Small Nuclear War Would Devastate Global Climate, Scientists Warn

With events "hotting up" in the Middle East on many fronts, I was reminded about an article I read in the National Geographic at the end of last year.

Until recently, studies had only looked at the effects of an all out war between superpowers, rather than a small scale nuclear exchange, the like of which appears more and more likely in the future.

"In an exchange in which each side uses only 50 Hiroshima-size bombs—just 0.3 percent of the world's arsenal—the initial explosions could kill more than 20 million people, the scientists calculate."

"But more far-reaching would be the resulting fires, which would fill the upper atmosphere with soot—destroying the Earth's ozone layer, blocking sunlight, and reducing average global temperatures by 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.25 degrees Celsius), said co-author Alan Robock of Rutgers University in New Jersey."

The European Union has stated that the single greatest problem facing mankind in 5,000 years of civilization is not terrorism, but global warming, and to this end have declared that there be a reduction in "greenhouse gases" to ensure that global warming does not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).

That it is this same European Union, ably supported by the United Nations, that is spectacularly failing to tackle the growing threat of nuclear terrorism in the Middle East, one hopes that they do not truly believe their own rhetoric.

Not withstanding the humanitarian tragedy that nuclear conflict would bring, they surely don't think that it is worth preventing global warming at any cost? Do they?

National Geographic News