Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Denver Mods 4/2/84) 6/24/83; site drutx.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!drutx!butch From: butch@drutx.UUCP (FreemanS) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: The real issue about nuclear weapons-Reply to Robin Roberts Message-ID: <1617@drutx.UUCP> Date: Thu, 13-Dec-84 13:56:39 EST Article-I.D.: drutx.1617 Posted: Thu Dec 13 13:56:39 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 14-Dec-84 07:01:18 EST References: <29200165@uiucdcs.UUCP> <333@ut-sally.UUCP><> <223@ttidcb.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver Lines: 62 Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would be a human catastrophe unknown in the entire hisory of mankind. The main problem with this issue is that no one understands the seriousness of it. In a 2-megaton explosion over a fairly large city buildingswould be vaporized, people vaporized, outlying structures blown away, to say nothing of the fires that would spread uncontrolled. If a bomb was exploded on the ground, an enormous crater like those on the moon would be seen. There are more than 50,000 nuclear weapons with a 13,000 megaton yield in the arsenals of the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R, no to mention other nuclear powers. There are enough weapons to oblitheate a million hiroshimas. With only 3000 cities on earth with a population of 100,000 or more this is a tremendous overkill. Even if all the missles do not get off the ground, just 20% would be enough to destroy every major city. Some people think that a nuclear war could be contained, but a number of detailed war games run by the D.O.D and the Soviets indicate that a containment is more than could be hoped for. The world health organization in a recent study run by Sune K. Bergstrom (1982 Nobel Laureate) concludes that 1.1 billion people would be killed outright in such a nuclear war, mainly in the U.S.,U.S.S.R, Europe, China, and Japan. An additional 1.1 billion people would suffer serious injuries and radiation sickness, for which medical help would be unavailable. So it is possible that 2 billion people would be killed immeadiately following a nuclear war. In the bravo test in March 1954 a 15-megaton explosion over bikini atoll had double the yield expected and with a last minuste shift in wind radioactive fallout fell over Ronegelap mre than 200 miles away. Almost all the children developed longterm medical problems such as thyroid nodules and lesions due to radioactive fallout. In 1973 it was discovered that high yield air bursts will chemically burn the nitrogen in the upper air, converting it into oxides of nitrogen wich will destroy the protective ozone layer. This layer protects the earth from deadly UV radiation. The Mariner 9 spacecarft which orbited Mars in 1971 arrived when the planet was enveloped in a global dust storm and the temperature changes were recorded. What was analyzed was that the Mars temperature recorded was actuallyonly a few percent of normal. Studies made of an allout nuclear war indicated that except for narrow strips of coastline temperatures dropped to minus 25 degrees celsius (minus 13 fahrenheit) and stayed that way for months. The oceans a tremendous heat resevoir would'nt freeze and a ice age woudn't be triggered, but virtually all crops and farm animals would die. Also varieties of unculivated and undomesticated food supplies would be wiped out and the human survivors would starve. This would make the starvation in Ethiopia look like a picnic. If the subsequnet radiation fallout didn't kill you then the the solar ultraviolet flux due to the greatly reduced ozone layer might get you. Immunity to disease would decline. Epidemics and pandemics would be rampant, especially after a billion or so unburied bodies began to thaw. This would make the plague look like the flu. So you can see that nuclear war is a horror that only fools think can be survived by alarge proportion of mankind. Many scientists think that a such a srain on the environment would cause mankind to cease to exist and become just a dim dim memory. S. Freeman "Into the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice." -Dante, The Inferno