nuclear war impacts - wake 2005 - erc

7/29/2019 Nuclear War Impacts - Wake 2005 - Erc

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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinction

Nuclear War is Bad


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Nuclear War Extinction 1/4War would collapse the ocean and tropic ecosystems, which hold 2/3ds of species

Carl Sagan1983/1984

Two-thirds of all species of plants, animals, and microorganisms on the Earth live within 25 degrees ofthe equator. Because temperatures tend to vary with the seasons only minimally at tropical latitudes,

species there are especially vulnerable to rapid temperature declines. In past major extinction events in

the paleontological record, there has been a marked tendency for tropical organisms to show greater

vulnerability than organisms living at more temperate latitudes. The darkness alone may cause a collapse in t he aquatic food chain in which sunlig ht isharvested by phytoplankton, phytoplankton b y zooplankton, zooplankton by small fish, small fish by large fish, and, occasionally, large fish by humans. In many

nuclear war scenarios, this food chain is likely to collapse at its base for at least a yearand is significantly more imperiled in

tropical waters.The increase in ultraviolet lightavailable at the surface of the earth approximately a year after the war provides an

additional major environmental stressthat by itself has been described as having profound

consequences for aquatic, terrestrial and other ecosystems. n17

Species loss is a roulette wheel of ecosurvival for allPaul Warner, American University, Dept of International Politics and Foreign Policy, August, Politics

and Life Sciences, 1994, p 177

Massive extinction of species is dangerous, then, because one cannot predict which species are

expendable to the system as a whole. As Philip Hoose remarks, "Plants and animals cannot tell us what

they mean to each other." One can never be surewhich species holds up fundamental biological

relationships in the planetary ecosystem. And, because removing species is an irreversible act, it may

be too late to save the system after the extinction of key plants or animals. According to the U.S.

National Research Council, "The ramifications ofan ecological change of this magnitude [vast extinction

of species] are so far reaching that no one on earth will escape them." Trifling with the "lives" of

species is likeplaying Russian roulette, with our collective future as the stakes.

War exacerbates disease, turning harmless diseases into global epidemics

Peterson, R. K. D. 1995. Insects,disease, and military history: the Napoleonic campaigns and historicalperception. American Entomologist. 41:147-160.

War and disease truly are deadly comrades. Their relationship is a fascinating one. How does war affect

epidemics? And how does an epidemic influence war? Regardless of the century,war often leads to a

concentration of peoples, the intermixing of populations, and the diversion of resources. These conditions may lead to a decrease in hygiene and

medical care and an increase in malnutrition and famine. These in turn may lead to social disintegration (Fig. 3). All of

these factors (termed enabling factors by epidemiologists) may produce many stressed individuals who

then are more suceptible to disease. And, of course, conditions during wartime can aggravate an established

disease, causing it to become quite severe. Before World War I, malaria and typhus occurred in Europe,

albeit at low levels. However, the wretched conditions ofwar caused these two diseases to erupt into epidemics.

Diseases cause human extinction

Frank Ryan, M.D., 1997, virus X, p. 366A rapidly lethal and quickly spreading virus simply would not have time to switch from aggression to

coevolution. And there lies the danger. Joshua Lederbergs prediction can now be seen to be an

altogether logical one. Pandemics are inevitable. Our incredibly rapid human evolution, our

overwhelming global needs, the advances ofour complex industrial society, all have moved the natural

goalposts. The advance of society, the very science of change, has greatlyaugmented the potential for


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionthe emergence of a pandemic strain. It is hardly surprising that Avrion Mitchison, scientific director of

Deutsches Rheuma Forschungszentrum in Berlin, asks the question: "Will we survive! We have invaded

every biome on earth and we continue to destroy other species so very rapidly that one eminent

scientist foresees the day when no life exists on earth apart from the human monoculture and the small

volume of species useful to it. An increasing multitude of disturbed viral-host symbiotic cycles are

provoked into self-protective counterattacks. This is a dangerous situation. And we have seen in the

previous chapter how ill-prepared the world is to cope with it. It begs the most frightening question of

all: could such a pandemic virus cause the extinction of the human species?

Nuclear war results in nuclear winter, causing extinction

Michael Hogan, The Nuclear Freeze Campaign, 1994, p. 52Simply stated, the theory of nuclear winter held that even a small exchange of nuclear weaponson

the order, perhaps, of 500of the worlds 18,000 nuclear weaponswould throw so much dirt, soot,

and smoke into the atmosphere that the earth would be plunged into darkness and subfreezing

temperatures, a winter lasting long enough to create a real possibility of the extinction of the

human species Unlike doomsday scenarios that preceded it, the theory of nuclear winter was based

upon extensive scientific studies, and it had been endorsed by a large number of scientists.


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Nuclear War Extinction 2/4Even global natural disasters arent as bad as nuclear winter

Barry Buzan, et. al research professor of international studies at the University of Westminster,

Security, 1998, p. 85

Threats and vulnerabilities in the environmental sector are issue specific and seldom universal.Moreover,causes and effects may be located at different levels and in different regions. Global events seldom

have the total character of a potential nuclear winter.

Chemical and Biological warfare would inevitably follow nuclear war and cause

extinction

The Preperation 2002 http://thepreparation.net/Chap6.htmlNuclear weapons will be used together with chemical, biological, and conventional weapons, and this

combination of weaponry would have the potential oferadicating all human life, if the conflict were world wide.

Nuclear war stops space colonization

Sylvia Engdahl, professor at New Yorks New School for Social Research, former computer systems

specialist for the SAGE Air Defense System and author. Space and Human Survival, 2000http://www.sylviaengdahl.com/space/survival.htm

Expansion into space demands high technology and full utilization of our worlds material resources

(although not destructive utilization). It also demands financial resources that we will not have if we

deplete the material resources of Earth. And it demandshuman resources, which we will lose if we are

reduced to global war or widespread starvation.

Space is key to preventing extinction

James Oberg, space writer and a former space flight engineer based in Houston, 1999, Space PowerTheory, http://www.jamesoberg.com/books/spt/new-CHAPTERSw_figs.pdf

While acknowledging the very high costs that are involved in manned spaceflight, Sagan states that our

very survival as a species depends on colonizing outer space. Astronomers havealready identified

dozens of asteroids that might someday smash into Earth. Undoubtedly, many more remain

undetected. In Sagans opinion, the only way to avert inevitable catastrophe is for mankind to establish

a permanent human presence in space.

Even if nuclear use doesnt immediately escalate, it will be seen as a viable war-

fighting option and be used frequently firebombing empirically proves.

Richard Betts, Professor and the Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia,Universal Deterrence or Conceptual Collapse? Liberal Pessimism and Utopian Realism, The Coming

Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Interests, and World Order, ed. Utgoff, 2000, p. 82Or theshock might prompt panic and a rush to stock up on WMD, as the possibility ofuse underlines

the need for deterrent capability, or the effectiveness of such weapons as instruments of policy One

seldom-noticed danger is that breakage of the taboo could demystify the weapons and make them

look more conventional than our post-Hiroshima images of them. It helps to recall that in the 1930s,

popular images ofconventional strategic bombing were that it would be apocalyptic, bringing belligerentcountries to their knees quickly. The apocalyptic image was fed by the German bombing of Guernica, a com paratively small city in Spain. When World War II came in

Europe, both British and Germans initially refrained from bombing attacks on cities.Once city bombing began and gathered


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionsteam, however, it proved to be far less decisive than many had expected. British and German popula-

tions managed to adjust and absorb it. Over time, however, the ferocity of Allied bombing of Germany

and Japan did approach the apocalyptic levels originally envisioned.

