Noah, Elaine and How Everything Could End E-Book

Pascal Farin

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 150

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The concept of mutually assured destruction, or M.A.D. in short, only scratches the outermost surface of the considerations that must be made concerning nuclear weapons and their use. M.A.D only creates an apparent security: Accidents or miscommunications can always lead to the use of nuclear weapons, even if nobody actually has the attention to start a nuclear war. This is an important reason for having to move beyond M.A.D. in order to protect the earth and its inhabitants from nuclear weapons. A second reason to reject nuclear weapons is of a more spiritual nature: Should there be any means by which one individual species - and only few individuals from it - can cause the extinction of almost all life on the earth's surface, while all other living beings are at the mercy of this? To discuss these topics, gruesome stories of war and destruction are not necessary at all. Quite the contrary: We will follow excerpts from the lives of two young friends, Noah and Elaine - only ten years old at the beginning of their friendship - who experience adventures together while being confronted with similar topics as those relevant for the discussions concerning nuclear weapons. As children tend to love doing, they ask deep and fundamental questions about life along the way. Because of the very serious background of the stories, a short, explanatory introduction is given in italic when appropriate.

Leseprobe

Noah, Elaine, and How Everything Could End

Noah, Elaine, and How Everything Could End

From where I stand   I see a blind man on a hill From where I stand I see the teacher in the valley From where I stand I see the blind man on a hill and he is standing very still

Ian Gillan, Mutually Assured Destruction, 1981

Impressum

© Dr. rer. nat. Pascal Farin ([email protected]) Illustrations: Barbara Farin Herstellung: epubli - ein Service der neopubli GmbH Köpenicker Straße 154a, 10997 Berlin Kontaktadresse nach EU-Produktsicherheitsverordnung [email protected]

Foreword

Since the year 1945 all of us live in a world, in which it is possible to wipe out entire cities by means of a single bomb dropped from a single plane. In the year 1952 the capacity of nuclear weapons to destroy increased markedly, when the first hydrogen bombs were developed. Only a few decades later, the amount of nuclear bombs became sufficient to kill or condemn to death almost every inhabitant of the surface of the earth within less then an hour, as the flight time of intercontinental missiles is measured in mere minutes (Air Power Development Centre 2018). Many of you will be aware of the following argument: Country A owns nuclear weapons as does country B. Both know that every usage of them means their end. Therefore, nobody uses the weapons. This principle is known as mutually assured destruction, or M.A.D. in short. Many people, including world leaders, believe that the world became a safer place due to this concept. Some may lean towards welcoming nuclear weapons in their existence, even celebrating them as a solution to various societal problems as well as international conflicts. According to the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who, among other things, studied the doctors of the death camps in Nazi Germany, cults, and the Hibakusha (survivors of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki), this mindset can be called (extreme) nuclearism (Lifton and Falk 1982; Lifton 2017). It is this nuclearism, that in some shape or form seems to pervade every public discussion about the topic of nuclear weapons. However, everything nuclear weapons can do is destroy (Lifton 2017). It is remarkable that often, when one tries to move beyond the topic of mutually assured destruction in a discussion about nuclear weapons, one is faced with the counter argument that, for better or worse, nuclear weapons do exist and, because the technology will definitely not disappear, even less so than the bombs themselves, someone will always produce them. The fact that there are actually very many devices that could be produced in principal but are not, is completely ignored in those discussions. Additionally, the production of nuclear weapons is quite a complex undertaking. This results in a significant threshold to start the production again, once the infrastructure has been disassembled. Finally, especially one aspect of this reasoning stands out: Every type of this argument includes the unquestioning acceptance of the existence of nuclear weapons. Those, who have not fallen for nuclearism may not like their existence, those that have feel a false sense of security, but everyone making this argument accepts that the weapons exist and will continue to exist. While M.A.D. does in fact play a pivotal role in international conflicts, this concept only scratches the outermost surface of the considerations that must be made concerning nuclear weapons and their use. In fact, nuclear weapons are used all the time - in the same sense as a gun that, without actually being fired, is quite sufficient to bend the will of other people (Ellsberg 2017e). Furthermore, history has shown, that even if leaders of two nuclear powers do not actually want to use a nuclear weapon in war, situations in which precisely that could happen, can in fact arise (Ellsberg 2017c). This is an important reason to reject nuclearism and to not take the continued existence of the weapons as a given. The Cuban missile crisis (Ellsberg 2017d) is just one particularly impressive example of this phenomenon. At the height of the crisis, towards the end of October 1962, four Soviet submarines armed with nuclear torpedoes, only three of which were discovered by the Americans at all, found themselves close to the coast of Cuba. Nobody on the American side knew about their nuclear capability. According to the chief of the special signals intelligence detachment on one of the submarines, Vadim Orlov, air temperatures on board of the submarine reached 45 degrees Celsius at the torpedoes, 50 degrees Celsius in the other compartments, and 60 degrees Celsius in the engine room. Additionally, the carbon dioxide levels of the air were so high that, in combination with the high air temperatures, they caused some members of the crew to lose consciousness (Ellsberg 2017d). Under such conditions, human cognitive ability and especially the capacity to think strategically are severely hampered (Taylor et al. 2016; Karnauskas et al. 2020). The reason for the extreme conditions was that the Foxtrot submarine, actually constructed for cold waters, had dived to deep. This was a response to the attacks of an American destroyer, that were supposed to force the Soviet submarine to surface. Additionally, there was no radio contact to the outside world. For this reason, the Soviet crew was unable to assess, whether the attacks were in fact just a maneuver to force them to surface. The attacks may also have signalled the beginning of a larger war, that would have warranted the use of a nuclear torpedo. Two of the officers on board, Ivan Maslennikov and Valentin Savitsky had already decided in favour of firing a nuclear torpedo under these extreme conditions. By pure chance, however, the head of the brigade Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov was on board with the crew. His vote was necessary in this case, but he voted against using the weapon for the reason that there was no official authorisation from Moscow. In this way, he prevented the use of a nuclear torpedo and thus the probable large scale nuclear war that would have ensued (Savranskaya 2005). It is likely that every person alive today owes their life to this man and other people in similar situations (Ellsberg 2017d). This is just one, famous example out of a long list of incidents, false alarms, and accidents (Atomwaffen A-Z 2023), by way of which the usage of a nuclear bomb or even a first strike might have occurred unintentionally. A second reason to reject nuclearism is of a more spiritual nature: Should there be any means by which one individual species - and only few individuals from it - can cause the extinction of almost all life on the earth’s surface, while all other living beings are at the mercy of this? It is the aim of this book, to discuss these topics. For it to succeed, gruesome stories about war and destruction are not necessary at all. Quite the contrary: We will follow excerpts from the lifes of two young friends, Noah and Elaine - only ten years old at the beginning of their friendship - who experience adventures together, while being confronted with similar topics as those relevant for the discussions concerning nuclear weapons. As children tend to love doing, they ask deep and fundamental questions about life along the way. Of course, all chapters have a very serious background indeed, which is related to the fact that all life on earth lives under the sword of Damocles that is total nuclear destruction. For this reason, before every chapter which represents considerations relevant for nuclear weapons, a short, explanatory introduction is given in italic. It establishes the relationship of the story to nuclear weapons and related problems that Noah and Elaine experience in their way in the respective following chapter. Only at the end of the book, Noah and Elaine learn which destruction can be wrought by nuclear weapons. Dear parents, should you tell your children about Noah and Elaine, you will do well to keep those introductions to yourselves.

