I appreciate the way the book teaches the realities of nuclear war. Some interesting things I picked up from the myth/fact section:
-Food & water isn't contaminated unless fallout particles enter into it. Thus any food/water stored in airtight containers is safe to consume.
-The US & Russia likely don't have enough nuclear firepower to kill every human being on earth (a commonly cited "fact"). This is based off of misleading calculations.
-Within a couple of weeks, fallout radiation would be reduced to the point that most people could leave their shelters.
-A bomb said to be 1,000x more powerful than the one used on Hiroshima is not 1,000x more deadly or destructive (16x more deadly is apparently more accurate)
-"Nuclear winter" is a discredited myth propagated by de-nuclearization supporters.
-Airburst nuclear weapons produce basically 0 fallout. The bomb has to burst on the surface to pick up particles of earth and debris to create fallout.
Nuclear winter is not a discredited myth. Alan Robock at Rutgers has been conducting climate simulations using a 100 Hiroshimas (~20kT) standard. This is supposedly similar to what an India-Pakistan conflict might produce.
The results are something more akin to nuclear autumn, but it results in decreased agricultural production between 5-20% in year 5 after the war. The decrease is due primarily to soot in the atmosphere. Recall that nuclear weapons are hot and this causes air to rise. There is a suction effect immediately after the blast and firestorms can form.
Simulations of a US-Russian war are more dire, and recent simulations are more in line with TAPPS. TAPPS was never discredited, its results were only somewhat moderated.
How does this square with the global effects of large volcanic eruptions? The largest eruption in the 20th century exceeded the yield of the combined Soviet and US nuclear arsenals at their Cold War peak by an order of magnitude, yet the global effects were mild.
Interesting trivia: the largest volcanic explosion of the 20th century is a volcano in the US that most people have never heard of, Novarupta in 1912.
Volcanic eruption energy is partitioned between thermal and mechanical energy. The mechanical energy is distributed between translation (ejecta) and vibrational (tremors). These proportions vary significantly between volcanoes and eruptions. So, perhaps little of the energy is imparted to bring cooling aerosols and particles into the high atmosphere.
A limited nuclear exchange between RF/USA could extend to all large munitions stores, rocket stores, and petrochemical stores. All stores of nuclear launchers, warheads, and supplies intended for strategic war could be targeted.
Imagine all significant above-ground petroleum storage in RF/USA - large petroleum producers - is ignited. All counterforce sorties against targets near wooded areas will result in large forest fires.
"Imagine all significant above-ground petroleum storage in RF/USA - large petroleum producers - is ignited."
During the First Gulf War, the uncontrolled oil fires in Kuwait were burning at a rate equivalent to 30% of all US consumption. Nothing remotely resembling a climate apocalypse occurred; major volcanic eruptions have far greater effects. Empirically, it seems highly improbable that repeating that experiment on modestly larger scale will unleash a global apocalypse. It isn't a convincing argument based on the evidence.
The above-ground petroleum storage facilities only hold days worth of oil that we are going to burn anyway.
When modeling was done for the Kuwait oil fires, there were two opposing expectations. One was that the fires would cause a kind of "year without a summer" similar to the Tambora eruption in 1815. The other was that the smoke would affect local weather conditions and be rained out within a week. In retrospect, we know that the latter proved most accurate.
But from what I understand, the crucial difference between the two models was how high the smoke would go, and as such the gap between the two models is actually a lot closer than the outcomes would imply. Had the conditions (weather, geography, etc) been ripe for more "self-lofting" of particulates, far more of them may have made it as far as the stratosphere, at which point they would stay in the atmosphere for far longer and would spread much further, without any weather patterns at that altitude to accelerate their return to the surface.
Wouldn't we be burning that oil anyways? I'm sure it burns less 'clean' in a particulate sense, but orders of magnitude worse?
Seems from the petroleum front it's likely to actually reduce particulate matter over the course of months due to the lack of human industrial activity on the planet.
For particulate emissions I would imagine uncontrolled burning in the atmosphere is orders of magnitude worse than the very carefully controlled combustion in an engine with catalytic converters and particle screens. In the US anyway.
Climate cause and effect is difficult to nail down, but it seems with that much firepower back then a "nuclear winter" scenario was much more plausible. We have dismantled a lot of the nuclear arsenal since the 1980s these days -- estimates I see of current firepower vary by quite a bit, but I'm not even sure there's 6,500 megatons of nuclear weapon firepower in service globally anymore.
