Nuclear war would be devastating to humanity as a whole. No matter which countries are involved, nuclear winter would be the outcome.

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Nuclear Winter Would Destroy Civilization as We Know It

Few people would survive a nuclear winter and the famines it would bring. Humanity builds up its nuclear arsenal, just to stop anybody from launching nuclear weapons. A single mistake could cause humanity to destroy itself.

“It is now almost 40 years since the invention of nuclear weapons. We have not yet experienced a global thermonuclear war -- although on more than one occasion we have come
tremulously close. I do not think our luck can hold forever. Men and machines are fallible, as
recent events remind us. Fools and madmen do exist, and sometimes rise to power.
Concentrating always on the near future, we have ignored the long-term consequences of our
actions. We have placed our civilization and our species in jeopardy. “ - Carl Sagan in The Nuclear Winter: The World After Nuclear War.

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We Have Far too many Nuclear Weapons

Carl Sagan researched the possible effects of a nuclear winter and other aspects of a possible nuclear war. At this time a nuclear bomb was produced with the power of two megatons of TNT. Two megatons is the equivalent of two million tons of TNT. This is about equal to the amount of non-nuclear bombs dropped during the entire second world war. At the time Carl Sagan wrote his paper The Nuclear Winter: The World After Nuclear War, there were fifty thousand nuclear bombs on Earth. There were only three thousand cities with a population more than one hundred thousand. In his time there were far more bombs than needed to destroy key military targets. Even though we have scaled our nuclear weapon supply back, in 2014 it was estimated to be a little over fifteen thousand nuclear weapons. That amount of nuclear weapons is still major overkill.

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The Effects of Nuclear Bombs

The devastating effects of a nuclear war are a danger to society as a whole. The effects are far-reaching and could easily destroy us. The effects include: nuclear winter, radiation, an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) and the immediate destruction of most infrastructure and technology. All of these effects can be disastrous to humanity as a whole. Nuclear winter will cool the planet and destroy our crops. Radiation can cause higher rates of cancer and can cause radiation poisoning. An EMP can wipe out our electrical grids and thus destroy large portions of our technology.

Nuclear Winter

Nuclear winter is the most deadly. The nuclear explosion itself will throw up huge amounts of dust, as will the fires that are created from the explosions afterwards. This dust will hang in the atmosphere for years. This will reflect electromagnetic radiation and lower the temperature of the Earth’s surface. Wars are chaotic and are not fully predictable. Exact estimates of the effects are impossible and only estimates for each possible conflict can be found. NASA found that if one hundred Hiroshima bombs were dropped, the global surface temperature would drop by one degree Celsius. (There was an estimated ten thousand nuclear weapons in 2010. ) This is because it would shoot about 5 teragrams of soot particles into the upper atmosphere. Most of those are blacker plastics and concrete from major industrial cities. The soot catches the sunlight and heats up, this will cause it to rise. The soot will sit high in the atmosphere catching much of the sunlight and blocking it from reaching the surface, causing major cooling effect. Much of this soot will come from fires started by the explosion, and fanned by the shockwaves. This would also decrease the amount of precipitation.

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Nuclear Winter would Destroy our Crops

A prolonged cold period would have a major effect on agriculture and wild plants. Cooling and decrease in precipitation together would cause more frequent frosts and decrease crop yields, for example, a single day of below freezing temperatures is enough to kill a rice crop. It was shown that a temperature of 3 degrees Celsius less than normal could halt Canadian spring wheat production. A small change, in most countries, would cause mass starvation. Even the least affected countries could only survive two to three months after a nuclear war with 150 megatons of nuclear weapons used.

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Other Dangers of Nuclear War

Bombs wouldn’t just burn cities, they would enhance chemical reactions that destroy the ozone layer. This would increase skin cancer and coupled with lack of food, psychological stress, lack of many medical supplies, pollution, and radioactivity, could both directly and indirectly be dangers to humanity. They could cause major death through cancer and starvation or allow a major increase in pathogens to wipe out many large groups that survive. In Australia and New Zealand especially, humanity would not be completely wiped out. This is because it would be possible to produce enough to feed large groups of people that have survived. This is because the warm climate could still support some crops after the climate shifts.

At Least it Won't Change the Climate Much

A nuclear winter will also not result in an ice age. It would need to last hundreds to thousands of years to start an ice age. After 10 years the climate will likely be back to pre-war conditions. Ice is the most reflective natural compound found on the surface of Earth while water is the opposite (ice reflects 80% of light, while water absorbs 90%). Once a certain amount of water freezes or melts, it could start a feedback loop that could last tens of thousands of years. The soot will not be in the air long enough to cause enough ice to form. This is good for the life that survives the first 10 years, however, it does not help humanity much in the short term.

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Why Would Humanity Ever Launch Nuclear Weapons?

Destroying our food supply and electronic would set humanity back hundreds of years. Why would anybody ever do such a thing? Humanity has always produced bigger and better weapons of war. The nuclear bomb was the solution for the second world war. Each country did not wish the others getting it first, in the end,many countries have produced these weapons capable of destroying most or all of human civilization. This is because the only way to prevent yourself from getting destroyed by nuclear weapons is to threaten to do the same in return. This means you must be ready to destroy any country that attacks you with nuclear weapons. This means that human error or equipment malfunction has a chance of starting a nuclear war. It was up to a single person to stop a nuclear war at many points during the cold war.

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Officer Stanislav Petrov, at one point, was all that stood between us and nuclear fire. Officer Stanislav Petrov, a member of an early warning bunker, had an alert of five incoming missiles from satellites. Ground radar did not pick it up and satellite technology was new. He thought that it was the technology malfunctioning and did not pass this message on, likely saving billions from the effects of a nuclear war. Humanity builds up its nuclear arsenal to protect itself, from its nuclear arsenal.

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Using Nuclear Weapons Today

Tensions are high between many countries today. Today many are still prepared to launch nuclear weapons. Pakistan has said multiple times that it is ready to use nuclear weapons to protect itself if India invades them. A top official in India has acknowledged a “cold-start” plan that will allow it to instantly invade in retaliation do more damage at a quicker, in the goal of acting as a better deterrent. That would start a small-scale nuclear war and cause a nuclear winter.

Every country with nuclear weapons today must be ready to launch them. A single mistake could cause humanity to destroy itself. Ever since nuclear weapons were created each country fights to produce them, to prevent other countries from using nuclear weapons on them. This tactic is unstable, any error could cause humanity to destroy itself.

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