Regional Nuclear War and the Environment

[bananas]

Source: Time

Q&A
Regional Nuclear War and the Environment
By Eben Harrell Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009

In the 1980s, climate scientists in Russia and the U.S. theorized that all-out nuclear war between the superpowers would result in a "nuclear winter," as smoke from the atomic explosions blackened the sky and sent summer temperatures plummeting below freezing — killing crops and eventually starving all those who survived the initial explosions. Now that the risks of an all-out U.S.-Russian exchange have diminished, scientists are looking at the climactic effects of regional nuclear war — and the predictions are still sobering.

Alan Robock, a Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University who participated in the original nuclear winter research, recently completed a study on the results of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. He spoke with TIME from his office in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

<snip>

Q: Some scientists, most notably Freeman Dyson of The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, have stirred controversy by arguing that nuclear weapons are a more urgent environmental threat than global warming. Do you agree?

A: Yes. If India and Pakistan engaged in nuclear war, they would use about 0.3% of the global nuclear stockpile. And still the effects on the climate would be dramatic. Our calculations on nuclear winter from the early 1980s have been confirmed by modern climate models. And fundamentally the situation hasn't changed — even with reduced stockpiles there still exists enough weapons to cause nuclear winter. That's something that maybe people don't realize.

I think we have to solve the problem of the existence of all these weapons before we have the luxury of worrying about global warming.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1873164,00.html

---

This is a short but informative interview.

[Pavulon]

1. We detonated many

large nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. Hundreds of them, 80 in nevada. I believe the total approaches 1000.

[bananas]

2. Those were one at a time, out in the desert.

Multiple warheads incinerating cities creates huge firestorms which are no comparison with one nuke going off in the desert.
Everything in the city turns into smoke - all the buildings, gasoline, fuel oil, etc.
This rises high into the atmosphere and has global climactic consequences.

[Pavulon]

15. Nope.

We burned japan down over a few months. No environmental consequences. This is voodoo science.

Again we detonated massive multimegaton weapons. There is a wealth of information us and russian tests.

[NNadir]

3. On the other hand, it is a certainty overlooked by nuclear paranoids that dumping billion ton

quantities of dangerous fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere because they are paranoids is not a probability, but a certainty.

I have never met ONE dumb fundie anti-nuke who gives a rat's ass about the certain effects about dangerous fossil fuel war, dangerous fossil fuel terrorism, dangerous fossil fuel or dangerous fossil fuel economics.

On the other hand - from Dick Cheney to George W. Bush to Colin Powell to Ronald Reagan there have been all sorts of bonehead things done to whip up the fear of nuclear war to do stupid things.

I would note that anyone who gave a rat's ass about peace would try to prevent wars that actually happen rather than those that don't.

[bananas]

6. Nuclear war is a statistical certainty under the current circumstances

Nothing works 100% of the time - not even nuclear deterrence.

http://nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php

Soaring, Cryptography and Nuclear Weapons
Martin Hellman
Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering
Stanford University
October 21, 2008

Hellman is a co-inventor of public key cryptography, the technology that secures communication of credit card and other sensitive information over the Internet. He has worked for over twenty-five years to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons and his current project is described at NuclearRisk.org. He is a glider pilot with over 2,600 hours in the air.

<snip>

On an annual basis, that makes relying on nuclear weapons a 99% safe maneuver. As with 99.9% safe maneuvers in soaring, that is not as safe as it sounds and is no cause for complacency. If we continue to rely on a strategy with a one percent failure rate per year, that adds up to about 10% in a decade and almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes. Because the estimate was only accurate to an order of magnitude, the actual risk could be as much as three times greater or smaller. But even ⅓% per year adds up to roughly a 25% fatality rate for a child born today, and 3% per year would, with high probability, consign that child to an early, nuclear death.

Given the catastrophic consequences of a failure of nuclear deterrence, the usual standards for industrial safety would require the time horizon for a failure to be well over a million years before the risk might be acceptable. Even a 100,000 year time horizon would entail as much risk as a skydiving jump every year, but with the whole world in the parachute harness. And a 100 year time horizon is equivalent to making three parachute jumps a day, every day, with the whole world at risk.

While my preliminary analysis and the above described intuitive approach provide significant evidence that business as usual entails far too much risk, in-depth risk analyses are needed to correct or confirm those indications. A statement endorsed by the following notable individuals:

* Prof. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford University, 1972 Nobel Laureate in Economics
* Mr. D. James Bidzos, Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO, VeriSign Inc.
* Dr. Richard Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus, former member President's Science Advisory Committee and Defense Science Board
* Adm. Bobby R. Inman, USN (Ret.), University of Texas at Austin, former Director National Security Agency and Deputy Director CIA
* Prof. William Kays, former Dean of Engineering, Stanford University
* Prof. Donald Kennedy, President Emeritus of Stanford University, former head of FDA
* Prof. Martin Perl, Stanford University, 1995 Nobel Laureate in Physics

therefore "urgently petitions the international scientific community to undertake in-depth risk analyses of nuclear deterrence and, if the results so indicate, to raise an alarm alerting society to the unacceptable risk it faces as well as initiating a second phase effort to identify potential solutions."