Well, to be fair, Novarupta is on the Alaskan Penninsula, away from anything possibly resembling a major population center - and even Alaska itself wasn't a State when this Volcano erupted in 1912.
How could this possibly be true given the fact that there have been >1,000 nuclear tests performed, including devices with orders of magnitude higher yield than in Hiroshima?
Most tests have been performed underground. And for an above-ground test to cause anything close to a nuclear winter, you need a lot more material than the bomb itself and the soil beneath it. Tons and tons of debris would need to be shot up into the atmosphere.
So, the theory of nuclear winter depends on bombs detonating over cities and forests, causing massive amounts of debris, and also inducing firestorms that would act as chimneys for even more smoke and particles to be funneled up into the troposphere and stratosphere.
Because those were most all carefully controlled to prevent such damage. Top of the list: those that were above ground were tested above empty terrain. The bomb doesn't create most of the ash. The burning city under the bomb is where the bulk of sun-blocking ash comes from. No city, no ash, no nuclear winter issues.
I would expect that some of the predicted effects of a "nuclear winter" would start to appear after a series of forest fires--albeit smaller in scope and intensity--but AFAIK this is not the case. What gives?
Most forest fires don't create strong enough firestorms (if they do at all) to funnel material high enough to have an effect -- most of the ash falls back down in a matter of weeks (even sooner if it gets rained out of the atmosphere). I'd compare nuclear blast firestorms with volcanic eruptions -- we do have a record of eruptions funneling material high enough into the troposphere and stratosphere to have a noticeable, longer-term effect on the climate (over the subsequent months and years).
> Airburst nuclear weapons produce basically 0 fallout. The bomb has to burst on the surface to pick up particles of earth and debris to create fallout.
Air bursts produce minimal localized fallout, but they have long-term global consequences, especially detonating many powerful fusion bombs. The fallout produces atmospheric carbon-14 and strontium-90, among other dangerous isotopes, that can have consequences for many future generations. This is part of the reason why the nuclear test ban treaty was created.
One interesting thing I learned recently is that pre-1945 steel[1] sells at a high premium because all modern steel has been noticeably contaminated by atomic testing. This has lead to large-scale illegal salvaging of old warship wrecks[2].
This fallout remained in the atmosphere at such significant concentrations that it intermittently interfered with terrestrial radiological contamination measurement for decades after above-ground testing was banned.
Calling H-bombs "fusion" bombs is perhaps a bit of a misnomer in that while fusion is they key component of H-bomb designs most of the energy of these weapons actually comes from fission - the fusion in the secondary produces a large amount of neutrons and these then cause the fission of a uranium tamper around the secondary which is the main energy source.
Duck and Cover was widely derided, but it would have saved countless lives in the event of a nuclear attack.
We learned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki that a very large proportion of deaths and the majority of injuries in a nuclear attack are caused by flying glass fragments and flash burns. The effects of both injuries are greatly exacerbated by the relative paucity of medical care - an injury that might be completely survivable in peacetime could prove fatal if medical care is unavailable.
People at the hypocenter would be killed instantly, but a far greater number of people at the edge of the blast radius could be protected by remarkably simple means. Covering yourself with coat or blanket could be the difference between being completely incinerated and surviving unharmed. Crouching under a desk offers remarkably good protection from falling and flying debris.
We saw a vivid example of this with the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor.
Many people were injured when they were standing next to windows watching the spectacle, not realizing the shock wave was on its way.
> ...about 1,500 people were injured seriously enough to seek medical treatment. All of the injuries were due to indirect effects rather than the meteor itself, mainly from broken glass from windows that were blown in when the shock wave arrived, minutes after the superbolide's flash.
"Incinerated" may be a slightly strong word, but "fatally injured by burns" is entirely accurate. Most of the fatal and life-altering burns suffered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were effectively extreme sunburn. Most of the burns victims were burnt only on one side of their body - the side facing towards the blast. It doesn't take a lot of material to protect you from that flash. Many people suffered burns only to their face and hands, while the parts of their body covered by clothing was uninjured. Some people had the pattern of their clothing burned into their skin; the darker colors of the pattern acted as a photomask. Eye injuries were very common, because many people heard the bombers flying overhead and went out to look.
I am aware of this, which is why I said it could protect you from surface burns. The parent didn't just say "incinerated" - it said "completely incinerated". I don't think there's any scenario involving "complete incineration" where a blanket will help.
