A nuclear war would be unwinnable and should be unthinkable. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
If tensions between Russia and the United States spark an all-out nuclear war between the two rivals, more than five billion people would die from hunger alone, according to a new study in the journal Nature Food.
Scientists at Rutgers University projected the amount of soot that would be thrust into the Earth’s atmosphere in a variety of nuclear war scenarios, from smaller exchanges between India and Pakistan to a full-blown war between Russia and the United States.
A relatively modest Indo-Pakistani war would slash the world’s average caloric output by 7% within the first five years — bigger than any disruption humanity has faced thus far. “Even for a regional nuclear war, large parts of the world may suffer famine,” say the study’s authors.
The biggest US-Russian exchange would positively devastate global food production — shrinking it 90% within three to four years after the explosions cease, the researchers say. Seventy-five percent of human beings would be dead in two years.
In addition to lower crop yields, the Rutgers model attempted to account for export restrictions, as well as mitigation efforts such as giving humans livestock feed to eat.
As devastating a picture as the study presents, it’s understated. “The ozone layer would be destroyed by the heating of the stratosphere, producing more ultraviolet radiation at the surface, and we need to understand that impact on food supplies,” Rutgers assistant research professor Lili Zia tells Sky News. Researchers also didn’t factor in changes in fertilizer and food supplies, which would be substantial.