<snip>

[dysfunctional press]

4. so if india and pakistan go at it, we can forget the whole "carbon footprint" rigamarole...?

and keep driving hummers? :shrug:

[bananas]

7. Yes, it'll solve the "peak oil" problem, too.

With fewer people around, the oil will last much longer.
:sarcasm:

[bemildred]

5. But we would "win", right?

:sarcasm:

[cosmicone]

8. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan is not plausible

because

A. India has already pledged no first strike
B. Pakistan's nuclear weapons are a handful of primitive impact-detonated fission bombs
C. Pakistan only wanted them for ego, i.e. "we are as good as the Indians"
D. Pakistan dare not actually use them because they will then cease to remain as an entity of any significance
and
E. Pakistan gets more mileage out of nuclear blackmail of the US by just threatening to use them.

What would be best is if the world stopped all commerce with Pakistan and all aid unless and until they disarm.

[bananas]

9. Mutual Assured Destruction between the US and USSR almost happened a few times by accident

accidents happen ... in the meantime, the nuclear arms race accelerates ...

Jan 23, 2009
India's 'nuke' cruise missile test fails
By Siddharth Srivastava

NEW DELHI - This is one missile test failure that India could have done without, given the context of aggressive India-Pakistan posturing in the wake of November's terror attack on Mumbai.

<snip>

The most recent advanced BrahMos test lends credence to the fact that South Asian neighbors India and Pakistan will look to considerably enhance and refine their military capabilities in the near future, with an arms race pretty much in the offing.

<snip>

Pakistan, with the help of China, has been inducting a stockpile of nuclear-capable Babur land-attack cruise missiles with a strike range of over 500 kilometers, which has caused obvious concern in India.

<snip>

India's attempts to procure a nuclear submarine this year received a big setback this week when Russia "indefinitely" postponed delivery of the Akula-II class Nerpa nuclear submarine, saying that its sea trials were incomplete.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KA23Df02.html

[cosmicone]

10. That is precisely it.

While India is obtaining a credible deterrent against the regional bully China, Pakistan is trying to catch up with India for no reason other than ego.

India is geographically 7 times larger, in population 6 times bigger and in economy 90 folds stronger but Pakistan desperately tries to pretend that India and Pakistan are equals. The world has been fooled too many times by the posturing and the average Joe, Josip, Giuseppe, Josef thinks that the two countries are somehow equal.

Indians and Indian-Americans finally got rid of the India|hyphen|Pakistan foreign policy during the Clinton years and W (despite all his faults) continued it by successfully inking the Indo-US Nuclear Cooperation Agreement which gives India a de facto "nuclear weapons state" status with the big five, leaving Pakistan to be a little tinpot fiefdom full of hate which it is.

Pakistan exists because it is funded by the US -- without it, it will balkanize and won't be able to maintain any nuclear or missile program at all.

We must work to stop ALL aid to Pakistan until it gets rid of its terrorist apparatus and cuts down its military ambitions for good.

[kristopher]

11. Interesting how two people reading the same thing draw different conclusions

I read your two posts and conclude that nuclear war between india and pakistan is highly probable. The lack of stability you are describing is not conducive to the best decision making.

[cosmicone]

12. Perhaps because you are not familiar with the history

of the subcontinent like I am!

Having lived there for a part of my life, I know that Pakistan tries an arms race with India out of ego and an inferiority complex.

Pakistanis feel defeated when confronted with the fact that they are a geographically tiny nation with an insignificant economy whereas India is on its way to be a superpower.

They try hard to hyphenate India|hyphen|Pakistan and have succeeded for a long time but the world now sees India differently.

[kristopher]

13. Or because I worked on

planning for "survivability" after nuclear conflict during the height of the Cold War. Your remarks strike me as being drenched in nationalistic blindness.

[cosmicone]

14. Perhaps you are right and I do admit to a degree of

nationalism although facts remain facts despite the way they are presented.

If you came to India or Pakistan, you'll not find any people who are worried about the prospect of a nuclear war at all. It is brinkmanship period.

People here don't think a nuclear war is plausible at all. The odds of USSR and USA engaging in a nuclear conflict were infinitely higher, so I understand where you're coming from.