Whenever I see Donald Trump, two thoughts come to mind. The first I have ranted about on this blog so many times that I am not going to elaborate – basically the man is not fit for the office of President of the United States.
The second is a corollary of that sentiment – this man has the power to launch nuclear weapons at anybody who pisses him off.
While this seems unlikely, I think his words might just spark other lunatics to do just that – Kim Jong Un for example, a man who lives in fear of being toppled either by his own people or external forces. The recent war of words with the USA made me consider what would happen if Kim Jong Un were to launch an attack. Trump said he would be met with fire and fury like the world had never seen before.
Happy days, eh?
Equally, we have Vladimir Putin, a so-called democratically elected leader of a huge country with a nuclear arsenal that could annihilate most of Europe and the USA. Recent events in my own country, the poisoning of one of his own former spies on British soil, lead to retaliatory measures from our own government which were made with the barely veiled warning – “Do not threaten a nuclear power”.
The UK is also a nuclear power, with a smaller nuclear arsenal so we could retaliate and trigger World War 3.
With all of these threats looming, and other slightly mad and dictatorial leaders trying to acquire nuclear weapons, the future isn’t looking too good.
Some people say that owning nuclear weapons makes it unlikely that a nuclear holocaust will ever happen for fear of the devastating reprisals. But I say that it only takes one nutter to do something stupid and there are a few of them knocking around.
If World War 3 were to kick off, the initial attack would result in the annihilation of many major cities, wiping out the residents of those cities immediately.
The population of the world would be severely reduced and if you think the survivors would be lucky to escape then think again. Any towns and cities in the vicinity of the numerous detonations would not escape unscathed, simply because the aftermath of being close to a nuclear explosion would almost certainly eventually prove to be fatal. The survivors would almost certainly envy those killed immediately.
Residual radioactive material would be thrust into the upper atmosphere with winds spreading this over a great distance as it gradually fell back to Earth upon unsuspecting people who think they are safe.
Some people would die quickly while others would live longer but eventually succumb to the devastating effects.
Any people still surviving the nuclear fallout will still have problems. When a bomb explodes in the city it will hurl tons of debris into the atmosphere, so much in fact that it will block sunlight. Imagine this happening for numerous cities bombed across the globe; the amount of crap blasted into the atmosphere will be immense and the winds will also scatter this over great distances causing what is known as a nuclear winter. The global climate would be severely affected for at least a decade with soot being distributed over great distances by our wonderful winds.
For those who survived that there is also the prospect of a nuclear famine. A nuclear winter would affect agriculture for any survivors ultimately causing massive food shortages amongst the few people remaining.
The bottom line is that if there were a full scale nuclear war then we as a species and our animal colleagues will almost certainly face the prospect of total extinction. Of course it depends on how many weapons are used and the number of places that are annihilated.
If Putin or Trump or any potential psychopath thinks that unleashing a nuclear holocaust to save his own country then he is severely mistaken.
If you are interested, and have a morbid curiosity, you can simulate the effects of a nuclear detonation on your city using something called NUKEMAP (you can find it here). This gruesome web site allows you to specify a city and the size of the bomb and find out the extent of the fireball radius, the air blast radius and the thermal radiation radius.
Living only 5 miles from the centre of Manchester, I would be killed almost immediately if any bombs were to drop – a blessing in disguise I guess because I wouldn’t know what hit me.
Equally disturbing is MISSLEMAP which allows you to check the range and accuracy of the weapons of mass destruction in the world (you can find it here).
Again the UK is fully in range of anything launched from Russian soil so again I am right in the firing line.
Basically, my opinion is that if one or more nutters start a nuclear war then we are fucked even if we are lucky enough to be on a remote island at the time.
