Nuclear war: Massive deaths to continue long after the blasts

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MANILA, Philippines—Nuclear wars between huge nations could ultimately lead to deaths, radiation, and years-long environmental pollution and damage following atomic blasts. A new study, however, emphasized how the same wars could kill more people due to famine days after the massive explosions.

There are approximately 12,705 nuclear warheads currently being kept as part of the defense arsenal of several countries, according to data consumer company Statista. At least 90 percent of these are owned by two countries: the United States (US) and Russia.

Wars between these two nations—wars involving other nuclear-armed nations such as China, France, the United Kingdom, North Korea, and Israel—would come with a range of lethal impacts.

However, aside from the casualties and damages directly caused by atomic blasts, scientists have found that nuclear wars—even a small conflict between nuclear-weapon states—could immensely impact the environment—which would eventually lead to famine and more deaths.

Amid the recent tensions between the US, Russia, China, and other nuclear-weapon states, INQUIRER.net will detail how war involving these countries could cause a worldwide famine that could last for years.

Nuclear war scenarios

A study published last month in Nature Food journal discussed the decades-long thought experiment about the global consequences of nuclear war—and provided a closer look at global famine caused by possible nuclear wars using the latest available data.

In the study, lead researcher Lili Xia, a climate scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and her colleagues detailed how atmospheric soot landings from nuclear weapon detonation would impact the Earth’s climate—and affect the terrestrial and aquatic food production globally.

To do this, as well as to find out how many people could die due to hunger following the detonations, Xia and her colleagues formulated and analyzed six nuclear war scenarios involving nuclear-weapon states along with the corresponding estimated amount of soot injected into the Earth’s atmosphere.

GRAPHIC Ed Lustan

Soot injected into the atmosphere, caused by firestorms after bomb attacks in cities and industrial areas, would spread across the globe which reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface—according to a separate study published in Nature communications earth & environment.

This would then lead to global cooling—also known as “nuclear winter.”

READ: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00088-1

The scenarios also included the number of weapons, yield, and estimated casualties or deaths as a direct result of the nuclear attacks.

The scientists came up with two different war scenarios between India and Pakistan—which owns at least 160 and 165 nuclear warheads, respectively.

GRAPHIC Ed Lustan

In one scenario, a nuclear war between India and Pakistan—with a total of 100 nuclear weapons—would result in 5 teragrams (Tg) of soot injected into the atmosphere. This would kill around 27 million individuals.

Two scenarios of the nuclear war between India and Pakistan—with 100 to 250 nuclear weapons—could inject 5 to 16 teragrams (Tg) of soot into the atmosphere. Around 27 million to 52 million individuals would perish following the attacks.

Five other scenarios—which could produce between 27 to 150 Tg of soot—were also created in connection with possible nuclear war between the US, its allies, and Russia. This would result in nuclear winter, according to scientists.

Depending on the number of weapons used by both nations—estimated to be around 250 to 4,400 nuclear weapons—the estimated number of casualties would be around 97 million up to 360 million.

“Each scenario assumes a nuclear war lasting one week, resulting in the number and yield of nuclear weapons shown in the table and producing different amounts of soot in the stratosphere,” Xia and her colleagues wrote.

“There are many war scenarios that could result in similar amounts of smoke and thus similar climate shocks, including wars involving the other nuclear-armed nations (China, France, United Kingdom, North Korea, and Israel).”

Global famine

Aside from direct casualties, the study also pointed out how nuclear war impacts the food system, causing global famine—and eventually, more deaths.

“Nuclear war would primarily contaminate soil and water close to where nuclear weapons were used,” Xia and her colleagues stated, adding that “[c]ooling from nuclear wars causes temperature limitations for crops, leading to delayed physiological maturity and additional cold stress.”

Using data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the scientists calculated how declining crop yields and fishery catches following a nuclear war would affect the number of calories available for people to consume.

GRAPHIC Ed Lustan

They also presented and analyzed several options such as raising livestock, routing some or all crops meant for livestock to humans, repurposing biofuel crops for human consumption, and cutting back on or eliminating food waste, among many other possibilities.

