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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 t

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 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