I've studied nuclear war for 35 years -- you should be worried. | Brian Toon | TEDxMileHigh

Summary

The script discusses the catastrophic effects of a nuclear war, drawing parallels with the extinction event that wiped out dinosaurs. It highlights the destructive power of nuclear weapons, the potential for global famine and 'nuclear winter,' and urges awareness and political action to prevent such a disaster. It calls for the fulfillment of the promise to reduce nuclear arsenals to zero, as outlined in the 1968 treaty, emphasizing the collective responsibility to avert a global catastrophe.

Takeaways

• 🌏 66 million years ago, an asteroid impact in what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula caused a mass extinction event, killing 70% of known species on Earth.
• 🔥 The impact's energy caused a fireball that heated the atmosphere, leading to fires, a drop in temperature, and cessation of photosynthesis, causing starvation and death.
• 🦕 Dinosaurs perished due to an asteroid impact, not because of any wrongdoing on their part, but due to an unfortunate cosmic event.
• ☢️ The possibility of a nuclear war poses a similar existential threat to humanity, with the potential to cause widespread destruction and loss of life.
• 🚀 There are approximately 15,000 nuclear weapons globally, with nine nations in possession of these weapons, creating a precarious geopolitical situation.
• 💥 A single nuclear weapon can cause massive destruction, with shockwaves, radiation, and fires leading to immediate and long-term fatalities.
• 🌐 The use of nuclear weapons could lead to a 'nuclear winter,' plunging the Earth into a deep freeze, disrupting agriculture, and causing global famine.
• 🌿 Even a limited nuclear exchange between countries like India and Pakistan could have global consequences, affecting food production and leading to widespread starvation.
• 📢 Public awareness and political action are crucial in preventing nuclear war. Individuals can influence policy by engaging with their representatives and advocating for disarmament.
• 🏛️ In the 1980s, awareness of the catastrophic potential of nuclear war led to significant disarmament efforts. It's imperative to rekindle this awareness and commitment to peace.

Q & A

What was the impact of the asteroid that hit the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago?

The impact was immense, hurling rocks as far north as Canada, vaporizing the asteroid, part of Mexico, and part of the shallow sea. It caused a fireball of vaporized rock and water to rise and spread over the planet, leading to molten rock solidifying into shooting stars that heated the upper atmosphere to a thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

How did the event described in the script affect the dinosaurs?

The dinosaurs experienced a sky that turned red-hot, akin to the glow bar in an electric oven, leading to their broiling to death under the glowing skies. The event also caused fires, smoke clouds blocking sunlight, cessation of photosynthesis, and ultimately, either starvation or freezing to death for many species.

What is the speaker's comparison between the fate of the dinosaurs and a potential nuclear war?

The speaker compares the catastrophic effects of the asteroid impact that led to the extinction of dinosaurs to the potential devastation of a nuclear war, which could also lead to massive species extinction and environmental disaster.

How many nuclear weapons are estimated to be on the planet according to the script?

There are an estimated 15,000 nuclear weapons on the planet.

Which countries are mentioned as being in conflict with each other in the context of nuclear weapons?

The script mentions conflicts between the United States and North Korea, NATO and Russia, and India and Pakistan.

What was the death toll from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima by the Enola Gay?

The death toll was a hundred thousand people.

How does the speaker describe the destructive power of modern hydrogen bombs compared to the Hiroshima bomb?

The speaker describes a 1960s airplane that could carry five hydrogen bombs, each with the power of 500 Hiroshima bombs.

What is the potential death toll if the smallest bomb from a Trident missile submarine is used on Pyongyang, as mentioned in the script?

The potential death toll would be 500,000 people, similar to the population of Sacramento or Baltimore.

In what four different ways do nuclear weapons kill people, according to the script?

Nuclear weapons kill people through shock-waves that knock down buildings, radiation released from the bomb, shock-waves powerful enough to knock down residential buildings, and a blast of light causing third-degree burns and igniting flammable materials.

What are the collateral effects of nuclear war that could potentially destroy human civilization, as discussed in the script?

