Long-term biological consequences of nuclear war

Leveraging Intellectual Property to Prevent Nuclear War

Although international law forbids nuclear attacks, only nine states have mutually assured destruction available to prevent direct attacks against themselves, while non-nuclear states have few substantive options to deter a nuclear attack. This study analyzes the economic impacts of a theoretical international agreement that eliminates patent rights for any nuclear aggressor (i.e., free global compulsory licensing of all intellectual property (IP) for a nuclear aggressor). The results found that all but one of the nuclear states would have a significant economic disincentive to start a nuclear attack if the proposal was put into force. Payback times ranged from 1.2 to 40 years, where the entire GDP of a nuclear aggressor would be needed to offset the loss for aggression, indicate such a mechanism as a whole would be an effective nuclear deterrent. This method would not be universally effective without ensuring all nuclear states are members of the international economy and IP processes. With the growth of open-source products and reduced value of patents, this mechanism does have a limited effectiveness time. Currently it appears to be a policy trajectory worthy of future work that can enhance safety from nuclear threat without causing harm to countries of goodwill.

Marine wild-capture fisheries after nuclear war

Nuclear war, beyond its devastating direct impacts, is expected to cause global climatic perturbations through injections of soot into the upper atmosphere. Reduced temperature and sunlight could drive unprecedented reductions in agricultural production, endangering global food security. However, the effects of nuclear war on marine wild-capture fisheries, which significantly contribute to the global animal protein and micronutrient supply, remain unexplored. We simulate the climatic effects of six war scenarios on fish biomass and catch globally, using a state-of-the-art Earth system model and global process-based fisheries model. We also simulate how either rapidly increased fish demand (driven by food shortages) or decreased ability to fish (due to infrastructure disruptions), would affect global catches, and test the benefits of strong prewar fisheries management. We find a decade-long negative climatic impact that intensifies with soot emissions, with global biomass and catch falling by up to 18 ± 3% and 29 ± 7% after a US-Russia war under business-as-usual fishing-similar in magnitude to the end-of-century declines under unmitigated global warming. When war occurs in an overfished state, increasing demand increases short-term (1 to 2 y) catch by at most ∼30% followed by precipitous declines of up to ∼70%, thus offsetting only a minor fraction of agricultural losses. However, effective prewar management that rebuilds fish biomass could ensure a short-term catch buffer large enough to replace ∼43 ± 35% of today's global animal protein production. This buffering function in the event of a global food emergency adds to the many previously known economic and ecological benefits of effective and precautionary fisheries management.

A regional nuclear conflict would compromise global food security

A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan could ignite fires large enough to emit more than 5 Tg of soot into the stratosphere. Climate model simulations have shown severe resulting climate perturbations with declines in global mean temperature by 1.8 °C and precipitation by 8%, for at least 5 y. Here we evaluate impacts for the global food system. Six harmonized state-of-the-art crop models show that global caloric production from maize, wheat, rice, and soybean falls by 13 (±1)%, 11 (±8)%, 3 (±5)%, and 17 (±2)% over 5 y. Total single-year losses of 12 (±4)% quadruple the largest observed historical anomaly and exceed impacts caused by historic droughts and volcanic eruptions. Colder temperatures drive losses more than changes in precipitation and solar radiation, leading to strongest impacts in temperate regions poleward of 30°N, including the United States, Europe, and China for 10 to 15 y. Integrated food trade network analyses show that domestic reserves and global trade can largely buffer the production anomaly in the first year. Persistent multiyear losses, however, would constrain domestic food availability and propagate to the Global South, especially to food-insecure countries. By year 5, maize and wheat availability would decrease by 13% globally and by more than 20% in 71 countries with a cumulative population of 1.3 billion people. In view of increasing instability in South Asia, this study shows that a regional conflict using <1% of the worldwide nuclear arsenal could have adverse consequences for global food security unmatched in modern history.

