Am I Going Crazy -or- Should We Be Worried?
A couple weeks ago I stumbled on a video on TED.com (bottom of post) about how unprepared Americans are for a nuclear terrorist attack. I know, I know, what a crappy topic for a cheerful first day of December but then I happened on this article on MSNBC’s website this morning that states that:
“The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.”
This is a major shift in our government’s policy on civil defense. In fact since the end of the cold war most of us have completely forgotten about the possibility of a nuclear threat. It sounds like the threat still exists but it’s changed from world-wide mass destruction to the possibility of small isolated nuclear attacks on specific high profile targets.
The good news is that a small nuclear explosion is survivable for many people if they have taken a few simple steps ahead of time. The bad news of course is that any nuclear attack on any part of the world would change the world forever and make monitoring for radiation and nuclear fallout a part of life. While that would suck to no end, most of us would still be able to live relatively normal lives.
In other words… the cold war global nuclear war was most likely not survivable, but today’s current threat is very survivable.
I’m I loosing it? I’m not sure but I do know that disasters happen and knowing what to do in case of an earthquake, flood, fire, storm, power outage, or even nuclear attack seems like a little time well spent. It’s like really cheap insurance.
Here is the news story on MSNBC.com. Below is the video on TED.com.