The environmental impacts of a nuclear launch will spur the development of

nanotechnology

ACLU, Emerging Environmental Issues and Events that May Affect Military Requirements over the

period 2010 to 2025 , 2003Environmental destruction resulting from a nuclear launch will lead commanders to consider what

environmental impact their actions might have and force the development of weapons systems that create

less pollution to begin with. Developments in the field ofnanotechnology are likely to produce this class of weapons of mass destructionin the future. Some argue that this could lead to reduced protection of soldiers to accommodate an ill-advised treaty. Others believe that this does not imply a

reduction in force protection just in what happens after the bullets stop flying. New military technologies, new doctrine, and new rules of engagement

could result in less need for post-conflict remediation, without compromising protection of forces during the conflict.


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Nuclear War Extinction 3/4Nano means extinction

Adam Keiper, managing editor of The New Atlantis, The Nanotechnology Revolution The New

Atlantis July 1 2003The health and environmental threats posed by mainstream nanotech are far less frightening than the

hypothetical dangers of the Drexlerian flavor of nanotech. In an infamous article in Wired magazine in

2000, technologist Bill Joy made the case for halting nano-research because of the possibility that we

might wipe out all life on Earth. Joys article stirred up a hornets nest of controversy, even though the

idea had been around for a long time: the apocalypse he described was based on a theory that had first

been suggested more than a decade earlier in Engines of Creation.For molecular manufacturing to

work, Drexlers assemblers would have to replicate themselves, just as tiny organisms make duplicates

of themselves. But what if something went wrongwhat if the replication spiraled out of control?

Speed-breeding assemblers could devour all life on Earth in short order. According to Engines of

Creation, among the cognoscenti of nanotechnologypresumably meaning the author and his

friendsthis threat has become known as the gray goo problem: Though masses of uncontrolledreplicators need not be gray or gooey, the term gray goo emphasizes that replicators able to

obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be superior in an

evolutionary sense The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: we cannot afford certain

kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers. Gray goo would surely be a depressing ending to our

human adventure on Earth, far worse than mere fire or ice, and one that could stem from a simple

laboratory accident We must not let a single replicating assembler of the wrong kind be loosed on an

unprepared world.

The fires from nuclear blasts would cause a massive increase in dioxins and other

carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals

Dr. Alan Phillips, NUCLEAR WINTER REVISITED October 2000http://www.peace.ca/nuclearwinterrevisited.htmPyrotoxins--http://www.peace.ca/nuclearwinterrevisited.htm: "While the temperature at the surface

would be low, the temperature of the upper part of the troposphere (5-11 km) would rise because of

sunlight absorbed by the smoke, so there would be an absolutely massive temperature inversion. That

would keep many other products of combustion down at the levels people breathe, making a smog

such as has never been seen before. PYROTOXINS is a word coined for all the noxious vapours that

would be formed by combustion of the plastics, rubber, petroleum, and other products of civilization.

It is certain that these poisons would be formed, but we do not have quantitative estimates. The

amount of combustible material is enormous, and it would produce dioxins, furans, PCB's, cyanides,

sulphuric and sulphurous acids, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in amounts

that would make current concerns about atmospheric pollution seem utterly trivial. There would also

be toxic chemicals like ammonia and chlorine from damaged storage tanks."

Nuclear use will cause a solar system destroying solar Nova

Daniel Shaddox, KoReY Interstellar Colonization Program, 11-29-1999,http://business.gorge.net/zdkf/mcl-ntt.html

Unfortunately, at this time, the exact date of the Sun's erruption into a Nova cannot be predicted,

scientifically! Moreover, the timing situation is in grave danger of rapid acceleration, do to the side-

effects of advanced nuclear testings (ie D'Stridium events). So, while we do not know its exact timing,


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionwe know that it is SOON, and that every day brings us closer to it! So, what are we saying here? Is it

going to be 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 years? Hopefully, around 100! But, with testing, we may find that the

Nova is set off in next year's Sun cycle, with its standard erruptions continuing to expandinto Which

brings up another issue. Some Stars go straight into Super-Novas and explode! (If our sun were to do

this, it would wipe out the whole solar system in a matter of minutes.) Others swell and slowly expand

into super-giants, sometimes taking many years to do so. Now, what will it be, here? Well, at this point,

we do not know. We can hope for a sweller, but we had better be prepared for a boomer!


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Nuclear War Extinction 4/4Dioxin is a hormone-altering chemical that can devastate human fertility, risking

extinction

Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John PetersonMyers, Our Stolen Future. March 1996. p.116-121

The EPAs reassessment of the risks of dioxin was already under way when Richard Petersons Wisconsin

study hit with the shock of an unanticipated asteroid. Here was evidence thatdioxin could have

dramatic effects at very low dosesat levels close to those routinely found in humans. In a matter of

months, the tide turned and the dioxin debate shifted from dioxins cancer -causing potential to its

developmental and reproductive toxicity. In short order, EPA scientists repeated the studies giving

dioxin to pregnant rats and found similar effects in female offspring. This turnaround in scientific

thinking was stunning. The studies suggested that the worst fears about dioxin might, in fact, be

justified. Dioxin might after all be more dangerous than anyone had suspected, but contrary to what

many had thought, its greatest threat was not cancer. The newly emerging hazard was its power to

disrupt natural hormones. Dioxins bad reputation helped insure a steady How of funding to a host ofresearchers who were probing what this chemical did to the body and how it did it, but the University of

Wisconsin lab headed by Peterson was one of the few places exploring its effects on the endocrine

system. Robert Moore, one of Petersons colleagues at the School of Pharmacy and the Environmental

Toxicology Center, had set off on this line of research because he believed it held the greatest potential

for explaining the toxic effects of the notorious 2,3,7,8-TCDD. Dioxin posed a fascinating challenge for

toxicologists like Moore and Peterson because it is not your ordinary poison. Animals given lethal doses

of dioxin dont keel over quickly; they lose their appetite and undergo a mysterious wasting before they

actually die weeks later. Dioxin also produces a variety of other nonlethal responses that occasionally

seem contradictory. It somehow disrupts estrogen responses, acting sometimes as if it were an estrogen

impostor and sometimes as if it were blocking estrogen, yet studies have shown that dioxin is not a

simple estrogen mimic like DES. It produces apparently estrogenic or antiestrogenic effects without

consorting with the estrogen receptor. For all the years of research, exactly how dioxin does its harmhas remained elusive. Peterson and Moore thought the endocrine system might hold the key to this

mystery. As they had suspected, their experiments with adult male rats confirmed that dioxin could

interfere withhormone levels. When adult rats were given dioxin, it caused their testosterone levels to

drop and their testicles and accessory sex organs to lose weight. But it took a lot of dioxin to produce

such responsesalmost enough to start killing some of the rats used in the experiments. Although

