admit that knowing or quoting numbers, even to a person who understands practical math (like me or the oil change tech), doesn’t motivate a change in behavior. It’s unfair to ask this of you, Jeff, but have you found an example of a tangible effect of climate change that has happened and has motivated you or people around you to change behavior?
The point is that GtC was the best way to equate humans, humans' livestock and every wild mammal as a quantity. It wouldn't make sense to count every mouse, shrew, etc. Therefore, you can use these numbers to conceive of the absolute imbalance that humans have created in our ecosystems that require a balance to function properly otherwise they collapse.
The example that you're looking for is the Permian Extinction that was the result of global warming that took 60,000 +/-48,000 years for that period's ecosystems to collapse whereas we are doing it within a few hundred years, since the Industrial Revolution. We have accelerated population declines, at least 73% since the 1970s, that portend that collapse can happen at any moment all that being necessary is for enough species to enter functional extinction.
Search "population decline" for insects, amphibians, mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, etc. Understand that these declines are NOT due to global warming per se, but to human overpopulation, our extractive economy, pollution, etc. with global warming causing weather pattern changes faster than evolution can accommodate and human development preventing wildlife to move to more favorable locations. So, it isn't the temperature per se but its effects on the weather system via a warming climate.
I hope that that helps a bit. However, most people don't give a shit as polling shows that they are concerned only about the "economy" and how expensive shit is.
The difference is between a diminished, uncomfortable world, and an uninhabitable one.
Yep. We're in the diminished, uncomfortable one now. People really need to read about the Permian Extinction. However, for me, it isn't about us, it's about our nonhuman victims. They suffer and die for our pleasure and that is the definition of evil, IMO.
They would suffer and die quicker in a nuclear war. I'm a supporter of transitioning off fossil fuels. But a nuclear war would wipe everything we care about away quickly.
And continuing the degradation of every ecosystem that exists, the collapse of wildlife populations, due to our extractive economy, human overpopulation, GHG emissions, etc., is a great way to increase the risk of nuclear war because that degradation forces people to look elsewhere for the resources that they need to survive, including nations choosing to use their military to take what they need and forcing their targets to defend themselves with nuclear weapons if they have them.
We are the problem.
I don't see the connection. You solve the nuclear risk by reducing the number of nukes each nation has. This has nothing at all to do with reducing CO2 emissions.
It has everything to do with reducing CO2 emissions. The connection is that conflict increases when resources dwindle. I've stated why, global warming is changing ecosystems, degrading them, faster than life can accommodate thus threatening collapse. When enough species enter functional extinction it's over, civilization will collapse and we won't survive.