Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of Worlds.

--J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Manhattan Projectand the Father of the Atomic Bomb

There is far more to fear about a nuclear war than explosive power. Simulation studies vary, but of the 7.8 billion inhabitants of our planet, the worst-case scenario shows 7 billion persons predicted to be dead within 20 years of the initial blasts. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, your fate is sealed: Your survival chances are very low. You might survive the intense ravages of the first 10 months following a nuclear exchange, but the long-term effects will reach everyone in some form. You could beat the odds if you are holed-up in a mountainous cave in New Zealand with an ample supply of food, water, and medicines to last for at least 20 years. Otherwise, the only advantage to being far away from the blasts, the heat, the fallout, and an extended nuclear winter is that you will get to suffer longer and more intensely than those who were instantly vaporized. You could be left to suffer from lethal doses of radiation, or die from starvation, DNA mutations, or a hungry animal might rip you apart and eat your body parts. The small bands of survivors left in a nuclear bomb exchange would be set back about 8,000 years on the calendar of human progress. Their deformed offspring would have much shorter life spans. They might survive longer if only they could learn the primary lesson of how to avoid conflict: Share the Earth's bounty. But that outcome would require a quantum leap in human behavior.

Is this a realistic forecast? Yes. It’s in the DNA of enough tyrants to take and take, gorge and gorge, until we all face self-destruction. Dictatorial ideologues love to rape, pillage, and plunder until they reduce all our efforts to rubble.

The first step toward self-destruction happens when we allow one ideologue to take political and economic control. We are like lemmings marching up to the cliff following the desires of an ideologue with or without charismatic charm. We jump when we are told to jump. Survivors are left to ponder: Which is worse, being the piper or the jumper? Does it matter? No. Following a nuclear war, our days in the sun will be over, although the Earth will survive. And survival of the fittest will again find its way of sorting through the rubbish.

Today, we stand on the precipice facing eternity. Dr. Oppenheimer saw this day coming. He did not know the name of the piper. That piper wasn’t yet born. Today we know his name. It is Vladimir Putin, the dictator of Russia. We dare not wait until he gives the command to launch missiles that cannot be recalled. He needs to be stopped now. Once he is gone, we need to dismantle his nuclear arsenal.

One approach: We could drop 7.8 billion leaflets over every major city in Russia and the former 30 nations that comprise the old USSR. Let them know that the leaflets are from every inhabitant of this planet with the truth about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and its potential outcome. Repeat as often as necessary. We have the technology.

Another approach: A World Council needs to condemn Putin’s actions and disseminate their conclusions to the far reaches of the planet. And repeat their message often.

A third approach: We could move quietly and with our best intelligence to guide us in appealing to those closest to Putin to take him down. Make certain they have the means, the method, and the opportunity.

These steps do not require much imagination. Other, more effective approaches, can be taken. But someone needs to articulate these messages if only to assuage some of our anxieties now while more and better options are being studied and put into place.

For the future: In my experience political ideologues have shown us they have too little compassion for or understanding of their public responsibilities. Unfortunately, that number today is rising such that nearly one-half our world population is becoming brainwashed subjects to such ne’re-do-wells. The only effective deterrence to this trend is to teach our children at a very early age the responsibilities of life on planet Earth. We need to teach logic, science, compassion, and the merits of cooperation, kindness, tolerance, and love in our homes, our schools, and other places of goodwill. We also need new laws, hurdles, and standards that can keep ideologues out of politics entirely. Other would-be politicians need to stay out of our classrooms, out of our scientific laboratories, out of our hospitals and bedrooms, and away from mathematics, logic, health care, and all other aspects of our lives they do not understand or care about.  Those that work toward the advancement of knowledge, sharing, caring, and enlightenment do not need ideologues in their lives.  Perhaps everyone who cannot pass a humanitarian evaluation should have a nuclear detonation tattooed and etched into their foreheads.