Moore and Peterson felt it was easier to explore the mechanism of toxicity if one used high doses, this

approach began to fall into disfavor by the mid-1980s. Critics were attacking high-dose experiments,

saying that they did not have direct relevance to the real world where humans and animals are exposed

to much smaller amounts of dioxin. In the end, Moore and Peterson had little choice. The National

Institutes of Health, which was funding their work, pushed them toward working with lower doses that

the federal agency regarded as more immediately relevant to human health risks. We got the mes sagethat we had to get out of high-dose research if we wanted to stay funded, Moore said. Well before

their high-dose TCDD experiments had ended, Moore read a 1983 paper by Dorothea Sager, a

researcher at the University of Wisconsins Green Bay campus, which found a variety of changes,

including reduced fertility, in male rats exposed to PCBs through their mothers milk. Sagers work

demonstrated the critical importance of timing, not just in the severity of the impact but also in its very

nature. Her findings inspired Moore and Peterson to look for similar patterns as a result of TCDD

exposure. They brought in a graduate student, Tom Mably, to conduct the actual experiments. This team

looked beyond the simple question of whether or not rats exposed to dioxin could later produce

offspring. This all-or-nothing approach was grossly inadequate. They wanted instead to look at more


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionsensitive aspects of reproductive health, such as sperm counts and mating behaviors that are not often

measured in toxicity research. As Moore puts it, we were looking for answers in different ways. We

were turning over different rocks. In fact, Moore reflects, if they had done no more than the usual

fertility tests, the work would have sunk into obscurity without a ripple. Mablys results far exceeded

their expectations. While it took an almost lethal dose to impair the reproductive system in adult rats,

they found that even small doses did long-term damage to the reproductive system of males exposed

in the womb and through their mothers milk. In this study, the mother rats had swallowed only a single

dose of dioxin on the fifteenth day of their pregnancy, a critical period in the process of sexual

differentiation that causes males to become male and not female. As they matured, the male pups born

to mothers given dioxin showed sperm reductions of as much as fifty-six percent when compared to

those whose mothers had ingested none. Moreover, even at the lowest dose the male pups showed a

sperm count drop of as much as forty percent. Its a dramatic illustration of how sensitive the male

reproductive system can be at a critical stage of development, Moore said. If we gave the same dose

to a sexually mature male there is nothing we could detect in terms of reproductive effects. The male

reproductive system, they found, is about one hundred times more sensitive to dioxin during early

development than in adulthood. Dioxin also appeared to affect the sexual behavior of male pups

exposed early in life, suggesting that it had interfered with the sexual differentiation of the brain. At

maturity, these males showed diminished male sexual behavior in mating encounters and increasedpropensity to exhibit feminized sexual behavior, such as arching of the back in a typically female lordosis

response, when treated with hormones and then mounted by another male. Earl Gray repeated this

dioxin experiment at the Environmental Protection Agencys reproductive toxicology lab in Research

Triangle Park, North Carolina, using a different strain of rat and hamsters, the species considered to be

the least sensitive to dioxin. In toxicity tests, toxicologists have found that the lethal dose for adult

hamsters is one hundred times greater than that which kills most other animals. Like Peterson, the EPA

lab found sharp reductions in male sperm count in rats and hamsters, and in similar studies on female

rats, it found malformations of the reproductive tract. The hamster results were particularly interesting

to Gray, since some have argued that dioxin does not pose a hazard because no humans have ever died

from dioxin exposure. While it might be hard to kill an adult hamster with dioxin, the species proved as

sensitive as the others to prenatal exposure. Like Petersons lab, Gray also found changes in the sexualbehavior of male rats, but he is not fully convinced that the diminished mating prowess is due to altered

brain development. There is also the possibility that dioxin disrupts the development of the males

genitals so his equipment does not work properly, making him less effective at mating. For the moment,

the question of whether dioxin interferes with the development of the brain and thereby disrupts sexual

behavior remains unresolved. Scientists understand less about dioxin than they do about the more

straightforward hormone mimics or blockers, such as methoxychlor and vinclozolin, which cause

disruption by binding with estrogen or androgen receptors. For this reason, Gray explains, he would be

less confident predicting what might happen to humans based on animal experiments. Recent

discoveries are, however, giving scientists increasing confidence that the responses in humans and

animals are likely to be roughly similar. Researchers have found that dioxin acts almost exclusively

through a receptorone of the Continued orphan receptors whose normal chemical messenger

remains unknown. Although this receptor was first identified in animals, studies have shown that

humans also have a fully functional aryl hydrocarbon, or Ah, receptor that binds to dioxin. Once dioxin

occupies the receptor in a human cell, researchers have found it binds to DNA in the cell nucleus,

prompting many of the same changes in gene expression seen in animal experiments. Humans seem no

less sensitive to this effect. But what happens afterward to produce all of dioxins disparate biological

effects, including developmental disruption, remains a mystery. However it happens, dioxin acts like a

powerful and persistent hormone that is capable of producing lasting effects at very low dosesdoses

similar to levels found in the human population. The outstanding irony is that the rats in Moores

experiments passed the standard fertility tests with flying colorstests typically used by the chemical


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionindustry to screen chemicals for safety. Almost all were able to impregnate females and produce the

normal number of pups. The reason, Moore explains, is that rats are incredibly robust breeders,

producing ten times more sperm than they really need to reproduce. Tests have found that a toxic

chemical can knock out ninety-nine percent of a rats sperm and still have no effect on his ability to

reproduce. Humans, by comparison, are inefficient breeders, who tend to produce barely the number of

sperm required for successful fertilization. Moore describes the human male sperm count as borderline

pathological for many individuals even without the assault of endocrine-disrupting chemicals. If Moore

is correct andif long-term declines in human sperm count continue, our species faces a troubling

prospect. Such a drop could have a devastating impact on human fertility.


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Nuclear War Extinction EscalationEarly Warning Systems mean extinction in half an hour

The American Prospect, 2/26/01The bitter disputes over national missile defense (NMD) have obscured a related but dramatically more

urgent issue of national security: the 4,800 nuclear warheads -- weapons with a combined destructivepower nearly 100,000 times greater than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima -- currently on "hair-

trigger" alert. Hair-trigger alert means this: The missiles carrying those warheads are armed and fueled

at all times. Two thousand or so of these warheads are on the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)

targeted by Russia at the United States; 1,800 are on the ICBMs targeted by the United States at Russia;

and approximately 1,000 are on the submarine-based missiles targeted by the two nations at each

other. These missiles would launch on receipt of three computer-delivered messages. Launch crews --

on duty every second of every day -- are under orders to send the messages on receipt of a single

computer-delivered command. In no more than two minutes, if all went according to plan, Russia or the

United States could launch missiles at predetermined targets: Washington or New York; Moscow or St.

