"Atmospheric soot loadings from nuclear weapon detonation would cause
disruptions to the Earth’s climate, limiting terrestrial and aquatic
food production. Here, we use climate, crop and fishery models to
estimate the impacts arising from six scenarios of stratospheric soot
injection, predicting the total food calories available in each nation
post-war after stored food is consumed. In quantifying impacts away from
target areas, we demonstrate that soot injections larger than 5 Tg
would lead to mass food shortages, and livestock and aquatic food
production would be unable to compensate for reduced crop output, in
almost all countries. Adaptation measures such as food waste reduction
would have limited impact on increasing available calories. We estimate
more than 2 billion people could die from nuclear war between India and
Pakistan, and more than 5 billion could die from a war between the
United States and Russia—underlining the importance of global
cooperation in preventing nuclear war."
Rutgers University study -- Nature Food
"The psychological impact can be greater than the actual damage."
"These [mushroom farming, indoor farming and insect protein production or microalgae foods as alternatives] don’t require as much room."
"They can be grown in
your kitchen, in an underground space, and rely less on an environment
exposed to nuclear war."
William Chen, food science professor, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore; director government-affiliated
food safety program
According to a Rutgers University-led study published in the journal Nature Food, two-thirds of the world could starve to death should a nuclear war break out between Russia and the United States. "Catastrophic" disruptions would result from nuclear conflict, leading to massive shortages of food. Sun-blocking soot and ash from the explosion would wilt crops globally, wrote the researchers.
In the event of even a smaller scale nuclear war between Pakistan and India, food supplies would be devastated. Global food production would be cut by seven percent in a five-year period, killing up to 2.5 billion people. In these cases food insecurity would represent a deadlier threat than the nuclear blasts, predicts the study.
"The data tell us one thing: We must prevent a nuclear war from ever happening", stated Alan Robock, climate scientist and coauthor of the report. Wind pattern alterations in the event of such a catastrophe could spread smoke and fire from nuclear attacks, clouding skies above major food exporters like the United States and China. The absence of sunlight would collapse harvests which could result in a 90 percent drop in animal, fishing and crop yields worldwide within four years of a conflict between major nuclear powers.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, fears of nuclear conflict have been renewed. Increased Chinese military drills near Taiwan have done their part to increase apprehension of nuclear conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated his nuclear forces to be "combat ready", raising fears of possible nuclear conflict with the West, though Russian authorities later attempted to 'correct' the perception that a warning was being extended by Mr. Putin.
Massive military drills have been mounted around Taiwan by China, following recent U.S. lawmakers' trips to the island state, challenged by Beijing as its recoverable territory. Existing threats to food security would be compounded exponentially by nuclear war. Climate change, the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic have done their part in severely disrupting global food production.
According to the World Food Program, 345 million people worldwide face food insecurity. The result of which has been that countries like India and Malaysia have taken steps to limit exports of wheat and chicken in the fear that global conflict -- irrespective of the use of nuclear weapons -- and food insecurity that would result could influence countries to limit exports or to hoard food supplies.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin visits the construction site of the National
Space Agency on the premises of the Khrunichev State Research and
Production Space Centre, in Moscow, Russia February 27, 2022. Photo by SPUTNIK /via REUTERS
"If
someone from the outside tries to intervene in what's happening, if
they create threats,threats of a strategic nature, our retribution, our
counter0strike will be instantaneous."
"We
have all the necessary instruments, ones that no one else can boas of.
And we will not be bragging about them, we will use them if necessary."
Russian President Vladimir Putin
"I don’t think [Putin] will [use nuclear weapons]."
"[Russia’s
President has committed] massive strategic blunders. His so-called lightning invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone too well."
"I don’t feel rattled by it. Because we have strong Armed
Forces and a nuclear deterrent and we’re part of a NATO partnership of
30 nations who outgun him, outnumber him and have potentially all the
capabilities at our disposal."
"I don’t fear him. I think we should be very grateful in this country
that we have a nuclear deterrent, I think that is a really important
part of his calculations."
