nuclear-news

A ‘limited’ war would bring starvation to billions, and a nuclear winter

Billions face starvation due to nuclear weapons, Herald Sun : AFP April 25, 2012 MORE than a billion people worldwide could starve if India and Pakistan unleash nuclear weapons because even a “limited” nuclear war would cause major climate disruptions, a study says.

In addition to clouds of radiation which could contaminate farmland far from the centre of the blasts, the study found soot released into the atmosphere would devastate crop yields by cooling global temperatures and reducing rainfall worldwide.

The study provides hard data to back up dire warnings of the global – and unintended – consequences of nuclear weapons, said author Dr Ira Helfand of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

“It is not just the arsenals of the US and Russia that pose a threat to the whole world,” Helfand told AFP.

“Even these smaller arsenal pose an existential threat to our
civilisation, if not to our species. It would certainly end modern
society as we know it.”

The study, set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate
Change, was released at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in
Chicago.

It found that corn production in the United States would decline by an
average of 10 per cent for an entire decade and soybean production
would drop by about 10 per cent with the most severe decline occurring
five years after the nuclear war.

It also determined that rice production in China would drop by an
average of 21 per cent of the first four years and 10 per cent next
six years.

Significant losses would also likely occur with other crops and in
other countries, Helfand said in an interview on the sidelines of the
summit.

And the actual crop losses could be much worse than predicted since
the conservative model did not account for increases in UV light and
the likelihood that global cooling would also result in sudden,
crop-killing frosts.

“Even with what we are able to show, the consequences for human
nutrition and human life are really profound,” Helfand said.

The resulting increase in food prices and agricultural shortfalls
would almost certainly lead to panic and hoarding on an international
scale, further reducing access to food….. Those consequences would
pale in comparison to the Nuclear Winter which would devastate the
globe should the United States or Russia unleash even a small portion
of their arsenal, Helfand said….. Mikhail Gorbachev, who as
president of the Soviet Union helped end the Cold War and open
Russia’s communist regime to democracy, said the study offers further
proof of the need to abolish nuclear weapons. ….
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/billions-face-starvation-due-to-nuclear-weapons/story-e6frf7lf-1226337962231

April 27, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, weapons and war