Ecology: Biology of Interactions. 6.13. Military Threat
As we have established, global humanity faces a serious challenge that threatens its very existence. If human efforts were proportional to this danger, changing our species’ relationship with the environment would become the primary task of every government and every person...
Ukrainian (latest version) / Russian (updates discontinued) 6.12. Smog D. Shabanov, M. Kravchenko. Ecology: Biology of Interactions Chapter 6. Human Ecology and Nature Protection
6.12. Smog
6.14. The Concept of Sustainable Development
6.14. The Concept of Sustainable Development
6.13. Military Threat As we have established, global humanity faces a serious challenge threatening its very existence. If efforts undertaken by people were proportional to this danger, changing the nature of our species’ relationship with the environment would become the main task of every government and every individual. But despite its global character, humanity is divided into parts, each pursuing primarily its own narrow selfish interests. “Developed” countries seek to retain control over the planet’s key resources and prevent their redistribution. “Developing” countries seek to change the existing geopolitical inequality. Various terrorist groups are ready to sacrifice human lives to destroy the current order. As a result, direct global military spending substantially exceeds spending on health care and education. Indirect defense expenditures are even higher. Military-industrial complexes of developed countries are extremely powerful economic groups with their own political interests. Military facilities pose special risks of disasters—both sabotage-related and “accidental” and ecologically driven. Military activity is conducted under secrecy, which complicates oversight and creates conditions for abuse. Nuclear explosions (about three thousand) have sharply increased radioactive environmental contamination. High-altitude explosions conducted by the USSR in the 1960s significantly altered the structure of Earth’s magnetosphere and radiation belts. New types of environmental weapons have been and are being developed—for example, technologies intended to trigger earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, typhoons and other catastrophic weather shifts, and creation of artificial ozone holes over enemy territory. Chemical and bacteriological weapons and methods of psychological influence continue to be improved. Preparation for war causes enormous environmental damage, but active warfare is even more dangerous. The profile of casualties has changed. In World War I, civilians were 5% of casualties; in World War II, about 50%; today, up to 95%. Environmental warfare was first used on a massive scale by the USA in Vietnam (1964-1975). In that war, about 100 thousand tons of toxic chemicals that destroy vegetation were dispersed. 325 ha of tropical forest (2% of Vietnam’s entire territory) were cut down by 33-ton bulldozers. These bulldozers were wittily called “Roman plows,” in memory of one of the earliest uses of environmental warfare in history. After capturing Carthage, Rome plowed the defeated enemy’s fields after first covering them with sea salt. Retreating from Kuwait in 1991, Iraq destroyed and set fire to about 700 oil wells, as a result of which about 1 million tons of oil per day burned in flame columns over 100 m high. The fires were extinguished only after six months. Vast territories are removed from use because of landmines (a small mine costs 3 US dollars, while demining it costs 300-1000 dollars; in Kuwait, Iraq placed at least 7 million mines). A specific feature of warfare is that it often destroys the very resources over which it began. The creation of nuclear, and later thermonuclear, weapons was one of the triumphs of human reason that simultaneously posed a threat to humanity’s existence. The statement that nuclear war would trigger a “nuclear winter” was made in 1983 and became one of the important outcomes of computer climate modeling. The models used in the USSR by a team involving N.N. Moiseev, and in the USA by K. Sagan’s group, were built on different principles. Nevertheless, in both models, a nuclear conflict with major urban fires would lead to formation of a smoke layer in the upper atmosphere. Such a layer was expected to spread across the planet in a short time. According to these models, disruption of normal atmospheric circulation would keep this smoke layer for several years. During this period, almost the entire planet’s surface would be gripped by severe cold capable of destroying the whole biosphere. The “nuclear winter” scenario became widely known and was one reason for changing humanity’s attitude toward accumulation of nuclear arsenals. The end of the Cold War and even the breakup of the USSR are events connected, in a certain way, with results of this modeling. Since then, no major progress has been achieved in modeling climatic consequences of nuclear war. A “nuclear winter” is probably possible, but what scale of conflict can trigger it remains unclear. The assumption by N.N. Moiseev and K. Sagan that it could result from a local nuclear conflict in a major city has neither been refuted nor confirmed. Opponents of the “nuclear winter” scenario argue that because about 3,000 nuclear explosions produced by humanity did not trigger this effect, it need not be feared. This objection does not seem sufficiently well-founded. Except for the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have not been used (not yet used…) in combat. Yet it is obvious that climate changes are triggered not by the sum of warheads exploded at different times and places, but by a conflict focus that injects into the atmosphere an amount of smoke above a threshold. Smoke and dust emissions in such a case are linked not only to the bomb explosions themselves, but to the firestorm effect they produce. The most terrible examples of firestorms known to humanity were associated with the bombing of Hamburg by British and US aviation on July 27, 1943, and of Dresden on February 13-14, 1945. Fires from individual buildings merged into single columns of flame. The rapid rise of hot air (smoke during those bombings rose to 8-12 km) caused powerful inflow of surrounding air, intensifying combustion. Eyewitnesses described strong winds lifting people running through the burning city and carrying them upward into the flames. The first atomic bomb, detonated over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, caused a firestorm, while the second bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki did not produce such consequences, although it was more powerful. This was because Nagasaki is located on strongly dissected terrain and part of the city was shielded from the nuclear flash. How distorted must human reason become to create, for the “protection of civilians,” a weapon whose use could cause the death of all humankind! Additional materials: Educational model: Consequences of a local nuclear conflict ("nuclear winter") 6.12. Smog D. Shabanov, M. Kravchenko. Ecology: Biology of Interactions Chapter 6. Human Ecology and Nature Protection
6.12. Smog
6.14. The Concept of Sustainable Development
6.14. The Concept of Sustainable Development