If all the nuclear weapons were unleashed today

[ConcernedCanuk]

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How long could we survive?

I do not believe there are enough to literally destroy the Earth,

but we can sure make a hell of a mess out of it.

USA made a point of destroying crops in Iraq - claiming it was a danger to their troops because Iraqis could hide in there.

I expect food sources will be targets in the future.

And, countries like China and Russia - they are learning from USA's behaviour.

PAYBACK IS GONNA BE ONE HELLUVA BITCH!

And

There will be no winners . . . .

(sigh)

CC

[rug]

1. You could at least mention cats when discussing the nuclear apocalypse in the Lounge.

[MiddleFingerMom]

2. !!!

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[rug]

4. That makes me sad.

Not that I don't care about Iraqi crops.

[MiddleFingerMom]

5. What d'ya wanna bet they negotiate with the local warlords to leave the opium crops untouched?

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. Forgot to mention

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Service members were shooting dogs for sport.

Don't remember them shooting cats.

There - cats "mentioned"

CC

[rug]

6. Well, shooting dogs is close.

[struggle4progress]

12. um ... cats actually prefer to fight with beam weapons

[rug]

13. Agh! Nucler apocalypse is bad enough without adding lasers.

[rrneck]

7. Our lives would become a Cormac McCarthy novel. nt

[hobbit709]

8. It would solve the global warming problem.

[rug]

9. See if this guy in GD will trade with you.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023060961

[Chan790]

10. "I do not believe there are enough to literally destroy the Earth."

You would be wrong. I actually wrote a 5th grade science fair research paper on nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war. At that time, the US and USSR had enough armament to completely irradiate Earth rendering it immediately totally-uninhabitable for life four-times over. To put it another way, we had 4x as much as we'd need to make Earth as barren as Mars & immediately erase any surface trace we'd ever existed. Contrary to popular belief the protozoa and cockroaches weren't going to survive either, neither was the President of the US, Soviet Premier, Congress, the Kremlin or anybody else. That was in 1987.

My science teacher was a uncivilized rah-rah patriotic jackass who didn't get or appreciate why I ended my presentation by reading Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

[magical thyme]

23. ^^^ this

I distinctly remember learning that we had enough to totally destroy life 4x over, although I thought it was the US could do that without the help of the USSR. But I didn't do a paper on it, and my memory is not as clear, so I defer to Chan790.

Even the kitties will be gone.

[Chan790]

25. You may be right...

we are talking a quarter-century ago so I may be mistaken or have gotten it wrong in the first place. 5th grade science wasn't exactly something I approached with much academic rigor. I was much more interested in recess and reading.

[In_The_Wind]

11. Life would become miserable in so many ways!

[ConcernedCanuk]

15. I remember that movie well.

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http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/day_after/


A peaceful Midwestern city attempts to recover after it is destroyed by a nuclear missile strike in this powerful and deeply disturbing testament to the folly of pro-military hawks who believed that annihilation was a justifiable means of attaining power and control. The Day After originally aired on network television.

At the end of the broadcast, many stations offered teams of counselors staffing 800 telephone numbers to help distraught viewers calm down. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Unrated, 2 hr. 6 min.
Drama, Action & Adventure, Television, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Directed By: Nicholas Meyer
In Theaters: Nov 20, 1983 Wide
On DVD: May 18, 2004
Cast

Jason Robards
Dr. Russell Oakes

JoBeth Williams
Nacy Bauer

Steve Guttenberg
Stephen Klein

John Cullum
Jim Dahlberg

John Lithgow
Joe Huxley

Amy Madigan
Alison Ransom

Bibi Besch
Eve Dahlberg

Clayton Day

Jeff East
Bruce Gallatin

Georgann Johnson
Helen Oakes

Calvin Jung

Lori Lethin
Denise Dahlberg

Dennis Lipscomb

Lin McCarthy

William Allen Young
_____________________________________________________________________________

CC

[In_The_Wind]

16. Children started saying "If I grow up" instead of "When I grow up".

[ConcernedCanuk]

18. I remember back in the 60's -

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some of our better off neighbours actually had "bomb shelters"

Underground dwellings surrounded by tons of concrete - actually I went into one of them.

They would be useless on a direct hit, but had their own power source, water, food storage and so on.

We were all scared shitless of what the Russians might unleash on us.

50 years later, I'm more concerned about our neighbor to the South

(sigh)

CC

[In_The_Wind]

20. I've never known anyone who had a fallout shelter.

At this point in my life, I'm no longer the rugged survivalist.

[ConcernedCanuk]

21. Reminded me of an old movie "Blast from the Past"

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"A romantic comedy about a naive man who comes out into the world after being in a nuclear fallout shelter for 35 years"

that was a cool movie!

Imagine - coming to the surface after living underground for for your first 35 years to discover there was no nuclear war, and being a healthy male surrounded by females . . .

Yeah - he had had a "blast" alright!

CC

[In_The_Wind]

22. That he did ... and lived to tell about it.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

24. "50 years later, I'm more concerned about our neighbor to the South."

please do not concern yourself on my account. My government, however, is another story altogether.

[ConcernedCanuk]

29. Oh it's the government/military for sure - not the general population.

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Lived in and around San Diego for over a year - quite liked the people.

This "democracy" thing is in dire need of a tune-up.

CC

[rrneck]

28. Yep, we're a great hulking empire with enough nukes to render the planet more or less unlivable.

But imagine if you had one of the other luminaries of twentieth century imperialism living on your southern border.

[dawg]

14. From what I have read, there is enough nuclear firepower to render the Earth unlivable.

Simple organisms would probably survive, and eventually evolve into something more complex millions of years into the future.

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. ain't we humans great?

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CC

[Tuesday Afternoon]

19. we would be charred crispy critters, burnt to a cinder. ashes, baby.

[premium]

26. For a look at what the U.S. might look like after a full nuclear exchange,

I recommend this movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/



Very powerful, IMHO.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

27. while that was a pretty decent movie, I don't think ALL nuclear weapons going off would leave us

that much. The chain reaction would be unfathomable.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

30. The lucky ones would be killed in the blasts.

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Nuclear_winter