Selects: The Great Nuclear Winter Debate of 1983

At the height of the Cold War, a group of concerned scientists promoted their findings on the horrific aftereffects of nuclear war and were accused of fearmongering. But were they right after all? Learn all about the debate and its context in this classic episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 0:35Speaker 02

  We've all tumbled down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose and it leaves us more anxious than informed. Our feeds are full of wellness trends, but how do we know what's real, what's exaggerated and what's just wrong? Health versus hype from the American Medical Association breaks it all down. Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez talks to doctors, influencers and real people trying these trends, not to cancel them, but to understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. So listen to Health Versus Hype wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everybody. I picked this selection, this is Chuck, by the way, of Stuff You Should Know, co-host. September 17th, 2015, we did an episode called The Great Nuclear Winter Debate

• 1:15Speaker 02

  of 1983. And I picked this one because I don't remember even recording it. What in the world were they debating in 1983 about the great nuclear winter? It was probably just nuclear winter and the great refers to the debate now that I see how it's worded, but you know what I mean. I guess I'm gonna learn right around with you because I'm about to listen to it right now.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:50Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there somewhere off in the ether, but I don't think on. Ether, just in the ether.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 2:03Josh Clark?

  Just trying not to breathe right now.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  We had a tank of ether in here.

• 2:06Josh Clark?

  Be a much different podcast.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Josh and Chuck's Ether Cats.

• 2:09Josh Clark?

  Do they put those things in tanks?

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know. Surely, yeah, right? No? Is it like in the bottles still, like the 1800s?

• 2:17Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you just have it in a little milk bottle. You put it in a rag. You put it in your face.

• 2:23Josh Clark?

  And then go to Happy Town.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  If there's any pharmacists out there that want to set us straight, let us know how ether comes these days. It's probably a gas.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I imagine. It's not like a Hunter S. Thompson.

• 2:35Josh Clark?

  I think we talked about it before in anesthesia.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 2:39Josh Clark?

  It's like ether gas.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  What a weird start.

• 2:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that has nothing to do with what we're about to talk about.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was trying to relate it, but there really is nothing.

• 2:49Josh Clark?

  One of my favorite, favorite topics of all time, nuclear holocaust from the Cold War.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. What, we did, we did one on the Cold War, didn't we?

• 2:58Josh Clark?

  Oh, we've done several.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, we, we batted around this thing, but we've never done a full nuclear holocaust podcast, have we?

• 3:06Josh Clark?

  No. And nuclear holocaust is, that's not quite right. That's not the right way to put it. Because what we're talking about is actually the after effects from a nuclear holocaust.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Isn't that the Holocaust?

• 3:21Josh Clark?

  Well, I mean, if you want to be a purist, the nuclear holocaust is the immediate destruction as a result of exploding nuclear bombs over like population centers and stuff.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was the whole kit and caboodle.

• 3:34Josh Clark?

  I should say, if you're a purist and you want to say it from my opinion, that's what a nuclear holocaust is.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Okay, I think we know what's going on here.

• 3:43Josh Clark?

  Got it.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, Robert Lamb wrote this, uh, stuff to blow your mind.

• 3:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I have to say, I, I said, man, way to go on that one. That was a good one.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  You told him that?

• 3:54Josh Clark?

  I did. I actually uttered those words.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  What'd he say?

• 3:57Josh Clark?

  Thanks, man.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  Uh, but the, the thing that gets me about nuclear winter, which we will talk about in depth, what fascinates me about it just as much as the nuclear winter itself, Chuck?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:10Josh Clark?

  Is the, the controversy, the debate that, that arose from it throughout the eighties.

• 4:17Josh Clark?

  There was a huge debate.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Debate on the severity?

• 4:20Josh Clark?

  Debate, yeah, debate on whether it was something to worry about or not.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I looked up because I was like, is, does anyone think that this is a myth? An outright myth, and from what I saw in my research is that, no, this is fact. It's just a dispute, what's at dispute is the scenario and the severity of what would happen. But no one says like, no, there would be no nuclear winter, there would be no problems after a nuclear bomb.

• 4:47Josh Clark?

  So there used to be, like, back in, in the early eighties, when this was a huge new thing.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:54Josh Clark?

  There was a group of scientists who were hawkish, very much in favor of the US building up its nuclear arsenal as much as possible. And started a, basically a PR letter writing campaign to discredit the science behind this. And they thought, these guys don't know what they're talking about.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  So what, they think that the bomb would drop and then like the next day, the birds would be out?

• 5:18Josh Clark?

  They, they, they said, initially, yeah, that was kind of their position, was just to poke holes in this. And that it wasn't, wasn't a, it wasn't legitimate science, right?

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it didn't sound like it.

• 5:30Josh Clark?

  And then, they, ultimately, the whole point was that this came from an argument over whether the US should engage in the SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:42Josh Clark?

