‘Nuclear threat’ are a pair of words we hear far too often nowadays with countless nations throwing the explosive words around like they’re going out of fashion.
U.S.A, Russia, Iran, U.K, North Korea, France, China, and Pakistan – to name but a few.
With Trump’s dwarfish fingers teetering on the fringes of the nuclear button like a trigger happy school boy, with Kim Jong-un doing missile tests every other day of the week, and with threats being launched on every side of the globe – it sure seems like the world is oozing towards its final days.
But say only a small nuclear war broke out. No gargantuan nukes sent here, there, and anywhere. What would happen?
Scientist Paul Doherty believes that even if nuclear war broke out between smaller nuclear-armed countries, around a hundred multimegaton bombs would be dropped – enough to wipe out a third of the world’s population.
The initial blast would wipe out a good chunk and then radiation, food poisoning, and lack of oxygen would quite quickly prove fatal so even those not killed immediately wouldn’t be living much longer.
Doherty explains in his new book, And Then You’re Dead, writing:
Even if you weren’t killed by the initial blasts, you couldn’t expect to live long.
Within two weeks of something like this happening, 180 million tons of smoke, soot and dust would coat our globe like black paint and there it would stay.
Light levels would be reduced to a few per cent of what they are today, so high noon would look like predawn.
If you fancy learning more about the impending doom of a nuclear holocaust – And Then You’re Dead: A scientific exploration of the world’s most interesting ways to die by Cody Cassidy and Paul Doherty is out now.