Decoding nuclear winter: Has war lost its name?

Abstract

In viewing the effects of nuclear weapons the spotlight has for long been on the immediate. Nuclear war has been imagined as something instant, brighter than a thousand suns, utterly hot and absolutely devastating. Now the theory of nuclear winter has brought a considerable number of new elements into this picture. The traditional image has been drastically reversed. Instead of the instant effects of blast, heat and radioactivity the secondary effects have been brought to the forefront. It has been discovered that the synergisms of these aftereffects would be far more threatening and devastating than the immediate outcome. As a consequence, the discourse on nuclear war has taken a new turn. The image of a sudden flash is now competing with perceptions of something drawn-out, slow, dark and chilly. The unimaginable has given way to far more imaginable consequences such as flooding, massive fires, dust storms and mass starvation. With this change from the initial and the unknown indirectly acknowledging that these would not bring about a holocaust to the more cumulative and less unreal it has become easier to grasp the perils of nuclear war. Primarily the change of focus has taken place with scientists and their approach. For long the strategic community was occupied almost exclusively, so it seems, with the primary effects of nuclear detonations. Environmental effects such as the destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer were seen as a possibility but not taken to be a matter of grave concern compared to the devastating initial impact. This focusing on the immediate was not challenged in the scientific community, and the more familiar features of a detonation, among them fires and the smoke generated, were overlooked. These aspects of nuclear war belonged to the sphere of the ordinary and were therefore not among those aspects that gave nuclear weapons their very special flavour so it was then thought. The change of perspective that has now occurred could plainly result from an accumulation of knowledge. This is, for example, the explanation offered by David Greene and his colleagues in their book endeavouring to serve as a guide to the phenomenon of nuclear winter. They argue that the key new factor was discovered by (Greene et al., 1985, p. 1). Two scientists, Paul Crutzen and John Birkes, were asked by the editors of Ambio, ajournai of the Swedish Academy of Sciencies, to investigate the effects of nuclear war. It occurred to them that smoke from fires ignited by the heat of the nuclear fireball could effect this issue. It then turned out from their initial calculations that there could be enough smoke to blot out almost all sunlight from half of the Earth for weeks. This argument of an accidental discovery is, however, unsatisfactory in several ways. Why had the accident not happened before, during the four decades of the nuclear era, and why precisely at the beginning of the eighties? Perhaps it would be more proper to speak of social and cultural barriers related to nuclear weapons and the use of these weapons, which have been difficult to surmount. Knowledge of the environmental impact of nuclear war has been available for some time. A three volume study on this subject by Professor Robert Ayres appeared as early as 1965. It failed, however, to generate any broader attention. The question why the climatic consequences had not been discovered before has been posed at scientific conferences. It has been observed that the basic chemistry and physics have been available for 20 years. But as reported by Anne Ehrlich the question has remained unanswered (Ehrlich 1984, p. 85). Hence the origin of the nuclear winter theory does not lie exclusively in the accumulation of new scientific knowledge. It springs not so much from penetration into something previously unknown for example dust storms on the planet Mars as from a preparedness to give knowledge a more dramatic and compelling form. It is not the new knowledge generated but rather the way existing knowledge has been put to use that has made the difference. For modern science the nuclear winter theory