The abolition of war as a goal of environmental policy

Since the 1950s, select military and political leaders have had the capacity to kill all or nearly all human life on Earth. The number of people entrusted with this power grows each year through proliferation and the rise of new political leaders. If humans continue to maintain and develop nuclear weapons, it is highly probable that a nuclear exchange will occur again at some point in the future. This nuclear exchange may or may not annihilate the human species, but it will cause catastrophic effects on the biosphere. The international community has attempted to resolve this existential problem via treaties that control and potentially eliminate nuclear weapons, however, these treaties target only nuclear weapons, leaving the use of war as a normalized means for settling conflict. As long as war exists as a probable future, nations will be under pressure to develop more powerful weapons. Thus, we argue that the elimination of nuclear weapons alone is not a stable, long-term strategy. A far more secure strategy would be the elimination of war as a means of settling international disputes. Therefore, those concerned about environmental sustainability or the survival of the biosphere should work to abolish war.

Performing the Nuclear Ceremony: The Arms Race as a Ritual

This article examines the nuclear arms race as ritualized behavior and evaluates characteristics of ritual to comprehend the dynamics of the arms race. Following a review of the literature and statements of those participating in, conducting, examining, and opposing the arms race, the authors find the analogy of the ritual appropriate. They find that rituals (1) provide solutions to problems, especia1ly those involving difficult situations and uncontrollable forces, (2) are rooted in experience, (3) identify evil and mark boundaries, and (4) reify social processes and reinforce social structure. The authors do not criticize the ritual process per se, but develop a critical perspective on the ritualization of the arms race. They conclude by raising questions stemming from an analysis of ritual and by suggesting areas for further research.

Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?

Environmental problems have contributed to numerous collapses of civilizations in the past. Now, for the first time, a global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity.

Leaf assemblages across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in the Raton Basin, New Mexico and Colorado

Analyses of leaf megafossil and dispersed leaf cuticle assemblages indicate that major ecologic disruption and high rates of extinction occurred in plant communities at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in the Raton Basin. In diversity increase, the early Paleocene vegetational sequence mimics normal short-term ecologic succession, but on a far longer time scale. No difference can be detected between latest Cretaceous and early Paleocene temperatures, but precipitation markedly increased at the boundary. Higher survival rate of deciduous versus evergreen taxa supports occurrence of a brief cold interval (<1 year), as predicted in models of an "impact winter."

Changing habitats of the world

The world is being altered by human action more rapidly now than natural forces changed it during any short period in the past. There are predictions of massive ecological changes and extinctions of species on a unprecedented scale. The author examines what is actually happening, what the consequences are likely to be, and what corrective action can be taken. He emphasizes that, as with all exercises in crystal gazing, this cannot be an error-free analysis. Despite the vast scale of current scientific activity, our knowledge of the processes affecting the world environment and our monitoring of changes are far from adequate. Too many statements—including widely quoted estimates of extinctions—are based on extrapolation from limited data. This is a speculative paper intended as a spur to further analysis rather than as a definitive review. It is based on an address to the Annual General Meeting of the Fauna and Flora Preservation Society on 10 September 1986.*

Generating probable consequences

A study was conducted to examine some of the factors that influence peoples' generation of likely consequences associated with a major hypothetical life event, involving the loss of the function of one of one's own limbs. The design included four limbs involving two inclusion relations, thumb-hand and foot-leg, and two viewpoints involving consequences for one-self or for others. The results indicated that subjects generate more numerous consequences for primary than for secondary consequences, more for short-term consequences than for medium- or long-term ones, more for an inclusive limb than for an included limb (e.g., hand vs thumb), and more pertaining to one-self than to others. Individual differences in the generation of consequences were not associated with prior experience involving functional loss of the limbs tested or with general differences in academic performance. The results permit inference about some of the mental processes that accompany consequence generation.