The thermal radiation pulse is very short, on the order of seconds and it may arrive faster than the air blast. If you are close enough to the blast for your blanket to be vaporized and moved away from your body that quickly, you are likely being concurrently killed by the fireball, ionizing radiation, and overpressure.
Something that was recommended in UK civil defence material from the Cold War was painting windows white - this sounds silly (and was often derided) but is actually a pretty good mechanism for keeping thermal radiation out of the inside of buildings.
Of course the outside would still be on fire. Most of the UK has either wooden or plastic window frames.
The absolute best outcome would be lower burn rates in the outer rings of the heat zone.
But in a full exchange fallout levels would kill those people regardless, and even if fallout didn't, they'd still starve.
I've seen maps from the 1950s - before the huge warhead build-up - which showed most of the UK being reduced to desert by fallout.
In reality, in a full exchange the larger cities would be hit multiple times, so the short-term odds of survival for anyone within 10-15 miles of a large city would be essentially zero.
It has not been discredited. Ultimately it is unknown what would happen since atmospheric testing was banned over half a century ago. However, I find it hard to believe that a thermonuclear war would not produce a very significant amount of atmospheric particles. The amount of cooling may be over- or under-stated, we really don't know, but there is probably some effect.
Because it doesn't cool the global temperatures by virtue of being itself. Nuclear winter is caused when massive amounts of debris and other particles (like smoke) are shot up into the air, blocking some of the sunlight, resulting in cooler temperatures. This also has the affect of less crop yields due to reductions in sunlight, less electricity generated from solar panels, and other consequences. So unless we want to voluntarily eat significantly less and use less energy in the name of cooling Earth's temp for 5 years, it's not a very viable alternative.
It one of those things we don't want to experiment with to find out. Interestingly, the burning of fossil fuels is arguably an uncontrolled climate change experiment that might lead to thermohaline disturbances, an Ice Age and/or hypercanes.
I have a feeling its the same as pouring a few bottles of poison in a swimming pool. We just have so much atmosphere.. sure, there will be a minimal but significant drop in temperature and some plants may not grow as abundantly as normal, but globally, the consequences are not (as) cataclysmic.
Edit: apparently people do not know how vast the amount of water that goes in a typical swimming pool is..
And any analytical mind can take some educated guesses and say 'well, if I pour 6L of a poison in an average public swimming pool of 30x2x10m, that's 1 part poison per 100.000 parts water, or 0,00001% poison. Same goes for the atmosphere and blasted up particles. Aside from that, most people would read'I feel like' ~= 'I guesstimate', but it seems these days some of us need explicitness past the normal verbal conventions.
Almost all of these points are based on cherry picked models. These models are very likely wrong. Models for something that has never happened are notoriously incorrect.
I'd rather not find out how inaccurate these models are. I also find your expressions of joy about this quite troublesome.
AGW is happening now, so unfortunately we're getting the opportunity to test the models. And carbon levels, and climate, have both varied in the past, albeit a lot more slowly. Those variations can be used to tune some aspects of our current models.
It's a valid point of discussion, but unfortunately almost everyone opposed to climate action is anti-scientific and political in their motivations, and usually duplicitous about it. Which causes people to lose their cool.
Most actual climate scientists, on the other hand, are more than happy to entertain honest skepticism. It's integral to science.
> ... almost everyone opposed to climate action is anti-scientific and political in their motivations ...
I'd say that motivations are economic. And skeptical scientists and politicians are bought. It's the same strategy that tobacco firms used. Including the astroturfing.
My own objections to (some) climate change mitigations are philosophical.
In summary - models of the effects of AGW have proved largely useless in terms of predicting the impact of same, or even the existence of net negative impact.
So why are we proposing to spend vast sums of money, not to mention increasing the price of energy, to address this issue?
Actually, all large nuclear weapons states have agreed to do that, they just ignore their treaty obligations in perpetuity.
NPT:
"Article VI
Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."
I second this. To your question, I believe it's because the notion is multifaceted, and there are many reasonable answers. The most common being that we need nuclear weapons for deterrence (defensive) reasons, same as the reason for having a war machine or military alliances at all. A reason less touted is that we need it for offensive reasons, but then again, the best defense is offence so the two are difficult to clearly distinguish. Another reasonable argument against a ban regards enforcement: how to you enforce something from a position of weakness (having vowed not to use nuclear against a ban-breaker)? I could go on but the point is not that these reasonable objections are insurmountable obstacles, but rather that there are real difficulties that need to be addressed in order to avoid the nuclear havoc that otherwise seems a probable end result some time this century.
