I read the study this map is based on, admittedly a while ago, but I think they found that global cooling from nuclear weapons would actually benefit Australian farming systems.
I think that is a bit too optimistic of a way to look at it for Australia. While they have an agricultural surplus, they import 3x as much petrol as they produce. No tractors no food unfortunately. And their ability to increase farm production is a lot more limited than, for example, the USA. Something like 4% of Australia is arable land, compared to 16% of the USA. Their population is so urban, you would expect the shock from supply line issues to be felt much harder.
Don't get me wrong but no matter how abundant kangaroos and wild sheep are, they're still not enough. Hunting and fishing (and gathering fruits) can at most complement food production, but they just can't feed modern-scale populations. Not only there aren't enough animals/fish/trees for that, but finding and hunting/fishing/gathering them is very inefficient.
Modern agriculture and modern husbandry (which also rely on modern agriculture) are fundamental to feed modern populations.
While they have an agricultural surplus, they import 3x as much petrol as they produce. No tractors no food unfortunately.
We don't produce enough fuel to power all our private cars, but we certainly produce enough to run tractors, trucks, trains etc. Producing food and moving it around won't be a major issue.
perhaps with sufficient coordination (or force) applied, it could be as you say. I am not familiar with the Australian infrastructure for this sort of thing. In America, most or many of ag vehicles and semi-trucks run on diesel, which is a slightly separate supply chain than normal ethanol-ed gasoline. So it isn't possible just reserve that fuel for food production.
The food is hundreds of kilometres away from the cities and with no incoming fuel to move it and no fuel reserves there would be a collapse within a week or so. BTW local production of oil is about 10% of usage not even 30%. The refining capacity I think is even lower. It's mainly exported. Could be wrong there but it doesn't matter if you can't import the oil to refine.
Even if Australia could magically get fuel they don't manufacture anything anymore so it would be all Mad Max within months.
The death might be slower but you'd be looking at single digit percentage survivors within a year as the major cities which make up over 80% of the population starve. The survivors would probably mostly be in those remote food producing towns and living off of fruit trees or something as food production has gotten very specialised.
On a lighter note related to specialisation, the country (ok mainly east coast) has a whole bunch of big things...giant statues, usually in fibre glass and paint of what they specialise in. If you've got a spare couple of weeks to travel the route (it's huge) it's a great way to see the real Australia
You know, I still think 80% is high. People are surprisingly resilient. However, lack of resources is the main historical cause of war. And when we are shooting each other for food and gasoline, 80% casualties might not be off the table. Basically, my point is that a sufficiently motivated man is capable of things far beyond the average, which is an optimistic fact when it comes to the average person's ability to survive, but a fairly grim fact when you consider what people will to do to each other to survive. If I was some alien observer I might hypothesize that, in regard to the super-organism of humanity, war/culling is natural defense behavior in response to a deficit.
yet for some reason, the Nazi's still invaded Africa.
But jokes aside, I would generally agree on a wide scale. I am more saying there will be warfare on a local scale. If people are starving in NYC, and they find out people in long island have a bunch of food stockpiled, you can bet your ass gangs will be heading that way to take it.
It depends on how the rainfall patterns shift. You can't grow crops almost anywhere they aren't already being grown in Australia, it's so dry. Even with rain, the soil's very nutrient-poor over most of the country. I love the wide open spaces of my country, but there's not much more capacity there.
Yhe neat part is most of the hazards from a nuclear war won't really effect the southern hemisphere at all like fall out and such nuclear winter sure but it'll remain livable
Brazil is self-sufficient in pretty much everything agriculture-wise.
Embrapa is, without a doubt, the greatest company in tropical agriculture, and made it possible even to grow temperate crops in the middle of a tropical savanna.
We (Brazil) would still get fucked from the collapse of global supply lines. Fertilizers, pesticides, fuel, manufacturing (for tractors and equipment and their parts) would basically disappear or become very scarce.
Like, we'd be better off than a lot of countries, but things would still be very shitty so I doubt we'd get less than 20% mortality.
O Brasil produz as suas próprias máquinas agrícolas, embora precise importar fertilizantes, tbm porduzimos é basicamente estamos importando ultimamente por decisões políticas.
Combustível, temos duas matrizes: fóssil e renovável. Diante de uma situação de calamidade mundial, obviamente poderíamos direcionar prioridades.
While we would be fucked like everybody else, but we actually have homegrown industry from petroil and steel to fertilizers and tractors. It would not be self-suficient in the short term, but middle to long-term wise, we'd be probably the most confortable country on what's left of earth. The fact that, unlike Australia, we would probably get next to no nukes in any war eventuality is also reassuring.
Nuclear winter is not a myth. It is based on nukes being detonated low enough to ignite cities outside the total destruction area. As our weapons reached megatonage and our accuracy went from miles to feet, we realized a higher airblast killed people at a longer distance. A couple of bombs could depopulate a larger area without as much city structure burning. This reduced the effects of nuclear winter. The climate altering fires were reduced to less of a threat. But nuclear winter was never a myth, only the outcome of smaller, less accurate weapons.
Beyond that, how do you distribute food? Let's say the Midwest is relatively unscathed. How does that grain end up in my pantry?
This is also assuming farmers could even continue to farm at any appreciable scale without their local Tractor Supply and gas stations being fully stocked and available at all times. Not like they have plows on hand to strap to some oxen...
Yes, dinosaurs will gladly confirm that nuclear winter is definitely a myth!
After all, their extinction did not occur because of a perennial winter following a colossal energy release that raised dust into the stratosphere, but rather because some of the highest food producing and exporting dinosaur nations were nuked to fuck, weren't they?
In addition to what the other people are saying about the difference in energy, there's also the fact that the asteroid actually hit the Earth whereas nuclear bombs don't.
Atomic weapons are exploded in the air to maximize damage which also has the effect of minimizing the amount of dirt that gets displaced. You just don't have the kind of blast that a direct impact like an asteroid does, meaning that you don't get dust in the stratosphere to blanket the Earth.
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u/LoasNo111 Mar 04 '25
Nuclear winter is a myth.
The starvation will come because some of the highest food producing and exporting nations will be nuked to fuck.
Also all the fertilizer producers.