"There are many, as we know, who wanted to get rid of it over the years."
"I’m
very grateful that somewhere under the sea, some amazing men and women
are deep underwater, hiding, waiting, in case Britain needs to be
protected. That’s important."
U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace
One of Britain's Trident nuclear submarines leaves on deterrent patrol from the Clyde Naval Base, Scotland
Sergei Lavrov, Kremlin spokesman had warned of the danger of nuclear confrontation: "We must not underestimate it".
Who is talking nuclear to begin with? In the Russian invasion of
Ukraine, Russian troops surrounded Ukraine's civil nuclear power plants,
including the decommissioned Soviet-era Chernobyl plant, risking rising
radiation levels by their interference with the monitoring/tending
Ukrainian nuclear-plant crew ensuring vigilance and safety.
The
Russian-Ukraine conflict is fought with conventional weaponry, with the
West and NATO countries supplying Ukraine with more up-to-date military
hardware to equal the footing between the attacker and the attacked.
With that assistance, along with the transfer of high-security
intelligence, Ukraine's military has more than countered the Russian
attack, and continues to do so. Enraging Vladimir Putin, inciting him to
threats against any possible 'intervention' by NATO or its members.
That
threat made initial oblique references to nuclear weapons, until Mr.
Putin formally placed his nuclear defences on standby. Purely a
self-protective device, to ensure that if any of his opponents nursed a
measure of stupidity sufficient to unleash a nuclear device as a
deterrent against further Russian advances and atrocities against
Ukraine's civilians Russia would be obliged to counter-strike.
Knowing
full well that no country other than his would deploy nuclear strikes,
Vladimir Putin's ploy was sufficiently transparent to shock his
adversaries at its sheer recklessness. Making it quite clear that
nothing would detain a decision on his part to 'reciprocate' for any
such move against Russia. As though anyone but himself would contemplate
the use of such weapons. The threat of which is more than enough to
convince his critics to take care and step back from the brink he has
imposed.
In
1947, atomic scientists devised the Doomsday Clock, setting it at seven
minutes to midnight in their assessment of the-then risk of atomic
weapons once again seeing the light of day after the horrors of Nagasaki
and Hiroshima, concluding World War II. That clock has been reset
numerous times, forward -- never backward. It sits now at 100 seconds to
midnight. Vladimir Putin has arrested the world's attention.
As
Putin sees the conventional strength of his military wane under a
situation he never imagined, with a surprise war of attrition causing
him to lose an astonishing number of elite commanders and generals on
the battlefield in Ukraine, along with the wreckage of armed personnel
carriers, tanks, planes, helicopters and the Russian navy's pride, the
Moskva to Ukrainian defence/offence tactics, he has become increasingly
morose and vengeful.
Behind
his pride in Russia's projection of power with its nuclear weaponry,
with the largest arsenal of nuclear devices of any country in the world,
fantasizing pride, fear and admiration, he is obsessed with the belief
of being advantaged over his adversaries. U.S. Secretary of Defense
Lloyd Austin's statement at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany at the
first meeting of the Ukraine Defence Consultative Group where he urged
allies to "Move heaven and earth" in stocking Ukraine with weapons, cannot have pleased Putin.
The
aggression of the U.S. is not equally shared across NATO. European
members find themselves too geographically close to Russia for comfort.
They are also too dependent on Russian oil and gas to be comfortable
about having their energy source cut off. Poland and Bulgaria have been.
Germany, always uncomfortable at pressure from the U.S. and NATO to
lift its reluctance to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons, foresees a
recession in agreeing to stop importing Russian energy.
There
are fears that Russia may contemplate a 'small' nuclear bomb on a
Ukrainian city, as a crude coercion strike, forcing Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy into an immediate, unconditional surrender. That
fear evokes pressure on the United States to transition from proxy war
to direct involvement, to send troops into Ukraine. A decision on the
part of the U.S. that would see push-back by other NATO members fearing
repercussions.
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
