A recent report by Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon,Scientific American, Jan 2010, gives us information about the severe impact of nuclear war or accident on the environment and the entire Earth...Congress can take action as required by law...the Defense Department must issue report..::::::::
March 12, 2010, Nuclear War Report says Loss to Environment Devastating to the Earth by arn specter
A report in the Jan 2010 issue of Scientific American, Local Nuclear War by environmental experts Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon speaks about the
very severe devastation on the Earth by the explosions of nuclear thermonuclear bombs by the US, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, France, England,
China, North Korea, or any other country(ies), which would cause severe atmospheric damage, blocking the sun and tearing apart the Ozone layer around the planet...
This report is reviewed and commented on by Steven Starr, an expert on the dangers of nuclear weapons
and he says, "in the United States there appears to be a legal basis to force the Defense Department to evaluate the likely consequences of its nuclear arsenal. According to the EPA's website, 'The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision-making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions. To meet NAPA requirements, federal agencies must prepare a detailed statement known as an Environmental Impact Statement."...
Steven Starr's comment are likely found on the website(s) www.pugwash.org and the Yahoo Group Abolition-Caucus.
With the upcoming talks and negotiations between the US, Russia and other nuclear statesdiscussions about the environmental impactare needed in order to give us all a complete picture of the many dangers of nuclear weapons and any use of them on the planet.
arn specter, phila. (arnpeace-Twitter)
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Environment
Local Nuclear War, (8 page report) Scientific American, Jan 2010
click here
Worry has focused on the U.S. versus Russia, but a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan could blot out the sun, starving much of the human race
by Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon
Twenty-five years ago international teams of scientists showed that a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union could produce a "nuclear winter." The smoke from vast fires started by bombs dropped on cities and industrial areas would envelop the planet and absorb so much sunlight that the earth's surface would get cold, dark and dry, killing plants worldwide and eliminating our food supply. Surface temperatures would reach winter values in the summer. International discussion about this prediction, fueled largely by astronomer Carl Sagan, forced the leaders of the two superpowers to confront the possibility that their arms race endangered not just themselves but the entire human race. Countries large and small demanded disarmament.
Nuclear winter became an important factor in ending the nuclear arms race. Looking back later, in 2000, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev observed, "Models made by Russian and American scientists showed that a nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter that would be extremely destructive to all life on earth; the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us, to people of honor and morality, to act."
Why discuss this topic now that the cold war has ended? Because as other nations continue to acquire nuclear weapons, smaller, regional nuclear wars could create a similar global catastrophe. New analyses reveal that a conflict between India and Pakistan, for example, in which
RichaRd Lee (continued...8 pages)
2009 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.
Progress/Spiritual male, 63, lives in Phila. Retired and active on progresive issues; Reducing Military Spending, Nuclear Nonproliferation, Impeachment, Stoping the War , Disarmament, Single-Payer health care, Animal Welfare, Communities Advocate, (
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