Global famine if India, Pakistan unleash nukes - study
Deadly, polluting weapons could cause long lasting
damage to Earth’s ecosystems:
US: More than a billion people around the world would face starvation
if India and Pakistan unleash nuclear weapons -- even if that war is
regionally limited, a study released Tuesday warned.
That’s because the deadly and polluting weapons would cause major
worldwide climate disruption that would dramatically drive down food
production in China, the United States and other countries.
“The grim prospect of nuclear famine requires a fundamental change in
our thinking about nuclear weapons,” said study author Dr. Ira Helfand
of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
“The new evidence that even the relatively small nuclear arsenals of
countries such as India and Pakistan could cause long lasting, global
damage to the Earth’s ecosystems and threaten hundreds of millions of
already malnourished people demands that action be taken,” Helfand said
in a statement.
“The needless and preventable deaths of one billion people over a
decade would be a disaster unprecedented in human history. It would not
cause the extinction of the human race, but it would bring an end to
modern civilization as we know it.” The study, set to be published in
the peer-reviewed journal Climate Change, was released at the World
Summit of Nobel Laureates in Chicago.
It found that corn production in the United States would decline by
an average of 10 percent for an entire decade and soybean production
would drop by about 10 percent, with the most severe decline occurring
five years after the nuclear war.
It also determined that rice production in China would drop by an
average of 21 percent for the first four years and 10 percent for the
next six years.
The resulting increase in food prices and agricultural shortfalls
would almost certainly lead to panic and hoarding on an international
scale,further reducing access to food. AFP
|