  Which is the lasers that shoot nukes.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:44Josh Clark?

  From space, right?

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:45Josh Clark?

  They, they shoot down nukes from space.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  We did a show on that, didn't we?

• 5:48Josh Clark?

  We did, that was another one.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:51Josh Clark?

  But that's what the whole thing was, is the context of it. It was an argument over what, over either nuclear disarmament, which Carl Sagan and his friends were in favor of.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Hippies.

• 6:00Josh Clark?

  Or nuclear proliferation.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:03Josh Clark?

  And the Star Wars program.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  War mongers.

• 6:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  The hippies versus the war mongers.

• 6:08Josh Clark?

  But the weird thing is, is this debate, Chuck, took place in the pages of like academic journals. And it ended up being a fight between science and science deniers.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it sounds like the scientists that you mentioned might have been, had their coffers full from the US government.

• 6:29Josh Clark?

  So potentially, or private industry or something like that.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:34Josh Clark?

  And the thing is, is they use this old chestnut where. So if you're a scientist, there's no certainty in anything you say.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 6:44Josh Clark?

  It can always be disproven. Remember, we talked about this in the scientific method episode.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:48Josh Clark?

  All your stuff can be disproven ultimately, which is why it's just a theory.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:53Josh Clark?

  So no scientist is going to be like, this is 100% certain.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:57Josh Clark?

  Well, these other scientists who are poking holes in it would point out, these guys aren't even certain. Which means that there's disagreement over whether we'll have a nuclear winter or not. So they were being very disingenuous in poking holes in it by saying, these scientists aren't even certain in their findings. Well, no scientist is certain in their findings.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  That's so dangerous.

• 7:18Josh Clark?

  But to the public, you think, oh, well, these scientists can't say that they're certain. So they must not know what they're talking about for sure.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  That's dangerous. That's why we're at three minutes to midnight on the doomsday clock.

• 7:30Josh Clark?

  That's exactly right.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Because some people might say, well, you're not certain, so let's just not act fast enough.

• 7:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Man. And I should say also, Chuck, we should prepare for a lot of listener mail because this is a conservative flashpoint. Nuclear winter is longstanding one.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 7:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Great. Sounds good.

• 7:51Josh Clark?

  Let's talk about this.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  All right. Well, Robert starts where most people should start when talking about nuclear winter, and that's in the atmosphere. It's a very finely tuned system we have. I want to say it's like homeostasis, but it's not people. So I guess it's like an ecostasis where the sun, just enough sun gets through to make things, make the earth habitable and proliferate with plants and water and humans and animals and all kinds of great stuff.

• 8:25Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Too much sun, even by a little bit, could be catastrophic. And too little sun, but even by a little bit, could be catastrophic.

• 8:33Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  So we've. Thanks to humans, we've struck a great balance here with the sun. A great deal was made.

• 8:40Josh Clark?

  And you can shine, just don't shine too much, sun.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's working out awesome. The idea of nuclear winter is that there would be enough ash and smoke. It's really not the fallout from the nuclear bombs themselves, from what I understand. It's more the smoke from the resulting fires.

• 8:58Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  That would cause the blacking out of the sky and the sun not getting through.

• 9:04Josh Clark?

  It's actually all of it.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, but everything I read across the board said it's almost 100% the smoke.

• 9:12Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  That goes on.

• 9:13Josh Clark?

  Yes. It's true. I mean, you shouldn't negate the idea that like nuclear radiation poisoning is going to kill a lot of people.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:24Josh Clark?

  As a result.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  But the blacking out of the skies is due to the smoke from fire.

• 9:28Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  From the bomb that happened.

• 9:30Josh Clark?

  Right. So this whole thing, the context of it again, comes from the 70s, right Chuck?

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, and 80s.

• 9:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and back in, I think, 1975, a group issued a statement that said, you know, there probably wouldn't be that big of a fallout from nuclear explosions. A few years after that, another group, I think the first group was the National Academy of Sciences. Another group said, you know what, we don't think that's exactly true. We think that there probably is some sort of, there will be something, but our models are too primitive.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:11Josh Clark?

  To say for certain what the fallout would be.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 10:14Josh Clark?

  A few years after that, Carl Sagan and his crew got together and said, no, there's going to be serious consequences, and here's what they are.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Billions of lives lost.

• 10:24Josh Clark?

  Billions, billions, right. And one of the things they based this on, this idea on, that if you spew a bunch of smoke or particulate matter into the atmosphere, that it'll have a negative influence on the global climate.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:40Josh Clark?

  Is past history from volcanic eruptions.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Yes. Most notable, well, there are a few over the years, but one of the notable ones in 1883, at the time, in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, Krakatoa. That volcano was massive to the tune of 36,000.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Deaths just from the volcano, and this is in Krakatoa in 1883.

