Rearranging the Earth and Us

I STRONGLY OPPOSE Trunp's attack on Iran, and I hope and assume I would oppose it if a Democratic president had launched it. As usual, I see no problems which could'nt be solved by thought, communication, and agreement. The problem, the complaint the United States has with Iran, under Trump or any other president, is the idea of Iran having atomic bombs,and the ability to deliver to and drop them on distant targets. The real problem, of course, is far larger. The real problem is the fact that not only does Iran have nuclear weapons capabilities, but so do many other countries nine at least, and probably more. My problem is the same one I've had since I was a little kid, back in the 1960s. Namely, a gnawing fear of the prospect, the reality, of nuclear weapons in the hands of irrational, emotional, inherently volatile human beings. Atomic weapons should by nwo have long since been mutually legislated out of existence, by international, global agreement. The answer is simple. like my office mate in graduate school said: "just get rid of the weapons." A class of weapons so terrible, so deadly, that they must never, ever be used. That is what we are confronted with, by our own doing. How long can we continue to live like this, with the ability to destroy ourselves and all life on Earth, arranged as we are into powerful, adversarial nation-states? The doomsday clock has recently been, and still may be, closer to striking midnight than ever before. Midnight, of course, is nuclear war. Most amazing of all is that, considering how long humans have had atomic weapons, nearly a century, and the sheer number of countries, at least nine, which veriably possess a nuclear arsenal, including highly adversarial countries like India and Pakistan,that here has been no further nuclear warfare on Earth since Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. Thosse bombings still serve as excellent reminders of the nightmarish nature of nuclear warfare. The world has already been irrecoverably polluted with nuceal waste. Our bodies contain radioactive atoms. The human species has perched itself,as itwere,upon an existential precipace. We humans can destroy ourselves,andall live on Earth, in a wide variety of ways. Atomic warfera is only one possibility for self destrucion and extinction. We are the guardians of the Anthropocene, the age of human domination of planet Earth. We are, for better or worse, the caretakers of Earth's ecosystem. Nobody gave us this honor; we assumed it, perhaps unwisely. This is only a very recent, accidental, happenstance phase of the life of this planet.The current indications for the prospects of our long term survival on this planet are not good. Quite the opposite, in fact. We humans appear headed for self extinctions, and towards taking all other life on Earth into oblivion with us. You begin to wonder how many lifeforms on other planets across the universe have evolved, become fearful,mean, and aggressive, and ended up destroying theselves, becoming extinct. More than a few, one might surmise. Perhaps the universe is better off without them them. Maybe the ultimate purpose of life is the self awareness of the universe. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself, said Carl Sagan. Like Goethe said "If thine own value thou wouldst relish, the world with worth thou must embellish." I like to think that my life matters, means something. That's why I like to think that the human species has a long, amazing future in this universe, and is more than a passing, failed experiment of nature. I'll do what I can to help.