4 ms·

The death of human race would mainly come via climate change. No nuclear war will directly kill all people, nor will radioactive fallout of even an extensive on

The death of human race would mainly come via climate change. No nuclear war will directly kill all people, nor will radioactive fallout of even an extensive one. But if the climate would get really much colder, then the human race might be in danger. For the majority of existence of anatomically modern human being (50 000 years to 200 000 years, depending on definition) the world population has been less than 5 million people (the population of world 10 000 years ago). I think it is quite likely that a similar population could be maintained today, with today's technology, by building artificial environments, running on nuclear power and other modern technology. Think of Caves of Steel. Major powers surely have done some preparations towards that. It would be what was attributed to Stalin having called "statistics", of course [1], but it wouldn't be the extinction of the human race. [1] http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/

sqeaky 10y ago
I am curious as to why you think "No nuclear war will directly kill all people" and then after that climate change would be a problem. I agree a limited exchange might leave people in hardened bunkers alive. But a full exchange, we have sop many weapons[1] it seems entirely that only the luckiest in hardened bunkers would survive and largely they would emerge in a polluted radioactive wasteland. There are only about 3,000 cities[2] with more than 10,000 people, and only about 19,000 cities in total. We very nearly have a warhead per city, but a city does not need a warhead to hit it to die, irradiating the farmland will kill off everyone just fine. They will have trouble growing food because of pollution levels, radioactivity. I guess you could call a spontaneous transformation in a barren wastes "climate change" but I think that would be underselling the problem. I also think doing that does a disservice to the modern political about climate change. [1] http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/nuclear-arsenals/ http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/nuclear-arsenals/ [2] https://www.quora.com/How-many-towns-counties-and-cities-are-in-the-USA https://www.quora.com/How-many-towns-counties-and-cities-are...
- ptaipale 10y ago
  There are lots of smaller cities and towns, and not all people live in cities or towns. Nuclear attacks would not cover all land areas where people live. Thus the detonations would not kill all people directly. Would the radioactive waste kill people? That is something which is harder to calculate. But the dangers of radiation are much exaggerated, and humans are generally more resilient than most people think. But nuclear winter, drastically reduced temperatures, particles in the air that prevent vegetation from growing and which thus changes the composition of the gasses in atmosphere? That sounds a real threat.
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    I agree that radiation dangers are exaggerated for most things. The amount of radioactive material left over in most nuclear detonations is staggering. Most fission bombs consume only a tiny percent of their fuel and scatter the rest as particles. Unlike a simple meltdown like Chernobyl there is no container to hold this. Put another way all nuclear weapons are also immensely powerful dirty bombs. To contrast further, I am well aware of stories of survivors in Japan, even the one survivor who is still alive (last I heard) who was thrown tens of meters twice, once per blast. He and most others only survived because of immediate medical attention and then sustained infrastructure that could not survive a doomsday scenario. Uranium and Plutonium are some of the most dangerous materials to ingest tiny particles of and these are exactly what will be launched and scattered into all the food supplies. The radiation of being near tiny specks of dust can consume the safe dose of a person for the year and likely do nothing more than increase their chance for cancer in 30 years. Eat that same dust and die of horrible cancer and burns in a few months. It will be in all the food because we have enough warheads, as stated in my previous post, to erase most cities, the resulting damage and fallout would leave no on the planet untouched because the dust would scattered high into the upper atmosphere [1] and it will settle every where The preposterous devastation of a total nuclear war cannot be understated and again I say that comparing it to climate change does climate change a real disservice. CO2 based climate will disrupt industry and cause wars, but it cannot exterminate humanity. The first volley in a nuclear exchange can exterminate all of humanity before the the next planting of crops. Any comparison to nuclear extinction makes it easy for climate change deniers to claim climate change is hyberbole. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions

sqeaky 10y ago

I am curious as to why you think "No nuclear war will directly kill all people" and then after that climate change would be a problem. I agree a limited exchange might leave people in hardened bunkers alive. But a full exchange, we have sop many weapons[1] it seems entirely that only the luckiest in hardened bunkers would survive and largely they would emerge in a polluted radioactive wasteland. There are only about 3,000 cities[2] with more than 10,000 people, and only about 19,000 cities in total. We very nearly have a warhead per city, but a city does not need a warhead to hit it to die, irradiating the farmland will kill off everyone just fine. They will have trouble growing food because of pollution levels, radioactivity. I guess you could call a spontaneous transformation in a barren wastes "climate change" but I think that would be underselling the problem. I also think doing that does a disservice to the modern political about climate change. [1] http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/nuclear-arsenals/ http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/nuclear-arsenals/ [2] https://www.quora.com/How-many-towns-counties-and-cities-are-in-the-USA https://www.quora.com/How-many-towns-counties-and-cities-are...

ptaipale 10y ago
There are lots of smaller cities and towns, and not all people live in cities or towns. Nuclear attacks would not cover all land areas where people live. Thus the detonations would not kill all people directly. Would the radioactive waste kill people? That is something which is harder to calculate. But the dangers of radiation are much exaggerated, and humans are generally more resilient than most people think. But nuclear winter, drastically reduced temperatures, particles in the air that prevent vegetation from growing and which thus changes the composition of the gasses in atmosphere? That sounds a real threat.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  I agree that radiation dangers are exaggerated for most things. The amount of radioactive material left over in most nuclear detonations is staggering. Most fission bombs consume only a tiny percent of their fuel and scatter the rest as particles. Unlike a simple meltdown like Chernobyl there is no container to hold this. Put another way all nuclear weapons are also immensely powerful dirty bombs. To contrast further, I am well aware of stories of survivors in Japan, even the one survivor who is still alive (last I heard) who was thrown tens of meters twice, once per blast. He and most others only survived because of immediate medical attention and then sustained infrastructure that could not survive a doomsday scenario. Uranium and Plutonium are some of the most dangerous materials to ingest tiny particles of and these are exactly what will be launched and scattered into all the food supplies. The radiation of being near tiny specks of dust can consume the safe dose of a person for the year and likely do nothing more than increase their chance for cancer in 30 years. Eat that same dust and die of horrible cancer and burns in a few months. It will be in all the food because we have enough warheads, as stated in my previous post, to erase most cities, the resulting damage and fallout would leave no on the planet untouched because the dust would scattered high into the upper atmosphere [1] and it will settle every where The preposterous devastation of a total nuclear war cannot be understated and again I say that comparing it to climate change does climate change a real disservice. CO2 based climate will disrupt industry and cause wars, but it cannot exterminate humanity. The first volley in a nuclear exchange can exterminate all of humanity before the the next planting of crops. Any comparison to nuclear extinction makes it easy for climate change deniers to claim climate change is hyberbole. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions