Subs that collide in the night
We thought the collision of two satellites in outer space last week unlikely enough. Now we have the absurd spectacle of two submarines, one British, one French, so completely in their “Secret Squirreledness” that they’ve actually collided with each other.
So secret, indeed, was the collision that we’ve only heard about it nearly two weeks after the event. Each was nuclear powered and, more to the point, each was nuclear armed. Jolly funny.
Not so fast. There was, of course, no loss of life – but there well could have been. And it throws into sharp relief what Mr Obama has been telling us, that the availability and quantity of nuclear arms around the world remains a dangerous threat.
I’m writing this on the heels of a briefing on climate change from quasi-governmental sources which, frankly, scares me rigid. It would seem the world has very little time in which to gather round and execute a global endeavour to reverse what we are doing.
What is extraordinary is that the capacity to do so is hugely enhanced by the current breakdown in the old economic order. Yet is not the mindset here that we’ll get through it and then everything will be just the same as it ever was?
There is another strand, however, that recognises that if the upcoming London summit of the G20 nations can be galvanised into recognising it, it would be possible to use green technologies and opportunities to produce an economy which is both environmentally and monetarily sustainable.
The London summit feeds through to the Copenhagen summit in December. The funny thing is, London is seen as simply about the economic crisis, whilst it should be seen as embracing climate change as well. And Copenhagen is seen as climate change only, whilst it should be seen as part of the mechanism for rebooting the global economy.
Now, where did those subs come in? Oh, yes, they could have just detonated the lot of us. And then where would we be?
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Here Here. More sense from you john why have you not run for Prime Minister/Ming the merciful yet? This is obviously a perfect point in time to enforce a huge change in the way we use energy and make money.
Also it seems to me that there are some causes which because they are old (Nuclear Disarmament) they become rigid issues incapable of reasoned debate. i do realise there is an element of prisoners dilema in the discussion about nuclear weaponary i.e. if we all got rid of ours who would make sure everyone else would get rid of theirs etc etc, however as we are talking about making the world a better place lets get rid of the nukes as well!!!
I was horrified by your reportage of this story on the 7 o’clock news tonight. You stated that the submarines sonar was “switched off” as if it is some kind of lapse. Submarines must stay silent to avoid detection overwise our deterrent would not be effective. There is a general alarmist tone permeating throught this story, I can’t help feeling that there is an agenda behind this. It is tremendously difficult to detonate a nuclear warhead, it requires multiples precison shaped high-exlosive charges to be detonated instantaneously, this does not happen by accident, and certainly won’t happen in a collision.
The innacuracies and alarmist misinformation in your report concerns me, if you can’t get basic details right in this story, can you be trusted with accurately reporting on other stories? viz. Israel/Palestine, Iraq etc.
P.S. Will you be attending the next Aldermarston march?
Given the low probability of the sub collision, at the next opportunity please ask the MOD whether the two subs were playing hide and seek war games. Isn’t that the obvious conclusion?
The ‘miracle’ is that, so far, none of the tens of thousands of ex-Soviet nuclear weapons have got into the hands of the really bad guys.
What a pity that this particular genie cannot be put back into the bottle.
I have a blackly comic vision of them swapping insurance details across the turrets of their subs…..
The miracle is NO ONE was hurt and/or injured and even killed.
I agree with Stuart Bell on the nuclear warhead bit. I’m no expert, but nuclear warheads do not accidentally go off. They have to be deliberately detonated.
So what’s the story on this climate change briefing? What was said?
Nuclear weapons were involved in a plane crash in Greenland to my recollection, there falling from a high altitude did not make them somehow go off.
The sooner SNP take control the sooner we get rid of Faslane and don’t expect G20 to do anything, not while Mrs Doubtfire is PM
Here is my problem: why it did take the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence almost 2 plus weeks to report to the media regarding the collision?
Jon Snow:
What was the investigation following the released of this incident?
~Dennis Junior~