By Kathleen Kingsbury, The New York Times, March, the 4^th, 2024

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists of the University of Chicago kept, on January, the 23^rd, 2024, the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight – the moment of the apocalypse – the closer than it had ever been before. That decision was due, chiefly, not only to the continuing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, but also to climate change and the growth of AI, as a disruptive technology, with potential to, someday, automate war without human intervention.

Thus, a nuclear explosion leading ultimately to the apocalypse is, nowadays, more likely, according to those Atomic Scientists, than at any other time since the Cold War.

It’s, therefore of paramount importance to know the dynamics of the consequences of a nuclear explosion, as presented by a “2022 scientific study”.

The above-mentioned study “found that if 100 Hiroshima-size bombs – less than 1 percent of the estimated global nuclear arsenal – were detonated in certain cities, they could generate more than five million tons of airborne soot, darkening the skies, lowering global temperatures and creating the largest worldwide famine in history. An estimated 27 million people could immediately die, and as many as 255 million people may starve within two years.”

As a result, there is a pressing need, on the one hand, “to remind ourselves of the consequences of a nuclear war in order to avoid them”, and, on the other hand, “to start protesting against nuclear war again”. But both of these actions will only be seriously undertaken, if a deep knowledge of those consequences is acquired and widely shared.

For the acquisition of that knowledge, the blogger recommends rational and nuclear explosion lay people – caring for humankind survival, peace and human development – to read “It’s Time to Protest Nuclear War Again!” by Kathleen Kingsbury, who introduces “At the Brink – A Series about the Threat of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World”, by WJ Hanningan, published by the New York Times.

The robust findings and recommendations of the Series are based “on modelling, research and hundreds of hours of interviews with people who have lived through an atomic detonation, dedicated their lives to studying nuclear war or are planning for its aftermath.”

@ All quotations are from “At the Brink – A Series about the Threat of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World.”