From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #146 Article-I.D.: ucb.1587 Posted: Sat Jul 24 00:55:20 1982 Received: Mon Jul 26 06:45:46 1982 >From HGA@MIT-MC Sat Jul 24 00:43:42 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 146 Today's Topics: US/USSR arms sales Effects of Nuclear War Response to flame on end of world Nuclear War and UV Radiation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Jul 1982 0005-PDT From: Herb LinSubject: US/USSR arms sales... Just as a point of information, it is not clear who is the "leading" supplier of arms to the rest of the world; along certain measures, the US and the USSR can each claim that (dubious) distinction. In particular: - Totaled over the last two years (1980-81), the Soviet Union leads the US in arms exports. (take that, all you doves!) - In the last year (1981), the US leads the Soviet Union, as it has in most previous years. (take that, all you hawks!) - If you exclude military assistance to Israel from the US total, the Soviet Union once again leads. (take that, everyone; is this a hawk or a dove point?) Meta-comment: I really wish that people who make claims that X is ahead of Y in area Z make more clear the assumptions they employ in their claims. For example, how is Z measured? ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1982 1137-PDT From: Paul Dietz Subject: Effects of Nuclear War There is an interesting article in the August issue of Reason. Called "Don't Plan to Die", it is written by a plant ecologist who points out the fallacies in the common belief that nuclear war means the end of the world. The author, Bruce Clayton, spends some time rebutting claims made by Dr. Helen Caldicott in Nuclear Madness. An incomplete condensation follows: The author decided to confirm his belief (picked up from popular books) that nuclear war meant the end of the world. He went to the library and found, to his suprise, much material on the effects of nuclear weapons, radiation, studies of the results of nuclear wars, etc. To his suprise, he found that most people would survive a nuclear war, and that with concerted effort any person could guarantee himself a near 100% chance of survival. ----- "A full scale nuclear confrontation could last about 30 to 60 minutes from beggining to end." -- Caldicott, page 63 The soviets don't believe this (if you believe their publications). Indeed, a counterforce strike against US silos would take much longer because you'd have to be careful that the debris left by explosions over northern silos would not knock out warheads targeted on southern silos. ----- "A 1000 megaton bomb detonated in outer space could devastate an area the size of six western states." -- Caldicott, page 65 Clayton claims this figure is wildly exagerated, but his argument betrays a lack of physical intuition. He (probably incorrectly) extends the empirical cube-root scaling law of damage caused by nuclear weapons to space-based weapons, where the damage scales *linearly*. At any rate, there probably aren't any 1000 megaton bombs. How would you test one? ----- Clayton then goes on to the claim that there are enough weapons to kill everyone many times over. This figure comes from Hiroshima, where a 12.5 KT bomb killed 70K people. This gives 5.6 people per ton, so our current 10GT stockpile could kill 56 billion people. The problems with this argument are readily apparent. ----- "Between them the US and the Soviet Union, alone, have deployed over 50000 nuclear bombs which stand ready to exterminate virtually all life in earth." -- Caldicott, page 61 Considering only radiation (blast and heat won't do it, and I'll consider ozone later), a 1975 study showed that people in nonwarring countries will receive 10 rems of radiation (total) in the 30 years following a nuclear war. This will result in a slight increase in cancer (more later), but hardly the extermination of virtually all life. ----- "A war fought with nuclear weapons would put an end to civilization as we know it." -- Caldicott, page 61 People in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa might disagree. Not to mention non-english speaking countries. This depends, of course, if the Soviets can launch the conventional war they plan to follow up with. ----- "The detonation of a single weapon of this nature over any of the world's major cities would constitute a disaster unprecedented in human history." -- Caldicott, page 62 The black death in the 1400's kill 25% of the known world, but a nuclear war (not just one bomb) will kill only 5% of the world population! Let us also not forget the 25 miilion russians who starved to death in the 20's, the additional 20-30 million russians who died in WW2, the Romans and Crusaders who were wont to completely level conquered cities, killing *everyone*. While bombs are large, cities are larger. Civil defense experts anticipate that an attack on Los Angeles would involve 40 bombs, each about a megaton. This would still leave a good fraction of the population alive (granted, until fallout gets them). ----- "Every American city with a population of 25,000 or more is targeted.... Both major and minor population centers would be smashed flat." -- Caldicott, page 65 This may have been true when russian guidance systems were inaccurate, but not any longer. Targets today are (in dcreasing order of priority): strategic weapons, other military bases, electrical plants, followed by government facilities, transportation, industry and mines. Clayton also points out that nuclear reactors are among the hardest targets in the country (next to silos) because of their thick containment structures, so the russians would need to use silo busting weapons to spread the radioactive cores around. It would be far easier to use ordinary bombs to destroy the rest of the plant (turbines, support facilities, operators). Perhaps the reactor would then meltdown, but then the core would not be dispersed by the explosion. ----- "Every weapon's powerful shock wave would be accompanied by a searing fireball with a surface temperature greater than the sun's that would set firestorms raging over millions of acres.... Every 20-megaton bomb can set a firestorm raging over 3000 acres." -- Caldicott, page 65 First, compare "millions of acres" to 3000 acres. Second, note that 3000 acres is 4.5 square miles. This area would be pounded flat by a 20MT bomb anyway, as such a bomb can damage a frame house up to 36 miles away. Modern cities have little to burn. They are mostly steel, concrete, glass and other noncombustible material. Note also that there were no firestorms at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Fire, yes; firestorm, no. [Note from the Moderator: My third edition (1977) of The Effects of Atomic Weapons says that Hiroshima did suffer a firestorm. - Harold] Finally, actual contact with a fireball is not the cause of the fires. The fireball of a 1MT bomb is about 1-2 miles