Will nuclear war exterminate humanity?

[BEHIND_THE_MASK]

Radiation would be spread by trade winds to all corners of the Earth. A nuclear winter would blot out the sun for at least one year and destroy all crops everywhere. I don't know if you know this, but we kind of need the sun to survive, and would not survive even a single year without it.

Unless... you have an underground warehouse stocked with rationed food for you and a large community. Then would you survive?

 

[Pasi Nurminen]

Unless... you have an underground warehouse stocked with rationed food for you and a large community. Then would you survive?

And how many such shelters exist in this world, and what is their total capacity?

Thanks for playing.

 

[CCA]

And how many such shelters exist in this world, and what is their total capacity?

Thanks for playing.

Isnt there such a bunker for the US President and all the important people hidden in a mountain somewhere in the US?

 

[Pasi Nurminen]

Isnt there such a bunker for the US President and all the important people hidden in a mountain somewhere in the US?

Certainly, but a few hundred politicians are not enough to repopulate the Earth.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

It will be with a 10:1 female:male ratio.

 

[Stylesrj]

Just because we get hit with EMP does not take us back to the Stone Age. I'm pretty sure the Industrial Revolution cannons and ships could do without electronic GPS and computer networks... sorry, did I just tell you something you didn't know?
We don't need electronics to survive. Just look at the Industrial Revolution. Lots of people died there, but they survived, and without electronics. Yes they had lightbulbs and stuff, but they wouldn't be effected really by some puny EMP wave. We still have steam trains and with all the smart minds, we'd be able to build steam engines. The "Stone age" wouldn't last very long, especially when we have torches and stuff which do not require silicon chips to operate

Anyway, yes I think we'd be able to survive a nuclear apocalypse, that's if the nukes are not lobbed at those countries you guys said would survive (I'm pretty sure Russia and America have a couple of missiles aimed at Australia as part of a scorched earth strategy). If worse comes to worse, the populace could launch sky hydroponics farms into space and then those living up there would survive and occasionally bring down food.

Seriously though, a nuclear apocalypse will not mean the end of us all, as long as there isn't a nuke aimed at every corner of the globe

 

[Leifmk]

It will be with a 10:1 female:male ratio.

Although, since each male will be called upon to perform prodigious (ahem) services, I would suggest that the females be selected according to their sexual characteristics, which will need to be of a highly... stimulating nature.

 

[Pasi Nurminen]

If worse comes to worse, the populace could launch sky hydroponics farms into space and then those living up there would survive and occasionally bring down food.

Yeah, if we can't do that now, why would we be able to do that after having been hit by 26,000 nuclear missiles?

I think most of you are really underestimating just how destructive nuclear weapons are.

I don't feel the need to respond to the rest of your post.

 

[Stylesrj]

I'm saying before the nuclear strike happens, we invent and launch those farms. Someone should go pay NASA or some company to build those farms and then launch them into space to make sure we don't starve when the nukes launch. Also take a few people up there to "maintain the farms" but make sure it's a small amount of people, I say a few men and some women (some from the Babe Threads might do!) and then we'll make sure we don't die out that way.

I think also that if the nukes were to hit, antique stores would be raided for ancient swords and museums would be looted. I'm sure those "Stone Age" weapons will be useful for the apocalypse.

Remember, it also depends on where those nukes land. If they hit Russia, Europe and North America, that's fine, the countries not hit would survive and conquer the world, but if nukes were launched everywhere, including Australia, China, South America, the north and south poles, Africa, the Middle East and anywhere else I haven't mentioned, then we're screwed. It all depends on location on where those nukes are lobbed.

 

[Stylesjl]

I'm saying before the nuclear strike happens, we invent and launch those farms. Someone should go pay NASA or some company to build those farms and then launch them into space to make sure we don't starve when the nukes launch. Also take a few people up there to "maintain the farms" but make sure it's a small amount of people, I say a few men and some women (some from the Babe Threads might do!) and then we'll make sure we don't die out that way.

I think also that if the nukes were to hit, antique stores would be raided for ancient swords and museums would be looted. I'm sure those "Stone Age" weapons will be useful for the apocalypse.

Remember, it also depends on where those nukes land. If they hit Russia, Europe and North America, that's fine, the countries not hit would survive and conquer the world, but if nukes were launched everywhere, including Australia, China, South America, the north and south poles, Africa, the Middle East and anywhere else I haven't mentioned, then we're screwed. It all depends on location on where those nukes are lobbed.

Do you have any idea what you are talking about? Hydroponics farms are years away. We are talking about now

 

[Winner]

I used to be of the opionion that if all out nuclear war begun and every nuke was lobbed off, that humans would be completely dead from the fallout.

However after reading some interesting papers and an internesting link from Winner (you were right Winner!)

I am always right (at least when it comes to nuclear war )

showed that even a worst case scenario would only cause widespread devestation and a possibly a maximum of a billion deaths (from blasts, cancer, starvation from contaminated agriculture and failed mechanical infrastructure and local effects) but not extinction.

What are your thoughts on full all out nuclear war? No doubt it would be an immensely destructive event that would take centuries to recover from, but not the end of humanity

Worst case scenario by Winner:

Nuclear war between USA, Britain, France VS Russia, China + separate nuclear conflicts between China and India, India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran+Arabs.

All developed countries would be crippled - the worst hit would be the US, Western Europe, European parts of Russia, Chinese coastal areas. Japan would be almost completely annihilated, as well as Israel and Pakistan. Australia would probably be hit by few warheads too. Middle East would be destroyed (countries like Egypt would probably completely cease to exit).