Petersburg. The early-warning systems on which the launch crews rely would detect the other side's

missiles within tens ofseconds, causing the intended -- or accidental -- enemy to mount retaliatorystrikes. "Within a half-hour, there could be a nuclear war that would extinguish all of us," explains

Bruce Blair. "It would be, basically, a nuclear war by checklist, by rote."

Civilian evacuation will be perceived as preparing for retaliation guarantees

escalation

Arthur M. Katz and Sima R. Osdoby THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR April

21,1982 http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa0o9.htmlFinally, civil defense, particularly crisis relocation (evacuation), has been presented as a complementary

element in nuclear strategy. It is ineffective at best. Its purpose is to minimize human destruction and

thus purports to strengthen the basis for the possibility of successfully enduring a limited or evenurban-oriented nuclear attack. This argument is tenuous. Its hard to believe that in a period of extreme

tension, a full-scale urban evacuation by the U.S. or Soviet Union would be perceived as anything but a

signal ofintent to pursue a nuclear strike. Since an effective evacuation takes at a minimum four to

five days to complete, certain actions are likely to be taken by the other side. Among the possibilities: a

threat to attack if the evacuation is not stopped: an attack during the evacuation phase when the

population is most exposed; and of course, the adoption of a strategy oflaunch on warning, creating

a hair trigger in a clearly dangerous situation. Ironically, a launch on warning would defeat the whole

purpose of a first-strike strategy.


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Nuclear War Extinction Nuclear WinterEven if immediate effects on climate arent so bad, long term effects create nuclear

winter

Stephen H. Schneider & Starley L. Thompson, Nature 333, 221 - 227 (19 May 1988);doi:10.1038/333221a0, Simulating the climatic effects of nuclear war, National Center for Atmospheric

Research, PO Box 3000, Boulder, Colorado 80307, USA

The climatic effects ofa hypothetical large nuclear war have been simulated by an increasingly

comprehensive series of global numerical models. Short-term climatic effects are now found to be less

severe than predicted by early studies but the chronic long-term atmospheric effects remain

potentially serious. The sum of all indirect effects could exceed those of blast and radioactivity .


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Nuclear War Extinction Limited Nuclear WarIt only takes five nuclear weapons to destroy the planet

The Guardian, July 14, 1993

We now know or ought to knowand that we includes Arabs, Iranians. South Asians, Chinese, andKoreans as well as Westerners that one nuclear weapon discharging might be enough to push an entire

region, say a vulnerable region like the Middle East, into an irreversible ecological, economic, and

political decline Two or three could thrust the world into a long term crisis, compounded by the degradation

ofother dangerous facilities including nuclear power stations. Five or 10 could wreck the planet

Even limited nuclear war kills everyone

Alan Robock, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September, 1989, p. 35The implications of nuclear winter are clear: the use of nuclear weapons would be suicide for all the

peoples ofthe planet. A first strike would kill the aggressors, even if their victims could not retaliate.

And the threat of nuclear retaliation, even for a conventional attack, is meaningless if it will also kill the

retaliators. Even a limited nuclear war would produce these effects.


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Nuclear War Extinction Physicians Agree140,000 physicians agree nuclear war would cause extinction on Earth and possibly

the universe

Yevgeny Chazov, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear WarNobel Lecture, December11, 1985 http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1985/physicians-lecture.htmlToday is a meaningful and festive day for over 140,000 physicians from 41 nations, those who united in the movement

of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. And not only for them but for all honest

men and women dedicated to maintaining life on Earth as members of the most humane profession -

medicine. The Nobel Prize awarded to our movement is not only a recognition of physicians' services in

denouncing the nuclear illusions and promoting a true perception of nuclear weapons and effects of

their use, but also a symbol of international trust and belief in the infinite value and uniqueness of the

human mind. As Ibsen6 wrote in Peer Gynt "Only he who has nothing to lose in life can risk it". Nuclear

war, unless it is prevented, would lead to the extinction of life on Earth and possibly in the Universe. Can we takesuch a risk?


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Nuclear War Extinction Culture LossWar would destroy our cultural achievements and rebuilding would be impossible

Justice C. G. Weeramantry judge with the International Court of Justice (1991-2000). International

Law Summer, 2000Likewise, the cultural treasures of the world would be destroyed. All that we have built up for

thousands of years as a memento of human achievement in the past, all that will go overboard in one

moment. What happens after the war, of course, we reduced whoever is unfortunate enough to

survive would live in a stone age, and as Henry Kissinger once said, those who are sifting among the

debris of the space age would not be thinking of how to rebuild the economy and how to rebuild the

auto industry, but they would be trying to think how they mayfind nonradioactive berries on the trees

around them or edible timber bark which they can eat. That will be the level to which the survivors will

be reduced.

Cultural survival is key to human survival

Maivan Clech Lam, Visiting Associate Professor at American University Washington College of Law,

2000, At The Edge of the State: Indigenous Peoples and Self-Determination, p. 205-206Stavenhagen writes: Cultures are complex patterns of social relationships, material objects, and spiritual

values that give meaning and identity to community life and are a resource for solving the problems of

everyday life. That some very ugly campaigns in modem history, usually unleashed by the destructive

economic and military policies of the worlds powerful states, have tapped, frighteningly successfully,

into ethnic energy is undeniable. But it is just as undeniable that knowledgeof the universe, of a specific part of

it, of workable social relationships, of human naturethat is crucial to the project ofhuman survival remains separately

encoded in the distinctive cultures of ethnic groups. No human community or ethnic group can

construct an informed and meaningful future if it is cut off from its cultural past. And alienation from

meaning, as much as exploited meaning, can lead to violence.


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Nuclear War Worse Than Disease

Nuclear war is worse than disease

Ronald McCoy, President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, NATO Defense

College Conference on Future Challenges for Non-Proliferation Instruments, Rome, Italy, March 16-17,2004 International Cooperation in Addressing the Risks Related to Biological Agentshttp://www.ippnw.org/BiosecMcCoyNATO031604.html

To physicians, the deliberate use ofdisease as a weapon of war is particularly repugnant, but even more repugnant is

the use ofnuclear weapons. In a nuclear war, there can be no meaningful medical response. Long term

radiation effectscould blight unborn generations; civilisation itself could come to an end.

Physicians agree nuclear war would be the final epidemic, causing global extinction

The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) general policies prologue 1987http://www.mapw.org.au/mapw-policy/87mapw-policy-general.html

The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) acts in the belief that the arms race and therisk of nuclear war are currently the greatest threats to human health and welfare.Nuclear weapons

threaten all the world's people, rendering meaningless any distinction between combatant and non-

combatant peoples and countries. The ecosphere that supports all life on earth is similarly threatened.

As physicians we are aware of the horrendous consequences of nuclear explosions and of nuclear war.

We know that no meaningful medical response to nuclear war is possible. Nuclear war would be the

final epidemic. The only viable course of action is to prevent these events from happening.


