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Public awareness of ‘nuclear winter’ too low given current risks, argues expert

fpjl2 — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 09:36:22 +0000

There is a lack of awareness among UK and US populations of 'nuclear winter', the potential for catastrophic long-term environmental consequences from any exchange of nuclear warheads.

This is according to the researcher behind new polling conducted last month and released today by the ��Ī’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER).

Paul Ingram, CSER senior research associate, says that – despite risks of a nuclear exchange being at their highest for 40 years due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine – what little awareness there is of nuclear winter among the public is mainly residual from the Cold War era.

The scientific theory of nuclear winter sees detonations from nuclear exchanges throw vast amounts of debris into the stratosphere, which ultimately blocks out much of the sun for up to a decade, causing global drops in temperature, mass crop failure and widespread famine.

Combined with radiation fall-out, these knock-on effects would see millions more perish in the wake of a nuclear war – even if they are far outside of any blast zone. Ideas of nuclear winter permeated UK and US culture during the Cold War through TV shows and films such as Threads and The Day After, as well as in novels such as Z for Zachariah.

The latest survey, conducted online in January 2023, asked 3,000 participants – half in the UK, half in the US – to self-report on a sliding scale whether they felt they knew a lot about “nuclear winter”, and if they had heard about it from:

Contemporary media or culture, of which 3.2% in the UK and 7.5% in the US said they had.
Recent academic studies, of which 1.6% in the UK and 5.2% in the US claimed they had.
Beliefs held during the 1980s, of which 5.4% in the UK and 9% in the US said they had heard of or still recalled.*

“In 2023 we find ourselves facing a risk of nuclear conflict greater than we’ve seen since the early eighties. Yet there is little in the way of public knowledge or debate of the unimaginably dire long-term consequences of nuclear war for the planet and global populations,” said Ingram.

“Ideas of nuclear winter are predominantly a lingering cultural memory, as if it is the stuff of history, rather than a horribly contemporary risk.”

“Of course it is distressing to consider large-scale catastrophes, but decisions need to account for all potential consequences, to minimise the risk,” said Ingram.

“Any stability within nuclear deterrence is undermined if it is based on decisions that are ignorant of the worst consequences of using nuclear weapons.”

The survey also presented all participants with fictional media reports from the near future (dated July 2023) relaying news of nuclear attacks by Russia on Ukraine, and vice versa, to gauge support in the UK and US for western retaliation.

In the event of a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine, fewer than one in five people surveyed in both countries supported in-kind retaliation, with men more likely than women to back nuclear reprisal: 20.7% (US) and 24.4% (UK) of men compared to 14.1% (US) and 16.1% (UK) of women.

The survey used infographics summarising nuclear winter effects laid out in a recent study led by Rutgers University (published by Nature in August 2022).The Rutgers research used climate modelling and observations from forest fires and volcanoes, and found that even a limited nuclear war could see mass starvation of hundreds of millions in countries uninvolved in any conflict.

Half the survey sample in each country (750 in the UK and US) were shown the infographics before they read the fictional news of nuclear strikes, while the other half – a control group – were not.

Support for nuclear retaliation was lower by 16% in the US and 13% in the UK among participants shown the “nuclear winter” infographics than among the control group.**

This effect was more significant for those supporting the parties of the US President and UK Government. Support for nuclear retaliation was lower by 33% among UK Conservative Party voters and 36% among US Democrat voters when participants were briefly exposed to recent nuclear winter research.***

Added Ingram: “There is an urgent need for public education within all nuclear-armed states that is informed by the latest research. We need to collectively reduce the temptation that leaders of nuclear-armed states might have to threaten or even use such weapons in support of military operations.”

Ingram points out that if we assume Russia’s nuclear arsenal has a comparable destructive force to that of the US – just under 780 megatons – then the least devastating scenario from the survey, in which nuclear winter claims 225 million lives, could involve just 0.1% of this joint arsenal.

The findings are published in a report on the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk website.

*The responses to each of these three questions were not mutually exclusive, with some participants claiming to know about nuclear winter from two or three different sources.

** Support for nuclear retaliation in the UK was 18.1% in the group that were presented with the infographic, against 20.8% in the control group.
Support for nuclear retaliation in the US was 17.6% in the group that were presented with the infographic, against 21% in the control group.

***22.3% of informed UK Conservative Party voters supported nuclear retaliation, against 33.3% of those uninformed. Among US Democrats these figures were 15.8% and 24.6% respectively.

The fieldwork was conducted online by polling company Prolific on the 25 January 2023, with a total of 3000 participants (1500 in the UK and US respectively).

Survey study of awareness in UK and US populations also shows that brief exposure to latest data on ‘nuclear winter’ deepens doubts over nuclear retaliation.

Ideas of nuclear winter are predominantly a lingering cultural memory, as if it is the stuff of history, rather than a horribly contemporary risk

Paul Ingram

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US Navy nuclear test, Bikini Atoll.

