AltaGuy has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him. He has an unparalleled ability to communicate with people, whether he is speaking to a room of three or an arena of 30,000.
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
This might be slightly “semantics” but again, nuclear war does not mean the end of humanity. This is not to mean or be interpreted that it wouldn’t be an absolute atrocity, that millions and millions of people wouldn’t die, or that I am in any way trying to minimize the insane horrors of what that scenario playing out would look like.
However, much like the way people talk about climate change, extreme hyperbolic words should to be checked. I do not think nuclear war means the end of humans as is being insinuated above. All you have to do is a) look to already established models about the impacts of nuclear war, b) look at blast radius of the largest nuclear weapons and c) use common sense based on simple math.
Not all of Earth is going to be hit by a nuclear bomb and not all humans are going to be destroyed. Estimates of 70-90MM people will likely die, maybe more- and so obviously this would be humanity’s greatest ever tragedy. However the planet has 7B+ people on it. The residents of small town Chile or Madagascar will be fine. It is western countries that will be massively destroyed, but even then, Russia isn’t blasting every square inch of Canada with nukes, there will be pockets one can theoretically be safe.
It’s like George Carlins bit about the Earth and when people worry about the Earth. “The Earth will be fine… it’s the people that will be ####ed” (paraphrase). Yes it will be horrendously bad but it will not wipe out humanity. I can understand how this post likely won’t be taken well because it is very arm-chair semantics-like but I just want to point that out because people keep saying it and I do not think that’s quite right based on the number of nuclear bombs that would get deployed. People in Calgary, myself included, however, would likely be a target. Best models I have seen suggest up to 50 “western power” targets would receive multiple nukes and yes this would be a travesty never seen before resulting in huge numbers of dead. It is a terrifying prospect for sure.
No - you're actually very wrong. Nuclear fallout and nuclear winter have up to 95% of humans dying after a full nuclear volley. Imagine five years where the temperature on earth - anywhere - doesn't go above freezing, and what that does for our food.
Last edited by AltaGuy; 03-23-2022 at 12:50 PM.
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This might be slightly “semantics” but again, nuclear war does not mean the end of humanity. This is not to mean or be interpreted that it wouldn’t be an absolute atrocity, that millions and millions of people wouldn’t die, or that I am in any way trying to minimize the insane horrors of what that scenario playing out would look like.
However, much like the way people talk about climate change, extreme hyperbolic words should to be checked. I do not think nuclear war means the end of humans as is being insinuated above. All you have to do is a) look to already established models about the impacts of nuclear war, b) look at blast radius of the largest nuclear weapons and c) use common sense based on simple math.
Not all of Earth is going to be hit by a nuclear bomb and not all humans are going to be destroyed. Estimates of 70-90MM people will likely die, maybe more- and so obviously this would be humanity’s greatest ever tragedy. However the planet has 7B+ people on it. The residents of small town Chile or Madagascar will be fine. It is western countries that will be massively destroyed, but even then, Russia isn’t blasting every square inch of Canada with nukes, there will be pockets one can theoretically be safe.
It’s like George Carlins bit about the Earth and when people worry about the Earth. “The Earth will be fine… it’s the people that will be ####ed” (paraphrase). Yes it will be horrendously bad but it will not wipe out humanity. I can understand how this post likely won’t be taken well because it is very arm-chair semantics-like but I just want to point that out because people keep saying it and I do not think that’s quite right based on the number of nuclear bombs that would get deployed. People in Calgary, myself included, however, would likely be a target. Best models I have seen suggest up to 50 “western power” targets would receive multiple nukes and yes this would be a travesty never seen before resulting in huge numbers of dead. It is a terrifying prospect for sure.
Again, it really depends what type of nuclear exchange we're talking about. If you had a major nuclear war between the majority of the nuclear powers you would likely experience nuclear winter, which is a climate disruption of similar scale to a major astroid impact or volcanic eruption.
Although the number of people killed by the nuclear attacks on cities and military facilities would be in the millions, depending on the scale of the war you could have significant ash sent into the atmosphere, which would lead to global cooling and reduced photosynthesis, which in turn could lead to massive crop failures. That food crisis, not to mention the disruption to fuel supplies, medicines, water, etc. could kill many, many more people than the nuclear strikes themselves.
Of course, this is all theoretical since we've never had a nuclear war, but people much smarter than I (like Carl Sagan) have/had credible concerns that a nuclear exchange could wipe out the vast majority of humanity in a similar fashion as some people think the Mount Toba eruption killed the majority of humans alive 74,000 years ago.
Yeah, the worst part of nuclear war is not the war itself, it's what comes after.