• 11:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's only like 10 people there somehow.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  It's not like it was super populated.

• 11:12Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  And two thirds of Krakatoa collapsed. The smoke rose up and warmed the global temperature, global, by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

• 11:25Josh Clark?

  I think it, no, it lowered it.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, lowered, sorry.

• 11:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  It took five years for temperatures to return to normal and it affected, this was in Indonesia, and it actually, they think, increased the rainfall in Los Angeles by more than double that next year.

• 11:43Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  That's in LA, in Southern California.

• 11:46Josh Clark?

  So that was the Krakatoa blast from 1883, right?

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that, it literally changed the color of the sky for like years afterward. The sky was red, such that they think, you know, the scream, the painting, the scream?

• 11:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Munch?

• 12:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  The red sky, they think that's, that was like, the way the sky looked was because of this volcano.

• 12:06Josh Clark?

  That is so neat.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, isn't that crazy?

• 12:07Josh Clark?

  That guy was like, "That volcano is crazy."

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Maybe so.

• 12:11Josh Clark?

  That's what the man is saying.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  And that's just one of them. What was the other one in?

• 12:14Josh Clark?

  Mount Tambora.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, Indonesia, once again.

• 12:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Indonesia's got bad luck with the volcanoes back in the 19th century.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Man, and this was actually earlier in 1815.

• 12:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I remember learning about this when I was a kid, because Ohio got it really bad. A volcano went off in Indonesia in 1815, and the following year, much of the United States did not have a summer. It was actually called the Year Without a Summer.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  And Ohio was affected?

• 12:39Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, oh yeah, there was like snow on the ground in the middle of July.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Did you learn that in state history class?

• 12:44Josh Clark?

  I did.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  I remember that.

• 12:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, Georgia State History, that was like a full course at our school.

• 12:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, half of it was just sitting around with the teacher, like staring off into the distance.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Right. I remember ours was just like, a lot of talk about Crawford Long and the Civil War.

• 13:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we didn't talk about Crawford Long in ours.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  No, because he wasn't from Georgia.

• 13:07Josh Clark?

  We talked about Anthony Wayne.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:10Josh Clark?

  The Battle of Fallen Timbers.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:14Josh Clark?

  Well, that summer without a winter, year without a summer, I mean.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 13:18Josh Clark?

  And then there's some like canals and locks that donkeys used to pull barges on.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just remember Crawford long and a lot of racism.

• 13:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Basically.

• 13:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 13:28Josh Clark?

  Georgia history.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  That's right. So that was Mount Tambora, the year without summer. There have been other events, like when the oil fields burned during the, during the war in the early 90s.

• 13:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, apparently Carl Sagan predicted a, basically a nuclear winter from that.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's.

• 13:50Josh Clark?

  It didn't pan out.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's where they take some flak was, it was not nearly as bad, the fallout from nut smoke as Sagan predicted.

• 13:58Josh Clark?

  No.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  But what can you do? But predict, you're gonna be wrong.

• 14:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Occasionally.

• 14:04Josh Clark?

  Surely you're gonna be wrong.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  It doesn't mean you should be like, oh, well, that smoke didn't do much, so let's start building nuclear bombs again.

• 14:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Well, that's the whole thing, Chuck. I am so glad you said that because that's the whole mad thing to this argument.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:20Josh Clark?

  It's like, what, what are you arguing in favor for? If you're arguing against the idea of nuclear winter, what precisely are you arguing for?

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, like it won't be that bad?

• 14:31Josh Clark?

  We'll talk a little bit more about it, like later on in the show, what some people have argued about, but it seems like what you say, ultimately, you're arguing in favor of more nuclear weapons. That seems wrongheaded by definition to me.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Well, not even just that, but using them won't be as bad as you say.

• 14:49Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Not just have them, but, well, the fallout wouldn't be as bad as they all predict, so.

• 14:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Use them.

• 14:55Josh Clark?

  You almost get the impression like they're just like, well, let's just find out. Let's just shoot a couple off and find out what happens. Come on, you'll see them, right?

• 15:01Speaker 02

  And then as they die from a smoke inhalation, they say, I was wrong.

• 15:08Josh Clark?

  What have I done?

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Oh goodness.

• 15:12Josh Clark?

  Let's take a break.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  All right. Let's do, and we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit more about the nuclear winter.

• 15:29Josh Clark?

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• 16:31Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. The holidays are coming up, so let us throw this out there. Are you prepared to host friends or family, like really prepared? Because there's a difference between having people stay at your house and properly hosting them.

• 16:43Josh Clark?

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• 17:06Josh Clark?

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• 17:34Josh Clark?

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• 18:07Josh Clark?

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• 18:53Speaker 02

  I said "nuclear" in jest, but-

• 18:55Josh Clark?

  I know, I heard. It was good stuff.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  All right, I just want to point that out, because some people might think I was serious.