The names of the characters

How does one come up with proper names for characters? Oftentimes, this is no easy task. For a book concerning such a topic, however, there is a simple way forward:

Noah Berg – Noam Chomsky / Daniel Ellsberg

Noam Chomsky is a Professor of linguistics, activist and author of more than 100 books as well as the most quoted live person in the world, at least from 1980 to 1992 (MIT 1992). His achievements, academic as well as political, are too enormous to do them justice in such a short introduction. Noam Chomsky has spent almost his entire life fighting for social justice and peace.

Elaine Alice Sky – Daniel Ellsberg / Noam Chomsky

Daniel Ellsberg, former analyst at the RAND Corporation and later activist, published the Pentagon Papers (Ellsberg 2003) over 50 years ago in order to show the American Public the horror of the Vietnam war to try and shorten it. For this, he risked a prison sentence of 115 years but, ultimately, was not convicted. Years later, he published the book The Doomsday Machine – Confessions of a nuclear war planner(Ellsberg 2017i). Herein, Daniel Ellsberg explains many topics in great detail that this book, which takes great inspiration from Ellsberg’s work, is concerned with. His information originates from an equally large treasure of secret documents as the Pentagon Papers which, however, were unfortunately lost long ago.

Edwald Berg – Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden was an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) of the USA and saw to the exposure of the gigantic spying program by the NSA to the world’s public by publishing secret documents. He lives in Russian exile to avoid a year long prison sentence that would await him in the USA.

Chelsea Berg – Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Manning published the Iraq and Afghan War logs on the platform Wikileaks. Among them, the video Collateral murder (Manning 2010) can be found, which brings light to the atrocities of the wars of the USA in the middle east. Chelsea Manning has already spent many years in jail, significant parts of which were spent in solitary confinement.

