A terrifying new estimate has claimed that more than five billion people would starve to death during a full-scale nuclear conflict between the US and Russia.
Climate experts from Rutgers University in New Jersey in the United States said the research, which was released at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is engaging in frighteningly inflammatory rhetoric, highlights why it is absolutely essential to avoid such a confrontation ever happening.
The report, which provides an estimate of post-conflict crop production, was written by Lili Xia, an assistant research professor, and Alan Robock, a distinguished professor of climate science who are both based in the university’s Department of Environmental Sciences. The report was published in the academic journal Nature Food.
Xia, Robock, and their colleagues determined the amount of Sun-blocking soot that would enter the atmosphere from firestorms caused by nuclear weapons explosions based on previous research.
Based on the magnitude of each nation’s nuclear weapons, researchers assessed the soot dispersal from six conflict scenarios, including five smaller India-Pakistan wars and large US-Russian wars.
The group then input the data into the Community Earth System Model, a tool for predicting climate change maintained by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
Estimating the productivity of important crops (maize, rice, spring wheat, and soybean) on a country-by-country basis was made possible using the NCAR Community Land Model. Projected impacts on livestock pasture and the world’s marine fisheries were also examined by researchers.
The average caloric production of the world fell by 7 percent within five years of the fight, even in the smallest nuclear scenario—a localized war between India and Pakistan.
Within four years of its eruption, the largest war scenario tested—full-fledged nuclear warfare between the US and Russia—saw a 90 percent reduction in the world’s average caloric production.
The UK, as well as key exporters like Russia and the US, will experience the most severe crop decreases, which could lead to export limits and cause significant disruptions in import-dependent economies in Africa and the Middle East.
According to the experts, such shifts would result in a “catastrophic disruption” of the world’s food markets.
Even a global grain yield decrease of 7 percent would be greater than the largest abnormality ever observed since the Food and Agricultural Organization observational records began in 1961. In the worst-case scenario of a conflict, more than 75 percent of the world’s population will perish from starvation in less than two years.
Researchers looked into whether using crops that were fed to livestock as food for people or cutting down on food waste could make up for caloric losses right after a war, but the savings were small.
What nuclear war looks like from space based on data from peer-reviewed science papers. A Nature Food paper today suggests that over 98% would starve to death in the US, Europe, China & Russia. pic.twitter.com/J0dtegXen4
— Future of Life Institute (@FLIxrisk) August 15, 2022
“Future work,” according to Xia, “will bring even more granularity to the crop models.”
“For instance, the ozone layer would be destroyed by the heating of the stratosphere, producing more ultraviolet radiation at the surface, and we need to understand that impact on food supplies.”
The numbers only tell us one thing, he said: “We must prevent a nuclear war from ever happening.
“If nuclear weapons exist, they can be used, and the world has come close to nuclear war several times. Banning nuclear weapons is the only long-term solution.
“The five-year-old UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has been ratified by 66 nations, but none of the nine nuclear states.
“Our work makes clear that it is time for those nine states to listen to science and the rest of the world and sign this treaty.”
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Louisiana State University, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Columbia University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the Queensland University of Technology were among the institutions where researchers for the study worked.
Putin scared the rest of the world by putting Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces on high alert a few days after he sent Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24. He did this, it seems, in response to comments made by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is currently the favorite to replace Boris Johnson in No. 10.
At the time, Dmitry Peskov, his spokesperson, outlined the situation as follows: “There were unacceptable statements about possible conflict situations and even confrontations and clashes between Nato and Russia.
“I will not name the authors of these statements, although it was the British foreign secretary.”
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