• 19:00Josh Clark?

  No. And now that you said it was in jest, some people are like, "What a jerk."

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 19:05Josh Clark?

  "That man was my hero."

• 19:07Speaker 02

  I posted something on Facebook the other day that said, "You're sciencing wrong", as a joke. And people called me out. They're like, "You can't use 'science' as a verb." I'm like, "Man, remember laughter?"

• 19:18Josh Clark?

  I thought in the 21st century, you could use, like, everything as a verb.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 19:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, people have gotten extremely serious, extremely self-serious.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  I'm a not-self-serious person, so I don't fit in in today's world.

• 19:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you're a relic. You're an old dinosaur.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Just a stupid, laughing dinosaur. Speaking of dinosaurs-

• 19:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, what?

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Well, I guess we should talk about the KT boundary extinction event. Which was, some people, some in science, have theorized that that's what happened to the dinosaurs was, there was an impact winter, not quite the same as a nuclear winter, but the same effect as a nuclear winter due to the impact of an asteroid.

• 20:00Josh Clark?

  That's right. And that would have happened at the border of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, again, when the dinosaurs all died off, still inexplicably. There's no, there's no definitive answer. Again, though, we're talking science.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  No one found a journal?

• 20:17Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Buried in amber.

• 20:19Josh Clark?

  Dear diary, today, something is streaking through the sky and it's making everyone nervous.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  It's very hot now, but I noticed the dinosaurs are dying, so that's good.

• 20:29Josh Clark?

  Oh, this is a dinosaur writing, in my opinion.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, so that's bad.

• 20:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:36Josh Clark?

  Okay, so let's talk nuclear winter, right? You, you kind of said it earlier, but the whole idea behind nuclear winter is that if you shoot off nuclear bombs, especially a bunch of them.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:51Josh Clark?

  And you have to understand, at the time that these scientists were really starting to debate this, there were like 70,000 nuclear warheads.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:01Josh Clark?

  Like, many, many times more nuclear warheads in existence in like the early 80s than there were today.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:08Josh Clark?

  And when they started debating them, they really took up this cause because the Reagan administration was saying, we need this Star Wars program because we can, we can prevent, almost with, you know, 90% certainty, a Soviet nuclear attack.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Right, with laser guns.

• 21:30Josh Clark?

  Exactly. And so the scientists who were concerned scientists, basically anti-nuke scientists, said, wait a minute, there's something that you guys aren't thinking through here. If you do that, the Soviets are going to say, well, wait a minute, if this thing is 90% effective, then we need to build up our nuclear arsenal, so that when we shoot everything we got at them.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:51Josh Clark?

  That 10% will totally annihilate the United States. That the presence of the Star Wars program was going to to to put the nuclear arms race into even higher gear than it already was.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:03Josh Clark?

  So they very much took it upon themselves to to tackle this with science, but also publicize it and sell it to the public. And it's that that's stuck in the craw of a lot of other scientists.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:18Josh Clark?

  Particularly scientists who were in favor of nuclear proliferation as a matter of national defense.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 22:24Josh Clark?

  The point of it is, when they tackled this, they said, um, here's the big problem with it. If you shoot off a bunch of nuclear bombs, a lot, a lot, a lot of nuclear bombs, which could totally go off as far as a nuclear war is concerned.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:38Josh Clark?

  It's going to cause a lot of smoke to enter the atmosphere. And that is where this domino effect is going to create this global catastrophe. And the whole outcome of it is based on the number of nukes that you shoot off.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:54Josh Clark?

  Which is basically what Carl Sagan and his buddy, Richard Turco, divided the different types of nuclear winter into.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  That's right. Mr. Sagan and Mr. Turco, are they doctors? Let's just call everyone a doctor.

• 23:05Josh Clark?

  Uh, well, yeah, he was, Carl Sagan was a doctor of astrochemistry, I believe. And Richard Turco is, um.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  He's a veterinarian.

• 23:14Josh Clark?

  I can't remember what he was.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Uh, they wrote a book called A Path Where No Man Thought.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  A Path Where No Man Thought.

• 23:23Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  And, uh, it seemed like there would be one more word there.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  And they have one, two, three, four, five, six scenarios for what a nuclear winter might look like, ranging from minimal to extreme. And minimal, best case scenario, which is. Just a little bit of a nuclear attack. Not many bombs going off.

• 23:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Maybe like, let's say Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

• 23:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, okay.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  We'll talk about.

• 23:54Josh Clark?

  Those were like twenty, twenty-one kilotons.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, that means that there would be minimal cloud cover, uh, not much environmental impact globally. And, um, the targeted areas would be wiped out, of course. But the world itself, uh, would not have big consequences.

• 24:13Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Atmosphericly.

• 24:14Josh Clark?

  So if you are talking, uh, nuclear war, especially a Cold War nuclear war. That was a fairly unlikely scenario.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:24Josh Clark?