Julia Sky – Julian Assange

Julian Assange is the founder of the platform Wikileaks, via which it is possible for whistleblowers from all over the world to publish documents anonymously. Julian Assange was incarcerated in Belmarsh Prison in London in 2019 after having spent 7 years in de facto house arrest in the Ecuadorian embassy in the same city. In this prison, between serial killers and other violent criminals, supported by his family and activists from all over the world, he fought for his health, his freedom, and the freedom of global journalism for five years. In 2024, he finally came free and now lives in his home country of Australia with his wife and two children.

Randall Sky – Randy Kehler

US citizen Randy Kehler resisted the draft in 1969 to protest against the Vietnam war, preferring a 22 months prison sentence for his actions to going to war. In turn, this courageous decision played a major role in helping Daniel Ellsberg find the courage to publish the Pentagon Papers and expose himself to the possibility of receiving a life long prison sentence (The Ellsberg Archive Project 2023-06).

Carl - Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was the Director of Cornell University’s Laboratory for Planetary Studies as well as the moderator and writer of the award-winning television series Cosmos. Furthermore, he wrote a multitude of popular science books. Among other things, Carl Sagan was engaged in the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and developed the golden data plate on board the space probe Voyager I. The idea to turn around Voyager I once more to take a picture of earth approximately from Pluto’s vantage point also originates from him. The resulting image, pale blue dot(Sagan and Druyan 1994), achieved recognition all over the world.

Ernst - Ernst Mayr

Ernst Mayr was a highly decorated Professor of Zoology at Harvard University from 1953 to 1975. He made a significant contribution to unify the theory of Darwinian evolution with genetics (Mayr 1942). In this book, he is remembered because of his debate with Carl Sagan concerning the probability of intelligent life in the universe (Mayr 1995; Sagan 1995; Johnson 2014-08).

Amy, Nermeen, Juan - Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh, Juan Gonzalez

Amy Goodman, Nermeen Sheikh and Juan Gonzalez are independent journalists, who, among other things, moderate the news show Democracy Now!, that has been striving to give a voice to social justice movements, marginalized groups and other related topics that are hardly discussed in mass corporate media for the past 25 years.

Chapter 1

A new day

It was a beautiful early morning there in the rural suburb of the large city, where every human and everything else in the world that mattered seemed to be. The sky partly shone in a pale blue colour already while the celestial fires were still visible. Birds were chirping and flies were buzzing in the first truly warm rays of sunshine that reached the earth after an actually rather mild but still cold and especially damp February and March. Today, the first flowers even began to open their buds and the smell of spring hung in the air. Occasionally, a soft splashing could be heard from the neighbours’ pond as some frogs were jumping around, hunting for insects. A soft rustling sometimes moving through the large willow tree next to the pond indicated a light breeze.

All this magic of life, however, was completely lost on Noah at the moment. No need to worry, he was doing well, but he and his parents had been home late yesterday. As the sun rose in the sky, Noah therefore did exactly what could be expected from a twelve year old boy on a Saturday morning. He slept - tightly wrapped in his blanket. A small part of his consciousness, however, slowly sidled back into his body. The smell of freshly baked bread seemed to enter his dreams from somewhere far away. When he opened his eyes for the first time, he was delighted to discover that this faraway place was in fact the kitchen and it was the soft voice of his mother, that made the first noise of the day loud enough to wake him. "Noah! Open your eyes my darling, you don’t want to miss this!"

Chapter 2

This chapter is mainly concerned with getting to know Noah and Elaine and emphasize their relationship to nature. Only Noah’s fear at the end of the chapter shows, that all of our mental world can never quite be at peace as long as everything we love is threatened by total annihilation.

Noah and Elaine

Noah Berg was one of those humans whose memories, plans, and ideas were not immediately present upon waking up. Rather, this was a process that took a moment. All the memories, plans, and ideas only returned slowly or came crashing down upon him - depending on whether they were happy or less pleasant thoughts. Today Noah was happy. There was breakfast, his mother Chelsea had baked fresh bread, his father Edwald had surely set the table right after getting up and soon he would spend time with Elaine. Elaine Sky. For two years they had known each other now and had always played together in their free time, as their parents said. Discover the world, understand nature and experience adventures - Now that was a much better description of what their trips to the forest, the climbing of trees, or the walks to the nearby farm felt like. The best part to both of them was, that they never needed to make plans as the next fascinating observation and the next experiment always arose all by themselves. Noah enjoyed remembering how their friendship had begun a lot and dreamed of the past for a while as he lay half-awake. Elaine was, when they first met, in the class 4a, and Noah in the class 4b, but in that particular year, something special occurred: A joint gardening project of the classes a and b under the supervision of the respective class teachers - the maths teacher Mrs. Gardener of the 4a and the biology teacher, Mr. Angle of the 4b.