Talk:Nuclear famine

Amendments and balancing points of view

Thank you to Boundarylayer and AnomieBOT for your feedbacks and comments. I do acknowledge that more can be discussed in the article to make it more balanced in views. Some of the articles cited are considerably outdated and in the weeks to come, I will try to cut down on the older references and include newer discussions that are out there.

You've done a fair bit of work creating the article and for that I commend you. I actually remember it like it was yesterday, the much younger naiive me coming across all those apocalyptic 1980s publications and the laughable regurgitations of the IPPNW. Both of which you had so curiously and prominently trumpeted as "authoritative" in this article. However I urge you to please not to stop your reading with that crowd, becoming satiated with the confirmation bias that nuclear war really would mean "the end of the world".

As I'm glad my curiousity didn't allow me to stop. I have since learned a thing or two by broadening my reading and can now better see the historical context within which these 1980s activist "modelers" were operating, rather than to naiively see them as pillars of isolated wisdom as I initially did, and I'm assuming you also did upon reading them?

One thing you mention however, that has struck me as potentially contentious is that, I fail to understand your motivation to "cut down on the older references"? As some of the older references(that I've included anyway) contain still sound post-attack advice. The reason it is still sound, is because the advice was borne out from actual field-experiments and while experimental evidence seems to have fallen out of vogue amongst our computer model obsessed generation. On the hierarchy of authority, experiment, also known as reality, is always on the top tier no matter how "old" it is.

On that topic, there are also some videos that I think I have in my collection on farming in the fallout environment that I must rustle up, but ultimately Bellesrad are probably the best resource to follow in that respect.(I just wish I could understand the language!)

To that end, ideally, if both of us were to collaborate and to delve deeply into the subject of the post-attack food supply and soil remediation, resulting in this article charting the chronology of the detailed US and Soviet Government plans on how to deal with the post attack food supply issue. That would be the best outcome for this article, I hope you'll agree? If not, lay out your reasons and we'll talk it out.

From where I'm sitting, if we were to do this, readers would be enriched in knowledge and the path that humanity has undergone in the science and popular thinking on the matter. This though appears like it would be kind of opposed to the idea you seem to be hinting at, which is to include only the "new" references, like feeding everyone no matter what? ((As an aside, I actually have a small caveat to express about that book. It presents an unbelievable scenario were no fields could ever grow food, a worst case scenario that would never actually occur following a nuclear war, no matter the size, as in reality neither "nuclear darkness/winter" nor fallout would be evenly spread across the world, fallout especially leaves some areas practically untouched and other areas with hot spots, but I commend the authors of the book for compiling a list of unconventional foodstuffs for the "what if..." possibility.))

In any case, if we were to simply chronical the science and research programs on the food supply and farming issue following a nuclear war, I think readers would appreciate that the most and adequately temper some climate predictions with reliable references, allowing readers to come to their own conclusions about the "nuclear winter" hypothesis, such as the popular scare-stories found in the "apocalyptic" 1980s publications really standing out as being based on a poor understanding of the climate and therefore they really only had a thin veneer of scientific credibility at the time. With the years that have elapsed, now I read them and see that they're nothing more than dubious science-fiction.

We both know that I've since included some references to that end, illuminating this to readers and therefore exposing the "apocalypse" FUD as being based on an incorrect understanding of reality, but it really would take far too long to go through this entire article of yours to balance-out every single one of these faulty and "politically motivated" references you discuss. For example, the IPPNW tell you what their agenda is in their name, yet you curiously include them in this article, when all they do is regurgitate the more severe nuclear winter conclusions. They don't do any unique modeling of their own. So they're essentially a waste of time.

You know, I only wish that a dispassionate scientist would come along and have the time to do an unpolitized assessment of all publications on the matter. As I know readers are prone to treat "government" funded plans and studies with suspicion, however I just wish readers would put that same level of suspicion on all the junk science coming from those who have a disarmament agenda. I personally, only slowly came around myself over the years and now try to treat everything with that same suspicion, but no one is perfect, however it is only in this endeavor that the truth can ever emerge.

P.S from my reading, nuclear war wouldn't actually be the major detriment to the food supply, it would be the conventional war that could very well continue to rage or linger on that would be the major snag to feeding survivors. I don't know why I used to think, or people in general assume, there would be a surprise nuclear war and then everyone just stops fighting, because if you really ponder on it. Hundreds of thousands of tanks, soldiers and other war materiél would still be sitting around. Would the leaders of the world just put all that on ice? I think not.

However that is just speculation, I mean really, the prospect of nuclear war is speculative enough as it stands without heaping yet more speculation on, if a ceasefire would be called after a nuclear war, or not. In any case, I'm 99.999% confident that we'll never see a nuclear war in our life times because of some inescapable truths: nuclear weapons are only valuable to have as psychological weapons of intimidation and of last resort or revenge. So using them offensively again, pretty much robs them of their major military value, no one has anything to gain from their use, not even "crazy" N.Korea, so they result in comparatively peaceful standoffs such as we saw in the cold-war.

Every major military does an already grisly, "fine job", at killing hundreds of thousands of people with lead bullets and TNT, so there is literally no offensive military scenario were a General is going to tell you that a nuclear bomb is essential, or even, going to be more effective than just lots of cheaper bullets and TNT, and that is rather an inescapable conclusion that [General Colin Powell pretty much came to, in "nuclear tipping point"]. Now I don't know if this is really reassuring or not, but it's the reality of affairs.

Boundarylayer (talk) 04:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Boundarylayer, I appreciate your thoughtful reply very much. I do not mean to be curt, nor do I intend to be contentious, when I mentioned that I would cut down on older references. I simply thought that quoting newer references may be a better reflection of current and possibly more accurate findings collected using modern experimental methods. I agree that experiments, if performed well, are important regardless of their age. The truth is, I am an absolute novice in the topic of nuclear weapons and the potential dangers that they may bring. I Knew before posting the article on wikipedia that I did not know enough about the subject matter to author the article, but am glad that the article I have drafted led to more deep level discussions from more well-read contributors. 2606:A000:42D0:5E00:64D0:CD5B:9D50:9775 (talk) 19:32, 23 November 2016 (UTC)lina.singapore86

Wiki Education assignment: Cold War Science

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 6 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Clementine1434 (article contribs).