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Owen Brian Toon is a US climate scientist and since 1997 Professor and Fellow in the Department for Atmospheric and Oceanographic Science at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). Hardly anyone has studied the consequences of a nuclear exchange as well as Toon.
Professor Toon expressly warns against underestimating the risk of an exchange of blows with nuclear weapons. It is in the hands of a few politicians and the military whether half or all of humanity will perish. After a nuclear exchange of blows between the warring countries Pakistan and India alone, more than a billion people would die of hunger worldwide. A slugfest between Russia and China would create over a hundred million tons of soot, severely reduce solar radiation for years, and cause a nuclear winter. The average surface temperature on Earth would decrease by seven to eight degrees and would still be four degrees lower in ten years than today. This “climate change” would be stronger and faster than anything that human civilization has experienced in its previous history.
Even a limited nuclear war, using only 0.3 parts per thousand of the current nuclear arsenal, would not only kill millions of people directly, but would also affect the climate around the world.
The consequences would be a global drop in temperature, shorter growing seasons and reduced food production. A global nuclear war would provoke a “nuclear winter” lasting years.Martin Auer, Scientists for Future, Austria
The alarming lecture given by climate researcher, physicist and atmosphere specialist Professor Owen Brian Toon in November 2017 has lost none of its topicality:
Subject-related interest of the author
No
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Opinions in articles on Infosperber correspond to the personal assessments of the author.
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