WEBVTT - Selects: The Great Nuclear Winter Debate of 1983 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.520 Hi, everybody. I picked this selection. This is Chuck by 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:07.920 the Way of Stuff You Should Know, co host September seventeenth, 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:10.560 twenty fifteen. We did an episode called the Great Nuclear 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.160 Winter Debate of nineteen eighty three, and I picked this 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.960 one because I don't remember even recording it. What in 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:21.079 the world were they debating in nineteen eighty three about 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.119 the Great Nuclear Winter? It was probably just nuclear winter, 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.439 and the great refers to the debate now that I 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.560 see how it's worded. But you know what I mean. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:30.440 I guess I'm going to learn right around with you 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:37.600 because I'm about to listen to it right now. Welcome 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:46.120 to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.240 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.040 Charles W Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there somewhere off 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:57.040 in the ether. But I don't think on ether. Just 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:57.920 in the ether. 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:00.560 Oh man, we try not to breathe. Now we had 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:01.959 a tank of ether in here. 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:03.960 It would be a much different podcasts. 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:05.400 Josh and Chuck's ether cats. 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:07.199 Do they put those things in tanks? 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.120 Oh? I don't know, surely, yeah right? No? Does it 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.080 look like in the bottle still like the eighteen hundreds. 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:14.880 I don't know. I don't know. 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.280 Yeah, I think you just have it a little milk bottle, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:19.279 You put it in a rag, you put. 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:20.959 It in your face, and then go to happy town. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:22.200 Yeah, exactly. 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.520 If there's any pharmacists out there that want to set 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.160 us straight, let us know how ether comes these days. 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:28.560 It's probably a gas. 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.040 Yeah, I imagine it's not like hunter S Thompson. 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.920 I think we talked about it before in anesthesia. Probably 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.840 it's like ether gas. What a weird start. Yeah, that 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.679 has nothing to do with what we're about to talk about. 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:44.920 I was trying to relate it, but there really is nothing. 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.840 One of my favorite favorite topics of all time nuclear 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.040 holocaust from the Cold War? 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:54.440 Yeah, what we did? We did want a Cold war, 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:54.720 didn't we. 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.040 Oh we've done several. 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.880 Uh yeah, we batted around this thing, but we've never 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.640 done a full nuclear holocaust podcast. 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:02.560 Have we? 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:03.120 No? 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:08.840 And nuclear holocaust is that's not quite right. That's not 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:10.760 the right way to put it, because what we're talking 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.919 about is actually that after effects from a nuclear holocaust. 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.520 Isn't that the holocaust? Mm? 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.680 If you want to be a purist, the nuclear holocaust 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:26.080 is the immediate destruction as a result of exploding nuclear 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:27.920 bombs over like population centers. 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:29.520 And oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:30.600 the whole kitten kaboodle. 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:33.839 I should say, if you're a purist and you want 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.000 to say it, from my opinion, that's sort of nuclear holocaust. 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:39.639 Okay, I think we know what's going on here. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:40.120 I got it. 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:40.880 Um. 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.840 Yeah, Robert Lamb wrote this of stuff to blow your mind. 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.520 Yeah, I have to say, I said, man, way to 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:49.720 go on that one. That was a good one. 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:51.200 You told him that I did. 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:52.440 I actually uttered those words. 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:53.120 What do you say? 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:53.600 Thanks? 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:54.880 Man? That's nice. 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.200 But the thing that gets me about nuclear winner, which 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.880 we will talk about in depth, what fascinates me about 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.839 it just as much as the nuclear winter itself, chuck, Yeah, 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:12.079 is the controversy debate that arose from it. Throughout the eighties. 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:14.960 There was a huge debate. 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.080 Debate on the severity debate. 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.400 Yeah, debate on whether it's something to worry about or not. 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.560 Yeah. Well, I looked up because I was like, does 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.880 anyone think that this is a myth? Out and outright myth? 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:30.040 And from what I saw on my research is that no, 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.160 this is fact. It's just a dispute. What's a dispute 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.880 is the scenario and the severity of what would happen. 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.880 But no one says, like, no, there would be no 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.920 nuclear winter, there would be no problems after a nuclear bomb. 