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North Korea unveils its nuclear ‘treasured swords’ to the world again

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 13:31:47 +0000

North Korea’s announcement that “normal operation” was again underway at its Yongbyon reactor complex sent a characteristic wave of anxiety through the world’s Pyongyang watchers. The country’s nuclear ambitions had, after all, been largely forgotten in what seemed like a lull in North Korea’s fractious relations with the wider world.

Even as the Korean peninsula itself endured a summer of high tension, the West’s complicated fear of North Korea has been displaced by a myopic public narrative currently fixated on the European refugee crisis, the murderous idiocy of Islamic State, and the travails of Donald Trump.

Things are clearly rather different on the inside. The regime’s primary tool of geo-political leverage can have slipped nobody’s mind – and North Korea’s recent statements speak volumes about how the Kim regime conceives of its nuclear programme.

Back to the Byungjin line

In North Korea’s worldview, nuclear capability is the only thing that can ward off the chaos and collapse that befell Iraq, Libya and Syria. As the recent statement put it, these weapons are a “measure for self-defense in the face of the US extreme hostile policy and nuclear threats towards it”.

The highest echelons of North Korea’s bureaucracy have seen the footage of erstwhile ally Muammar Gaddafi being brutalised and killed in the dust and dirt. None of its institutions or leaders have the slightest intention of repeating his experience.

The Kim regime thinks this should be obvious. If anything, North Korea’s statement of September 15 expresses an incredulity that Pyongyang’s position is not understood elsewhere.

North Korea’s nuclear tests of 2006, 2009 and 2013 at Pungyye-ri birthed an ideological and developmental theme known as the “Byungjin Line”, best translated as “parallelism”.

This concept essentially holds that North Korea’s unencumbered technical, political and social development could only be achieved under the protective umbrella of nuclear capability and research. In the supposed recent nuclear hiatus, some analysts thought the Byungjin Line had all but faded away – but now, with Yongbyon restarted, it’s suddenly returned.

The restart is, the statement says, “pursuant to the line of simultaneously pushing forward the economic construction and the building of a nuclear force advanced at the historic plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea” (WPK).

The rest of the world generally views plenary meetings of the Central Committee of the WPK with bemusement and scorn. But by reiterating the relevance of this particular meeting, and restating the Byungjin’s parallelism, the statement should remind us that the memory of such meetings has weight – and that North Korea’s institutional outlook is far from the myopic charade observers often mistake it for.

From party foundation to nuclear capability

Pyongyang takes an extraordinarily long view when it comes to historiography; North Korea’s self-narrative is replete with commemorative moments and necessary articulations. And the reappearance of Yongbyon is perhaps much less surprising when taken as part of North Korea’s commemorative plans for 2015.

Accordingly, Kim Jong-un’s 2015 New Year message laid out North Korea’s entire developmental and bureaucratic year around a moment of memorial – and not just any moment. Pyongyang has already marked the passing of Liberation Day on August 15, and the Day of Songun on August 25, but a far more important moment awaits: the 70th anniversary of the founding of the WPK, to be marked on October 10.

The Yongbyon complex nuclear facility. EPA/Digital Globe

Just as North Korea’s governance structure does not represent a truly singular dictatorship but instead pits institutions and agendas against each other, its narrative and commemorative systems are far from monolithic. Instead, they are generated and transmitted by multiple nodes of charisma and authority.

The activity at Yongbyon and its announcement by the KCNA may or may not be directly connected to the no doubt enormous celebrations that are planned, but they are just as crucial a pillar of Pyongyang’s legitimacy.

While the WPK’s soon-to-be-celebrated birthday will refresh the revolutionary political atmosphere in which North Korea’s regime and system can breathe, Pyongyang’s military and technological infrastructure, including the Korean People’s Army (KPA) and its attendant nuclear capacity, is designed to safeguard North Korea’s patch of the geo-political terrain.

Viewed in this light, North Korea’s “treasured swords” of nuclear mastery are far from the height of geopolitical folly. They are instruments of protection and shared ownership, guaranteeing both the past and future of all both at home and abroad. So it’s only natural that a little sabre-rattling is in order now and then.

Robert Winstanley-Chesters, Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Beyond the Korean War Project, ��Ī

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ��Ī.

Robert Winstanley-Chesters, Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Beyond the Korean War Project, discusses the motivations behind North Korea's relaunch of it nuclear weapons complex.

In North Korea’s worldview, nuclear capability is the only thing that can ward off the chaos and collapse that befell Iraq, Libya and Syria

Robert Winstanley-Chesters

(stephan)

North Korea – Pyongyang

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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�������������Ī - nuclear weapon

Public awareness of ‘nuclear winter’ too low given current risks, argues expert

North Korea unveils its nuclear ‘treasured swords’ to the world again

Back to the Byungjin line

From party foundation to nuclear capability

��Ī - nuclear weapon