"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Visualize high-altitude nuclear explosions by Herb Ruhs, MD Wednesday, July 2, 2008 PERMANENT LINK
In the scenarios constructed by experts (and presented in Congressional hearings) the understanding of this particular set of circumstances is quite different from the understanding of the "all-out nuclear war" scenarios we are familiar with. Firstly, explosions in orbit will not directly harm people, or life of any kind. Radiation exposure is not even a factor, as the most commonly used probable scenarios predict a small number of weapons sufficient to blanket the earth's surface with line of sight EMP effects. This would not elevate background radiation detectably. If you read the Wikipedia article referenced on high-altitude nuclear explosions, you will understand that the earth's atmosphere is a highly effective radiation shield. In fact if it wasn't it is unlikely that life would have not evolved here in the first place, since space is full of lethal radiation. Gamma radiation from nuclear explosions interacts with molecules in the atmosphere producing pulse of lower frequency electromagnetic waves that, in turn, interact with the very thin conductors in microcircuitry and produces a great surge of electricity by induction that fries these tiny circuits. Instant microslag. Particulate radioactive fallout would remain in orbit for some time and distribute fairly evenly across the surface of the earth as it slowly reentered the atmosphere. All civilian and many military satellites would be destroyed and the land-based technology used to link to them would also destroyed. It is quite possible that the identity of the nation orbiting these weapons will not be immediately identifiable, as the launch points will be difficult to identify, especially if launched from a seaboard platform. There will be no target, no-one to counterattack. No mutual assured destruction. Large rockets need not be used. Scud-type missiles, which are quite ubiquitous now, would be adequate if fractional orbits are utilized instead of the ballistic orbits that would be used in direct attacks on surface targets in the "all out nuclear war" scenarios. In the Congressional hearings, amusingly exasperated cold warrior experts referred to this kind of attack as amounting to the direct opposite of the neutron bomb in that it would leave the people unharmed while completely destroying the physical infrastructure of modern industrial society, a particularly annoying concept to our uberwarriors. As an added bonus everyone's credit card balance would effectively go to zero. This idea leads some (like me) to refer to these as Jubilee Bombs (twisted sense of humor) since essentially all debit would be cancelled as the means of retrieving digital data would evaporate. Banks with shielded data cores would find them useless without all the infrastructure, telephone, internet, mail delivery, that is needed to collect payment. Fiat money itself, essentially all money now, would become worthless also. Barter and local currencies would take over. All large entities, including nation states, would become non-functional. Additionally, the damage to unshielded micro-circuitry, which would be essentially all civilian and much of the military hardware currently in use, would immediately reduce nearly every electrical device to expensive door stops. There would be no prize to fight over. There would be no productive capacity to fuel continued war, and nothing for nations to fight over even if they were able to organize themselves to fight, which seems unlikely. Fossil fuel use would drop to near zero and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would start to drop. In the first period there would be a temporary enhancement of climate warming due to the dissipation of the particulates in the atmosphere (carbon nanoparticles from diesel exhaust for instance) which serve as a kind of sun screen for us now, but soon the net effect would be cooling as carbon dioxide continued to be absorbed by the oceans but new carbon dioxide production would be radically curtailed, even from farm animal sources (since they would be eaten up quickly). Technological warfare would become instantly obsolete. Many horrendous effects would ensue, for sure. But compared to the relentlessly approaching doom from the effects of a runaway industrial culture, climate catastrophe, general famine, resource wars, and what have you, the consequences would be relatively mild, and populations of humans would be allowed to survive on sustainable terms. I wouldn't want to be living near a nuclear reactor. It is likely that absent their electronic controls many would develop China Syndrome. I wouldn't want to be riding a jet liner at the moment these things went off — instant rock falling to earth action — but it is likely that a piper cub would remain functional and continue flying safely. My old diesel truck would run just fine if I could find fuel since refining capacity would drop to zero as the control microcircuitry of the refineries would have been destroyed. Actually, I could probably make some biodiesel (which my old truck runs fine on) if I could find some salad oil. I wouldn't want to be part of any high-tech army engaged with an insurgent force. Suddenly all my warrior toys would become useless and I would find my unit overrun by people with primitive weapons. The American army in Iraq, for instance, would become toast. Other old technology, the original VW Beetles for instance, would work if fuel could be located. Telephone lines would remain intact but the sophisticated switching equipment would be gone. Antique phones could probably be jury-rigged to work locally using batteries. A lot of simple generators would still work, and some simple electrical devices like water pumps could be easily put in place powered by simple systems. However, the large electrical grids would become useless, because the control machinery would have been fried. Industrial mass production would cease, as well as long distance transportation. Cities would do badly, but any place where food could be grown and preserved would be able to recover. Horses and mules could still pull antique plows. Permaculture would be salvation. The sudden absence of industrial products such as antibiotics would mean a higher death rate for first world countries, but poor countries would be well situated to resume subsistence agriculture quickly, and would not be that much worse off then they are now. Maybe that is what the man meant by "the last shall be first." In any event, the consequences of well-placed high-altitude nuclear explosions, in the long run, would be less severe than those anticipated from oil and resource depletion resulting from runaway industrial growth. When we did recover some technology there would still be some accessible resources left un-consumed in this scenario, as opposed to the hopeless situation that holds if the status quo persists and we just deplete everything. The oceans, in particular, would likely rebound quickly from their current moribund state. The sea would again become a source of major sustenance and its ability to absorb carbon dioxide enhanced. Without the sophisticated machinery, industrial extraction of all kinds would just about cease allowing forests and other ecologically devastated biomes to begin to recover. Somewhat paradoxically, the use of a few high-altitude nuclear bombs as described would essentially eliminate the possibility of an all-out nuclear war, which is becoming increasingly likely as the spread of advanced technology drives resource depletion and therefore pushes us to more deadly resource wars beyond what we see in Iraq today. There would be no advantage in bombing people back to the stone age when everyone is already practically there anyway. The doomsday clock would stop, along with all the electrical clocks. Old wind up watches would become priceless. This is why I try to remember at noon each day to stop and try to visualize high-altitude nuclear explosions. Why don't you join me? Maybe if enough of us concentrate on this we can manifest it and save the earth and our species as well. Sincerely, and hopefully more clearly, Herb Ruhs, MD You make my jaw drop (often, actually, but again today). It's kind of breathtaking. It does make some serious sense... Helen & Harry
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