Nuclear Expert Predicts How Launching a Single Nuke Could Wipe Out All of Humanity

Nuclear weapons defy concepts of space and time due to their global, long-term radioactive effects, and even a single use could escalate to a full-blown nuclear war leading to nuclear winter, ozone layer destruction, and the end of human civilization.

• A single nuclear weapon can trigger global, catastrophic effects, including nuclear winter and ozone destruction, leading to billions of deaths from starvation and an uninhabitable planet.

• Nuclear deterrence is a dangerous fallacy, as history shows numerous close calls and a lack of 'Plan B' for inevitable failures, resulting in 'self-assured destruction'.

• The mere possession and continued 'modernization' of nuclear weapons, costing trillions, is an immoral and insane act that poses the most significant existential threat to humanity.

Nuclear weapons are uniquely devastating, capable of global, long-lasting effects through radiation and environmental destruction, unlike conventional explosives. Even a single modern nuclear detonation could result in millions of immediate casualties and render cities uninhabitable for millennia. War game simulations consistently indicate that any nuclear weapon use would escalate to a full nuclear war, leading to a 'nuclear winter' and severe ozone layer destruction, ultimately causing billions to die from starvation and making the planet uninhabitable for human civilization.

Nuclear Weapons vs. Conventional

• 00:00:05 Nuclear weapons fundamentally differ from conventional weapons by transcending space and time; their impact is not confined to a local area or a brief moment. A single nuclear explosion can have global effects and consequences that persist for thousands of years due to radioactive contamination and isotopes deposited in the environment, making cleanup and rebuilding impossible in the conventional sense.

Escalation to Nuclear War

• 00:13:25 War game simulations consistently show that the use of even a single nuclear weapon, whether due to accident, miscalculation, or deliberate act, inevitably escalates to a full-blown nuclear war. This is driven by existing military protocols, such as 'launch on warning,' where a perceived attack triggers a retaliatory strike, leading to rapid, minutes-long decision-making and a cascade of launches, as described in Annie Jacobson's 'Nuclear War: A Scenario'.

Immediate and Long-term Casualties

• 00:18:00 A full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia, using just one-third of their current arsenals (approximately 1,000 warheads each), is estimated to cause 360 million immediate deaths from blast and incineration. This figure does not include additional fatalities from radiation sickness, which would occur over time. The combined effects would globally devastate populations and environments for centuries, if not millennia.

Global Environmental Catastrophe

• 00:20:00 A nuclear war would trigger global environmental catastrophes, primarily 'nuclear winter' and 'ozone layer destruction.' Nuclear winter would result from widespread fires producing massive soot clouds, blocking sunlight, and causing global temperatures to drop by 10-15 degrees Celsius for up to a decade, leading to mass agricultural failure and an estimated 5-6 billion deaths from starvation. Additionally, nitric oxide production would destroy 70% of the ozone layer, exposing survivors to deadly UV radiation and further impacting food supplies.

Dangers of Radiation

• 00:34:01 Nuclear explosions produce hazardous radioactive isotopes like iodine-131, strontium-90, cesium-137, and plutonium isotopes, some with half-lives spanning thousands of years. These elements contaminate the environment, entering the food chain (e.g., strontium-90 mimicking calcium in bones, cesium-137 mimicking potassium in soft tissues), causing various cancers such as leukemia and brain cancer, as tragically seen in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and nuclear test sites like the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia.

Flaws of Nuclear Deterrence

• 01:14:00 The concept of nuclear deterrence, despite its widespread acceptance, is deeply flawed because it offers no 'plan B' if it fails. The prevailing 'mutually assured destruction' (MAD) policy means that any nuclear conflict would inevitably lead to 'self-assured destruction,' creating conditions of nuclear winter and ozone layer depletion that would devastate the aggressor's own nation. Historical close calls, like the Cuban Missile Crisis or the 1983 Able Archer exercise, highlight that humanity has been incredibly lucky to avoid nuclear war so far, rather than deterrence reliably working.