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:47.240 So there used to be like back in the early 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.160 eighties when this was a huge new thing, there was 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:56.760 a group of scientists who were hawkish, very much in 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.280 favor of the US building up its nuclear arsenal as 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:04.560 much as possible, and started a basically a pr letter 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:09.000 writing campaign to discredit the science behind this. And they like, 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:10.680 these guys don't know what they're talking about. 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:12.440 So what they think that the bomb would drop and 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.480 then in like the next day the birds would be out. 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:19.799 They they said, initially, yeah, that was kind of their position, 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:21.640 was just to poke holes in this and that it 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.400 wasn't it wasn't a a it wasn't legitimate science, right, Yeah, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:29.400 it didn't sound like and then they ultimately the whole 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.719 point was that this came from an argument over whether 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.360 the US should engage in the SDI, the Strategic Defense 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.560 Initiative or star wars, which is the lasers that shoot 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:43.760 nukes from space, right, they shoot down nukes from space. 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:45.160 We did a showing that didn't we they did. 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.640 That was another one. But that's what the whole thing was. 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:50.800 It's the context of it. It was an argument over what 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.599 over either nuclear disarmament which Carl Sagan and his friends 0:04:54.600 --> 0:05:00.320 were in favor of hip or nuclear proliferation and Star 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.719 Wars program. 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:04.960 Warmongers, right, these versus the warmont. 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:06.920 But the weird thing is is this debate, Chuck took 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:11.279 place in the pages of like academic journals and it 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.840 ended up being a fight between science and science deniers. 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.599 Yeah, it sounds like these scientists that you mentioned might 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:25.760 have been had their coffers full from the US government. 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:30.120 So potentially or private industry or something like that. Yeah. 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.160 And the thing is is they use this old chestnut 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:38.599 where so if you're a scientist, there's no certainty in 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.839 anything you say. It can always be disproven or remember 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:44.480 we talked about this in the Scientific Method episode. Yeah, 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.680 all your stuff can be disproven ultimately, which is why 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.719 it's just a theory. Yeah, so no science is going 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.159 to be like this is one hundred percent certain, right, Well, 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.520 these other scientists who were poking holes in it would 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.680 point out these guys aren't even certain, which means that 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.440 there's there's disagreement over whether we'll have a nuclear winner 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.160 or not. So they were being very disingenuous in poking 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.880 holes in it by saying, these scientists aren't even certain 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.760 in their findings. Well, no scientists are certain in their findings. 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:14.440 It's so dangerous. 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.520 But to the public that you think, oh, well, these 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.479 scientists can't say that they're certain, so that they must 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:21.800 not know what they're talking about for it. 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.040 That's dangerous. That's why we're at three minutes to midnight 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.400 on the doomsday clock. It's exactly right because some people 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.479 might say, well, you're not certain, so let's just not 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:31.480 act fast enough. 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.680 Yeah, and I should say, also check, we should prepare 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.480 for a lot of listener mail because this is a 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:43.200 conservative flash point. Nuclear winner is long standing one. 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.440 Oh yeah, great, sounds good. 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.080 Let's talk about this all right. 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.880 Well, Robert starts where most people should start when talking 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.479 about nuclear winner, and that's in the atmosphere. It's a 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:01.000 very finely tuned system we have. I want to say 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:05.080 it's like homeostasis, but it's not people, So I guess 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:10.720 it's like an ecostasis where the sun just enough sun 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:15.040 gets through to make things, make the earth habitable and 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:20.440 proliferate with plants and water and humans and animals and 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:24.160 all kinds of great stuff. Too much sun, even by 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.560 a little bit, could be catastrophic, and too little sun, 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:29.960 but even by a little bit, could be catastrophic. So 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.000 thanks to humans, we've struck a great balance here with 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:35.880 the sun, a great deal made. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.520 You can shine to unshine too much sun. 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.960 Yeah, and it's working out awesome. The idea of nuclear 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:47.320 winter is that there would be enough ash from and smoke. 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.200 It's really not the fallout from the nuclear bombs themselves, 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.480 from what I understand, It's more the smoke from the 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.400 resulting fires that would cause the blacking out of the 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.920 sky and the sun not getting through. 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:01.400 It's actually all of it. 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.840 Yeah, But everything I read across the board said it's 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.200 almost the smoke, right that goes on. 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:14.320 Yes, it's true. I mean you you you shouldn't negate 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.760 the idea that, like nuclear radiation, poisoning is going to 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.680 kill a lot of people as a result. 