The Threat of Climate Change #169 By Hank Silverberg Every day we hear something on the news that could foretell a political disaster for the United States. China is going to rule the world economy, Russia is going to rebuild its eastern European empire. Iran or North Korea will soon have nuclear weapons (if they don't already). While all those are worrisome, they are not the biggest threat to the United States or the world. The biggest long term threat is climate change! Yes, I know, nuclear war could destroy the planet in a few hours. The nuclear bomb has been around since 1945. Dropping two of them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of World War Two killed as many as 226,000 people, and that has scared us ever since. But over those 76 years there may have been more damage to the air we breath and the water we drink in the long term from something other than those two bombs. It has killed many more people, and could kill us all. (Earth Day