Re: [Phys-l] H. Sapiens

["Richard Tarara" <rbtarara@sprynet.com>]

Nuclear winter requires a reasonably large exchange of weapons.  At least 
for now, we seem to be moving well away from that possibility but with an 
increasing probability of one or two weapons (Iran against Israel followed 
by a reprisal--or a suitcase bomb followed by ??).  Nobody much worries 
about 'nuclear winter' any more.

And yes, recent floods are imperceptible blips.  As I stated 
earlier--300-400,000 deaths (Indian Ocean Tsunami) accounted fora loss of 
about 0.5% of the yearly INCREASE in population--for that year only.  One 
percent of humans now numbers close to 70 MILLION.  This same kind of 
numeracy impacts other 'favorite' topics--like thinking about those 'nasty 
old top 1% of wealth owners in the U.S.'  Think about just how many people 
that actually represents!  By the time you take in the top 5% you are 
talking about maybe 10 Million people (discounting children here).  Whether 
or not there are many more at the other end of the spectrum--10 million 
people are an awful lot to tick off, whether Democrat, Republican, Liberal, 
or Conservative--and they have power.  The point here is that as physicists, 
we should be better able to understand large numbers and the difference 
between numbers and percentages.  We need to bring those understandings to 
our discussions of science related social issues and try and help others to 
understand as well.

Rick

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Bernard Cleyet" <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 5:33 PM
To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] H. Sapiens

> Nuclear winter?
>
> bc
>
>
>
> On 2010, Sep 22, , at 10:55, Dr. Richard Tarara wrote:
>
> > while we will never forget how to make nuclear
> > weapons no matter how deep nuclear disarmament might go, it remains 
> > unlikely
> > that any of these factors will make truly significant dents in the
> > population (taking > 10% as significant ;-).
>
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