[extropy-chat] nuclear winter's back

Lúcio de Souza Coelho lucioc at gmail.com
Tue Dec 12 17:00:19 UTC 2006


On 12/12/06, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
(...)
> "With the exchange of 100 [hiroshima-sized] weapons as posed in this
> scenario, the estimated quantities of smoke generated could lead to
> global climate anomalies exceeding any changes experienced in
> recorded history," said co-author Alan Robock, of Rutgers Univeristy
> in New Jersey. "And that's just 0.03 per cent of the total explosive
> power of the current world nuclear arsenal."
(...)

I wouldn't say that an exchange of 100 hiroshima-class bombs is
"small". It is small only if you compare that number with the total
amount of the world arsenal, but since the vast majority of that
arsenal is still in the hands of US and Russia (which have near-zero
risk of conflict nowadays), that comparison seems kind of pointless.
The nations in considerable risk of nuclear conflict (say, Israel,
Iran, Pakistan, India) don't have that many bombs (a few dozens each
country, I guess) and I would think that only a handful of them would
be used.

Some of the countries don't even have that much strategic targets for
bombs. As far as I understand, Israel for instance has just Tel-Aviv
and Jerusalem - if you destroy those two cities, in a way you destroy
the whole country. (And the destruction of Jerusalem is particularly
troublesome in the sense that it is a holy city for three major
religions...)



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