in diameter. Therefore, it should not touch the ground. The quote about the shock wave being accompanied by a fireball is misleading. The fires would be set, not by the shock wave or the fireball, but by the light emitted by the fireball, the "thermal pulse". ----- "The long-term fallout effects in the countries bombed would give rise to other epidemics. Within five years, leukemia would be rampant. Within 15 to 50 years, solid cancers of the lung, breast, bowel, stomach and thyroid would strike down survivors." -- Caldicott, page 66 Firs, does this mean long-term effects of (short term) fallout, or the effects of long-term (stratospheric) fallout? The stratospheric fallout would cover the globe, but by the time it reachs the ground it isn't very radioactive, giving that 10 rem dose in 30 years. This could hardly cause epidemics of cancer. The short-term fallout deposited within 24 hours near the explosion could cause leukemia. It would hardly affect the whole population. But an epidemic? Let's look at the numbers. Leukemia peaks 5-10 years after exposure. A 100 to 200 rem dose causes, in adults, 2 to 4 cases per thousand. Children under ten are twice as susceptible. A generous estimate of 1% of those getting leukemia is hardly an epidemic. Of the 5700 heavily irradiated A-bomb survivors in japan, 47 died of cancer between 1960 and 1970 against an expected 30. We're up to 25 years after exposure in these statistics, and there's no epidemic yet. ----- "Exposure of the reproductive organs to the immense quantities of radiation in the explosions would result in reproductive sterility in many. An increased incidence of spontaneous abortions and deformed offspring, and a massive increase in both dominant and recessive mutations, would also result. Rendered intensely radioactive, the planet Earth would become inhabited by bands of roving humanoids -- mutants barely recognizable as members of our species." -- Caldicott, page 66 "Reproductive genes will mutate, resulting in an increased incidence of congenitally deformed and diseased offspring -- not just for the next generation, but for the rest of time." -- Caldicott, page 3 Sterility: Most japanese sterilized by radiation did not survive. (I'm not sure if they died because of blast or radiation). Also, the radiation in the explosion is unimportant, since its range is much less than the range of the thermal pulse and shock wave. Some remaining heavily irradiated japanese who had been judged sterile subsequently had normal children. Unrecognizable mutants: This is pure sci-fi. Any fetus that is unrecognizable will almost certainly spontaneously abort, or die after birth. Mutations: National academy of science reports indicate that a 10GT war would cause siginicant but temporary damage to the human gene pool. Natural selection would weed out damaged genes over a 1000 year period. (The decay is exponential, and dominant genes would be removed much faster.) Birth defects would rise from 60 per thousand to 61 per thousand. The 30 year followup of japanese A-bomb survivors and offspring revealed no abnormal genetic disease, nor any increase in birth defects. ----- "In the aftermath, bacteria, viruses and disease-carrying insects -- which tend to be thousands of times more radiation resistant than human beings -- would mutate, adapt and multiply in extremely virulent forms." -- Caldicott, page 66 The mutation rate of bacteria, viruses and insects is already high enough to adapt to any conceivable condition. Radiation wouldn't change that much. Also, mutations of disease organisms tend to be to *less* virulent forms. After all, diseases are parasites, and a parasite that kills its host also dies off. That's why the most common diseases are things like the cold (comes in hundreds of types) instead of Lhasa fever. ----- "Those who survive, in shelters or in remote rural areas, would reenter a totally devasted world, lacking in lifesupport systems on which the human species depends. Food, air and water would be poisonously radioactive." -- Caldicott, page 66 Deep wells will not be contaminated, and surface water can be filtered through ordinary dirt or a water softener. Air will be dangerous for a short time if you are directly downwind of a blast, but all you need is a filter to keep dust and iodine out of the lungs. (Clayton doesn't mention contamination of the food chain.) Ozone layez and UV: If a sixfold increase in UV does occur, the effects will be tolerable. Among the crops that can tolerate this level of UV are wheat, rye and corn. Most wild plants could survive for a few years until the O3 builds up by growing under trees or on the north side of hills. Animals tend to be inactive except at night and during the evening and morning, so many of these will survive. Wild flucuations will occur, but no collapse. (Clayton is an ecologist, so he knows what he is talking about.) ------ Finally, the author points out that most immediate injuries caused by the bombs will be crushing injuries and burns. If you wanted to die instantly in the fireball, sorry, it doesn't work that way. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1982 03:07:01-PDT From: pur-ee!Physics.els at Berkeley Subject: Response to flame on end of world Concerning the starving masses in Calcutta, if I uttered a falsehood, it is a VERY widely held one. I've been hearing such things since my earliest memories in elementary school. The Catholic church has also propagated this in their appeals to the parishs on behalf of Mother Theresa. There have also been a number of TV programs dealing with world hunger, which relate tales of starvation of this magnitude (though certainly just because it can happen doesn't mean it will). If I have been duped concerning Calcutta, I admit it and come away a little wiser. Concerning the CIA, the laws are such that they can barely do their job of gathering intelligence without Congress butting in, much less cause anarchy on a global scale as the Soviets do. I'm certain that there are those in the CIA who want to overthrow particular governments, but they do not have a free hand to do this. els [Eric Strobel] pur-ee!pur-phy!els ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 82 01:20:01 EDT (Fri) From: John Q Walker Subject: Nuclear War and UV Radiation The main problem with ultraviolet radiation after a war is that many plants are very sensitive to the shorter wavelength (UV-B) light and produce lower yields or even die. The extent of ozone depletion is one of the great unknowns and possibly the most important factor after a nuclear war. The industry which supports farming will also be devastated after a nuclear war (especially because of targeting of oil refineries and large oil fields). Without the farm equipment, fuels, and fertilizers, food production will be SEVERELY REDUCED. (Not to mention, in many places, radioactive.) ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************