atmospheric scientist Brian Toon explains how even a small nuclear war could destroy all life on earth -
More powerful bombs today and many more than 2 would be set off causing a nuclear winter because of debris in the atmosphere. Crops wont grow and temps will be much colder.
Yet nearly 4 decades after Chernobyl the surrounding forests STILL have a carpet of organic matter on the forest floor which will not decompose due to the absence of microbial life.
I suggest laying off the radiation Kool-Aid served by the propaganda specialists since the 1940s in DC.
Beat me to it. And there was a lot of atmospheric testing long after WWII. I don’t think at any point people said “We’ve messing with the weather! Look at what we’ve done to the climate!” No. There was awareness of fallout. So atmospheric testing gave way to underground testing. And then simulated testing. Just made more sense, because radiation is bad.
But I don’t see how any sort of limited exchange would hurt the earth. Sure — it might screw up supply chains, cause casualties, disrupt several societies. It would be bad. But I don’t see the climate being a primary casualty.
But your point is basically correct.
Destroy all life on earth, probably not.
Destroy human civilization, very probable. But we are doing that with no nuclear weapons at all.
“...yet Hiroshima and Nagasaki are repopulated...”
He’s not talking about the immediate area or the size of the devises except to say they are contributory to the change in the original intent with expansion.
With much larger devises and amounts of them it will cause an after effect of the basically same theory of the destruction of the dinosaurs with atmospheric reaction of sun coverage and within a certain distance alpha radiation that will cause animals to die after enough exposure. The marker is around 200 rads.
But he also is failing at the peacetime uses of nuclear and so his talk is so one sided combination chicken little and peace nick it wastes the time of anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of nuclear utilization. Watch it if you want, but it doesn’t really bring something into focus most of the citizens didn’t already learn from K through 6 textbooks.
wy69
Never found TED talks to be worth the time they take to watch them. This one is good example of why.
2056 nuclear detonations since 1945. 507 of those were atmospheric.
I read years ago that scientists in 1945 said nothing would grow in Hiroshima or Nagasaki for 97 years due to the A-bombs.
Yet the next spring the trees sprouted and flowers bloomed.
You can take a tour of where they detonated the first and multiple bombs at Trinity twice a year.
The radiation levels at Trinity as well as Nagasaki and Hiroshima are far below what is natural in many other places.
My guess:
The “doomsday” nuclear apocalypse is real in so far that it will end the primary nations involved. We would cease to exist as an industrial, information, high tech society. The damage will be so great to industry, infrastructure, energy, communications, transportation, urban centers, the loss of life and in leadership/command and control will be so great that we as the US and Russia will basically be finished for the foreseeable future: https://nikemissile.org/targetmap.gif (Russia’s targets)
Older estimates from the Cold War, where they did some math and simulations and based things an what is likely a more realistic scenario (using realistic models for damage) put US casualties at ~25 million in the first 24 hours. Many more casualties would ensue within the next 30 days. The bulk of those in the next 30 days will die from radiation exposure or who survived but were badly burned etc.
Of course back then you had a lot of hardening: bunkers, shelters... which have mostly been removed (both private and public). But we also had a lot more nukes on both sides, but then again the stuff today is more accurate and reliable: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Georgiy-Stenchikov/publication/26638523/figure/fig1/AS:394354716889091@1471032899509/top-Number-of-nuclear-warheads-in-Russia-USSR-the-US-and-the-total-for-all-the.png
Nonetheless, I think it would be devastating today - enough to “end us” in a practical sense. Einstein, often quoted as having said this, may not have, but it is true: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
The probability of Russia using these is low (even now). Contrary to how we present Russia, they are doctrinal, have a very stable bureaucracy, a professional cadre of folks dealing with their nukes, and have safeguards in place. Where things get problematic is if fools like Lindsey Graham get their way: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2022-03-04/graham-says-taking-out-putin-stop-ukraine-invasion-5225080.html If you have internal instability, a coup, then you get into a place where there are a lot of uncertainties and things you could have never predicted nor are in your and maybe even the leadership of Russia’s control. At that point is when I would be (very) concerned, i.e. all bets are off.
But the idea that it ends all life is a far stretch especially outside of those countries that were each others targets.
BINGO