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Nuclear War Kills Economy

Nuclear war would destroy the global economic system, returning us to the dark ages

Online version of: Nissani, M. (1992). Lives in the Balance: the Cold War and American Politics, 1945-

1991.Chapter 2: CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WAR, http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/PAGEPUB/CH2.html

III. Economic Consequences. To see the complexity of modern industrial economies, ask yourself how

self-sufficient you are, in comparison, say, to a native North American of some 500 years ago. Most

likely you depend on a highly complex web for sheer physical survival, let alone travel, leisure,

education, and similar luxuries. Your food, water, heating fuel, and other necessities often come from

outside sources, and their continuous arrival depends on an intricate, finely tuned network. In the event

of total war, this network would be blown to smithereens in minutes. The pool of workers and skilled

professionals will be reduced by death and illness to a fraction of its pre-war levels. Oil refineries,

power plants, factories, food production facilities, and other industrial and commercial facilities will

be destroyed. Fallout will render immediate reconstruction impossible, for the survivors in the

combatant countries will have to spend the first weeks or months indoors, underground, or in shelters.

Without enough fuel to run tractors, fertilizers and pesticides to grow crops, and people to work the

fields; without adequate means of shipping raw materials to farms and factories and of shipping food

and industrial products to consumers; and without money or some other accepted standard of

exchange; national economies may be in shambles. Some areas may be highly contaminated. Many

regions may be frozen solid during the first growing season after the war. The survivors may be

physically ill or sick at heart. They may not possess the necessary strength and courage, like Job, to

start all over again. Why, they may wonder, should they work like slaves to rebuild a modern society

that might end again in death? The present complex system ofinternational trade will almost certainly

vanish. International aid, including grain and food exports, might cease. Millions of people in countries

which depend on food imports or specialized exports will suffer a great deal. It is impossible to predict

the long-term consequences of all this. Perhaps a modern economic system similar to our own could be

re-created in 20 to 50 years, bringing much of the anguish and chaos to an end. Perhaps recovery wouldnever take place, the world sinking instead to something like the decentralized economies of the Dark

Ages.

Nuclear war would rock the economy

the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War - - - Some

Perspectives, October, 1996 [Etext #684] http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/nukwr10.txt"Finally, at least brief mention should be made of the global effects resulting from disruption of

economic activities and communications. Since 1970, an increasing fraction of the human race has been

losing the battle for self-sufficiency in food, and must rely on heavy imports. A major disruption of

agriculture and transportation in the grain-exporting and manufacturing countries could thus provedisastrous to countries importing food, farm machinery, and fertilizers--especially those which are

already struggling with the threat of widespread starvation. Moreover, virtually every economic area,

from food and medicines to fuel and growth engendering industries, the less-developed countries

would find they could not rely on the "undamaged" remainder of the developed world for trade

essentials: in the wake of a nuclear war the industrial powers directly involved would themselves

have to compete for resources with those countries that today are described as "less-developed."

Similarly, the disruption of international communications--satellites, cables, and even high frequency

radio links--could be a major obstacle to international recovery efforts. "


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Uncertainty = vote neg/AT: Natural Disasters

Uncertainty means you err negative


Perspectives, October, 1996 [Etext #684] http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/nukwr10.txt"In attempting to project the after-effects of a major nuclear war, we have considered separately the

various kinds of damage that could occur. It is also quite possible, however, that interactions might

take place among these effects, so that one type of damage would couple with another to produce

new and unexpected hazards. For example, we can assess individually the consequences of heavy

worldwide radiation fallout and increased solar ultraviolet, but we do not know whether the two acting

together might significantly increase human, animal, or plant susceptibility to disease. We can conclude

that massive dust injection into the stratosphere, even greater in scale than Krakatoa, is unlikely by

itself to produce significant climatic and environmental change, but we cannot rule out interactions

with other phenomena, such as ozone depletion, which might produce utterly unexpected results. We

have come to realize that nuclear weapons can be as unpredictable as they are deadly in their effects.

Despite some 30 years of development and study, there is still much that we do not know. This isparticularly true when we consider the global effects of a large-scale nuclear war. "


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Yes Nuclear Winter AT: Natural Disasters

Natural Disasters are too diffuse and cool to create nuclear winter


Perspectives, October, 1996 [Etext #684] http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/nukwr10.txt"A nuclear war would involve such prodigious and concentrated short term release of high temperature

energy that it is necessary to consider a variety of potential environmental effects. It is true that the

energy of nuclear weapons is dwarfed by many natural phenomena. A large hurricane may have the

power of a million hydrogen bombs. But the energy release of even the most severe weather is

diffuse; it occurs over wide areas, and the difference in temperature between the storm system and the

surrounding atmosphere is relatively small. Nuclear detonations are just the opposite--highly

concentrated with reaction temperatures up to tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit. Because they

are so different from natural processes, it is necessary to examine their potential for altering the

environment in several contexts. "


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Yes Nuclear Winter AT: Study Indicts

Your indicts are based on government propaganda Nuclear Winter will happen

Dr. Alan Phillips, NUCLEAR WINTER REVISITED October 2000http://www.peace.ca/nuclearwinterrevisited.htm

The prediction of nuclear winter was published by a group headed by Carl Sagan in 1983. The initials oftheir names were T-T-A-P-S, so the paper and their book has become known as "t-taps". It caused some

alarm in government circles in U.S.A. and NATO countries, not so much because this further disaster

would follow a nuclear war, but because of the boost it gave to the Peace Movement. A number of

studies were published in the next few years, including major reports by The Swedish Academy of

Sciences (Ambio), the International Council of Scientific Unions (SCOPE), and the U.S. National Research

Council. There was a drive by government and the military establishment to minimize the matter,

and after a few years the media were talking about "nuclear autumn". (The most astonishing lies

were propagated, e.g. that Carl Sagan admitted that his publication was "a propaganda scam".) It was

true that islands and coastal areas would have less severe temperature drops than the original

predictions, because of the modifying effect of the ocean. They would have violent storms instead,

because of the big temperature difference between land and water. In 1990 another paper was

published by the T-TAPS group reviewing in detail the later studies, and showing that some

modifications to their 1983 paper were necessary. Some of these were in the direction of more severe

changes, others towards milder changes. The general picture was little changed. The book: "A Path

Where No Man Thought" by Sagan and Turco (one of the T's), also published in 1990, gives an account

of current conclusions for the serious non-specialist reader. It gives detailed descriptions of nuclear

winters of different severity according to how many weapons were used, and against what targets. If oil

refineries and storage were the main targets, 100 bombs would be enough to cause a nuclear winter,

and the smallest sizes of nuclear bombs would be effective in starting the fires."

Nuclear war would devastate the US economy

Arthur Katzand Sima R. Osdoby, Policy Analysis no. 9, The Social and Economic Effects Of NuclearWar, April 21, 1982Casualties, evacuation, and land denial would create severe national and local economic dislocations.