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.000 But the blacking out of the skies is due to 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.400 the smoke from fires exactly from the bomb that happened, right. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.080 So this whole thing, the context of it again comes 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:36.280 from the seventies, right, chuck uh yeah. In eighties, yeah, 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:41.080 and back in I think that nineteen seventy five a 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.480 group issued a statement that said, you know, there probably 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.800 wouldn't be that big of a fallout from nuclear explosions. 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.640 A few years after that, another group, I think that 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.160 the first two group is the National Academy of Scientists. 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.000 Another group said, you know what, we don't think that's 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.840 exactly true. We think that there probably is some sort 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:04.520 of there will be something, but our models are too 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.720 primitive to say for certain what the fallout would be. Sure. 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.480 A few years after that, Carl Sagan and his crew 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:17.360 got together and said, no, there's going to be serious consequences. 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:18.440 And here's what they are. 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:20.000 Billions of lives. 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.040 Lost, billions and billions, right. And one of the things 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.440 they based this on, this idea on that if you 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.360 spew a bunch of smoke or particulate matter into the 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:36.120 atmosphere that it'll have a negative influence on the global climate, 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.559 is past history from volcanic eruptions. 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.240 Yes, most noted, well, there are a few over the years, 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.760 but one of the notable ones in eighteen eighty three 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:53.400 at the time, then the dust Dutch East Indies now Indonesia, Krakatoa. 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.400 That volcano was massive, to the tune of thirty six 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.240 thousand deaths just from the volcano. And this is in 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:03.840 Krakatoa in eighteen eighty three. 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.800 Yeah, there's only like ten people there somehow. 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.520 It's not like it was super populated, right, And two 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:16.240 thirds of Krakatoa collapsed. The smoke rose up and warmed 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:20.280 the global temperature global by two point two degrees fahrenheit. 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:23.840 I think it. No, it lowered it, yeah, lowered. 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:28.520 Sorry. Yeah, it took five years for temperatures to return 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:32.760 to normal. And it affected This was in Indonesia, and 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.520 it actually they think increased the rainfall in Los Angeles 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.560 by more than double that next year. Wow, it's in 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:42.319 La in southern California. 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.679 So that was the Krakatoa blast from eighteen eighty three. 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.000 Right, yeah, and that it literally changed the color of 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.720 the sky for like years afterwards. The sky was red 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.280 such that they think, you know, the scream, the painting 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.640 the screen, yeah, munch, Yeah, the red sky. They think 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.960 that's this guy looked was because of this volcano. 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:02.760 That is so neat. 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.320 Yeahn't' crazy that guy was like that volcano is crazy. 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:08.440 Maybe what the man is saying. 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:09.319 And that's just one of them. 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:11.600 What was the other one in Mount Tambora. 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:13.319 Yeah, Indonesia once again. 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.360 Yeah, Indonesia's got bad luck with the volcanos back in 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:17.400 the nineteenth century. 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:19.640 And this was actually earlier in eighteen fifteen. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.240 Yeah. I remember learning about this when I was a kid, 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.679 because Ohio got it really bad. A volcano went off 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.760 in Indonesia in eighteen fifteen, and the following year much 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.160 of the United States did not have a summer. It 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.439 was actually called the Year without a Summer. 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:35.439 And Ohio was affected. 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:37.560 Yes, so well yeah, oh yeah, there was like snow 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:38.839 on the ground in the middle of July. 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:40.600 Do you learn that in state history class? 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:41.240 I did? 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:46.240 I remember that? Yeah? Yeah, Georgia State History. That was 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.040 like a full course at our school. 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.080 Yeah. Half of it was just sitting around with the teacher, 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:53.320 like staring off into the distance. 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.080 Right, I remember. Ours was just like a lot of 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.160 talk about Crawford Long and the Civil War. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.719 Yeah, we didn't talk about Crawford Long and ours. 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:03.760 Because he wasn't from Georgia. 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:10.480 We talked about Anthony Wayne. Yeah, the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Yeah, 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.800 well that summer without a winter, year without a summer, 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.320 I mean, uh huh. And then there's some like canals 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.960 and locks that donkeys used to pull barges on. 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:24.720 Yeah. I just remember Crawford Long and a lot of racism. Yeah, basically, Yeah, 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:30.120 that's right. So that was Mount Timboro the year without summer. 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:36.840 There have been other events, like when the oil fields 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.760 burned during the during the war in the early nineties. 