23-Apr-17 World View -- Scientists worldwide hold an international March for Money on 'Earth Day'

[John]

> Wouldn't a nuclear war destroy the Earth's environment and make
> life impossible? You talk about traumatized survivors rebuilding,
> but wouldn't the atmosphere be radioactive? Global warming would
> be the least of humanity's problems.

> Being that I spent many hours researching this very topic for a
> novel I'm writing, I can safely say that the answer is no. It
> would not wipe out all life on earth. It wouldn't wipe out
> humanity, or destroy civilization. Whatever effects of Nuclear
> Winter, assuming it happens, wouldn't even destroy the U.S.;
> certain conditions are necessary for a firestorm.

> Of course, that doesn't mean it wouldn't have a horrific death
> toll attached, but modern cities are a lot more resilient than
> they were in 1945 Japan. A lot of it would depend on how prepared
> we are at the outset, whether the exchange happens at the outbreak
> of the war or towards the end of it, and what we do to prepare for
> it in the meantime.

> One final thing I'd point out is that most tactical and strategic
> nuclear weapons on both sides would be intercepted or destroyed on
> the ground instead of actually hitting something; Cold War
> strategists on both sides were well aware of this.

1. When you say that cities are "more resilient," what does that mean
with respect to nuclear weapons? Do you mean that the buildings are
made of steel rather than wood, so there would be fewer fires?

2. What would happen to a large US city if it were successfully
attacked by one or more nuclear weapons?

3. Given that cities are already more resilient, what difference does
outbreak vs end of war make? How would we prepare?

4. I've seen various reports, both negative and positive, of the
effectiveness of THAAD, Aegis, and other "star war" systems capable of
intercepting missiles. What is actually known?

5. When will your novel be available? What's the plot summary?

[Trevor]

1. When you say that cities are "more resilient," what does that mean
with respect to nuclear weapons? Do you mean that the buildings are
made of steel rather than wood, so there would be fewer fires?

2. What would happen to a large US city if it were successfully
attacked by one or more nuclear weapons?

3. Given that cities are already more resilient, what difference does
outbreak vs end of war make? How would we prepare?

4. I've seen various reports, both negative and positive, of the
effectiveness of THAAD, Aegis, and other "star war" systems capable of
intercepting missiles. What is actually known?

5. When will your novel be available? What's the plot summary?

Ok, here's an example: Hiroshima is very much the worst case scenario for a number of reasons: to begin with, almost all of the buildings were made of wood and paper, not steel and concrete. To make matters even worse, almost no one was inside the shelters that had been built, because the population had gotten used to small groups of bombers flying around and had no concept that one bomb could cause such horrific destruction.

The 50% death rate for the bomb for individuals that were outdoors was 1.3 miles, but for those who were indoors, it was at .6 miles, although nearly all of those who were indoors had suffered some form of energy. Keep in mind we're still talking about wooden and paper homes; even most rural houses in this country are more resilient than that, but at that range, deaths in concrete buildings were rare. Individuals lucky enough to be in concrete buildings had a much higher survival rate, even though that were close to the bomb. Many in the Bank of Japan survived in spite of it being just 400 meters away from Ground Zero.

In addition, the firestorm was not immediate; it took two to three hours to start, and I've been reading reports that a true firestorm is unlikely in a modern city. For one to develop, you need flat terrain, a certain level of wind, and very densely packed flammable material; i.e wood, which most U.S. cities don't have. This isn't to say it can't happen anywhere, but the idea that a firestorm is an automatic consequence of a nuclear explosion is utter nonsense.

Another thing to keep in mind is just because a nuclear explosion is 100 times bigger, that doesn't mean it's 100 times more destructive or lethal. The reason we stopped building really huge bombs is because even if they looked intimidating, they were too large to be of practical use. Several smaller bombs would cause a lot more destruction than one large bomb. The blast radius would also be somewhat smaller than it is under desert conditions because building absorb a certain amount of the energy, with concrete buildings absorbing more blast wave and thermal radiation than wooden ones, and there's thermal shadowing to consider.
XXXXXXXXXX

As for how many would die, that would depend on a lot of scenarios. If say, a terrorist detonated a 5-kiloton bomb in a city, it's likely to have a high death toll because people completely exposed outdoors are much more vulnerable than those who are inside. To make things even more lethal, most of us don't have any idea what to do in that situation, since it's become taken for granted that a nuclear weapon cannot be survived and any effort at civil defense is utterly useless.

[Trevor]

I think perhaps that most important thing we could do is inform the public, shatter the myths that there is nothing you can do to protect yourself. Even Duck and Cover can make a difference between life and death, provided you're not too close to the explosion.

If the Clash of Civilizations begins with a massive Pearl Harbor style attack, I'd bet on the death toll being a lot higher, due to lack of preparation and ignorance.

Now let's say the Chinese have 3,000 strategic warheads, which is what is considered the highest number, one that many analysts tend to discount. I don't think they'd launch all of them at once, if nothing else because you won't be able to destroy everything on the ground. Just for the sake of argument, though, let's say that they do and all of them are launched at the United States.

