A 2014 study published in Earth’s Future found that it will only take the detonation of 100 nuclear warheads to throw five teragrams of black soot into Earth’s stratosphere and block out the sun for over a quarter century, temporarily destroying much of the ozone layer in the process. This alone, without the added lethality factors of radiation and climate chaos, will be enough to starve every organism on our planet to death.

The United States of America has 6,970 nuclear warheads. Russia has 7,300.

The Guardian (yeah, that rag), gives an uncharacteristically honest appraisal of the situation in #Aleppo #shockedhttps://t.co/4IBun2o2kW — A.J (@aj_observations) October 13, 2016

The drums of war are beating. Hillary Clinton isn’t telling everyone that she’s going to establish a no-fly zone in Syria in order to win votes, Hillary Clinton is telling everyone that she’s going to establish a no-fly zone in Syria because she’s going to establish a no-fly zone in Syria. That’s one thing she’s said that we can trust, because while she is (as usual) saying it to manipulate the public narrative, she isn’t saying it in order to win our approval. She’s saying it to get the war drums beating.

Remember the lead-up to the Iraq invasion? Bush was doing the same thing, and all the pundits and talking heads on corporate media drummed right along with him.

“War! War! War!”

Like a bunch of orcish Peter Jackson creations.

And so many good, ordinary people bought right into it. It was more Republicans back then, this time it’s more Democrats. Back then it was WMDs, now it’s “protecting civilians.” The dance is the same though, just with more memes. And with nukes.

Her rich Owners demand more war and it is more than her life is worth if she fails to deliver. https://t.co/cFOzaBw8bX — Earle L. Bailey (@Altanon) October 13, 2016

People sometimes ask me how I can live with “gambling America’s future” by refusing to support Clinton over Trump. Lately I’ve just been reversing the question.

Are you willing to place the life of every single terrestrial organism on the table and roll the dice on Hillary Clinton?

Even if the dice comes up in your favor, what do you get out of it? Another pipeline? Central banking in Syria? The shoring up of the petrodollar? The egoic comfort of knowing that your country won a military stare-down contest? How does that benefit you, exactly?

Sometimes they say something like, “Well, I don’t think it will come to that. Hillary’s been playing the political game for a long time and she knows when to apply aggressive diplomacy and when not to.”

Okay, that’s a weird thing to think about someone who’s spent her entire career pushing for consistently disastrous acts of military interventionism, but let’s give you the benefit of the doubt. Are you still willing to bet all life on Earth on it?

It’s true, maybe Clinton’s stated agenda of shooting down Russian military planes over Syria won’t lead to a nuclear holocaust. That’s possible. Maybe it will just lead to a third world war. Who would have thought World War 3 would someday be a comforting thought, huh? It is possible, maybe that will happen.

Or maybe we’ll even avert a world war! Maybe everyone in the world will finally listen to that old adage of the hippies, “What if they had a war, and nobody came?” That could technically happen. Our species is many orders of magnitude more capable of networking and sharing information than ever before. We could all just refuse to fight.

Maybe we’ll avert disaster completely. Putin somehow suddenly learns some humility and stands down with his tail between his legs, and we get to have our way with Syria. That, while highly unlikely, is still technically possible.

But are you willing to gamble all life on Earth on it? Every human? Every tree? Every elephant, bug, bird, turnip, and phytoplankton? Look outside; are you ready to reduce all that into its component elements on a gamble for some rich people’s agenda involving some country you’ll never even visit?

It’s such a weird thing to consider. But if you’re a Clinton supporter, please do consider it. Any number of variables can lead to the deployment of a nuclear warhead, either purposeful or accidental, which can only lead to world-ending retaliatory nuclear strikes, and the deeper into a conflict between two nuclear powers you get, the more of those variables appear. No-fly zones lead to acts of military retribution, acts of military retribution lead to war, war can easily escalate into the total annihilation of everything you’ve ever cared about in your whole entire life. Are you sincerely willing to gamble with that?

#Debate

Hillary's foreign policy is a disaster. Iraq➡Iran➡Libya➡Honduras

Her no-fly zone over Syria could easily start a war with Russia. pic.twitter.com/Y8Adi0mzGU — Pat the Berner (@SilERabbit) October 10, 2016

A standoff between Clinton and Putin cannot possibly end well. They’re the two biggest egos in world politics, after the fat guy in North Korea. Since going through a lot of these new leaked emails, it’s become clear that Hillary only has one position: she is never wrong, and it’s never her fault. Everything else is just figuring out the most politically advantageous thing to say, but everyone in her campaign is acutely aware that she will never, under any circumstances, humble herself and back down, and they’ve learned to conduct themselves accordingly.

There will be no guiding wisdom involved in the event of escalation. In the driver’s seat will be ego, and only ego, interested only in mental stories and stupid political agendas. If we fail this test and slip into extinction like so many other species before us, it will likely be because of these very aspects of humanity.

Or maybe I’m wrong about all this.

Are you prepared to take that gamble?

[Featured Image by Olga Balashova/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP Images]