Moreover, we seen/remember the world before nuclear weapons. Nowadays though, modern protection systems negate the effect. If something should be banned, it is "total nuclear umbrellas", so pushed by military countries.
A 20MT weapon detonation could result in disabling the global electrical production and distribution system, as well as permanently disabling the electronics necessary to move food, water, and medical supplies.
Your thesis is that an instant global economic collapse, destruction of all advanced agricultural systems, transportation systems, waste management systems, water purification systems, etc. won't result in >= 20M deaths.
You really have no idea what the effects of a significant nuclear exchange would be.
> A 20MT weapon detonation could result in disabling the global electrical production and distribution system, as well as permanently disabling the electronics necessary to move food, water, and medical supplies.
The Tsar Bomba was a 50MT detonation and no such thing happened.
There certainly are more electronics around today, but the EMP from a 20MT blasts, or even many 20MT blasts, would not be global, and even many electronics in range would be fine.
You completely neglect to mention the massive EMP effects which would, in effect, eliminate electricity globally and cause the instant collapse of society completely apart from any of the kinetic damage and fallout.
It absolutely does. Most US cities only have enough total food for three days, regardless of size.
There are case studies of cities in China that run out of food. The first thing that happens is the annihilation of local animal populations, then starvation.
When you're starving, you either die and fight, and most people would do both.
People underestimate just how fragile civilisation actually is.
From the description at the top of the thread it's as if we'll just come out of our shelters after a week and everything will go back to normal, we'll just drive down to Arby's for dinner, maybe catch a movie.
Right. Loads of Americans don't realize that a lot of people in their communities are members of some kind of emergency reserve component. And a lot of this sort of "hidden infrastructure" would mobilize relatively very quickly (on the scale of hours). In addition to slogging through tours overseas in shithole countries, I spent twelve years of my life preparing for large-scale natural or man-made disasters. People just don't realize how much of the community would mobilize in the event of an emergency.
I'm not sure how you mean "mobilize". If things weren't too bad, that would be a good thing. But if things got really bad, at least some of them would go feral. Trained and armed. Or just be looking for work and food.
This scenario is a fun thought experiment in science fiction stories, but this is so astronomically unlikely, you can plan around it. It is fairly stupid to make plans for this kind of scenario, because you will probably die before it gets that bad. You live in a city? You will be dead long before "things got really bad". The worst case scenario worth planning for is a totalitarian government. Martial law that gets extended indefinitely, and a general that becomes "President". There would be famine generally, and loads of people will starve to death. But independent roving warlord raiding bandit tribes ("feral" authorities) like in Mad Max? Not happening.
That's not "the christian version of sharia law". Think instead of something like the Spanish Inquisition.
Also, it's not like the christians have a monopoly on disaster relief, nor is it like christians are always helpful in a disaster. Remember the megachurch that had to be socially shamed into opening its doors for victims of Harvey?
My point is that Christian people catch a lot of undeserved grief on HN for really no reason. I see a lot of people doing decent things in the name of Christianity, I don't see a push for "Christian Sharia Law" anywhere at all.
And Joel Osteen is a tool and a fraud.
I don't remember saying that Christians have a monopoly on disaster relief either.
I see milder forms of Christian Sharia all over the place. Just off the top of my head, birth control, abortion, drugs, assisted suicide, alcohol, and marriage are legally regulated based on Christian morality (not necessarily what the Bible says, but what self-professed Christians claim their religion to say) to various degrees.
Christians in general are fine, but a certain subset of American Christians is hell-bent on forcing their religion on the rest of us, and they have a lot of power.
Don't forget widespread genital mutiliation of men in the US that's accepted as the most normal thing in the world - circumcision is straight from Abrahamic religions.
I am fully aware of those. Despite all of them, cutting a part of a child's penis is barbaric and once again - I'm shocked that it's treated as this completely normal thing in the US.
One could say the same thing about injecting chemical and biological agents into newborn children. Circumcision is no less a lifesaving health issue than vaccination. Are you also shocked that people kill and eat animals? Are you also shocked about the biology of sex? Maybe you should examine what makes you "shocked" about medical treatments that bolster the health and wellness of human beings.
