Thursday, February 24, 2011

Problem Solved: "Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years"

From National Geographic:

A file photo of a nuclear bomb being detonated at French Polynesia.
A nuclear bomb explodes in a test on the Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia in the early seventies.
Even a regional nuclear war could spark "unprecedented" global cooling and reduce rainfall for years, according to U.S. government computer models.
Widespread famine and disease would likely follow, experts speculate.

During the Cold War a nuclear exchange between superpowers—such as the one feared for years between the United States and the former Soviet Union—was predicted to cause a "nuclear winter."
In that scenario hundreds of nuclear explosions spark huge fires, whose smoke, dust, and ash blot out the sun for weeks amid a backdrop of dangerous radiation levels. Much of humanity eventually dies of starvation and disease.

Today, with the United States the only standing superpower, nuclear winter is little more than a nightmare. But nuclear war remains a very real threat—for instance, between developing-world nuclear powers, such as India and Pakistan....MORE
When it looked as if India and Pakistan might start lobbing nukes at each other a few years ago we ran some investing scenarios. I'll dust them off if things hot up. In the meantime here's one of the oddest displays on the face of the earth, the nightly evening retreat ceremony at the Wagah border crossing. Narrated by Monty Python's Michael Palin no less: