On the Global Consequences of a “Limited” Nuclear War

15/09/2017

Study: Two Billion Could Starve in Event of ‘Limited’ Nuclear War

December 10, 2013

The Atomic Bomb Dome is seen in silhouette during sunset over the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on Aug. 5, the eve of the 68th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the Japanese city. A new report warns that a “limited” nuclear conflict using 100 times the atomic firepower of the attack on Hiroshima could cause worldwide famine (Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A hypothetical nuclear war in South Asia could trigger worldwide famine and “probably cause the end modern industrial civilization as we know it,” the lead author of a new report tells Global Security Newswire.

Published by the watchdog group Physicians for Social Responsibility, the report, titled “Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk,” updates prior studies on the potential impacts that a “limited” nuclear war between India and Pakistan could have on the global climate, and consequently on food supplies.

The prior research, published in 2012, predicted that corn and soybean production in the United States would decline 10 percent on average for 10 years. It also projected a decline in Chinese middle-season rice production — on average by 21 percent during the first four years and on average 10 percent in the following six.

At the time, Physicians for Social Responsibility said these effects could “put more than one billion people at risk of starvation.” The new forecast released on Tuesday indicates the number of people at risk of starvation would actually be double that figure, the group says.

Firestorms caused by nuclear detonations would launch more than 6 million metric tons of soot into the Earth’s atmosphere — blocking out sunlight and causing a sort of global cooling effect commonly referred to as “nuclear winter.”

The cooling and other anticipated climatological impacts — such as decreased precipitation — substantially reduce crop yields, which in turn causes disrupted markets and famine.

“Even a limited use of nuclear weapons essentially is an act of suicide,” Helfand said. “These weapons simply have to be understood to be completely useless. From the U.S. perspective, if we were to use even a tiny fraction of our own arsenal against an adversary on the other side of the planet, we would end up causing this global catastrophe that would have terrible repercussions here at home.”

Helfand argued that, in light of such information, President Obama and other world leaders are not pursuing aggressively enough efforts to reduce and eliminate nuclear arms.

“There is this notion at the moment in policy circles that we don’t really have to worry about nuclear war — just nuclear terrorism because the U.S. and Russia are never going to fight a war,” Helfand said. “I don’t know where they get that sense of confidence from — I certainly don’t have it watching the jockeying between the U.S. and Russia over the last year and knowing how many times we have stumbled accidentally into near-disaster situations even after the end of the Cold War.”

Efforts the Obama administration has made toward arms reductions have been heavily criticized by congressional Republicans, who fear that the president might pursue additional reductions unilaterally — without reciprocal cuts by Russia — despite the administration’s assertions to the contrary.