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That's not true. People said the same thing about the potential Kuwaiti Oil Fires in the first gulf war, and yet hundreds of wells and lakes of oil burned for m

That's not true. People said the same thing about the potential Kuwaiti Oil Fires in the first gulf war, and yet hundreds of wells and lakes of oil burned for months and caused no winter scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in... Nuclear Winter is a case of scientists running personal social activism and using their cover as scientists to implant a false narrative. > Even Dr. Richard P. Turco, the physicist who coined the phrase ''nuclear winter,'' discounts the idea. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/23/science/nuclear-winter-theorists-pull-back.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/23/science/nuclear-winter-the...

jfoutz 9y ago
yup, that one event didn't make it up to 10k feet. But as pointed out, it was like twilight, and the temperature dropped 5C. Asia was spared. But if you continue on, you'll find more recent research, both pro an con. I think it's still a completely reasonable foundation for a dystopian fantasy story. In spite of the specific events in Kuwait, I'd be willing to wager that if humans launch, say, 500 nuclear weapons there will be climate consequences resembling nuclear winter. We probably won't agree on this point. I think we can agree, let's not find out.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
But volcanos can cause a volcanic winter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter So why not a nuclear exchange?
- ghostcluster 9y ago
  The models justifying the "nuclear winter" scenario are wrong, and "nuclear winter" relies on politically motivated rhetoric to push a social agenda that is at odds with similar events in magnitude. The Kuwaiti Oil fires are a great example, as are events where forests the size of nation-states have burned, and caused no signifiacant cooling. It's hyped exaggeration using rhetoric for political effect.
  - jfoutz 9y ago
    I don’t know why you are getting downvotes. Odds are you are right. People are getting emotionally attached to nuclear winter I guess.
    - ghostcluster 9y ago
      I provided a link from the NYTimes with the scientists from the original 1983 Nuclear Winter paper retracting their original prediction as well. Well done, HN.
      - pjc50 9y ago
        I suspect its your use of the phrase "social agenda", as if nuclear war might be a thing that it was unreasonable to be against.
        ghostcluster 9y ago
        It is unreasonable to make up fake models and rhetoric, and then push it in the media under the auspices of science. How can you be trusted in the future?
        eadmund 9y ago
        > … as if nuclear war might be a thing that it was unreasonable to be against. When a nuclear war is less bad than the alternatives, then it is unreasonable to be against it. A lot of Western anti-nuclear sentiment was simply manufactured by KGB manipulation of useful idiots. It's sad: if not for fifty years of anti-nuclear propaganda, we might be off of coal and safely generating energy for the next couple of centuries while we work on environmentally-friendly ways to produce solar cells. Instead, we're belching forth pollution — to include radioactive pollution — at an unprecedented rate, decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, whose security the anti-nuclear propaganda was intended to ensure.

jfoutz 9y ago

yup, that one event didn't make it up to 10k feet. But as pointed out, it was like twilight, and the temperature dropped 5C. Asia was spared. But if you continue on, you'll find more recent research, both pro an con. I think it's still a completely reasonable foundation for a dystopian fantasy story. In spite of the specific events in Kuwait, I'd be willing to wager that if humans launch, say, 500 nuclear weapons there will be climate consequences resembling nuclear winter. We probably won't agree on this point. I think we can agree, let's not find out.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

But volcanos can cause a volcanic winter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter So why not a nuclear exchange?

ghostcluster 9y ago
The models justifying the "nuclear winter" scenario are wrong, and "nuclear winter" relies on politically motivated rhetoric to push a social agenda that is at odds with similar events in magnitude. The Kuwaiti Oil fires are a great example, as are events where forests the size of nation-states have burned, and caused no signifiacant cooling. It's hyped exaggeration using rhetoric for political effect.
- jfoutz 9y ago
  I don’t know why you are getting downvotes. Odds are you are right. People are getting emotionally attached to nuclear winter I guess.
  - ghostcluster 9y ago
    I provided a link from the NYTimes with the scientists from the original 1983 Nuclear Winter paper retracting their original prediction as well. Well done, HN.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      I suspect its your use of the phrase "social agenda", as if nuclear war might be a thing that it was unreasonable to be against.
      - ghostcluster 9y ago
        It is unreasonable to make up fake models and rhetoric, and then push it in the media under the auspices of science. How can you be trusted in the future?
      - eadmund 9y ago
        > … as if nuclear war might be a thing that it was unreasonable to be against. When a nuclear war is less bad than the alternatives, then it is unreasonable to be against it. A lot of Western anti-nuclear sentiment was simply manufactured by KGB manipulation of useful idiots. It's sad: if not for fifty years of anti-nuclear propaganda, we might be off of coal and safely generating energy for the next couple of centuries while we work on environmentally-friendly ways to produce solar cells. Instead, we're belching forth pollution — to include radioactive pollution — at an unprecedented rate, decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, whose security the anti-nuclear propaganda was intended to ensure.