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- Nuclear winter wouldn’t cause extinction anyway
- Best data proves nuclear war cannot cause nuclear winter
- No risk of nuclear war or extinction
- Extinction hypothesis not supported by scientific evidence
Nuclear War ≠ ExtinctionComputer simulations disprove nuclear winterSeitz ‘6 (Russell, former Presidential science advisor and keynote speaker at international science conferences, holds multiple patents and degrees from Harvard and MIT, “The ‘Nuclear Winter’ Meltdown,” 12-20, http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2006/12/preherein_honor.html) Apocalyptic predictions require, to be taken seriously higher standards of evidence than do assertions on other matters where the stakes are not as great." wrote Sagan in Foreign Affairs, Winter 1983 -84. But that "evidence" was never forthcoming. 'Nuclear Winter' never existed outside of a computer except as air-brushed animation commissioned by the a PR firm - Porter Novelli Inc. Yet Sagan predicted "the extinction of the human species " as temperatures plummeted 35 degrees C and the world froze in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Last year, Sagan's cohort tried to reanimate the ghost in a machine anti-nuclear activists invoked in the depths of the Cold War, by re-running equally arbitrary scenarios on a modern interactive Global Circulation Model. But the Cold War is history in more ways than one. It is a credit to post-modern computer climate simulations that they do not reproduce the apocalyptic results of what Sagan oxymoronically termed "a sophisticated one dimensional model. "The subzero 'baseline case' has melted down into a tepid 1.3 degrees of average cooling grey skies do not a Ragnarok make . What remains is just not the stuff that End of the World myths are made of. Nuclear winter wouldn’t cause extinction anywayHoltz ’5 (Brian, M.S. in AI from the U. of Michigan, “Possible Future Global Catastrophes,” Human Knowledge: Foundations and Limits,” http://humanknowledge.net/SocialScience/Futurology/Catastrophes.html) Nuclear Catastrophe. Nuclear power could result in three kinds of catastrophe: radioactive pollution, limited nuclear bombing, and general nuclear war. Accidental or deliberate radioactive pollution could kill tens or hundreds of thousands, but is quite unlikely to happen. Regional nuclear conflict in the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent could kill several million. Nuclear terrorism against Washington D.C. or New York City could kill more than a million and set back human progress by up to a decade. General nuclear war would kill hundreds of millions and could trigger a nuclear winter that might starve hundreds of millions more. While such a worst case would set back human progress by one or two centuries, existing nuclear arsenals could neither extinct humanity nor end human civilization. Best data proves nuclear war cannot cause nuclear winterBall ‘6 (Desmond, prof at the Strategic and Defense Studies Centre at the Australian National Univ, “The Probabilities of On the Beach: Assessing ‘Armageddon Scenarios’ in the 21st Century,” Working Paper No. 401, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University, http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/sdsc/wp/wp_sdsc_401.pdf) I argued vigorously with Sagan about the ‘Nuclear Winter’ hypothesis, both in lengthy correspondence and, in August-September 1985, when I was a guest in the lovely house he and Ann Druyan had overlooking Ithaca in up-state New York. I argued that, with more realistic data about the operational characteristics of the respective US and Soviet force configurations (such as bomber delivery profiles, impact footprints of MIRVed warheads) and more plausible exchange scenarios, it was impossible to generate anywhere near the postulated levels of smoke. The megatonnage expended on cities (economic/industrial targets) was more likely to be around 140-650 than over 1,000; the amount of smoke generated would have ranged from around 18 million tonnes to perhaps 80 million tonnes. In the case of counter-force scenarios, most missile forces were (and still are) located in either ploughed fields or tundra and, even where they are generally located in forested or grassed areas, very few of the actual missile silos are less than several kilometres from combustible material. A target-by-target analysis of the actual locations of the strategic nuclear forces in the United States and the Soviet Union showed that the actual amount of smoke produced even by a 4,000 megaton counter-force scenario would range from only 300 tonnes (if the exchange occurred in January) to 2,000 tonnes (for an exchange in July)—the worst case being a factor of 40 smaller than that postulated by the ‘Nuclear Winter’ theorists. I thought that it was just as wrong to overestimate the possible consequences of nuclear war, and to raise the spectre of extermination of human life as a serious likelihood, as to underestimate them (e.g., by omitting fallout casualties). No risk of nuclear war or extinctionCirincione ‘7 [Joseph, MS Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Expert advisor to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture to the United States, member of the Advisory Committee to the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, Ploughshares Fund President, Bomb Scare p. 85] The threat of global thermonuclear war is now near zero. The treaties negotiated in the 1980’s, particularly the START agreements that began the reductions in U.S. and Soviet strategic arsenals and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement of 1987 that eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons (intermediate-range missiles that can travel between 3,000 and 5,500 kilometers), began a process that accelerated with the end of the Cold War. Between 1986 and 2006 the nuclear weapons carried by long-range U.S. and Russian missiles and bombers decreased by 61 percent. These reductions are likely to continue through the current decade. The dangers we face today are very serious, but they are orders of magnitude less severe than those we confronted just two decades ago from the overkill potential of U.S. and Russian arsenals. We no longer worry about the fate of the earth, but we still worry about the fate of our cities. Extinction hypothesis not supported by scientific evidenceHodder & Martin ‘9 (Patrick Faculty of Arts, U of Wollongong, & Brian, Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong, “Climate crisis? The politics of emergency framing,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 44, No. 36, 5 September 2009, pp. 53-60, http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/09epw.html) At the time, many people believed that nuclear war meant the destruction of human civilisation or the end of human life on earth (Martin 1982a). Therefore, it might seem, stopping nuclear war from occurring should have been overwhelmingly important. What about the evidence? Strangely enough, there was little scientific backing for the belief that global nuclear war would kill everyone on earth (Martin, 1982b). Blast, heat and fallout would be devastating, but mainly in the areas targeted and downwind, with the likelihood of killing tens or hundreds of millions of people, mainly in western Europe, the Soviet Union and the United States. The majority of the world's population - in places such as Africa, South America and South Asia - would be unscathed. Writer Jonathan Schell in his book The Fate of the Earth argued that nuclear war could indeed lead to human extinction, something he called "the second death" - the first death being one's own death - and therefore the issue was of paramount importance (Schell, 1982). Schell's argument relied on the effects of ozone depletion and was not supported by scientific work at the time. In 1983, scientists reported on new studies of the effect of dust and smoke lofted into the upper atmosphere by nuclear explosions and subsequent fires, blocking the sun and leading to lowered temperatures, a consequence called "nuclear winter." Although once again the spectre of extinction was hinted at, it was never likely that cold weather and darkness could kill everyone; it would affect countries in the northern hemisphere most severely (Pittock, 1987). Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 1.03 Mb. Share with your friends:
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