We Have Become Oppenheimer

The Overlook

By Tom Clavin

“The Overlook” appears every Wednesday at tomclavin.substack.com. An overlook is usually a place from which one can see in many if not all directions, including where one has been and where one is going. If you enjoy the column, please "like" it and let me know what you think by commenting (check out previous ones while you're at it). All support is appreciated. Don't forget to hit the ‘Subscribe’ button – it’s free!

            To me, it was quite the metaphor last week that firefighters on Maui were trying to battle the blazes before they went out of control when their hoses went dry from a combination of drought and an inadequately maintained infrastructure. That is where we are in general – more fire, less water (except for rising seas), and unprepared for the increasing stress that heat and drought will put on our power grid and other public systems.

          Before continuing, full disclosure: Some readers might be aware that every month or so I write a column that appears in the editions of the Express News Group. The following is a revised and updated version of the most recent one.

            I have not yet seen the film Oppenheimer, but I am familiar with the story from the excellent biography it is based on (which has found new life on bestseller lists) and a pretty clear memory of the seven-part Oppenheimer miniseries – curiously overlooked in the new movie’s reviews – produced by the BBC and broadcast in America in 1982 starring Sam Waterston as the title character. In the television series as in the feature film, a climactic moment is when the atomic bomb is successfully tested and Robert Oppenheimer intones, taken from Hindu scripture, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

          Probably prompted by the searing heat much of the planet has been enduring this summer, I have been thinking about that pivotal moment in world history. The event Oppenheimer helped to produce and observed in the summer of 1945 introduced to the world the possibility that it could destroy itself. This became even more evident in the ensuing years when an array of atomic and hydrogen bombs were created and deployed. The scenario of nuclear missiles raining down on and roasting the planet is only a button away from becoming reality.

          I am certainly not trivializing that button. It represents the efforts over many years by many men and women to preserve life on Earth. The human race has, so far, despite sharp economic and political differences and some serious armed conflicts, managed to do what had to be done to save itself from annihilation. If we fail, the only good news is that the end would be quick. In the book (and subsequent movie) On the Beach, starring Gregory Peck and (improbably) Fred Astaire, there has been a nuclear war but the radiation-filled clouds have not yet swallowed up Australia, giving some people time to say goodbye. Now, we’d have minutes.

But we have done the best we could to prevent that. Now the equivalent of a nuclear threat we face is relentless heat. The periods of high temperatures are lasting longer and inching beyond human tolerance. In the media, reports of withering international heat waves have become more prevalent. I want to quote from a Heather Cox Richardson column that ran on Substack two weeks ago:

“Another study warns that the Atlantic currents that transport warm water from the tropics north are in danger of collapsing as early as 2025 and as late as 2095, with a central estimate of 2050. As Arctic ice melts, the cold water that sinks and pulls the current northward is warming, slowing the mechanism that moves the currents. The collapse of that system would disrupt rain patterns in India, South America, and West Africa, endangering the food supplies for billions of people. It would also raise sea levels on the North American east coast. [Last week] the ocean water off the tip of Florida reached temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the Coral Restoration Foundation, the hot water has created “a severe and urgent crisis,” with mortality up to 100%. The Mediterranean Sea also hit a record high, reaching 83.1 degrees.”

Nature has become Death, the destroyer of our world. Not by vindictiveness or whim, however. Collectively, humans have become a version of Robert Oppenheimer in that we have created a weaponized environment. The near-obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs convinced a lot of people very quickly that we must rein in the danger as best we could. Though not necessarily comforting, it has been impressive that since the 1940s nuclear nations have cooperated just enough to avoid Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a global scale.

That has not been the case -- obviously, to a sufficient extent – with climate change. We choose self-interest over cooperation, ignoring that there can be no greater self-interest than a habitable planet. The divisions in American politics offer a microcosm of self-destructive behavior. Again, from Richardson (who, yes, does skew left):

“Former vice president Mike Pence, running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, today unveiled his economic proposal. It calls for eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Biden administration’s incentives designed to address climate change. In that, he is in line with Republican lawmakers. At least four of the bills released so far by the House Appropriations Committee for 2024 include cutting funding to address climate change that Congress appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act. Project 2025. [One bill] says that ‘the Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding,’ and calls for more use of fossil fuels.”

Am I the only one who has stopped reading the international news pages of The New York Times? I’m not blaming The Times, it is just the messenger, but it is page after page of bad news and, increasingly, once past the war in Ukraine, the majority of the coverage is about the deteriorating global environment. But then I wonder if I’m becoming even more of a curmudgeon or a Chicken Little and reading about blistering heat waves killing hundreds here and hundreds there affects me more – not just because (also improbably) I might be a decent human being but I am a grandfather now. Vivienne will be 20 months old at the end of this month. Doing the math, 2050, when life for half (or more) of the planet’s population might be unsustainable, is only 27 years from now and Vivienne will still be under 30. With luck (and her mother having inherited some of Grandad’s royalties), she will not be in one of the more vulnerable categories. One of those categories will consist of the billions of people who have limited or no access to water and certainly not to air-conditioning to avoid heat stroke, heat exhaustion, dehydration, and malnutrition.

Speaking of air-conditioning, I did allow myself to read a Times story three weeks ago that reported on China ramping up coal mining and the construction of coal-fired plants. Why? So it could better support its power grid which is strained thanks to more air-conditioning demand. Meanwhile, China emits more destructive coal emissions than the U.S. and the next two countries combined. You can see what a destructive cycle this is.

I’d like to think many ostrich-like world leaders will have felt enough heat this summer that John Kerry becomes more than a voice in the wilderness and there is a new and more serious summit on addressing climate change with updated information on renewable energies and what A.I. could bring to the table. Otherwise, like Oppenheimer, we will be haunted by the knowledge that our ultimate legacy – if anyone is left to reflect upon it -- will be that of destroyer.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including Follow Me to Hell, published in April by St. Martin’s Press. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.