I'm a bit confused (honestly). Your link shows benefits, but nothing involving life and death. Or rather: if that's all, and religious reasons are not considered, circumcision is not at all a 'proportionate response'.
To be clear, my perspective is from a society where circumcision is not the norm. I'd say the norm here is not to remove parts of the body unless there's very good reason to do so. Wisdom death probably come closest. But circumcision for health reasons would be akin to removing the appendix in every newborn.
Again, I'm honestly curious. I assumed circumcision (for reasons other than religion) was a fringe position in these circles.
It's not a fringe position. There's plenty of research out there, you can do the footwork yourself [0]. It's not "akin to removing the appendix in every newborn" because it's a minor procedure. Certainly less invasive and dangerous than removing an appendix or wisdom teeth. The research just doesn't support the pearl-clutching that goes on about circumcision. If you want to expose your children to that kind of risk, then don't have your boys circumcised.
If the procedure had never been heard of before and we were deciding today whether it would be a good idea to do this at birth, we probably wouldn’t even consider it.
And this makes him "not a christian"? This is a 'no true Scotsman' argument. If you're going to provide a litany of 'good things', then you shouldn't gloss over the 'bad things' either. Osteen isn't the only minister out there that's fleecing his flock.
And what about the largest christian denomination, a powerful organisation which has a long history of covering up pedophiles in its ranks? Using its political clout to prevent government investigations? And even ignoring the pedophile issue, the standard doctrine of that denomination is making people feel guilty about their actions. 'Original Sin' is one of the most disgusting core components of any major religion; that you owe an unpayable debt from even before you take your first breath, and that you are sinful and should feel guilty about it if you don't constantly try to absolve that debt throughout your life.
And as mikeash says, there's plenty of christian morality forced into our laws. Here in Australia, we've just wasted $120M on a stupid national plebiscite on same-sex marriage (that's non-binding!) because it was forced through by conservative christian powerbrokers - despite long and consistent public support around 70% on the issue. There have only been two plebiscites before here, once for conscription in WWI, and once for the national anthem in the 70s, both of which were nation-defining things. The only reason why this is happening for same-sex marriage is christian morality trying to further force its way into our laws.
Yes, christians do good. Good christians do good. Good people do good. Bad christians do bad. The mafia is a classic example; plenty religious, plenty bad. Fact of the matter is that the proportion of christians helping out in those disaster zones is a miniscule proportion of total christians - if you're going to dismiss the Osteens of the world as being non-representative, why should we also not dismiss christian efforts in disaster zones?
If a minister teaches practices and beliefs that are in opposition to the scripture that defines Christianity, is he Christian? This is clearly not a True Scotsman scenario. I can't call myself Catholic if I don't follow the pope. I can't call myself Muslim if I don't respect the prophet - and so forth. Joel Osteen teaches a philosophy that is far outside of the mainstream of Christianity.
Clearly there are people of all groups who are good/bad etc. The reason I entered into the conversation was to address the bigoted nature of above poster's assessment of what Christian people would do in a hypothetical nuclear war scenario. I suggest that you look at what Christian groups are doing in Texas right now as an example.
Before repeating the myth of the Spanish inquisition, you should look to the English, German and French inquisitions. They was far worse!
And, there is many sects with very hard and strict interpretations of the biblie, so yes... there is many christian versions of sharia law. If, tell to any one that live on Switzerland when John Calvin grab the power. Tell it to Michael Servetus...
The most vocal, notice I don't say majority, only seem to pay that ideal the barest minimum of lip service. The most vocal only want to love thy neighbor if the neighbor is Christian, heterosexual, and maybe even only if they are the same race.
Those appear to be the most vocal. You and I know they aren't the majority, but perception matters a lot. I have absolutely no problem with Christians, though I don't share their faith. I'm just aware that the most vocal people professing to be Christians are everything from White Nationalists to the Westboro Baptist Church.
We can probably agree that they aren't the best Christians to represent the faith, but they certainly are the most vocal and are the public face that many people see. For better or worse, you end up with virtual caricatures being the representatives.
The most vocal, notice I don't say majority, only seem to pay that ideal the barest minimum of lip service. The most vocal only want to help the worker if the worker is Unionized, woke, and maybe even only if they are the right minority.
Those appear to be the most vocal. You and I know they aren't the majority, but perception matters a lot. I have absolutely no problem with democrats/labor, though I don't share their politics. I'm just aware that the most vocal people professing to be on the left are everything from Antifa to Black Lives Matter.