  By the time this, the, the early nineteen eighties rolled around and people started talking about the, the concept of a nuclear winter. Those like Hiroshima and Nagasaki level nuclear bombs.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:35Josh Clark?

  Were like attached to the average fighter jet.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:37Josh Clark?

  They were considered like just tactical. Like you, you just could shoot them off on a battlefield if you needed to.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:44Josh Clark?

  So the idea that it would just amount to that is.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Unlikely.

• 24:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was, but.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  They were being nice.

• 24:49Josh Clark?

  That's the best case scenario. They're trying to cover all avenues here.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Yes, uh, number two is marginal, uh, and that's a few detonations, uh, again in the northern hemisphere. And they said it would lower the temperature by a few degrees and there would be some crops in some agriculture that suffered and probably some famine.

• 25:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  But it would not, uh, oh, black rain, of course.

• 25:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, who wants that?

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Did happen in, uh, Hiroshima.

• 25:18Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Uh, they drank it.

• 25:21Josh Clark?

  You.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  And died from drinking it.

• 25:22Josh Clark?

  To go, yes, because it was radioactive rain.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they drank it because they were thirsty because they had no water.

• 25:28Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  It's devastating.

• 25:29Josh Clark?

  You and everyone should have to go to the city of Hiroshima. Like it is amazing what they've done to, to preserve what happened there.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 25:40Josh Clark?

  As like a teaching lesson for everyone.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:43Josh Clark?

  It's really moving.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  We should have one of those here.

• 25:47Josh Clark?

  We should. Instead, people are like, yeah, Japan forced the US to drop the bomb. It's fact.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:53Josh Clark?

  Which is not correct.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  Right. Uh, so black rain would happen in that marginal scenario.

• 25:58Josh Clark?

  Man, this is a really political episode, isn't it?

• 26:01Speaker 02

  I think anytime you tackle nuclear war, it's going to be divisive.

• 26:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Because some people think it's awesome.

• 26:07Josh Clark?

  Nuke the whales. Gotta nuke something.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Uh, things below the equator in that scenario on the southern hemisphere would be just fine.

• 26:16Josh Clark?

  So here's something that I found really interesting and wrong in this analysis of it. Sagan, I guess he was strictly talking about atmospheric effects.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:27Josh Clark?

  But he mentions like famine and stuff like that. The thing is-

• 26:31Speaker 02

  That would have a global effect, for sure.

• 26:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the rest of the world depends in large part on North American wheat and corn.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:39Josh Clark?

  So if there's a nuclear fallout in North America that affects our crop yields dramatically and causes famine in the US, it's gonna cause famine elsewhere, too.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 26:48Josh Clark?

  I think what he's saying is as far as climatologically speaking.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:53Josh Clark?

  What he and Turco are saying is, as long as you're not shooting off nuclear bombs in the southern hemisphere, it's gonna, climatologically speaking, be unaffected.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:04Josh Clark?

  Or largely unaffected because the wind goes down to the equator and then back up. Like, the equator separates the hemispheres as far as the atmosphere is concerned.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. There would still be global troubles.

• 27:15Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Uh, but in reading all these scenarios, it made me really wanna move to Australia.

• 27:20Josh Clark?

  Well, that's another thing, too. How many people would be like, "Uh, I need to get out of the United States, so I'm moving down to Mexico, or I'm moving down to Brazil, or I'm moving down to Australia." And then the infrastructure in those countries are just super stressed because of the northern hemisphere that survived is suddenly moving down to the southern hemisphere.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:39Josh Clark?

  It's another widespread effect.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Uh, Mexico would help you too much, though.

• 27:42Josh Clark?

  Well, weren't they like, super helpful in Independence Day? Was it Independence Day, or the morning, or no, the day after tomorrow? Everybody starts having to move south because North America's just frozen ice sheet?

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I just mean as far as, you'd have to go pretty far south, further south than Mexico if you wanna escape the atmospheric fallout.

• 28:04Josh Clark?

  Oh, you're right. So Ecuador.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, what is it, like, half of Africa and South America are in the southern hemisphere?

• 28:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Probably not half.

• 28:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so the northern hemisphere would show up at the southern hemisphere's doorstep. Be like, "Christmas in July? We'll get used to it."

• 28:20Speaker 02

  That's right. Your drain goes the other way when you, uh, release the water from the tub?

• 28:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Neato.

• 28:27Josh Clark?

  And I know Christmas doesn't fall in July. It was a metaphorical statement, everyone.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Nominal nuclear winners, number three, that is what they consider the low end, full-scale nuclear war.

• 28:40Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  But still full-scale, 6,000 to 12,000 nuclear weapons. That's all. Just 6,000 to 12,000 nuclear bombs.

• 28:49Josh Clark?

  Right. And we're talking a megaton or more bombs. And a megaton was, I think, 50 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 29:02Josh Clark?

