One Nuclear Skirmish Could Wreck the Planet

[n2doc]

By Dave Mosher February 25, 2011 | 3:00 pm | Categories: Environment

Updated: Feb. 25, 2011; 11:40 p.m. EST

WASHINGTON —

New climatological simulations show 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs — relatively small warheads, compared to the arsenals military superpowers stow today — detonated by neighboring countries would destroy more than a quarter of the Earth’s ozone layer in about two years.

Regions closer to the poles would see even more precipitous drops in the protective gas, which absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. New York and Sydney, for example, would see declines rivaling the perpetual hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica. And it may take more than six years for the ozone layer to reach half of its former levels.

Researchers described the results during a panel Feb. 18 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, calling it “a real bummer” that such a localized nuclear war could bring the modern world to its knees.

“This is tremendously dangerous,” said environmental scientist Alan Robock of Rutgers University, one of the climate scientists presenting at the meeting. “The climate change would be unprecedented in human history, and you can imagine the world … would just shut down.”

more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/nuclear-war-climate-change/

[kristopher]

1. Meanwhile Pakistan is building yet ANOTHER power reactor to make more bombs...

Pakistan Suspected of Building 4th Plutonium Reactor
http://www.ploughshares.org/news-analysis/morning-joe/pakistan-suspected-building-4th-plutonium-reactor

[txlibdem]

2. One former actor-turned politician can destroy the planet and the world economy

That has already happened.

How about you quit worrying about fantasies and start worrying about the damage that has already been done.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bananas]

4. The two biggest environmental threats are nuclear war and global warming

We have to avoid both of them.
We don't need nuclear energy to solve global warming,
expansion of nuclear energy increases the risk of nuclear war.

[txlibdem]

5. In your opinion. And I suppose you are entitled to your opinion. But facts say otherwise

Having nuclear weapons has PREVENTED wars for over 50 years now. The US and the former USSR would have come to blows were it not for the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine and both our stated opinions that we would, in fact, use nuclear weapons against the other if attacked. No war between the USSR and US? But wait, nuclear weapons are soooo dangerous and they INCREASE the risk of war.

The USA wants to invade North Korea so bad that the CIA can actually taste it. But we aren't and we won't be doing so. Why? Because North Korea has nuclear weapons. Again, nuclear weapons stop an armed conflict.

Before China became our owners we were antagonizing them all the time with incursions into their air space via flights taking off from US military bases in Japan. If they hadn't had nuclear weapons would we have started a war with China during those years we "hated" them for not being Capitalists? I think we might have. But--- they do have nukes and therefore we did NOT start any wars with them. The Korean war came close to escalating into it but we knew we could never take the risk to attack a country with nuclear weapons. Again, nuclear weapons prevent a war.

Look at all the other nuclear powers. How many of them are going around starting conflicts "just for the Halibut?" Nobody except the good ole USA with our oil wars. Wait! Oil wars?!? So that means that oil has caused wars and Nuclear Weapons have PREVENTED wars... That just can't be true, can it? Um, yes. It can and it is.

Thank you for playing, please watch your step as you exit the arena.

[bananas]

6. It's not just my opinion - and you really don't understand the facts

For example, the famous Doomsday Clock lists nuclear weapons as the #1 threat:

http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview

It is 6 Minutes to Midnight


Doomsday Clock Overview

Overview

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

Nuclear

The nuclear age dawned in the 1940s when scientists learned how to release the energy stored within the atom. Immediately, they thought of two potential uses--an unparalleled weapon and a new energy source. The United States built the first atomic bombs during World War II, which they used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Within two decades, Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and France had also established nuclear weapon programs. Since then, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have built nuclear weapons as well.

For most of the Cold War, overt hostility between the United States and Soviet Union, coupled with their enormous nuclear arsenals, defined the nuclear threat. The U.S. arsenal peaked at about 30,000 warheads in the mid-1960s and the Soviet arsenal at 40,000 warheads in the 1980s, dwarfing all other nuclear weapon states. The scenario for nuclear holocaust was simple: Heightened tensions between the two jittery superpowers would lead to an all-out nuclear exchange. Today, the potential for an accidental or inadvertent nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia remains, with both countries anachronistically maintaining more than 1,000 warheads on high alert, ready to launch within tens of minutes, even though a deliberate attack by Russia or the United States on the other seems improbable.

Unfortunately, however, in a globalized world with porous national borders, rapid communications, and expanded commerce in dual-use technologies, nuclear know-how and materials travel more widely and easily than before--raising the possibility that terrorists could obtain such materials and crudely construct a nuclear device of their own. The materials necessary to construct a bomb pervade the world--in part due to programs initiated by the United States and Soviet Union to spread civilian nuclear power technology and research reactors during the Cold War.