The collateral effects include cities catching on fire and burning, smoke covering the Earth and blocking sunlight, cessation of photosynthesis, loss of agricultural yields, and potentially a nuclear winter with temperatures plummeting below ice age conditions.

What actions does the speaker suggest individuals can take to help prevent a nuclear war?

The speaker suggests talking to political representatives, asking for reports on the aftermath of nuclear war, advocating to stop 'launch on warning' policies, and urging politicians to keep the promise of reducing nuclear arsenals to zero.

Outlines

00:00

🌏 The Catastrophic Impact of the Asteroid and Its Parallel with Nuclear War

The speaker begins by describing the cataclysmic event 66 million years ago when an asteroid, traveling at an immense speed, collided with the shallow seas off the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The impact's energy was so colossal that it ejected rocks as far as Canada and vaporized parts of the asteroid, Mexico, and the sea. This led to a global phenomenon where molten rock droplets solidified into shooting stars that, upon re-entry, heated the atmosphere to extreme temperatures, causing widespread fires and blocking sunlight. This event is likened to a potential nuclear war, which could produce similar devastating effects, only this time caused by human actions. The speaker emphasizes the precariousness of our times, with numerous nuclear weapons and ongoing conflicts that could escalate into a nuclear confrontation.

05:02

💥 The Devastating Effects of Nuclear Weapons and the Potential for Global Catastrophe

The speaker delves into the destructive power of nuclear weapons, explaining how they could kill in four different ways: through shockwaves, radiation, heat, and fire. Using the hypothetical scenario of an attack on Pyongyang, North Korea, with a nuclear weapon, the speaker illustrates the immediate and long-term consequences, including the death of hundreds of thousands and the release of radiation that could kill a significant portion of the population. The speaker also discusses the potential for retaliation and the escalation of conflict, leading to the use of thousands of strategic nuclear weapons that could result in the deaths of millions and the ignition of fires causing a 'nuclear winter,' which would lead to global starvation and the collapse of civilization.

10:03

🌱 Preventing Nuclear War and Ensuring the Survival of Civilization

The speaker concludes by emphasizing that we are not powerless in the face of potential nuclear disaster. Drawing on historical efforts in the 1980s, the speaker calls for renewed awareness and action to prevent nuclear war. They recount their involvement in informing political leaders about the catastrophic consequences of nuclear conflict and the subsequent actions taken by leaders like Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The speaker also highlights the United Nations' recent ban on nuclear weapons and urges individuals to engage with their political representatives to advocate for transparency on the aftermath of nuclear war and to push for the abolition of 'launch on warning' policies. The speaker concludes with a call to action to uphold the promise made in the 1968 treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals to zero, stressing that the survival of humanity and civilization depends on it.

Keywords

💡asteroid impact

The term 'asteroid impact' refers to the collision of an asteroid with a planet, such as Earth. In the video, this concept is central to explaining the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The script vividly describes the catastrophic effects of such an impact, including the immediate death of dinosaurs due to the intense heat and subsequent climate change that led to the failure of photosynthesis and the death of many species.

💡nuclear war

Nuclear war refers to a large-scale conflict involving the use of nuclear weapons. The video draws a parallel between the potential devastation of a nuclear war and the asteroid impact that led to the dinosaurs' extinction. It emphasizes the human-made nature of such a conflict and the potential for similar global ecological collapse, highlighting the urgency of preventing nuclear war.

💡photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants, algae, and some bacteria convert light energy into chemical energy, storing it as glucose and releasing oxygen. In the video, the cessation of photosynthesis after the asteroid impact is mentioned as a key factor in the mass extinction event. Similarly, the script suggests that a nuclear war could disrupt photosynthesis, leading to widespread starvation and ecological collapse.

💡Hiroshima bomb

The 'Hiroshima bomb' refers to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II, which caused massive destruction and loss of life. The video uses this historical event to illustrate the power of nuclear weapons and to compare the potential devastation of modern hydrogen bombs, which are much more powerful.

