Case Study

Case Study

The threat of nuclear war puts enough stress on people that an accidental nuclear war could be the result. With more and more of the superpowers defences being controlled by complex computers, the chance of a malfunction increases as well. Add this to normal human error and governmental mistakes and you have a recipe for disaster. For this paper I will be describing examples and systems of the United States, as Canada has no nuclear weapons, and the USA's information is more readily available than the other nuclear equipped countries. Accidental nuclear war' is a term for a very broad subject, with hard to define boundaries (Spillane 2004).

The only possible solution to the threat of nuclear weapons in the world is total elimination. Recently, the government has claimed that this solution will take several years, if possible at all. However, government officials have not supported their claim with any evidence. The government knows that it is technologically possible to eliminate the functionality of all the world's nuclear weapons in a few days. The process is simple. Given the official approval and access, teams of technicians from each nation possessing nuclear weapons could cut all the triggering and detonations wires and disassemble major nuclear weapon components from every other nation. This process can be accomplished in hours or days at the most.

The second issue that this planet is facing is Fossil fuel emissions. To address this issue there should be stablish some Centre for Carbon Dioxide Capture. The test centre should work on finding solutions and developing technologies to help reduce dangerous carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, especially those produced by the energy sector. The extraction and processing methods for both heavy oil and tar sand are very energy intensive—and potentially damaging to the environment. Conventional approaches—such as energy efficiency programs, and alternative fuel sources—can only provide a temporary reprieve. The test centre should work to find permanent, long-term, non-conventional solutions that are kind to the environment, but also allow the fossil fuel industry to remain viable in a world already under severe constraints due to green house gas emissions (Hersey 2008).

Environmental Degradation is the third issue. he environmental crisis affects everyone on the planet, but the degree to which the inhabitants of different parts of the world contribute to this crisis depends on the level of their economic development and their consumption patterns. As much as 70% of the world's consumption of fossil fuel and 85% of chemical products is attributable to 25% of the world's population. Water consumption is also unevenly distributed. The per caput water consumption in the United States is about 2 300 m³ per annum, as compared to 1 500 m³ for the Canadians and 225 m³ for the British. The average per caput consumption of water in developing countries ranges between 20 to 40 m³. The consumption patterns for forest products and many other commodities have the same direct inverse proportion to the size of population of the top 20% of the richest ...