  So 12,000 times 50 of those for this kind of nominal nuclear war.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a lot of zeros.

• 29:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  They predicted noon sunlight would be about a third of what it was. Global temperature drops of 18 degrees. That's bad news, my friend. It would destroy a lot of the ozone layer. And again, the southern hemisphere wouldn't experience major climatic change.

• 29:29Josh Clark?

  To cut to the southern hemisphere, they're all at the beach, there's like

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:34Josh Clark?

  tropical music playing.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  But they have no wheat.

• 29:36Josh Clark?

  Who needs wheat when you got rum drinks?

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Ooh, that's a T-shirt. Josh Clark said that one.

• 29:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Number four, substantial. That is full-scale nuclear war. Freezing temperatures, big-time fallout, the whole day would be like it's overcast.

• 29:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Billions of humans dead.

• 29:58Josh Clark?

  Billions?

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Billions and billions, species going extinct. And finally, possible damage to the southern hemisphere.

• 30:07Josh Clark?

  Finally?

• 30:08Speaker 02

  Possibly.

• 30:10Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  And then the last two, we can just bunch together, I think. Severe and extreme, less than 1% of the sunlight, getting through for months and months on end.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Global temperature dropping, no photosynthesis happening.

• 30:29Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Every crop dying, all life perishing. Let's just go ahead and wrap it up right there.

• 30:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah. As Robert puts it, most of the planet's life would perish within the chilly confines of this black atmospheric tomb.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's got a little Lovecraft in him, doesn't he?

• 30:46Josh Clark?

  He does. This unnameable tomb.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:50Josh Clark?

  Chuckers, let's take another break and then we will come back and talk about the fallout from nuclear winter theory.

• 31:08Josh Clark?

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• 33:30Josh Clark?

  So, like we said, Carl Sagan and his friends got together and basically took it upon themselves to educate the public about the potential catastrophe that could happen as a result of nuclear war. Everybody before was like, yeah, that would really suck to be in a city that a nuclear bomb went off on.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:54Josh Clark?

  But maybe it wouldn't be my city. I live in Schenectady, New York.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  No one's gonna bomb Schenectady.

• 34:01Josh Clark?

  So I'm probably gonna be okay. These guys said, hey, Western civilization, not just in the US but also the USSR, that's not necessarily the case. You too will be affected. There's gonna be big problems after this, after a nuclear war.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:18Josh Clark?

  So much so that let's make sure that our leaders never do this, right? Wake up, basically, is what they were doing. And so Sagan and his friends created a paper, and it's now called the T-Taps paper, after all of their names, right?

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollak, and Sagan.

• 34:33Josh Clark?

  Okay, and they wrote this paper and had it published in Science, the preeminent scientific journal in the United States.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:41Josh Clark?

  It was a big deal.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:43Josh Clark?

  They also held a very well-publicized conference. And Carl Sagan, apparently without the group's knowledge or blessing, went off and also wrote a piece in Parade magazine.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 34:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, to make sure that every Dick and Jane in the US knew about this. It was like a three-page article about the nuclear winter, which is a new term at the time, complete with illustrations where like the Earth was like this dead, lifeless, what's called like a gray chalk billiard ball, basically.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:17Josh Clark?

  Just really scary stuff.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 35:18Josh Clark?

  And then he also simultaneously wrote another longer piece that was in Foreign Affairs, that's a little more wonky. So Sagan went off after writing this scientific paper and publicized it to policymakers and to the American public.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is the early 1980s.

• 35:36Josh Clark?

  And, yes, this is 1983. And you, this is before all the science was in. This is from the first paper. Before the first paper's conference was even held, right?

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:46Josh Clark?

  And a lot of people, including people who were on his side about this issue, were really mad at him because it opened up this group and the whole idea of nuclear winter to allegations that they were fear-mongering.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:59Josh Clark?

  And that they were basically trying to sell the public on science, which is, you know, that's not what science does.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:06Josh Clark?

  Yes, pure science is about research and coming up with facts and whether they're popular or unpopular. It doesn't matter, science is science and fact is fact, right?

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:14Josh Clark?

  A good theory is a good theory. But these guys, again, were concerned that something really, really bad could happen and they went to the trouble of taking it upon themselves to advertise it to the public. But again, Sagan going off and doing this, it really opened him up for a lot of allegations and debate that took place afterward.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, but some say that the... Their work in the T. Taps report actually did help cool things down in the Cold War a little bit.

• 36:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I mean, it wasn't just these American scientists, they worked with Soviet scientists as well, and apparently, sometimes it went good, sometimes it didn't go so well, but they're, both sides were working on this issue. And the fact that it got so much publicity actually created a firestorm of back and forth in the scientific community, and this issue ended up getting really well studied.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it did, and seven years later, they revised the report in 1990, and it had new, more modernized data, and it wasn't quite as dire, which some critics were like, alright, this is a little more reasonable.