Entire regions with hundreds of millions of people become uninhabitable, huge economies fall, massive global crop failures, a sharp rise in cancer rates, mass migration towards more hospitable areas that are already overpopulated.
It's not tens of millions of people dead. That's maybe from the bombs dropping alone. It's billions.
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Yeah, the worst part of nuclear war is not the war itself, it's what comes after.
Entire regions with hundreds of millions of people become uninhabitable, huge economies fall, massive global crop failures, a sharp rise in cancer rates, mass migration towards more hospitable areas that are already overpopulated.
It's not tens of millions of people dead. That's maybe from the bombs dropping alone. It's billions.
Exactly this. The famine and loss of energy across much of the globe would leave people starving and freezing to death over the course of several years.
Sure, humans as a species would survive, but the climatic and environmental damage would be so large, that our civilization would be over and those who do survive, will be spending their entire lives fighting to do so. Until the number of humans reaches the new and much lowered carrying capacity of the planet during a nuclear winter, there will be constant competition for dwindling resources. Not a pretty thing to envision.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Trying to remember this from when I learned about it, I dunno, ~20 years ago.... it's the ash, soot, etc. that goes into the atmosphere which causes a nuclear winter, yes? Is that the same as fallout, or does the latter involve the spread of radioactive material? Seems like "nuclear winter" has become a colloquial umbrella term.
Trying to remember this from when I learned about it, I dunno, ~20 years ago.... it's the ash, soot, etc. that goes into the atmosphere which causes a nuclear winter, yes? Is that the same as fallout, or does the latter involve the spread of radioactive material? Seems like "nuclear winter" has become a colloquial umbrella term.
Yes, it's from the ash and soot primarily.
Radioactive fallout is actually much less of an issue than people think. Radioactive levels will fall to non-critically dangerous levels within a few weeks. If you survive a few weeks, apart from direct blast sites, the risk of dying from radiation sickness is quite low, although cancer levels would likely be elevated (but not nearly as elevated as people think).
The below document is an explainer for health care professionals/disaster management experts on how to manage the fallout from a nuclear attack. If you can get through it, you'll see radiation isn't nearly the problem people think it is - not that that really matters since the other problems associated with a nuclear war are so severe.
Trying to remember this from when I learned about it, I dunno, ~20 years ago.... it's the ash, soot, etc. that goes into the atmosphere which causes a nuclear winter, yes? Is that the same as fallout, or does the latter involve the spread of radioactive material? Seems like "nuclear winter" has become a colloquial umbrella term.
The ash and soot of a large nuclear exchange would absolutely cause a nuclear winter as it would be inserted into the upper atmosphere and take forever to come out.
Nuclear fall out happens during the explosion when bomb debris attaches itself to the debris and dust kicked up during the explosion which then carries radioactive material a long distance.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Exactly this. The famine and loss of energy across much of the globe would leave people starving and freezing to death over the course of several years.
Sure, humans as a species would survive, but the climatic and environmental damage would be so large, that our civilization would be over and those who do survive, will be spending their entire lives fighting to do so.
Watch Threads, an early 80's take on this very situation. It's a bone-chilling take of what happens after the bombs drop.
KHL Agent predicts that many Russian KHL players will look to play in Western European leagues next season if they can get the visas https://hockeynews.se/articles/23686/
Watch Threads, an early 80's take on this very situation. It's a bone-chilling take of what happens after the bombs drop.
Or don’t. It’s horrific.
Understanding the impacts of even a medium scale nuclear war is one of the things in life that I wish I could unlearn. But that said, if someone out there is thinking it isn’t so bad, or might be ok, or doesn’t understand why people would let an entire country get wiped out just to avoid it, then it becomes a necessary education for them.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with the impacts but trusts those who say we must avoid at all costs, that’s enough. Learn no more.
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It is. And hopefully it scares people into thinking dropping nukes is not an option.
I saw it four years ago and now I can't unsee it.
A lot of North Americans also have no reference point for war in our territory so its easier to just brush off. Older generations in Europe and younger people in the Middle East have lived through wars in their lands in their lifetime. Here in Canada there's been no war in anyone's lifetime (I guess outside the odd Nazi sub in the St.Laurence and some attacks on Newfoundland by Nazis).
Watch Threads, an early 80's take on this very situation. It's a bone-chilling take of what happens after the bombs drop.
I'll have to check it out. I hope it doesn't shatter my belief that a post-nuclear apocalyptical world doesn't resemble something more like Adventure Time.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
I'll have to check it out. I hope it doesn't shatter my belief that a post-nuclear apocalyptical world doesn't resemble something more like Adventure Time.
Well, if you actually survived the bombs, the nuclear holocaust will be an 'adventure' alright. And not the fun kind with Jake and Princess Bubblegum.