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:45.480 Yeah, apparently Carl Sagan predicted basically a nuclear winner from that. Yeah, 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:46.880 that's pan out. 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.160 Yeah, that's where they take some flak. Was it was 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.000 not nearly as bad the fallout from nut smoke as 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:54.160 Sagan predicted. 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:55.439 No, but. 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.559 What can you do but predict you're going to be wrong. 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.080 Yeah, occasionally, surely you're gonna be wrong. 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:03.880 It doesn't mean you should be like, oh, well, let's 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.600 smoke didn't do much, so let's start building nuclear bombs again. 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.800 Yeah. Well that's the whole thing, Chuck. I am so 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:13.600 glad you said that, because that's the whole mad thing 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.640 to this argument. Yeacause it's like, what are you arguing 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.240 in favor for If you're arguing against the idea of 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:23.920 what precisely are you arguing. 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.960 For yeah, like it won't be that bad. 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.320 We'll talk a little bit more about it, like later 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.720 on in the show what some people have argued about. 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.320 But it seems like what you say, ultimately you're arguing 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:40.480 in favor of more nuclear weapons that seems wrongheaded by definition. 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.200 Well not even just that, but using them won't be 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.240 as bad as you say, right, not just have them, 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.920 but well the fallout wouldn't be as bad as they'll predict, 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:51.320 so use them. 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.600 You almost get the impression like they're just like, well, 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:55.400 let's just find out. Let's just shoot a couple off 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.360 and find out what happens. Come on, you'll see them. 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:01.560 Right, and then as they die from a inhalation, they say, 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:02.800 I was wrong? 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.240 What have I done? 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.200 Oh goodness, Let's take a break, all right, let's do 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.000 and we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:15.439 more about the nuclear. 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:32.320 Winner Stoffy the jowshh, stoff. 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:36.320 I said nuclear and jest. 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.320 But I know I heard the break. That was good stuff, 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:38.640 all right. 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.120 I just want to point that out because some people 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:41.040 might think I was serious. 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:43.840 No, And now that you said it was in jest, 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.640 some people are like, what k Maybe that man was 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:48.000 my hero? 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.440 I posted something on Facebook the other day that said, 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.240 you're sciencing wrong as a joke, and people called me 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.200 out there like verb. 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.440 I thought, remember last try, you could use like everything 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:02.040 as a verb. 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:02.800 Yeah, that's true. 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:07.800 Yeah, people have gotten extremely serious, extremely self serious. 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.040 I'm a not self serious person, so I don't fit 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:12.120 in today's world. 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.960 You're a relic. You're an all dinosaur, just. 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:19.920 A stupid, laughing dinosaur. Speaking of dinosaurs. Yeah, well, I 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.680 guess we should talk about the k T boundary extinction event, 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.960 which was some people, some in science, have theorized that 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.680 that's what happened to the dinosaurs. Was there was an 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.920 impact winter, not quite the same as a nuclear winter, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.880 but the same effect as a nuclear winter due to 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.600 the impact of an asteroid. 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.200 And that would have happened at the border of the 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:50.120 Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. Again, when the dinosaurs all died off, 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:56.480 still inexplicably, there's no there's no definitive answer. Again, though 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:57.440 we're talking science. 0:15:57.600 --> 0:15:58.840 No one found a journal. 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.120 Diary. Today. Something is streaking through the sky and it's 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:06.360 making everyone nervous. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.920 It's very hot now. But I noticed that dinosaurs are dying, 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:10.640 so that's good. 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.280 Oh, this is a dinosaur writing in my opinion. Oh 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:19.680 oh so that's bad, right, right, Okay, so let's talk 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:24.080 Nuclear Winner, right. You kind of said it earlier, But 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.760 the whole idea behind nuclear Winner is that if you 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:32.120 shoot off nuclear bombs, especially a bunch of them. And 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.600 you have to understand, at the time that these scientists 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:40.240 were really starting to debate this, there were like seventy 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:45.000 thousand nuclear warheads, like many, many times more nuclear warheads 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.680 in existence in like the early eighties than there were today. 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.920 And when they started debating them, they really took up 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:57.840 this cause because the Reagan administration was saying, we need 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:03.560 this Star Wars program because we can prevent almost with 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:10.120 you know, ninety percent certainty, a Soviet nuclear. 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.520 Attack right with laser guns exactly. 