Which Will Likely Happen First: Nuclear War or Global Climate Collapse?

[MrWowWow]

Last edited Fri Sep 5, 2025, 09:13 PM - Edit history (2)

Nuclear War Risk

The world has about 12,000 nuclear warheads, with the U.S. and Russia holding over 90%.

Rising tensions among the U.S., China, Russia, and regional nuclear states (India–Pakistan, North Korea) mean the risk of escalation is higher now than at almost any point since the Cold War.

Nuclear use could be deliberate or accidental: early-warning errors, cyber interference, or misinterpreted military moves could trigger it suddenly, with little warning.
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"There will be no veterans of World War III."

-Walter F. Mondale

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

-Albert Einstein
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Climate Collapse Risk

Climate-driven disruption is slower, cumulative, and already visible — extreme heat, polar ice loss, sea-level rise, destabilized agriculture.

Most climate scientists warn of irreversible tipping points later this century if emissions continue, but it’s not instantaneous like a nuclear exchange.

Some argue the stresses of climate breakdown (mass migration, food insecurity, collapsed states) could themselves increase the chance of conflict, including nuclear confrontation.
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The Comparison

Nuclear war = acute, catastrophic, could unfold in hours.

Global Climate collapse = chronic, devastating, unfolds over decades, but not literally overnight.

So in sequence: the World could face nuclear catastrophe first — and if it avoids that, the worsening climate trajectory remains.

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https://www.youtube.com/live/-aH6rGs-_Q4
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[BaronChocula]

1. To distract from the Epstein Files?

It has to be nukes.

[LudwigPastorius]

3. I bet 500 Quatloos on Artificial Superintelligence apocalypse.

Exactly how it would unfold is unknowable (hence the nickname “singularity”), but none of the major players in AI are taking security and the alignment problem seriously enough to prevent the mass destabilization of global human civilization.

[Irish_Dem]

4. Knowing humans, they will choose to do both at the same time.

The human capacity for self destruction knows no bounds.

[whopis01]

5. Climate collapse

The nuclear war will follow that as societies get more and more desperate as crops fail and the food supply dwindles.

[republianmushroom]

7. Yup

[2na fisherman]

6. The End is Near

I admit to being a "doomnik" since I was raised, like many others, to expect doomsday as a Baby Boomer who heard Civil Defense air raid sirens tested regularly as a child and "duck and cover" was naively practiced as if one could survive such an attack. My grandfather even began building a bomb shelter (never finished) in the canyon behind his home during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I have viewed numerous theatrical and literary doomsday scenarios with an almost fanatical interest all my life. My favorite dramatic version of it is The Road. I also regularly view The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists articles and their Doomsday Clock keeps a steady climb closer to midnight. There are also many other scientific and scholarly writings on the subject which get my attention. And my favorite title of such a work is, Thinking About The Unthinkable by Herman Kahn. I have even written my own doomsday yarn in an e-book called, Terminal Boredom: A New Dadapocalyptic Panic Story. Well this unthinkable future is very much a growing part of all our lives even if we choose to consciously avoid such thoughts as too disturbing. But subconsciously it is still a major reason for this Age of Anxiety we live in. And now the confluence of geo-political conflict, ecological decline, runaway AI technology or man-made pathogens draws us closer to the abyss. So there's not just one doomsday scenario to be alarmed about. While it does seem as though we are on course for some extinction level event(s), there might be a way to avoid it if we humans can find a way to literally change our minds away from our primitive DNA wiring. We ought to seek to redesign our bellicose genetic heritage based on brute survival of the fittest to rapidly self-evolve to a unified race based on altruism and cooperation. I'm aware that this seems too fanciful or optimistic but humans appear to be at the crossroad between utopia or oblivion. And unless we change fast, it will be the latter.