Will there ever be a nuclear war ?

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Have you ever read -On the Beach- by Neville Shute?

ruveyn

Phew! Have been totally isolated for past forty eight hours doing artwork. Thought you wrote next few hours when I first read this. Double checked data though.


Was about to look at news. Won't bother now.

Ha! I was about to suggest the same thing. That's a pretty good book.

Thanks. That does sound quite interesting.

If there is a nuclear war, I'll be fighting for my country, until I get shot.

Sorry that I wrote that in a confusing manner.

No, although I did just read the plot summary, it sounds interesting, and is something I've never actually heard of before.

On another note, I should wake up more before posting, that post is full of mistakes.

Have just finished painting bee . Think bees are probably opposite of WMD. In fact LIFE is probably nearest thing opposite/inverted to meaning of nuclear warhead/ grubby bombs etc.

Nuclear war is inevitable. In fact, it is my suspicion that the SETI guys aren't finding anything because so many civilizations arose in our galaxy, became technologically advanced, and nuked themselves into extinction. They were transmitting radio signals for only a very short period of time between the invention of radio and the nuclear war.

Depends on the extent of the war. In case of a full exchange (thousands of nukes) the sky would darken all over the Earth, radiation would spread everywhere, and a nuclear winter would set in. Temperatures would drop globally and everything not near oceans would completely freeze. (Oceans are excellent heat sinks and would stay warm for a very long time.) Photosynthesis would stop, which would kill all the plants (ALL of them) which in turn would kill all the herbivores, which in turn would kill the meat eaters, all the way up the food chain. The only organisms thriving in such environment would be fungus which does not require sunlight. The ground would be covered with irradiated fungus. It already happened inside the now-sealed-off Chernobyl reactor.

The only way for a human to survive would be near an ocean, in an underground shelter with air filtration, with enough food and water stockpiled to last a few years. And then what?

Bear in mind that nuclear winter effects, if they occur and if they are as severe as the more pessimistic predictions hold, are still not uniform across the globe. Some places would be hit harder than others. It's not "total extinction of all life everywhere" level.

Nor is the radiation threat posed by the use of all currently deployed nukes that great. It'd be nasty, probably nasty all over the northern hemisphere, but it's not "everyone suddenly keels over with radiation sickness" level. It would be, if some idiot started chucking around cobalt bombs. They're entirely possible, but don't exist because no-one has been stupid enough to build them (or: no group of people stupid enough to want them have been able to muster the political, military and industrial clout that would be necessary to get them built and deployed). On the Beach requires cobalt bombs for its "we're all doomed!" plot. It is not an accurate prediction of normal(!) nuclear warfare.

Basically, you lose a billion people on the day of a full exchange, then you lose five billion to starvation and massacre over the next few years. Anyone lucky enough to be a) somewhere that doesn't get too much crap in the sky and b) isolated from other people has a good chance to ride it out.

Heh. Trust me, I'm an anti-nuke campaigner.

there's a good chance that many of the survivors would envy the dead. i know i would.

Is it our duty to stop them? I sometimes wonder about this. I theoretically know enough to do the reverse of what Karadzic did ( I think) . Not really interested in mass behavior and politics though.

Well OK, but I get paid in advance.

First there is the public relations thing, "Nuclear War," is hard to market.

"Directed History," would be easier to sell.

Few have any idea of the reality, and why it is a good thing.

I read a blog by a Russian bike girl, who rode Chernoble. Plants and wildlife were doing great, and as an unintentional wildlife preserve it was reverting to something not seem in thousands of years, nature.

In the three hundred to a thousand years it will be off limits to humans, though some refused to leave, no new ones will be allowed in. Nature will have it as a base. Forests will live and die, a climax ecosystem, and a base for all wildlife. This Reserve is larger than some countries.

Sure, people died, most of the crews that were sent on the roof to throw the blocks of the reactor back in, first the fire departments, then troops. Most just left.

I think it was reactor four that blew, one through three are still working.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are booming cities now. Ground Zero Park is lovely in the moonlight.

The Atomic Energy Comission keeps a list of all blasts, New Mexico and Nevada were bombed, surface blasts. The H-Bomb was used on Bikini Atole, it is still there, no people, but great seafood.

In a little known side to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Russia set off three hundred bombs along the Chinese border, right under the Jet Stream, and it drifted fallout over North America. We stopped drinking milk from there. They also launched waves of missiles over the Pacific, about a thousand, that turned out to all be decoys, that crashed into the ocean. A few days later they did it again, and we agreed to not invade Cuba.

None of this caused mass deaths, and even Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only 80,000 each. Out of the 50,000,000 dead of WWII, conventional weapons proved best.

The North Korean war plan has merit. Planting a half dozen along the US continenal shelves, the resulting wave would take out coastal cities for miles inland. The second wave would come from space, and detonate 40 miles up, producing an EMP that would fry everything electronic, like all the controls at atomic plants. Planes would fall out of the sky, no cars or trucks would run.

The best part is there would be no warning, or direct evidence. The damage would be overwhelming, likely 90% of the population would quickly die, and the land would be unharmed. Survivors would be farming with a horse and plow, a hoe, and would be near starvation. The Amish would not notice.

The same if New York and LA became vapor, London, all bombs look alike. Who did it? Striking back at anyone, they will launch all they have, and others will too.

Space is also a good place to work it. There is a good supply of one to five mile rocks, and the Russian Ship, Mass Driver, could drop one on Washington. Or several a hundred miles off the coast.

The goal is not to destroy the planet, just direct history.

We are like Iraq, lots of wealth, no way to defend it from our new special friends.

The use of force to extort weaker people out of their wealth and raw materials is something the British, Americans, and the Mafia, have been teaching the rest of the world for hundreds of years.

The world used to need America, for manufacturing, Britian for finance, but China, India, and Brazil can supply the world, and the money is in oil and China now.

Being the world Bully was a good deal while it lasted, but it teaches that having the meanest gang is what works. Lots of new gangs coming up, working together.

About the only thing America produces is grain. We do owe China two trillion, and that is $50 Billion in grain a year forever. Cripple the giant, but leave them to pay their debts.

From the invasion of Afganistan, when we had a surplus, we have been slipping into debt at about a Trillion a year, and last report said, for the next ten years. We are being cost effective, losing with only a third of the troops the Russians lost with.

Things are ripe for a knockout blow. North Korea has been harping on the fact that a State Of War still exists between them and the United States.

Bullies are not good at asymetrical warfare.

The three leading parties in Iraq are all Iranian backed.

He who prepares for the next war with the weapons of the last war loses.