These were included in the following assumptions for three societal responses, Livestock, Partial Livestock, and No Livestock.

Livestock response scenario: minimal adaptation to the climate-driven reduction in food production, people continue to maintain livestock and fish as normal;
Partial Livestock response scenario: the remaining portion of livestock grain feed, after converting to human consumption, would be used for raising livestock;
No Livestock response scenario: assuming most or all of livestock is killed a year after the war and half of the livestock grain feed is used for human consumption.

Using these data, Xia and her team found that between 255 million to 5 billion individuals worldwide would starve by the end of year 2 following the nuclear war “when the rest of the population is provided with the minimum amount of food needed to survive, assumed to be a calorie intake of 1,911 kcal per capita per day, and allowing for no international trade.”

“[R]educed light, global cooling and likely trade restrictions after nuclear wars would be a global catastrophe for food security,” the study stated.

While Xia noted that their study relies on many assumptions and estimations about how the complex global food system would respond to a nuclear war, the results were striking enough.

“A large percent of the people will be starving. It’s really bad,” Xia said.

Mass starvation in PH

Based on the 2010 population, the study estimated that between 4.7 million and 43.5 million people in the Philippines would die from starvation two years after the nuclear wars.

Assuming no trade under a Livestock response scenario, the number of people in the country who would die from starvation two years after a nuclear war (depending on the amount of soot inserted into the atmosphere), were:

• 16 Tg: 10.5 million
• 150 Tg: 43.5 million
• 150 Tg (+ half of the household waste added to food consumption): 37 million
• 150 Tg (+ total household waste added to food consumption): 30.5 million

Meanwhile, the number of people in the country who would die from starvation two years after a nuclear war (depending on the amount of soot inserted into the atmosphere)—assuming no trade under the Partial Livestock response scenario (50% of livestock grain feed is used for human consumption, and 50% of livestock grain feed is used to raise livestock)—were:

• 16 Tg: 900,000
• 150 Tg: 37.8 million
• 150 Tg (+ half of the household waste added to food consumption): 30.5 million
• 150 Tg (+ total household waste added to food consumption): 23.3 million

In No Livestock response scenario with no trade (assuming livestock is killed in Year 1 and 50% of livestock grain feed is used for human consumption), the number of people in the country who would die from starvation two years after a nuclear war (depending on the amount of soot inserted into the atmosphere) were:

• 16 Tg: 4.7 million
• 150 Tg: 40.1 million
• 150 Tg (+ half of the household waste added to food consumption): 33.1 million
• 150 Tg (+ total household waste added to food consumption): 26.2 million
• Fly to Australia

The study found that all countries would experience famine after nuclear wars—except Australia.

“Isolated from trade in the wake of a nuclear war, Australia would rely mainly on wheat for food. And wheat would grow relatively well in the cooler climate induced by atmospheric soot,” an article published on Nature News noted, citing findings by Xia and her team.

The scientists also found that New Zealand would also experience smaller impacts than other countries.

“However, this analysis is limited by the FAO data, which are collected at national levels. Within each nation, particularly large ones, there may be large regional inequities driven by infrastructure limitations, economic structures, and government policies,” Xia and her colleagues wrote.

GRAPHIC Ed Lustan

Still, if this scenario should actually take place, the team said both Australia and New Zealand would probably see “an influx of refugees from Asia and other countries experiencing food insecurity.”

A war that ‘cannot be won and must never be fought’

“The results here provide further support to the 1985 statement by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and restated by US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2021 that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’,” the scientists said in their study.

Joshua Coupe, a postdoctoral research associate at Rutgers University and lead and corresponding author of the study “Nuclear Niño response observed in simulations of nuclear war scenarios,” meanwhile emphasized that humanity will immensely suffer as a result of nuclear wars.

“[I]n a post-nuclear war world, humanity will suffer from worldwide food insecurity caused by catastrophic multi-year global climate change that will affect not only land but also the world’s oceans,” Coupe said.

“The most effective way to avoid such insurmountable challenges and protect the environment is to prevent nuclear conflict.”

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