# Outcome of nuclear escalation and general Nuclear concerns Ukraine - Russia

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outcome-of-nuclear-escalation-and-general-nuclear-concerns-ukraine-russia/962302
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Tags:** ukraine-invasion
**Created:** [April 4, 2022, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outcome-of-nuclear-escalation-and-general-nuclear-concerns-ukraine-russia/962302 "2022-04-04T23:08:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 14

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outcome-of-nuclear-escalation-and-general-nuclear-concerns-ukraine-russia/962302/263 "2022-04-29T11:42:05Z")

</div>

> [@msmith537](#):
>
> The Krakatoa eruption in the 1800s was the equivalent of a 200 Megaton detonation. While temperatures cooled for a bit, it didn’t plunge the Earth into decades of nuclear winter.

Everyone needs to understand that regarding nuclear winter, the risk doesn’t come directly from the intensity of the detonations. It’s from how the detonation starts fires in target areas. Burning cities, burning forests, burning structures, factories, oil wells and refineries. There will be no functioning emergency services to fight these fires. They’ll burn unchecked and will eject millions or billions of tons of soot into the atmosphere for years.

> [@msmith537](#):
>
> Radiation is usually reduced to safe(ish) levels within a few days. Nuclear weapons don’t render entire regions into permanently radioactive “forbidden zones”.

This is correct (mostly). Hiroshima and Nagasaki were on the rebound a few years after the attacks, and are now thriving metropolises. But it’s worth noting these were the only 2 cities nuked in the world, and they benefitted from direct aid from the most powerful economy in the world.

And while radiation isn’t the biggest direct threat, consider that the gamma radiation of the detonation converts large amounts of atmospheric nitrogen into NO2, which eats the ozone layer. In addition to risk of skin cancer and whatnot, the increased UV radiation at the earth’s surface is damaging to crops and the soil bacteria they need to grow. And this challenge comes atop global temperatures already having cooled substantially. Add to this the catastrophic loss of agricultural labor, shipping labor, and fuel, and you can see that the global food system as we know it is simply finished.

> [@msmith537](#):
>
> Think about how much chaos 9/11 created. Or the COVID pandemic. Just one nuclear bomb exploding in a major city would overwhelm medical facilities for the entire region.

Yes, this is another point I’ve been trying to get at. Imagine if none of the grocery stores, gas stations, hospitals, Wal-Marts in your state got restocked _at all_ for 3 months. Nobody eats, nobody goes anywhere. You can’t drive to your accounting job and earn a few bucks to buy bread, because there’s no gas, no bread, nobody who needs accounting, and no income to be counted. And 3 months is a wildly optimistic figure.

Even if somebody magically drops pallets of food after 3 months (which won’t happen), you don’t just bounce back to where things were, because most people have already starved to death. And it takes human labor to produce, process, and trasport food, so the famine snowballs as more people die.

People just don’t get it. They think they’re going to grit their teeth and head into the backyard with some okra seeds and wait for society to reboot itself. That’s just not happening if Russia or the US launches ICBMs. Nothing’s happening after that except for starvation.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outcome-of-nuclear-escalation-and-general-nuclear-concerns-ukraine-russia/962302.md?page=13)