💡nuclear winter

Nuclear winter is a hypothetical catastrophic climate change expected to follow a large-scale nuclear war, characterized by a significant drop in global temperatures due to the smoke and soot blocking sunlight. The video discusses the concept of nuclear winter as a potential outcome of nuclear war, drawing a direct comparison to the environmental devastation that followed the asteroid impact.

💡Trident missile submarine

A 'Trident missile submarine' is a type of submarine capable of carrying and launching multiple nuclear warheads from underwater. The video mentions these submarines as part of the current nuclear arsenal, emphasizing their destructive potential and the scale of devastation they could cause if used.

💡strategic nuclear weapons

Strategic nuclear weapons are those designed to be used in a large-scale conflict, typically with the intent to inflict massive damage on an enemy's infrastructure, military, and population. The video discusses the number of such weapons possessed by countries like the United States and Russia, highlighting the potential for widespread destruction in the event of their use.

💡nuclear proliferation

Nuclear proliferation refers to the spread of nuclear weapons and related technology to more nations. The video touches on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which was signed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to work towards disarmament. It underscores the importance of adhering to this treaty to prevent a nuclear conflict.

💡launch on warning

Launch on warning is a policy where a country's nuclear forces are launched as soon as an incoming attack is detected, without waiting for confirmation. The video criticizes this policy as being dangerously close to an accidental nuclear war, as it reduces the time for decision-making and increases the risk of a miscalculation leading to catastrophe.

💡nuclear disarmament

Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. The video advocates for nuclear disarmament, referencing the 2017 United Nations resolution banning nuclear weapons and the need for countries to honor their commitments to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals to prevent a global catastrophe.

Highlights

66 million years ago, an asteroid impact led to the extinction of dinosaurs.

The impact's energy ejected rocks as far as Canada and vaporized the asteroid, part of Mexico, and the sea.

Vaporized rock and water formed a swarm of shooting stars that heated the atmosphere to extreme temperatures.

Dinosaurs experienced a sky that turned red-hot, similar to the glow bar in an electric oven.

The impact's aftermath led to fires, smoke blocking sunlight, and mass extinction due to starvation and freezing.

The asteroid impact was a random event, unlike potential human-caused disasters like nuclear war.

There are 15,000 nuclear weapons on Earth, with nine nations in conflict with each other.

A nuclear war could have similar catastrophic effects as the dinosaur-extinguishing asteroid impact.

Cities with military bases, industries, or strategic importance are potential nuclear targets.

The destructive power of modern nuclear weapons is far greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

A single Trident missile submarine can carry a hundred hydrogen bombs, each with the power of multiple Hiroshima bombs.

Nuclear weapons kill through shockwaves, radiation, and heat, causing immediate and long-term fatalities.

A nuclear exchange could lead to a 'nuclear winter' with global starvation and the potential end of civilization.

Even a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan could have global agricultural and climate consequences.

The United Nations passed a resolution in 2017 to ban nuclear weapons, similar to bans on landmines and chemical weapons.

Public awareness and political action are crucial to prevent nuclear war and its catastrophic consequences.

Politicians and the public must be educated on the dangers of nuclear conflict to prevent a potential disaster.

The speaker calls for an end to 'launch on warning' policies and a commitment to reduce nuclear arsenals to zero.

Transcripts

Translator: Nastya Lichman Reviewer: Queenie Lee

66 million years ago,

a mountain-sized asteroid

traveling 10 times faster than a bullet from an assault rifle

slammed into the shallow seas

covering what is now the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

The immense energy of that impact hurled rocks as far north as Canada,

and it vaporized the asteroid,

part of Mexico and part of the shallow sea.

Well, this fireball of vaporized rock and water

rose far above the earth's atmosphere

and spread over the planet.

As it cooled,

molten drops of rock about the size of a grain of sand solidified

into an immense swarm of shooting stars.

The shooting stars re-entered the earth's atmosphere

and heated the upper atmosphere to a thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

Standing at the ground,

the dinosaurs saw the blue sky become a sheet of red-hot lava.

The scientific artist David Hardy

imagines the fate of the dinosaurs in this painting.

They broiled to death under the glowing skies.

The energy in the sky is like that in the glow bar in an electric oven.