We can probably agree that they aren't the best people to represent the left, but they certainly are the most vocal and are the public face that many people see. For better or worse, you end up with virtual caricatures being the representatives.
Do you see how that passage totally misrepresents the whole left and casts it in a bad light? It borders on concern trolling. Can somebody come up with a better name for this than 'the bigotry of hand wringing?' If not, that's what I'm going with.
You only see Antifa or Westboro as representative of the groups they pervert if you only consume news from people who want to make you emotional and then show you ads.
I don't see this as concern trolling when these sort of negative issues are widely cited in surveys on un-churched Americans. If I were a pastor wanting to reach out to future generations, I'd see this sort of thing as a problem.
"Unchurched Americans" have been a growing trend for quite some time. Nearly half of millenials are "post-Christian" in this survey from a few years back.
In this study, half of the post-Christians could not identify a single favorable impact of the Christian community.
The top things people complained about regarding American churches were violence in the name of Christ, the position on gay marriage, sexual abuse scandals, and involvement in politics.
Note that "unchurched" does not mean "not Christian", but I think there is plenty of evidence though that says a large portion of Americans believe, at minimum, that the institution of American Christianity is fundamentally broken.
I don't think the clickbait-ization of news is the entire story here either. "Nones" have been growing rapidly since the 1990s.
No, I see more than that but that's because I take the time to seek it out. It's not up to me to determine public perception, I am - quite literally - only making the observation.
In fact, I'm not sure why you'd think I'm trolling? I live in a very rural area where attending church is mostly the default, and not the exception. I know the majority of Christians aren't like WBC and that they aren't White Nationalists. However, it's the WBC and White Nationalists that people see assembling in public and standing behind the banner of the cross.
I'm not sure how you'd think I see only that when I was really careful to point out that I see much more than that. I see the lady pastor who comes by with a pan of lasagna whenever she hears of trouble. I see people who make sure not one person here is hungry, homeless, or more alone than they want to be. I see them stop to shovel the snow of a grumpy old man who is distinctly not very Christian in his behavior. I see them practicing what they preach.
At the same time, I see the online comments from the people who believe the WBC actually represents all Christians, or at least the majority. I see a sibling comment who pointed out just that, a comment about them needing to actually adhere to their professed doctrine.
I'm not sure why you'd attack me, the messenger. It's not like I control public perception. It's not like I made the sibling comment. Perhaps you're reading things into my comment that weren't stated or intended? Perhaps you're making broad assumptions about me that aren't based on anything I said but are based on your own biases?
As I said, I see the Christians and they are usually wonderful people. Unfortunately, many people don't and you end up with the loudest being considered representatives of the whole. You end up with things like the sibling comment. The sibling comment is a fine example of exactly what I mean, and is wonderfully timely.
You can feel free to attack me, or you can acknowledge that there is a PR problem and try to resolve it. You can acknowledge that someone already even likened it to Sharia law and wonder why that is. Or, of course, you can attack the guy who points it out and accuse them of trolling. That's fine, I don't mind, but it's not very productive or helpful.
Edit: Sorry you're being downvoted, but I had nothing to do with that either. Maybe they are as baffled as I am as to why you'd attack me when I did nothing more than make an observation - an observation handily backed up by some of the comments in this very thread.
This was more of a commentary on the political polarization we face where belief in the message of a chosen political party is accepted in the same way as a religious belief. Essentially there are people who worship their political affiliation. In the way religious beliefs are not often questioned neither are political beliefs. This is why we call them beliefs.
The book is propaganda intended to draw support for ideas of the era like SDI. You need to read it in context with the era and how people like Teller felt.
That's an interesting fact about power. Is this due to the inverse square law?
I was recently reading about Russia's new ICBM, RS-28 Sarmat 2 (Satan 2). It is said that one could wipe out Texas or France. [1] I'm not as optimistic about our prospects.
I don't know if something was lost in translation or if this ridiculous claim is straight from the Russian government. There is no way that a missile carrying a 100 tonne payload can "wipe out" 700,000 km^2. It wouldn't even be able to break every window in Texas. Not even with very high yield-to-mass ratio warheads and MIRVing.
(OTOH, just hitting the top population centers of Texas or France would be devastating enough, so nuclear war is terrifying even after discarding the hyperbole.)