Approximately one-third of the U.S.'s manufacturing capacity lies within the geographic areas most

affected by fallout.[5] A major evacuation would leave the regional economy in a shambles. Because of

economic interdependence, the problem of "bottlenecking" -- serious disruption of the national

economy -- would be likely. Bottlenecking is the disruptive effect that losses in a key industry (e.g.,

steel) have on other dependent economic activities (automobiles and machine tool production). Even

modest reductions in capacity of basic, pivotal industries can have severe, widespread effects on the

economy. Despite the possibility of product substitution (e.g., plastics for steel) or high inventories of

selected products, the short- and mid-term ramifications of a disruption of even 25 to 50% of the

affected region's manufacturing activities (equivalent to 8 to 15% of national economic activities) wouldbe a serious blow to the national economy. This disruption could easily last several months, and in a

post-attack stalemate with the possibility of future attack requiring prolonged urban evacuation, it

would become worse. There are other likely consequences that are less obvious.The banking system

would face a particularly severe burden, for example -- potential bankruptcies; defaults on basic time

payments, such as mortgages and major appliances; and major shifts of monies by individuals during

evacuation. In contaminated areas individuals or businesses would be unable to gain access to money,

especially in local banks, for long periods. In general, it would be virtually impossible for banks, either

regionally or nationally, to pursue "normal" lending and borrowing policies. Payments such as rents and

salaries to businesses or individuals would also have to be deferred. Business insurance would certainly


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionnot cover this type of catastrophe. On a scale unknown in U.S. experience, there would probably be a

massive outcry for the federal government to provide regional disaster loans to prevent bankruptcy and

help resettle workers and their families from severely contaminated areas.The injured and evacuated

population would create enormous social service demands (medical care, welfare, emergency housing,

etc.) requiring huge sums of money to be spent rapidly. Unprecedented government intervention

would probably be demanded to save industries from bankruptcies, allocate goods, and determine

industrial priorities. Since individual, industrial, and even regional economic stability would depend on

which industries and plants were decontaminated and/or received needed financial support first,

implementing these governmental policies would be politically explosive. Depending on the size of the

attack, casualties would range from 20 to 45% of the U.S. population (40 to 90 million people) including

20 to 30 million injured. From 25 to 65% of the economy would be destroyed.[11] The gross economic

figures seriously understate the problem since even using the smallest attack A-4 (100 one megaton,

200-300 one hundred kiloton weapons), specifically targeted key industries are likely to be well over

50% destroyed -- some as high as 80 to 90%. To put these numbers in perspective, a Stanford Research

Institute (SRI) study for the Office of Civil Defense (the Federal Emergency Management Agency's

predecessor) estimated that to recover from nuclear attacks in the range discussed here would take

well over a decade. We believe these estimates are based upon unrealistically optimistic assumptions --

or as the authors themselves state, the "upper limits on potential recovery. Projected recovery ratesshould prove over optimistic when compared with rates actually realized in a real case."[12] If recovery

is possible, and that is an open question, a more reasonable estimate would be several decades --

perhaps 40 or 50 years. Of course the attacks described above are not full-scale exchanges; under those

circumstances the number of warheads and megatons directed at urban/industrial targets could easily

reach 2000, 3000, or more, as well as substantial fallout from ground bursts not included as part of

attacks A-1 to A-4. In the case of a large-scale attack the damage would be even more severe and

widespread than in the discussion to follow; combining the effects of Parts I and II might provide the

minimum damage expected with a full-scale attack. Despite the effects of so-called urban sprawl and

industrial migration, industry and population remain concentrated in a relatively small number of urban

areas which present particularly vulnerable targets to nuclear weapons. Nearly 60% of the U.S.

population lives on only 1% of the total land area of the United States. This is a result of the fact thatapproximately 85% of the population of large metropolitan areas lives on only 10% of the total urban

land area. The population within these metropolitan regions is concentrated in very high-density areas,

rendering the U.S. even more vulnerable to an "economic" attack. For example, the implications of

urban concentration are illustrated by the smallest attack, A-4. It would cause the destruction of about

20 to 30% of total manufacturing capacity and 44 to 55% of the manufacturing capacity in the 71 largest

metropolitan areas. In cities as diverse as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Akron, Ohio, A-4 would

destroy approximately 50% or more of their manufacturing capacity. When the number of one megaton

weapons in the attack on these cities is increased five-fold (500%), as in A-1, casualties and industrial

damage increase only by approximately 200%. Therefore, devastating economic destruction,

disruption, and social disorganization would be caused even by the smaller attacks, since in terms of

the destructive effects of nuclear weapons, population and industry are not really dispersed. In the

Soviet Union, industry and population are concentrated even more densely than in the United States.


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Yes Nuclear Winter AT: Particle Size

Mistakes in particle size in early models underestimated the effects of nuclear winter

Jenny Nelson, Abstract, Nature 339, 611 - 613 (22 June 1989); doi:10.1038/339611a0, Fractality of

sooty smoke: implications for the severity of nuclear winter, H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University ofBristol, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TL, UK

IT is now recognized that the sooty fraction of the smoke produced by fires in the wake of a nuclear

exchange is a critical factor in determining climatic effects13. Sooty smoke particles occur as chained

aggregates of small spherules which are fractal with a dimension of 1.71.9. According to a recently

developed mean-field theory4 for the optics of such fractal clusters, their short-wavelength absorption

and scattering characteristics should differ fundamentally from those of spheres. Here I present the

results of simulations of scattering from computer-generated fractal clusters which confirm that the

theory is appropriate to fractal soot. The theory indicates that soot absorptivity is insensitive to particle

size and hence that coagulation in a soot aerosol affects only slightly its optical depth. Studies of the

climate effects of nuclear war that model sooty smoke as coalescing spheres are therefore likely to

underestimate the severity of 'nuclear winter'.


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Yes Nuclear Winter Dirty Snow

Dirty snow created by a nuclear war guarantees nuclear winter

Stephen G. Warren* & Warren J. Wiscombe, Abstract, *Nature 313, 467 - 470 (07 February 1985);

doi:10.1038/313467a0, Dirty snow after nuclear war, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, AK-40,University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center,

Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA

The notion that smoke from fires started by nuclear explosions could alter the Earth's climate1 is

supported by quantitative models of climate25,27 showing that severe cooling may be expected at

continental surfaces in the first few months following a full-scale nuclear war, because of the reduced

transmission of sunlight through the atmospheric smoke. Whether or not these model results are

correct, we show here that the smoke could continue to cause significant climatic disruption even

after it has fallen from the atmosphere, by lowering the reflectivity of snow and sea-ice surfaces, with

possible effects on climate in northern latitudes caused by enhanced absorption of sunlight. Indeed,

on Arctic sea ice and on the ablation area of the Greenland ice sheet, the reduced reflectivity could

persist for several years.


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AT: Regional Stays Regional

Radiation from a regional nuclear war spreads all over the glove

F. SHERWOOD ROWLAND, Interviewed by John M. Whiteley, EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THE

ATMOSPHERE, Quest for Peace Video Series, No Date, but at least 1995Rowland: Well, basically the atmosphere mixes extremely rapidly. Something which is released in Los

Angeles will reach New York in a few days, it will reach Western Europe in a week or two, and

completely around the world in a matter of a few weeks. The mixing to the southern hemisphere is a

little bit slower, but still takes place within a year or so, so that anything that you put into the

atmosphere that has a lifetime of a year or more, and many gasses that are released to the atmosphere

do have lifetimes of that length, will be mixed everywhere, so that one problem isn't restricted just to

an individual country. If you release it in the United States it's a problem for the world; if you release it

in Africa, it's a problem for the world. That makes it a general problem for everyone.