As a result, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials, substantial quantities of highly enriched uranium, one of the materials necessary for a bomb, remain in more than 40 non-weapon states. Save for Antarctica, every continent contains at least one country with civilian highly enriched uranium. Even with the improvement of nuclear reactor design and international controls provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), proliferation concerns persist, as the components and infrastructure for a civilian nuclear power program can also be used to construct nuclear weapons.

Much of the recent discussions focuses on Iran and its pursuit of a civilian nuclear power capability, but Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA director general, estimates that another 20 to 30 countries possess the capabilities, if not the intent, to pursue the bomb. Meanwhile, the original nuclear weapon states (in particular, Britain, France, Russia, and the United States) continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals, with little effort to relinquish these weapons. All of which leads many to believe that the world is embarking on a second nuclear age.

Climate Change

<snip to #2 on the list>

[txlibdem]

7. Arm waving and hyperventilating does not make an opinion a fact

You have presented no facts. I have presented facts. Facts win over hearsay and innuendo.

[pscot]

8. What facts did you present?

And what do you think you've won?

[txlibdem]

9. You know

The whole... nuclear (pffft)... thing. You know.

Come on! No? You... Come on, you know. I know you know. At least I'm sure it must be.

[bananas]

10. Deterrence failure rate: "almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes"

"If we continue to rely on a strategy with a one percent failure rate per year, that adds up to about 10% in a decade and almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes."

http://nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php

Soaring, Cryptography and Nuclear Weapons
Martin Hellman

<snip>

On an annual basis, that makes relying on nuclear weapons a 99% safe maneuver. As with 99.9% safe maneuvers in soaring, that is not as safe as it sounds and is no cause for complacency. If we continue to rely on a strategy with a one percent failure rate per year, that adds up to about 10% in a decade and almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes. Because the estimate was only accurate to an order of magnitude, the actual risk could be as much as three times greater or smaller. But even ⅓% per year adds up to roughly a 25% fatality rate for a child born today, and 3% per year would, with high probability, consign that child to an early, nuclear death.

Given the catastrophic consequences of a failure of nuclear deterrence, the usual standards for industrial safety would require the time horizon for a failure to be well over a million years before the risk might be acceptable. Even a 100,000 year time horizon would entail as much risk as a skydiving jump every year, but with the whole world in the parachute harness. And a 100 year time horizon is equivalent to making three parachute jumps a day, every day, with the whole world at risk.

While my preliminary analysis and the above described intuitive approach provide significant evidence that business as usual entails far too much risk, in-depth risk analyses are needed to correct or confirm those indications. A statement endorsed by the following notable individuals:

* Prof. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford University, 1972 Nobel Laureate in Economics
* Mr. D. James Bidzos, Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO, VeriSign Inc.
* Dr. Richard Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus, former member President's Science Advisory Committee and Defense Science Board
* Adm. Bobby R. Inman, USN (Ret.), University of Texas at Austin, former Director National Security Agency and Deputy Director CIA
* Prof. William Kays, former Dean of Engineering, Stanford University
* Prof. Donald Kennedy, President Emeritus of Stanford University, former head of FDA
* Prof. Martin Perl, Stanford University, 1995 Nobel Laureate in Physics

therefore "urgently petitions the international scientific community to undertake in-depth risk analyses of nuclear deterrence and, if the results so indicate, to raise an alarm alerting society to the unacceptable risk it faces as well as initiating a second phase effort to identify potential solutions."

<snip>

[bananas]

11. Your facts are wrong and your opinions are wrong.

You wrote "The USA wants to invade North Korea so bad that the CIA can actually taste it. But we aren't and we won't be doing so. Why? Because North Korea has nuclear weapons. Again, nuclear weapons stop an armed conflict."
Their first detonation was just a few years ago and it fizzled.
So for the past several decades they haven't had nuclear weapons, and we didn't invade them anyway.
Your facts are wrong.

People like Bush and Cheney wouldn't be stopped by a few nukes anyway. They are such sleazy bastards, many people are convinced they let the 911 attacks through just to get their wars started. And look at the callous response by Bush and Cheney when New Orleans was devastated by Katrina. They wouldn't care if a few cities were nuked, they would just see it as an opportunity to take away more rights and to invade more countries.

[kristopher]

13. That doesn't seem to make a difference

Apparently support for nuclear power is more faith based (Church of Uranus?) than most other technological policy issues.

[joshcryer]

12. Nope.

Yep.