7 ms·

Just how apocalyptic is an all out nuclear war, really? I know the Hollywood scenario is essentially cessation of life on earth, but is this truly what would h

• dajohnson89 9y ago
  without a doubt.
• 13of40 9y ago
  I think the takeaway from this is a few decades of human presence is more lethal to a reef than a hydrogen bomb.
• crooked-v 9y ago
  Well, the real danger in a "launch every nuke" scenario would be the resulting nuclear winter. The radiation itself would cause a lot of unpleasant cancers, but the existential danger would be the debris thrown into the atmosphere causing global famine from the combined results of ruined crop yields and massively damaged ecosystems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#2014
  • yters 9y ago
    Solution to global warming?
    • blkhawk 9y ago
      Just as a bullet to the head is a solution to a headache.
  • ghostcluster 9y ago
    Those models have shown to be consistently wrong. Just quoting other parts of that article: > Russell Seitz, Associate of the Harvard University Center for International Affairs, argues that the winter models' assumptions give results which the researchers want to achieve and is a case of "worst-case analysis run amok".[180] In September 1986 Seitz published "Siberian fire as 'nuclear winter' guide" in the journal Nature in which he investigated the 1915 Siberian fire which started in the early summer months and was caused by the worst drought in the region's recorded history. The fire ultimately devastated the region burning the world's largest boreal forest, the size of Germany. While approximately 8 ˚C of daytime summer cooling occurred under the smoke clouds during the weeks of burning, no increase in potentially devastating agricultural night frosts occurred. and take a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in...
• mikeash 9y ago
  Life, and indeed humanity, would survive such a war. Modern civilization would not. For a realistic look at the aftermath, I’d suggest the novel War Day (which is set after a very limited nuclear way, but that’s already pretty bad), and the online alt-history timelines The Cuban Missile War and Protect and Survive. Edit: and a really good analysis of an all-out war in the late 1980s: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html
• zaarn 9y ago
  No, it is highly unlikely that life on earth would cease to exist. There are too many places where extremophiles or other similar creatures are surviving beyond the reach of nuclear radiation, fallout or nuclear winter; * We have found caves that have been closed off for millions of years, there might be more * Extremophiles are living around thermal vents at the sea floor * In the Russian Permafrost, Microbes have been found in suspended hibernation since a couple million years ago In general, even if we were to nuke this dirtball to shit and back, something would be likely to survive