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.680 And so these scientists who were concerned scientists, basically anti 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.920 nuke scientists, said, wait a minute, there's something that you 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.960 guys aren't thinking through here. If you do that, the 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.119 Soviets are going to say, well, wait a minute, if 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.800 this thing is ninety percent effective, then we need to 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.760 build up our nuclear arsenal so that when we shoot 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.320 everything we got at them still that ten percent will 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.320 totally annihilate the United States that the presence of the 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.480 star Wars program was going to put the nuclear arms 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.639 rates into even higher gear than it already was. So 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.639 they very much took it upon themselves to tackle this 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.000 with science, but also publicize it and sell it to 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.200 the public. And it's that that's stuck in the craw 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.959 of a lot of other scientists, particular scientists who were 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.879 in favor of nuclear proliferation as a matter of national defense. 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:05.359 That's right. 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.000 The point of it is when they tackled this, they said, 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:12.639 here's the big problem with it. If you shoot off 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:14.959 a bunch of nuclear bombs at a lot a lot 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.399 of nuclear bombs which could totally go off as far 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:22.160 as the nuclear war is concerned, it's going to cause 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.399 a lot of smoke to enter the atmosphere. And that 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.560 is where this domino effect is going to create, this 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:33.280 global catastrophe, and the whole outcome of it is based 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.840 on the number of nukes that you shoot off, which 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.000 is basically what Carl Sagan and his buddy Richard Turco 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.320 divided the different types of nuclear winter into. 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.520 That's right, mister Sagan and mister Turko are they doctors. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:47.200 Let's just call everyone a doctor. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.720 Well, yeah he was. Carl Sagan was a doctor of 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:56.159 astro chemistry, I believe, and Richard Turco is a veterinarian. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:57.280 I can't remember what he was. 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.720 They wrote a book called it Path Where No Man Thought, 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.440 A Path where No Man Thought, and that seemed like 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:13.119 there would be one more word there. And they have one, two, three, four, five, 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:17.720 six scenarios for what a nuclear winter might look like, 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:24.480 ranging from minimal to extreme. In minimal best case scenario, 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.000 which is just a little bit of a nuclear attack, 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.679 not many bombs going off, maybe like let's say Hiroshima 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:40.200 or Nagasaki, which we'll talk about those. Yeah, that means 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:44.160 that there would be minimal cloud cover, not much environmental 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:49.239 impact globally, and the targeted areas would be wiped out, 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.320 of course, but the world itself would not have big 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.880 consequences right atmospherically, So if. 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:01.200 You are talking a nuclear war, especially old war nuclear war, 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.960 that was a fairly unlikely scenario. By the time the 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.760 early nineteen eighties rolled around and people started talking about 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.800 the concept of a nuclear winner, those like Hiroshima and 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:18.960 Nagasaki level nuclear bombs were like attached the average fighter jet. Yeah, 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.520 they were considered like just tactical, like you just could 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.400 shoot them off on a battlefield if you needed to. Yeah, 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:27.560 So the idea that it would just amount to that 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:30.800 is unlikely. Yeah, it was, but they would be nice. 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.120 That's the best case scenario. They're trying to cover all 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:33.879 avenues here. 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.680 Yes, number two was marginal, and that's a few detonations 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.520 again in the northern hemisphere, and they said it would 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.480 lower the temperature by a few degrees and there would 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:51.919 be some crops in some agriculture that suffered, and probably 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:56.160 some famine, but it would not Oh black rain, of course, 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:01.960 who wants that? Did happen in Hiroshima? Yes, they drank it, 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:03.640 you and died. 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.680 From hacking it to go, Yes, because it was radioactive rain. 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.040 Yeah, but they drank it because they were thirsty because 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:09.680 they had no water. 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.000 Yes, it's devastating you and everyone should have to go 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:17.600 to the city of Hiroshima, Like it is amazing what 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:22.000 they've done to preserve what happened there. Oh, as like 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:26.040 a teaching lesson for everyone. Yeah, it's really moving. 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:27.760 We should have one of those here. 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.760 We should. Instead people are like, yeah, Japan forced the 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.040 US to drop the bomb, it's fact, right, which is 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:36.000 not correct. 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.040 Right, So black rain would happen in that marginal scenario. 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.560 Man, this is a really political episode, isn't it. 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:44.879 I think anytime you tackle nuclear war it's going to 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.080 be divisive. Yeah, because some people think. 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.920