Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Xia mentions that her study relies on many assumptions and simplifications are about how the complex global food system would be affected by a nuclear war. But the numbers they produced were stark in their implications. Considering even the smallest war scenario studied, of an India-Pakistan conflict that produces only five million tons of soot, calorie production across the planet could drop by seven percent in the first five years after the war. In the forty-seven million ton India-Pakistan soot scenario, global average calories would fall by fifty percent. In the study’s worst-case scenario of a U.S.-Russia war, calorie production would drop by ninety percent three to four years after the war.
The nations most affected by a nuclear war would be those as high latitudes because they already have a short season for growing crops. They would be cooled more dramatically after a nuclear war than tropical regions would. The U.K. would see sharper drops in food available than a country such as India that is located at lower latitudes. However, France, which is a major exporter of food, would fare relatively well, at least in the lower soot levels scenarios. This is because if their food exports were halted, they would have more food available for their own people.
Another nation that would not be affected as nations in high latitudes would be Australia. It would be isolated from international trade in the wake of a nuclear war. Australia would likely rely mainly on wheat for food. Wheat would grow relative well in the cooler climate caused by the soot in the atmosphere. Xia and her team drew a world map with color coding indicating probably wide-spread starvation. Many countries are colored red for famine. Australia in contrast remained green for sufficient food even in the worst U.S.-Russia war. Xia said, “The first time I showed my son the map, the first reaction he had is ‘let’s move to Australia,’”
Deepak Ray is a food-security researcher at the University of Minnesota in Saint Paul. He said that the new study is an excellent step towards understanding the global food impacts of a regional nuclear war. However more work is required to accurately simulate the complex mix of how crops are produced around the world according to Ray. The research took into consideration national crop production numbers, but reality is much more nuanced, with different crops being grown in different regions of a country for different purposes.
Nuclear war might appear to be less of a threat than during the Cold War. However, there are still nine countries with more than twelve thousand nuclear warheads among them. Understanding the potential consequences of nuclear war in detail could help nations better assess the risks. “It is rare to happen — but if it happens, it affects everyone. These are dangerous things.”
It is obvious from the new study that a nuclear war, even a small one, would cause millions of deaths and great human suffering. It would deal a devastating blow to human civilization, crippling it or destroying it.