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Immediate danger of nuclear global cooling

The Forgotten Nightmare: Global Cooling

By Robin Davis 21 October, 2009 Countercurrents.org “……………….While global warming dominates the headlines a more urgent danger threatens life on earth. Global warming could make the planet uninhabitable by the end of the century. Global cooling – the “Nuclear Winter” that would follow nuclear war – could achieve the same result in days or weeks………

……..the chilling reality: the US and Russia still possess 97% of the world’s nuclear weapons and neither has any genuine commitment to nuclear disarmament. It is they and the other 7 established nuclear weapon states that pose the greatest threat to humanity and all other species on the planet. If even a tiny fraction of the world’s nuclear arsenal were unleashed catastrophic climate change would follow.
For example, a “small” nuclear war employing 100 bombs of the size that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki would pour millions of tons of smoke into the stratosphere. The smoke would come from the raging firestorms consuming cities, industries, neighbourhoods and people. As the smoke spread around the globe it would reduce the sunlight and destroy much of the protective ozone layer. Temperatures would drop and food production would plunge due to shortened growing seasons. Hundreds of millions of people, possibly a billion, would starve to death. [1] Think of Hiroshima. Imagine 100 times Hiroshima. (3) And this can quite accurately be described as a “small” conflict because it would be equivalent to less than half of 1% of the explosive power of US and Russian high-alert nuclear weapons. [2] That figure bears repeating: less than half of 1%…………

Climate change from global cooling would occur not in decades or years but in weeks or days. Survivors would have no time to adapt. [1] Until they died off from the lethal radioactive fallout they would be left with razed cities, destroyed infrastructure, horrific injuries, birth deformations, cancers, disease epidemics and mass starvation. Perhaps the tens of millions or hundreds of millions instantly vapourised or incinerated would be the lucky ones.

The potential for a catastrophic mistake is enormous, particularly in the case of a suspected submarine launched attack. Russian and US “Launch on Warning” systems” would give their presidents only 2 to 3 minutes to decide whether or not to retaliate……………With this spectre hovering over humanity it is difficult to understand how anyone, least of all an environmental luminary like James Lovelock, could advocate nuclear power as a solution to global warming.

The Forgotten Nightmare: Global Cooling By Robin Davis

October 22, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, 2 WORLD, climate change | antinuclear, climate change, nuclear, nuclear weapons