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Dioxin Fate worse than extinctionHumanity is at the brink of a precipice. An increase in hormone-altering chemicals like

Dioxin could reduce humanity to a fate worse than extinction

Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future. March 1996. p.234-238

So we find ourselves at an unsettling junctureuncertain whether the dire trend in human male sperm

count will soon bottom out or whether it will continue downward. It is encouraging that some of the

most notorious persistent chemicals have been restricted in developing countriesand that human body burdens in atleast some of these countries have declined as a result. At the same time, surprising discoveries of hormonally active chemicals in unexpected places such as plastics raise new concerns about

chronic widespread exposure. There is always a temptation to extrapolate worrisome trends into apocalyptic, worst-case scenarios, but it is hard to imagine that sperm counts will fall

inexorably downward and reach a point that poses an imminent threat to human survival. Even so, humans do appear to be gambling with their ability to reproduce over the long term, which

should be of grave concern. What we fear most immediately is not extinction, but the insidious erosion of the

human species. We worry about an invisible loss of human potential. We worry about the power of

hormonedisrupting chemicals to undermine and alter the characteristics that make us uniquely

humanour behavior, intelligence, and capacity for social organization. The scientific evidence about

the impact of hormone disruptors on brain development and behavior may shed new light on some of

the troubling trends we are witnessing. Why did the Scholastic Aptitude Test scores of high school se-niors seeking college admission begin to fall sharply from their high point in 1963 and continue

downward for almost two decades? Is it solely the result of demographic and social factors, such as

changes in the pool of college aspirants or reduced motivation on the part of students, as studies have

suggested? What about the problems in our schools? Why cant many children read? Is it because they

watch too much TV or spend all their time playing video games, because of a lack of family support for

schools, or because they were exposed to PCBs or other thyroid-disrupting chemicals before birth?

While any connection is still speculative, the human and animal studies reporting learning difficulties

and hyperactivity in those exposed prenatally to PCBs suggest to us that synthetic chemicals may indeed

be increasing the burden on our schools. This seems particularly probable in light of data discussed

earlier showing that five percent of the babies in the United States are exposed to sufficient quantities

of PCBs in breast milk to affect their neurological development. Moreover, this figure does not take intoaccount the large number of other synthetic chemicals that can also disrupt the thyroid hormones that

are vital to brain development. It is difficult to tease this contamination factor out from all the other

stresses confronting children in our societydisintegrating families, neglect, abuse, and increasing

violence on the streets and even within schools. But save for lead and mercury, educators, physicians,

and others have been slow to recognize that the chemical environment may undermine educational

efforts as well as the social environment. The hitherto unrecognized hazards of endocrine disruptors

need serious investigation, because such disruption could be a major factor in learning and behavioral

problems and one that could be reduced in the future through preventive measures. If such invisible

losses are already taking place, they will have greater impact on the society as a whole than on any

individuals. Some human studies have suggested that contaminants at levels currently found in the

human population could impair mental development enough to cause a five-point loss in measurable IQ.

If this happened to a typical child, the consequences would be unfortunate but not catastrophic.

Although the child would not fulfill his true potential, he would still fall within the normal range of

intelligence and, with discipline, might do well enough in school and gain entrance to a college. But the

five-point IQ difference might mean that he lacks the competitive edge to get into a top university.

Consider, however, what it might mean for our society if synthetic chemicals are subtly undermining

human intelligence across the entire population in the same manner that they have apparently

undermined human male sperm count. With the current average IQ score of 100, a population of 100

million will have 2.3 million intellectually gifted people who score above 130. Though it might not sound

like much, if the average were to drop just five points to 95, it would have staggering implications,


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionaccording to Bernard Weiss, a behavioral toxicologist at the University of Rochester who has considered

the societal impact of seemingly small losses. Instead of 2.3 million, only 990,000 would score over 130,

50 this society would have lost more than half of its high-powered minds with the capacity to become

the most gifted doctors, scientists, college professors, inventors, or writers. At the same time, this

downward shift would result in a greater number of slow learners, with IQ scores around 70, who would

require special remedial education, an already costly educational burden, and who may not be able to

fill many of the more highly skilled jobs in a technological society. Given the daunting array of problems

we face as nations and as a world community, the last thing we can afford is the loss of human

intelligence and problem-solving powers. The animal studies raise even more disturbing questions about

the possible impact of synthetic chemicals on behavior, which appears particularly sensitive to

disruption by hormonally active contaminants. Researchers find evidence of altered behavior long

before they find signs of reduced intelligence or impaired fertility. Recalling Helen Dalys rat studies, the

pups born to mothers who ate contaminated fish seemed just as intelligent, healthy, and reproductively

fit as the control rats, but they showed great changes in behavior, particularly in their extreme reactions

to negative events. Could prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants have similar effects on

humans? Could they be reducing our ability to cope with stress as well? The first results from the human

studies done by Dalys colleagues show a similar intolerance to stress among the children of women

who had eaten contaminated Lake Ontario fish. Other studies suggest that exposure to syntheticchemicals can make animals more prone to aggression. In studies exposing pregnant mice to relatively

low levels of the pesticides DDT and methoxychlor, Frederick vom Saal and his team report a much

higher rate of territorial urine marking in their male offspring than in males born to unexposed mothers,

a behavior that indicates an increased likelihood of aggression between males. In vom Saals view, the

studies show that hormonally active chemicals may have important effects on social-sexual behaviors.

If animals within a population all show changes in social-sexual behavior, marked disturbance of social

structure can occur. Other researchers have fed laboratory rats and mice water containing the same

levels of chemical contaminants found in rural Wisconsin wells and discovered that the animals drinking

contaminated water showed unpredictable outbursts of aggression. While intriguing, any connection

between such studies and the rising violence in American society is, at this point, purely speculative. But

without question, these findings point to an urgent need to pursue possible links between chemicalcontaminants, behavior, and aggression in both animals and humans. What about the breakdown of the

family and frequent reports of child abuse and neglect? If scientists have found evidence of careless

parenting in contaminated bird colonies, do these chemicals have any role in similar phenomena among

human parents? Reacting to reports of growing neglect and violence against children by their parents,

some commentators have ventured that there must be something wrong with these people; some basic

instincts seem to be missing. Hormones do not determine our behavior, but it is likely that they

influence mating and parenting behavior in humans just as they do in other mammals. Recent animal

studies have been identifying the biological mechanisms involved in the bonding between mammal

mothers and their offspring, and between males and their matesmechanisms that are dependent on

hormones. The effects of contaminants on behavior will vary considerably among species, making it

impossible to predict any specific effects on humans. But we are confident that ongoing research will

confirm that the hormonal experience of the developing embryo at crucial stages of its development has

an impact on adult behavior in humans, affecting the choice of mates, parenting, social behavior, and

other significant dimensions of our humanity. Nevertheless, at the moment it is impossible to know

whether hormone-disrupting chemicals are contributing to any of the disturbing social and behavioral

problems besetting our society and, if so, how much. Each of these problems is immensely complex and

the result of a variety of forces acting together. At the same time, studies with animals are clearly

showing that disrupting chemical messages during development can have a lifelong impact on learning

ability and behavior. Hormone disruption can increase the tendency toward a certain kind of behavior,

such as territoriality, or attenuate normal social behaviors, such as parental vigilance and protective-


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionness. Given this provocative evidence, we should consider chemical contamination as a factor

contributing to the increasing prevalence of dysfunctional behavior in human society as well. Some

might find irony in the prospect that humans in their restless quest for dominance over nature may be

inadvertently undermining their own ability to reproduce or to learn and think. They may see poetic

justice in the possibility that we have become unwitting guinea pigs in our own vast experiment with

synthetic chemicals. But in the end, it is hard to regard such a chemical assault on our children and their

potential for a full life as anything but profoundly sad. Chemicals that disrupt hormone messages have

the power to rob us of rich possibilities that have been the legacy of our species and, indeed, the

essence of our humanity. There may be fates worse than extinction.


