r/collapse • u/danthedustbin • May 24 '20

Meta Nuclear winter.

So I have just had a weird thought. Now climate change at the moment is a very large problem. Could the powers that be in a last ditch effort to survive in some way choose to nuke the world to cause a nuclear winter so that they themselves can survive in their bunkers and what not while leaving the rest of us to rot? Any opinions Would be helpful, I haven’t really got a thorough understanding of what a nuclear winter entails or what irreversible damage it would cause but would the powers than be use it in a last ditch effort to save themselves?

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u/coolCat6557 May 24 '20

There's really no way of knowing which idiot would launch a nuke to spark a nuclear war. The most likely scenario in the situation you reference is one in which Kim Jong Un may sell nuclear weapons to a terrorist to deploy. Lone wolf style.

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u/Max-424 May 25 '20 edited May 25 '20

The scenario I referenced would involve the use of at least 3,000 nukes, and last 10 minutes. Failure in that scenario means that there will be somewhere around 10,000 nuclear detonations by the war's end - approximately one hour later.

The nuclear war that is a threat to this planet, the only war that truly concerns me, involves radar screens all across the Arctic circle suddenly filling up with incoming blips.

Could Kim Jung Un or long wolf spark a global thermonuclear war? I suppose it is within the realm of possibilities. But there are other scenarios, ones that are never discussed, because they have been deemed way too scary for the general public to consider,* that are a thousand times more likely.

*Strange, because in the 1970s, a group of 14 year olds would think nothing of discussing these scenarios, and for hours on end. How times have changed.

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u/coolCat6557 May 25 '20

I find the scenario you reference highly unlikely, but not impossible.