EDIT: and the warhead mass is 10 tons, not 100. 100 tons is the mass of the whole vehicle. That makes a lot more sense, given that this is not a Saturn V-sized launch vehicle. It can carry up to 24 MIRVed warheads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat
>That's an interesting fact about power. Is this due to the inverse square law?
Yeah, but not in the way you think. Cities are densest in the center; as blast radius grows, the amount of things inside it does not grow at the same rate.
Somewhere I saw "theories" that Russia can simply aim several of those at Yellowstone and then let nature take care of the rest. Or just off East Coast and let tsunamis do the rest. Not sure how credible those are.
That sounds pretty dicey to me, and there are no do-overs in global thermonuclear war.
Even the largest tsunami ever wouldn't make it past the Appalacan Mountains, so I really don't know what they are thinking about there. My guess is that even our biggest nuclear weapons are puny compared to a modest earthquake, so the Taunami plan probably won't work very well.
"Even the largest tsunami ever wouldn't make it past the Appalacan Mountains"
I've read that the impactor that created the Chicxulub caused a megatsunami that washed over the Rocky Mountains, although I can't find the article now. Instead, I found one that talked about a tsunami 305 meters tall, and a wiki page about megatsunamis that talks about it being just 100 meters tall.
Interestingly, further down it claims that, had the impactor struck deep ocean, the tsunami would have been 4600 meters tall. That's about the straight-line distance from my home to my work.
Those ICBMs can hold 10-15 warheads, but each warhead only destroys 10-15 sq miles. You'd need at least 5-10 just to mostly destroy the Dallas metro area.
Take out the transport infrastructure and you've basically done the job and can dust of your hands and go home. Good luck keeping a megacity (or nation) fed when you destroy its ports and interchanges, polluting them with radiation such that they can't be put back into some form of action.
I had the impression the book was painting a slightly less grim picture of nuclear war to prevent people from getting discouraged and not even trying to follow the advice.
While I agree that people have overstated the effects of nuclear war, he was IMHO excessively dismissive of the long term exposure risks from even low level fallout.
>-Nuclear winter" is a discredited myth propagated by de-nuclearization supporters.
That it's been discredited is the myth actually. Most models indicate some level of global environmental impact. And a large scale exchange of thermo nuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs, not just atomic) would be pretty severe, probably leading to large scale global starvation.
> Food & water isn't contaminated unless fallout particles enter into it
Is that right? I had always thought objects absorb radiation, so it's actually inside the thing.
Does this really mean If I have a bunch of apples in air tight plastic bags and plastic water bottles and things like that, I can just leave them outside during a nuclear blast and then eat them later?
(Assume the plastic remains air-tight?)
That... sits badly with me.
Does that mean I can put an apple in am air-tight plastic container into an x-ray for a year then take it out and eat it... ?
That is my understanding: yes, it would be safe to eat those apples. Also, yes, it would be perfectly safe to eat apples that were exposed to x-rays for one year. X-rays are not powerful enough to split atoms, so if the apple started out by not having unstable (i.e. radioactive) atoms, it will end up the same. Some molecules in the apple will split, but not the atoms themselves.
The story would be different if you exposed the apple to neutron bombardment. During a nuclear explosion, a lot of neutrons are released, but the intensity of the neutron bombardment decreases with the square of the radius, so if you are far enough for the apples to not be physically destroyed, they'll most likely be safe to eat.
It's possible to irradiate food at such high levels so as to degrade the nutritional value but it will never become radioactive itself. Over 60 countries use low level radiation to sterilize food.
Airburst nuclear weapons would be deployed against dispersed soft targets prone to firestorms - firestorms large enough to elevate soot into the region where it can mix with ionized fission products and weapon debris.
-Food & water isn't contaminated unless fallout particles enter into it. Thus any food/water stored in airtight containers is safe to consume.
-The US & Russia likely don't have enough nuclear firepower to kill every human being on earth (a commonly cited "fact"). This is based off of misleading calculations.
-Within a couple of weeks, fallout radiation would be reduced to the point that most people could leave their shelters.
-A bomb said to be 1,000x more powerful than the one used on Hiroshima is not 1,000x more deadly or destructive (16x more deadly is apparently more accurate)
-"Nuclear winter" is a discredited myth propagated by de-nuclearization supporters.
-Airburst nuclear weapons produce basically 0 fallout. The bomb has to burst on the surface to pick up particles of earth and debris to create fallout.
Nuclear war doesn't seem so bad now! :D