On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden gave Manhattan donors an update on his thoughts about nuclear war, saying that he currently views global warming as a greater threat.
“[Global warming] is the single most existential threat to humanity we have ever faced, including nuclear weapons,” Biden told a small group of supporters on the Upper East Side after headlining a rail infrastructure event nearby.
There are enough nuclear weapons to directly kill most of the world’s population. Experts say a large-scale nuclear war would blanket the globe in dangerous radiation and cause a nuclear winter with decreased sunlight and lower temperatures that would finish off most survivors.
Some scientists state global warming is linked to more severe weather events such as hurricanes, but there are no near-term projections that the world will become totally uninhabitable.
The United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says sea levels could rise 50 centimeters by 2100 as a result of global warming, submerging some coastal areas including small island chains, while forcing expensive mitigation elsewhere.
Russia and the US own about 90% of the world’s roughly 12,700 nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the UK have smaller arsenals and Iran is suspected of working toward developing its own weapons.
Despite warning of dire threats from global warming, The US president regularly takes fuel-guzzling helicopters to spend the weekend at his Delaware homes, where he’s passed nearly a quarter of his presidency.
Some of his predecessors, such as former President Barack Obama, would stay at the White House on weekends, sparing the expense — and emissions — of multiple motorcades and flights.
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