Most of those warheads are going to be aimed towards our retaliatory capability, what military strategists call "Counterforce". This means they're going to be aimed at our army bases, air fields, naval bases, and especially our missile silos. Especially for important targets, some of them are going to be hit multiple times, just to make sure they are taken out of commission. For example, we've got 500 operating silos, which would require at least 500 of those warheads to take out under optimum conditions. If you take into account ICBMS being intercepted, the chance of a missile being a dud, and the accuracy it'll take to destroy them, it would likely be considerably more than that.

How effective our missile defense would be... I don't think anyone will truly know until the time comes. I do not agree with the idea that it would be an utterly useless gesture; our ground-course missile defense has had about a 60% success rate, with the AEGIS system about 85%, although I expect that for ICBMs, it would be somewhat less than that. In spite of that, however, we would be able to bring down at least some of the incoming missiles, making a decisive blow much more difficult.

That would leave... a few hundred warheads for our cities, most of them in the hundreds of kilotons, maybe a few in the megaton level range. I would say in that case, they'd mostly be aiming for the top ten cities in this country, all of which have at least a million people. The public would have about 15-30 of warning before the missiles hit, giving at least some people an opportunity to save themselves, depending on where they are and their knowledge of nuclear capabilities.

All of this is under the assumption that everything goes precisely as China wants: all of their missiles are launched at one time, with none of them malfunctioning on the ground or crashing shortly after launch, as one of our Tomahawk missiles did during our strike on Syria. That's also assuming all of the warheads make landfall, with nothing being intercepted along the way. The third assumption is that all of them successfully detonate, with no electronics malfunctioning during the journey.

Even under all of those assumptions, however, the United States would still be quite capable of hitting back. Some of our ICBMs would be launched before China's missiles hit, some of our nuclear-armed bombers would be in the air, and some of our submarines would be on patrol and launch their own weapons. Now much of our nuclear capability would be destroyed, but even then, we'd have enough strength left to cause China severe damage, even if it would not be a fatal blow to them either.

In practice, however, they're not likely to have as much success. The first rule of warfare is that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Warheads would be intercepted, destroyed on the ground, or just fail to detonate. I believe our defense system would have some effect, even if it wouldn't keep out everything.

[Trevor]

If the exchange happens at the end of war, and I tend to think that it will, we still have time to prepare. I'm hoping the current administration is doing at least something, although I expect we'll only start doing this when the war starts.

For one thing, invest in civil defense... bunkers, outdoor and indoor shelters. You could even use the transit system for protection, provided you have a way to seal the entrances... even if you don't, it provides far more protection than being out in the open. For those who are unwilling to leave their homes, we can provide a 21st century version of Anderson shelters. They saved plenty of lives in Britain, although by the time they were mass produced, the worst of the Blitz was already over.

Another idea and this is one that can be easily overlooked is to stockpile food, an enormous amount of it. The biggest danger in a major city is that without resupply, it would run out of food within 24 hours. We'll still have more than enough food to feed everyone, but the problem is that with a lot of the infrastructure destroyed, it'll be difficult to transport it over enormous distances. Having an emergency supply of food within the cities (I would recommend a 30-day supply at an absolute minimum) would help keep people alive until outside sources can arrive.

Back in the 1930's, bomber warfare was seen with the same dread that nuclear war is today. They were predicting in Britain that half a million to one million people would be killed within the first month of bombing, along with total societal collapse and anarchy. To put that into context, about 67,000 British civilians were killed over six years of war.

None of this is meant to minimize the horrific tragedy that a nuclear war would be. I'm only pointing out that it doesn't equal extermination and with preparedness, we can save tens of millions of lives. I'm hoping our government will do something along those lines, at least once we're fighting a conventional war.

Edit: the novel I'm writing is on this very topic, set in a relatively isolated area. I've got 150,000 words on it so far, but who knows when It'll be published? There always seems to be something more I need to add to it.

[John]

Thanks!

[John]

Hi Trevor,

One more question:

What effect would nuclear war have on climate change?

[Trevor]

Hi Trevor,

One more question:

What effect would nuclear war have on climate change?

I admit, I'm something of a lukewarmist. I believe in climate change in the sense that the Earth is warming and we're likely contributing to it, even if I suspect some of the warming is natural as well. What I do not believe are the doomsday claims, the idea that we're headed for the sixth mass extinction, that civilization will be collapsed if we don't take drastic action; that's a load of bull.

As for your question, I expect with most of the infrastructure on both sides destroyed, we wouldn't be putting too many carbon emissions into the air. I wouldn't doubt some of the counterforce targets would be oil and gas wells, making them unusable, at least for a few years. And who knows? Green breakthroughs may end up coming out of this war.

With my novel: I have the death toll considerably lower than you do.

[Tom Mazanec]

Trevor:
Let me know when your novel reaches the Kindle...I would like to read it! Send me a private message.

[Trevor]

Trevor:
Let me know when your novel reaches the Kindle...I would like to read it! Send me a private message.

I'm certainly gratified by your interest. I've been leaning more towards self-publishing, since I've never had any luck doing so the old-fashioned way.

Hopefully, I can get this thing done before the war actually breaks out.

[Guest]

Trevor:
Let me know when your novel reaches the Kindle...I would like to read it! Send me a private message.

I'm certainly gratified by your interest. I've been leaning more towards self-publishing, since I've never had any luck doing so the old-fashioned way.

Hopefully, I can get this thing done before the war actually breaks out.

Post a link. I'll buy your book.