On the other hand, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa wouldn't be hit very severely, they'd suffer from fallout, but not direct nuclear devastation.

I guesstimate that about 2/3 of the US and EU population would die, in China and India, the losses would be even worse. Japan would lose at least 4/5 of its people.

Fallout would be the greatest killer for few weeks following the nuclear exchange. Famine and disease would follow quickly. The human population would decrease for next few years due to radiation sickness, malnutrition, epidemics etc. In the next generation, cancer and mutation would be much more common.

In some areas, the human civilization would collapse completely and revert back to Dark Ages, in other areas, people would manage to keep some level of technical knowledge. Many large nation states would collapse and dissolve (US, Russia, China, India).

Latin America would become the most developed continent, Brazil would gain a superpower status.

 

[Winner]

The Effects of a Global Thermonuclear War
4th edition: escalation in 1988

-> Very interesting and plausible.

EDIT: notice that this is Cold War scenario - both superpowers had more operational nuclear weapons back then. Nuclear arsenals have been significantly reduced after 1989.

EDIT2: Ah, you've already posted this link here, never mind.

 

[Winner]

No. Only if you had built a bunker underground that is completely self sufficient in air, food, water, and electricity could you survive unharmed. We might survive as a species, but only tiny numbers of us. Radiation would be spread into the winds carrying it to all corners of the Earth, and a nuclear winter would drop temperatures by more than twenty or thirty degrees celsius inland. Near the coastal areas, 'only' five or ten degrees, but the tremendous temperature differences would create massive hurricane like storms that would thrash coastlines and make them uninhabitable.

We'd be completely screwed and would go extinct barring some twist of luck.

You have had plenty of time since our last conversation, so why haven't you read something about nuclear weapons and their effects?

You're still spreading nonsense and misconceptions based on... sci-fi literature?

 

[Winner]

If we're talking about all nuclear warheads on the planet being used, as styles said, there is no way a single one of us would survive. They don't say "there are enough nukes to destroy the planet nine times over" for no reason.

Actually, no.

There is enough nuclear weapons on this planet to devastate, not destroy the human civilization.

 

[Winner]

I heard somewhere that 6 nukes would be enough to kick up so much crap into the atmosphere to cause Nuclear Winter.

Is that true?

Depends on their size

The biggest nuke ever detonated by USSR had yield of about 50 Mt (= megatonnes of TNT). The strongest nuke detonated by the US had about 20 Mt.

Nothing happened to the climate. Average yield of the current US and Russian strategic wahead is between 300-550 Kt, which means they're 40 times weaker. It is unlikely that six of them would cause any noticable changes in the climate.

On a side note: I don't think that nuclear war as we know it would really happen. We simply don't have enough strong nukes to cause it.

 

[Winner]

Radiation would be spread by trade winds to all corners of the Earth. A nuclear winter would blot out the sun for at least one year and destroy all crops everywhere. I don't know if you know this, but we kind of need the sun to survive, and would not survive even a single year without it.

Not true.

The explosive force of the asteroid, which caused major extinctions 65 million years ago, was about 3.75 x 10x7 MegaTons TNT = 37,500 GigaTons.

Today, there is about 8,000 strategic warheads total. Their total yield is about 4,000 MegaTonnes.

So, the asteroid impact energy was about 10,000 times as big. It caused about 3 years long "asteroid winter".

The idea that our tiny warheads could cause so huge climate change is ridiculous and bloated.

 

[Pasi Nurminen]

You have had plenty of time since our last conversation, so why haven't you read something about nuclear weapons and their effects?

You're still spreading nonsense and misconceptions based on... sci-fi literature?

Because you're on my ignore list for failure to back up your absurd claims of "Islam is a fifth column intent on destroying [white] European culture" with anything other than white supremacist bullfeathers. I really don't want to engage with such a person.

 

[Winner]

Because you're on my ignore list for failure to back up your absurd claims of "Islam is a fifth column intent on destroying [white] European culture" with anything other than white supremacist bullfeathers. I really don't want to engage with such a person.

Nice evasion.

You keep repeating idiotic claims based on your imagination, which I have refuted about 10 times, so either shut up or start searching for relevant sources before engaging in any nuclear war-related discussion.

 

[Jawz II]

Will nuclear war exterminate humanity? One can only hope.



Holy flaming wars batman!


@winner, youre forgetting that nuclear explosions are just that, nuclear.
Nuclear explosions kill people, even if they dont catch them in the blast in form of radiation.

Sure it takes alittle longer, sometimes even a few years for the cancer to grow, but it kills people just as dead.

 

[Winner]

@winner, youre forgetting that nuclear explosions are just that, nuclear.
Nuclear explosions kill people, even if they dont catch them in the blast in form of radiation.

Sure it takes alittle longer, sometimes even a few years for the cancer to grow, but it kills people just as dead.

What's your point?

Smoking does kill people. Sure it takes a little longer, sometimes even a few decades, but it kills people.

Nuclear weapon isn't a demon. If you're not killed by the blast itself, you have a good chance of survival if you don't panic and protect yourself from the fallout, which dissipates fast.

Yes, the risk of developing cancer will be increased, but no way is that a death sentence. Actually, I think that if you really want to kill yourself for sure, smoke 40 cigarettes a day.

Surviving population would face much higher mortality from cancer-related diseases, it would face much higher incidence of genetic defects, but this wouldn't be enough to wipe out the species or completely destroy any kind of social order.

We wouldn't be bombed back to Stone Age, just to late Middle Ages (worst-case). Also, we have the knowledge that would help us to rebuild the civilization.

I am no way saying nuclear war would be fine, I just think it is stupid to talk about it like it would be the end of human race once and for all.