F.D. Flam, Columnist

Even a Small Nuclear War Would Mean Mass Famine

Some bombs are so powerful that they could change the Earth’s climate and cause the food supply to collapse.

Things can always get worse.

Photographer: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images
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This century’s worst-case climate scenario isn’t global warming of 4 or even 5 degrees Celsius. It’s a nuclear winter that would trigger global cooling up to 12 or 13 degrees C.

That would happen within weeks of the start of a nuclear war, as smoke from burning cities blotted out the sun. The result would be a massive famine as the ocean’s food chain collapsed and global crops failed.