Controlling the technology

Dana L. Stern Sr., Country Canyon, Calif.

Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014 | 2 a.m.

The milestone that mankind needs to reach for is quite simple and can be summed up with the phrase, “Mankind’s humanity needs to surpass our technology.” We have the technology to blow ourselves up. We need to move beyond that and at the same time we need to stop destroying the environment.

So the real limiting factors are (1) the environment and (2) terrorism and war. Attaining a greater sense of humanity will be worthless if the planet we live on is dying. We cannot ignore the fact that the environment needs to be protected and preserved.

We need a moratorium on burning coal for power. The oceans continue to be polluted at an ever-increasing rate. At the same time we can’t perpetrate or allow terrorism and acts of war globally.

I believe that nuclear power is not the way to produce energy. If anything, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima have taught us is how dangerous nuclear power can be. The long-term damage from Fukushima is yet to be determined, Chernobyl’s core continues to burn under a concrete cap and it is projected that the core will continue to burn until it reaches the Earth’s mantle.

Nuclear power plants can also be used to enrich uranium for warheads. A nuclear warhead detonation in the atmosphere is deadly to everything in line of sight to the blast.

Terrorists and some countries believe that they can use nuclear weapons while the United States of America believes in swift retaliation. One scenario is that if Israel were attacked by Iran, Israel would launch missiles with nuclear warheads and burn Iran to a cinder. However, within 20 minutes of the first detonation, allies of those countries would also launch their missiles.

There’s no way to know how quickly the ensuing escalation will make the entire Middle East a place where life cannot exist, much less the rest of the world.