If you're dying to experience what the the dinosaurs did when they died,

turn your oven on broil and hop in.

(Laughter)

The glowing skies started everything on fire.

Great clouds of smoke

rose into the upper atmosphere and blocked the sun

so that no sunlight reached the ground.

It became cold and dark.

Photosynthesis stopped,

and plants and animals, in the ocean or on the land,

either starved or froze to death.

The dinosaurs didn't do anything wrong that caused their death.

It was just fate that an asteroid hit the earth

and killed 70% of the species that we know of on the planet.

Unfortunately, in our lifetimes,

we may experience the same fate as the dinosaurs.

But I'm not talking about another asteroid collision,

I'm talking about a nuclear war.

A nuclear war would have many of the same phenomena

that the dinosaurs experienced.

But this time it absolutely would be our fault.

Fortunately, there are things that we can do to prevent this from happening.

If you live in a city that has a military base,

there's a missile that's aimed at you right now.

If you live in a city that has an important industry,

a major university, a large airport,

an oil refinery or oil storage facilities,

there's a hydrogen bomb that's aimed at you right now.

We live in a perilous era.

There are 15,000 nuclear weapons on the planet.

And the 9 nuclear weapon states are in conflict with each other.

The United States and North Korea,

NATO and Russia, India and Pakistan.

We're just one misunderstanding,

one mistake, or one fanatic politician away from a nuclear conflict.

In World War II, fleets of hundreds or even a thousand airplanes

were used to bomb a single city.

But with the invention of the atomic bomb,

only one airplane and one bomb was needed.

The Enola Gay carried one atomic bomb

with the power of 15,000 tons of TNT.

And when it dropped that bomb on Hiroshima, Japan,

a hundred thousand people died.

Over time, even more powerful bombs were built.

Hydrogen bombs.

This 1960s airplane carried five hydrogen bombs,

the red and white things there,

and had the power of 500 Hiroshima bombs.

And of course the United States and Russia don't just use airplanes.

They have intercontinental ballistic missiles with hydrogen bombs on them,

and they have nuclear submarines with missiles.

A single Trident missile submarine

can carry a hundred hydrogen bombs

with the explosive power of a 1,000 Hiroshima bombs.

Knowing the power of the bombs and their targets,

we can understand the destructiveness and loss of life that might occur

if these were ever used.

Let us imagine, for example, that the United States

attacks Pyongyang, North Korea, the capital,

with the smallest bomb carried on a Trident missile submarine.

500,000 people - about the population of Sacramento or Baltimore - would die.

Nuclear weapons kill people in four different ways.

In this orange circle, there's a shock-wave so powerful

that it knocks down concrete buildings and kills everyone within that zone.

In the red circle,

there's radiation that's released from the atomic bomb as it fissions.

The radiation would kill 50 to 90% of the North Koreans,

over the next few weeks.

In this green circle, the shock-wave continues out

with enough power to knock down residential buildings.

And in this yellow circle, six miles in diameter,

there's a blast of light so bright

that if your skin was exposed,

you'd get third-degree burns, which can be fatal,

and flammable things like leaves, newspapers and your clothes

would burst into flames.

And of course, if we attack North Korea,

they're likely to attack us back.

If they use the same size weapon that we used,

and they've already tested one like this,

they could kill 150,000 people in this 6-mile diameter circle in Denver.

And these terrifying scenarios I'm talking about

are just each if side uses one nuclear weapon.

But Russia and the United States each have 4,000 strategic nuclear weapons.

That's enough to attack each city with more than 100,000 people,

in each country, with 10 atomic bombs.

In a war like that, 400 million people would probably die on the planet,

in China, in Russia, in Europe and in the United States.

But wait, that's not all.

(Laughter)

I've just been talking about the damage near ground zero.

That's all the military considers in their war plans.

But there will be collateral effects.

Remember the dinosaurs: it was the burning forests

that killed three quarters of the species we know about on the planet.

And the same would happen after a nuclear war;

cities would catch on fire and burn.

It's this damage,

the damage the military doesn't even consider,

the damage that's just thought of as an accident,

that might destroy human civilization.