• 37:20Josh Clark?

  Yes, they revised it to call it the Nuclear Autumn.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. And everyone loves autumn.

• 37:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, autumn's great. Autumn all the time, that'd be wonderful.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Oh, man, that would be wonderful. That'd be Chuck's world. And they, there are disagreements over that still, and they basically, there's a few, four variables that are always the factors that are the unknowns, and it's really, they're all, to me, kind of one, four versions of the same variable, which is, we don't know how much smoke there would be.

• 37:53Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  We just don't know. And number one is, how much material is there to burn? So the idea is, you drop a bomb on a city, a nuclear bomb, and everything catches on fire, and that creates tremendous amounts of smoke. But since these are all theoretical, and you don't know what would happen if you dropped something the size on, like, let's say, a major city like New York, they're like, what would be there to burn? Like, we just don't know.

• 38:21Josh Clark?

  Well, that's, that's, yeah, so if you dropped it on a city, is it an old city that's, that isn't super modern?

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 38:28Josh Clark?

  And therefore, isn't built out of, like, lots of plastic that can get into the atmosphere and really mess things up?

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, the really bad stuff.

• 38:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, if it's an old city, maybe the burning wouldn't be so bad, even after a nuclear holocaust. Or maybe you're not shooting nuclear bombs to cities, but to other nuclear installations. That are out in the middle of like nowhere in Nebraska.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Right. Because we have, I mean, we've, there's been like 2,000 nuclear bombs detonated. But they, only two on its cities.

• 38:58Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Everything else has been out over the ocean or out in the middle of nowhere, and there's been no fire.

• 39:02Josh Clark?

  Right. Um, the assumption is, is that though, if you shot a nuclear bomb at a, at a modern city, a lot of really toxic smoke would be produced.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:13Josh Clark?

  That's probably the worst case scenario in both the immediate nuclear holocaust.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:19Josh Clark?

  And the, uh, the fallout, the nuclear winter as a result, because of all the smoke that would be created.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  I mean, look at the fallout from nine 11, and that was two buildings.

• 39:27Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  You know?

• 39:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  Uh, the second variable is how much would remain in the atmosphere and then how much goes back to the earth.

• 39:34Josh Clark?

  They have no idea.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, no one really knows that at all. How much sunlight would be deflected?

• 39:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Again, just theorizing.

• 39:42Josh Clark?

  And you can go back and plug in these numbers.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:45Josh Clark?

  The problem is, if you're a detractor of nuclear winter theory, you would say, that's a guess.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:51Josh Clark?

  Where'd you get that number?

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:53Josh Clark?

  You know, and you could take every number and come up with a different model for each one. They usually don't do that. But even still, it's like, which one's going to be the one?

• 40:03Speaker 02

  And again, it goes back to how much smoke would there be? To begin with.

• 40:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Uh, and then finally, when did it happen? Um, if it was actually in winter, perhaps it's not so bad.

• 40:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, nuclear winter in winter ironically is the best case scenario.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  The best case scenario of the bad scenarios.

• 40:21Josh Clark?

  Right. So they, they did initially back off of their findings. They said that it was, there could initially be like a 35 to 40 degree drop in global temperatures. It's Celsius.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:35Josh Clark?

  So we're talking like 70 degrees, 72 degrees Fahrenheit drop in, in temperatures, so.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  And that's for a full on nuclear war.

• 40:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:43Josh Clark?

  Um, later on, as they revised their findings and more, again, more and more scientists got involved and studied this issue, they came upon what seemed to be a consensus that you could probably count on something like a 15 degree Celsius drop in, um, global temperatures, which would be substantial and could still have widespread effects, right?

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:06Josh Clark?

  So this. From this debate, nuclear winter kind of got settled on. There was a scientific consensus that came about. And there was also consensus that not only would there be huge problems inland, there would be oceanic problems as well.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:23Josh Clark?

  Because, one of the things, one of the great casualties of detonating nuclear bombs is the ozone layer.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:29Josh Clark?

  The fireball from the blast burns up nitrogen, converting it to nitrogen oxide. Nitrogen oxide just punches holes, basically chemically burns the ozone layer.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:41Josh Clark?

  So then, when all that smoke that's acting as like an umbrella that's blocking out the sunlight, falls back to earth, all that particulate matter falls back to earth, and is radioactive, by the way.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:51Josh Clark?

  Now, the sunlight that does come through is way hotter and has way more UV light than it had before the nuclear bombs went off.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  Because we had our little delicate balance that's now disrupted.

• 42:02Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:03Josh Clark?

  The problem with that for the oceans is that that UV light would likely be too intense for phytoplankton at the ocean's surface.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:13Josh Clark?