Health aspects of low-level ionizing radiation

Biological effects of small multiples of the natural ionizing radiation environment are addressed and attention paid to potential public health problems in nuclear technology. Implications for the employment of radiation in the healing arts are discussed. Formidable mathematical obstacles are noted due to the fact that health effects at low-level radiation doses are generally inferred from observations at much larger doses. Practical cost-effective decision-making consistent with sound radiologic health must take into account the breadth of current scientific uncertainties.

Conservation in South America: Problems, Consequences, and Solutions

Lack of solid data on rates of habitat conversion and on the basic biology of Neotropical organisms makes predictions of massive waves of extinction in South America premature. South America's problems regarding the use of natural resources are a result of historical, sociological, economic, and scientific factors. Most countries in South America have done a great deal to encourage conservation efforts, but the magnitude of the problem is well beyond their limited economic means to solve. The problems of species disappearance in South America are of global importance. A successful solution will involve a coordinated and massive effort of governments and specialists in all aspects of conservation biology from throughout the world. There is still time to resolve these problems. Unnecessarily dire predictions of species extinction may be counterproductive to the development of a long-term conservation strategy that is needed to manage Neotropical conservation problems.

Geomicrobiology of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents

During the cycling of seawater through the earth's crust along the mid-ocean ridge system, geothermal energy is transferred into chemical energy in the form of reduced inorganic compounds. These compounds are derived from the reaction of seawater with crustal rocks at high temperatures and are emitted from warm (</=25 degrees C) and hot ( approximately 350 degrees C) submarine vents at depths of 2000 to 3000 meters. Chemolithotrophic bacteria use these reduced chemical species as sources of energy for the reduction of carbon dioxide (assimilation) to organic carbon. These bacteria form the base of the food chain, which permits copious populations of certain specifically adapted invertebrates to grow in the immediate vicinity of the vents. Such highly prolific, although narrowly localized, deep-sea communities are thus maintained primarily by terrestrial rather than by solar energy. Reduced sulfur compounds appear to represent the major electron donors for aerobic microbial metabolism, but methane-, hydrogen-, iron-, and manganese-oxidizing bacteria have also been found. Methanogenic, sulfur-respiring, and extremely thermophilic isolates carry out anaerobic chemosynthesis. Bacteria grow most abundantly in the shallow crust where upwelling hot, reducing hydrothermal fluid mixes with downwelling cold, oxygenated seawater. The predominant production of biomass, however, is the result of symbiotic associations between chemolithotrophic bacteria and certain invertebrates, which have also been found as fossils in Cretaceous sulfide ores of ophiolite deposits.

Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions

The potential global atmospheric and climatic consequences of nuclear war are investigated using models previously developed to study the effects of volcanic eruptions. Although the results are necessarily imprecise due to wide range of possible scenaros and uncertainty in physical parameters, the most probable first-order effects are serious. Significant hemispherical attenuation of the solar radiation flux and subfreezing land temperatures may be caused by fine dust raised in high-yield nuclear surface bursts and by smoke from city and forest fires ignited by airbursts of all yields. For many simulated exchanges of several thousand megatons, in which dust and smoke are generated and encircle the earth within 1 to 2 weeks, average light levels can be reduced to a few percent of ambient and land temperatures can reach -15 degrees to -25 degrees C. The yield threshold for major optical and climatic consequences may be very low: only about 100 megatons detonated over major urban centers can create average hemispheric smoke optical depths greater than 2 for weeks and, even in summer, subfreezing land temperatures for months. In a 5000-megaton war, at northern mid-latitude sites remote from targets, radioactive fallout on time scales of days to weeks can lead to chronic mean doses of up to 50 rads from external whole-body gamma-ray exposure, with a likely equal or greater internal dose from biologically active radionuclides. Large horizontal and vertical temperature gradients caused by absorption of sunlight in smoke and dust clouds may greatly accelerate transport of particles and radioactivity from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere. When combined with the prompt destruction from nuclear blast, fires, and fallout and the later enhancement of solar ultraviolet radiation due to ozone depletion, long-term exposure to cold, dark, and radioactivity could pose a serious threat to human survivors and to other species.