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AT: DiseaseWarOur timeframe makes this irrelevant a war will exacerbate diseases that already

exist and cause global epidemics long before enough people get sick from endangered

tortoises that they start attacking each otherthats the Peterson 95 evidence fromthe impact debate

Your argument is backwards war causes disease, not the other way around. If

anything, disease makes war harder because everyone is too sick to fight

Peterson, R. K. D. 1995. Insects,disease, and military history: the Napoleonic campaigns and historicalperception. American Entomologist. 41:147-160.

Bubonic plague in Jaffa, yellow fever in Haiti, and typhus in Russia are rather prominent examples of

how insects and disease have influenced war. Although not as dramatic or influential, these diseases

and others were present in other campaigns in Napoleon's long military career. From Piedmont to

Waterloo, countless French soldiers and other belligerents suffered from dysentery, typhoid, syphilis,scarlet fever, smallpox, measles, pneumonia, plague, typhus, malaria, and yellow fever.Millions of

service days were lost because of the debilitating effects of these diseases. Napoleon estimated that

one out of eight in his command was sick at any given time. In Spain during the 1808 campaign, one

soldier in four was sick (Etling 1988). Because of advances in medicine, and the understanding of

disease transmission, infectious disease does not have the effect on war today that it once did.

However, ancient diseases follow the soldier to this day. Infectious diseases, such as cholera, that were

once thought to be under control are showing amazing resilience and resistance to our medicines. In

Somalia, dengue and malaria threatened U.S. troops. Sand fly fever affected soldiers in Operation Desert

Storm. In Bosnia, U.S. and U.N. personnel monitor the embattled region for outbreaks of typhus and

malaria. Although diseases do not have the drama of charging cavalry, firing cannon, and smoking

muskets, their influence on military history must not be overlooked. In an era where generalship wasonce thought to be all-important, we have seen that disease can render a general's plans worthless. A

better understanding of the effect of insect-borne disease on the general and the foot soldier

undoubtedly will enhance our understanding of history.

AT: Invisible threshold/precautionary principle

We can still weigh consequences nuclear war would be a lot more risky considering the invisible

threshold than the impacts of plan

Invisible thresholds freeze action and mean any risk of the turn creates the same risk

Mark Plummer, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, and Charles Mann, Noahs Choice, 1995, p.132-3

The fallacy is highlighted by considering the possibility that a species may be one that we dont wa nt to

save, according to Mark Sagoff, a philosopher at the University of Maryland, in College Park. The AIDS

virus, he pointed out, "apparently originated in a species of monkey in Africa. Who could deny that the

world would have been spared great agony had that species a century ago gone extinct?" The monkey

would thus be an example of biodiversity having a bad consequence. Often we focus on bad

consequences and seek to minimize their occurrencelook at the campaigns to force chemical

companies to certify that products are benign before they are allowed on the market. Because we do

not know the uses of many species, treating biodiversity in the way environmental activists would like


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Nuke War Extinction Nuke War Extinctionto treat chemicals would suggest automatically banning species we don't know about. The idea is

ludicrous, but that is the point. Arguing that ignorance forces a decision is always ludicrous.

Claims of absolute intrinsic value are relativistic nonsense Their argument justifies letting their

diseases live because they might be key to planetary survival

Murray Bookchin, Philosophy of Social Ecology, 1990, p. 183-4The results of this desystematization of thinking are often ludicrous when they are not simply cruel, oreven vicious. If all organisms in the biosphere are equally worthy ofa right to life and organic

fulfillment, as many biocentrists believe, then human beings have no right, given the full logic of this

proposition, to stamp out malaria and yellow-fever mosquitoes. Nor does the logic of this proposition

give humanity the right to eliminate the AIDS virus and other organic sources of deadly illness. It hardly

helps us to learn that the notion of "biocentric equality," to re-word the language of Bill Devall and

George Sessions, the authors of Deep Ecology, is hedged by a qualifier like we have no right to destroy

other living being without sufficient reason. A qualification like sufficient reason is ambiguous

enough to divest the entire notion of its logical integrity.Logic, in fact, gives way to a purely relativistic

ethics. What may be a sufficient reason for Devall and Sessionsall their well-meant and desirable

intentions asidemay be very insufficient to a large array of people whose well-being, indeed whose

very survivalunder the present system, conflicts sharply with the authors views.

We have to make hard choices. The aff is moral escapism

Julian Simon, Scarcity or Abundance?, 1994, p. 42Still, the question exists: How should decisions be made, and sound policies formulated, with respect

to the danger of species extinction? I do not offer a comprehensive answer. It is clear that we cannot

simply save all species at any cost, any more than we can save all human lives at any cost. Certainly we

must make some informed estimates about the present and future social value of species that might be

lost,just as we must estimate the value of human life in order to choose rational policies about public

health services such as hospitals and surgery.

Biodiversity Prevents DiseaseBiodiversity is key to prevent and solve rashes of new disease outbreaks

Francesca Grifo, Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of

Natural History, 1999, Epidemic The World of Infectious Disease, p. 25

Many of the pathogens that cause human disease are present in the environment most of the time.

The reasons why we are not constantly symptomatic are varied and complex. In many instances they

have a direct link to the benefits provided by biodiversity. Biodiversity, the incredible variety of living

things, assures sufficient food and water supplies, keeps populations of disease-causing organisms in

check, provides source materials for medical therapies, models for medical discoveries, and warnings

of toxins and other environmental hazards. The disruption of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity

threaten supplies of the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the medicines we

need. Biodiversity plays a significant role in controlling pests, pathogens, vectors, and human parasites.Disease-causing organisms, the pathogens, often have very complex life cycles in which they may

utilize numerous species as hosts (places to live and or reproduce), vectors (ways to get from one place

to another), or reservoirs (places to "hang out" until external conditions improve). When ecosystems

are disrupted, the normal disease behavior is frequently disrupted and humans very often end up

being at greater risk of becoming ill or even dying. As we know, forest ecosystems are highly biodiverse.

One of the clearest examples of how ecosystem disruption affects disease behavior can be seen in the

interactions between deforestation and the infectious, and particularly the vector-borne, diseases that

are common throughout the tropics and the sub-tropics.


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nuclear war impacts - wake 2005 - erc

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