Even a war between India and Pakistan,

two of the smallest nuclear powers,

with only a few hundred weapons of about the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

We might die as unintended consequences

that the Indian and Pakistani generals never even gave a thought about.

My colleagues Luke Oman and Alan Robock calculated the spread of smoke

after a war between India and Pakistan.

It only takes about two weeks for the smoke to cover the entire Earth.

And it would rise to altitudes between 20 and 50 miles above the surface.

At those altitudes, it never rains.

The smoke would stay there for years.

This farmer, maybe in Europe or in the United States,

but many thousands of miles from Pakistan and India,

is looking at the smoky sky above him and down at the crops

that have died in his field from lack of light and cold temperatures.

It's estimated that in a war between India and Pakistan,

we would lose 10 to 40% of the yields of corn, wheat and rice

for years afterward because of the bad weather.

The entire world only has enough food to feed the population for 60 days

unless agriculture produces more food.

Ira Helfand, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize winning

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War,

has estimated that one to two billion people would die

after a war between India and Pakistan, of starvation.

And after a full-scale nuclear war,

temperatures would plunge below ice age conditions.

We would be in a nuclear winter.

No crops would grow.

It is estimated that 90% of the population of the planet

would starve to death, and civilization would be destroyed.

And no one would be safe.

Not those in countries with no nuclear weapons,

not those in countries that didn't participate in war,

and not those on the other side of the planet

from where the explosions occurred.

No one would be safe.

I bet you're not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling out of this talk.

(Laughter)

But we don't have to just keep plodding on like we have been,

walking toward disaster.

We can do things to stop a nuclear war

and prevent global starvation and the end of human civilization.

In the 1980s, politicians recognized the dangers of a nuclear conflict

and did things about it.

Nowadays, politicians don't seem to understand the dangers of these wars.

And the younger generations hardly give nuclear conflict a thought.

We baby-boomers had this drummed into us.

In grade school, we were taught "duck and cover" drills

and how to get under our desk

in a hopeless attempt to avoid a nuclear explosion.

(Laughter)

In middle school, our mothers told us,

"You can't drink your milk anymore,

because the 500 atmospheric nuclear weapons test

had poisoned the earth with radiation.

And the popular culture was dominated by radioactive mutants,

such as Godzilla, which is a Japanese nightmare from Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

In the 1980s,

I worked with Richard Turco, Carl Sagan, Russian scientist and others

to tell Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan

about the dangers of a nuclear war.

We told him a nuclear war would cause a nuclear winter

that could end civilization as we know it.

And they listened.

(Applause)

Ronald Reagan said, "A great many reputable scientists are telling us

that such a war could just end up in no victory for anyone

because we would wipe out the earth as we know it.

And Mikhail Gorbachev said, "Models made by Russian and American scientists

showed that a nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter

that would be extremely destructive to all life on earth;

the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us,

to people of honor and morality,

to act in that situation.

In September of 2017, the United Nations passed a resolution

banning nuclear weapons like landmines,

chemical and biological weapons have been banned.

Unfortunately, the nuclear weapons states want to ignore that ban

and just plod on like they have been.

It's up to us to wake them up

before they sleepwalk into a nuclear disaster.

What can you do about this?

Talk to your political representatives.

Tell them you'd like the Department of Defense

to report to us on what would happen after a nuclear war.

They did this in the 1980s.

How many people would die in Korea

if we attack them with nuclear weapons?

How many people would die in Russia,

China, South Korea and Japan,

the countries that surround North Korea?

What will happen if like every other war we have ever fought,

it does not go as planned and expands beyond North Korea?

And you should ask your politicians to stop "launch on warning."

In launch on warning,

the American president can launch nuclear-armed missiles within minutes

without consulting anyone, using the nuclear football,

which is carried everywhere the president goes by a military officer.

In 1968, the United States and 190 other countries

signed the treaty to prevent a proliferation of nuclear weapons.

In that treaty,

we promised to build our nuclear arsenals down to zero as soon as we could.

We need to keep that promise.

All of our lives may depend on it.

(Applause)

Thank you.