nuclear-news

Global famine would result from even a “limited” nuclear war

Nuclear power & nuclear weapons – two sides of the same coin, July 24, 2012 Green Left, By Jim Green A nuclear war using as few as 100 weapons would disrupt the global climate and agricultural production so severely that the lives of more than a billion people would be at risk, according to research findings released in April by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and its Australian affiliate, the Medical Association for Prevention of War.

Working with data produced by scientists who have studied the climate effects of a hypothetical nuclear war between India and Pakistan, author Dr Ira Helfand and a team of experts in agriculture and nutrition determined that plunging temperatures and reduced precipitation in critical farming regions, caused by soot and smoke lofted into the atmosphere by multiple nuclear explosions, would interfere with crop production and affect food availability and prices worldwide.

The report finds that:

• There would be a significant decline in middle season rice production in China. During the first four years, rice production would decline by an average of 21% and over the next six years the decline would average 10%.

• Increases in food prices would make food inaccessible to hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest. Even if agricultural markets continued to function normally, 215 million people would be added to the rolls of the malnourished over the course of a decade. Significant agricultural shortfalls would lead to panic and hoarding on an international scale, further reducing accessible food.

• The 925 million people in the world who are already chronically malnourished would be put at risk by a 10% decline in their food consumption.

Dr Helfand said: “The death of one billion people over a decade would be a disaster unprecedented in human history. It would not cause the extinction of the human race, but it would bring an end to modern civilization as we know it.”……  The report, Nuclear Famine: A Billion People at Risk − Global Impacts of Limited Nuclear War on Agriculture, Food Supplies, and Human Nutritio, is available here. Videos are posted on youtube − search ‘nuclear famine’.  ….. http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/51667

July 25, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, weapons and war