  Well, that is the keystone species for the ocean aquatic environments, the ecosystems, all start with phytoplankton. Zoo plankton feed on phytoplankton, little fish feed on zoo plankton, larger fish feed on little fish, and so on and so on, until, so if you get rid of the phytoplankton, you're in big trouble.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Big trouble.

• 42:33Josh Clark?

  So there would be huge ramifications, and science came to a consensus on this. But again, it was attacked very early on by nuclear proliferation hawks, as basically being against the interests of United States national security.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:50Josh Clark?

  And then later on, it continued to be attacked. It became a customary, traditional flashpoint among conservatives, as a great example of the lengths that hippie environmental scientists will go to, to dupe the American public into being scared

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:09Josh Clark?

  about nuclear bombs, and just nuclear stuff in general. Like, Michael Crichton famously attacked it in a 2003 speech.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:18Josh Clark?

  And he, his whole thing, he was very famously a climate denier, he was a climate skeptic. Until his death, as far as I know.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 43:27Josh Clark?

  Um.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Is he dead?

• 43:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 43:29Josh Clark?

  And, and he wrote some great books, but he was also like contrarian by nature is what he said as well. But I get the impression that he tended to land on the more conservative, anti-environmental side.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:41Josh Clark?

  And on this case, he also attacked the nuclear winner as well. And what he accused these guys of doing is, is creating science by consensus, right? That to me is, that's just like a one-two sucker punch. So the initial scientist that, that challenged, um, nuclear winner said, you guys can't even agree. There's no consensus, like you can't be certain in what you're saying. So therefore we don't need to take you seriously. So they said, okay, you know what? We're going to get all these scientists around the world together to study this issue. And we're going to come to a consensus. And when they did, years later, guys like Michael Crichton said, you guys are practicing science by consensus and politicizing science. It's not real science.

• 44:26Josh Clark?

  So it was like, they were very much damned if they did and damned if they didn't. And ultimately you just have to kind of decide, is, is it worth the risk? Maybe we can't say for certain.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:37Josh Clark?

  And at the time, you couldn't say for certain. What's cool is that some of these same climate scientists are still at work. And they have come up with fairly recent models using very sophisticated climate models compared to the stuff they were using back in the eighties and even the nineties.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:54Josh Clark?

  The stuff they're using now says, actually, we think nuclear winter might be worse than was initially predicted.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, and even if it's not a full-scale nuclear war, I think the worry, there's not as much worry these days for something like that. What the worry is now is that, uh, some rogue nation, uh, gets a hold of one, or maybe even not a rogue nation, just, uh, India and Pakistan drop a couple of nuclear bombs.

• 45:20Josh Clark?

  Well, that's the model. And like, that is entirely possible. I think a one megaton detonation is what they did this model on, and it was, it had a substantial effect.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, they said 10 years of smoke clouds and a three-year temperature drop of about 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit.

• 45:36Josh Clark?

  Which doesn't sound like much, but if you go back and you read that scientist's study, his executive summary of the study, he points out that that kind of drop ultimately equals a shortened growing season by 10 to 20 days.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:50Josh Clark?

  And that last 10 to 20 days makes or breaks a crop. Like, that means you can either harvest it, or it dies before it matures and can be harvested. And so even just a couple of degrees can lead to widespread crop failure.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:04Josh Clark?

  But this is just if India and Pakistan shoot 50 bombs at one another.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 46:09Josh Clark?

  In a regional war.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:11Josh Clark?

  It could have that effect around the world.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Uh, so we mentioned Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those are the only places we can look. But like we pointed out, the bombs were so different back then, it's not the best comparison. But as far as looking at what kind of fires could happen, you can't tell a whole lot. In Hiroshima, there were more fires than in Nagasaki, just because of the way the geography is in the two cities. But in neither case did they see a ton of secondary fires. Like, it wasn't blacking out the sky.

• 46:47Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  There was black rain, but apparently, you know, like, a week later, most of that stuff had cleared up. But, again, that is, you can't even really compare the two.

• 47:00Josh Clark?

  No, it's a single 21-kiloton bomb.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:04Josh Clark?

  We're talking 50 of those going off in the same area.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Uh, but that report that you mentioned on just like if India and Pakistan...

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Well, how much was it, ten megatons?

• 47:16Josh Clark?

  Fifty.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  Fifty?

• 47:17Josh Clark?

  No, it was one megaton, so fifty of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  Well, it was enough to cause the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board to move the doomsday clock two minutes closer to midnight.

• 47:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  And the doomsday clock is, some people say it's good science, some people say they're fear mongering, but what it is, is it is, it's a design that basically says, here's how close we are to destroying ourselves as a civilization. And there are a lot of factors that go into it, like biotechnology or cyber technology, but the main two are obviously nuclear weapons and climate change.

• 48:03Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Are the two main things that factor into where the doomsday clock sits. And I think in the 1950s, they've only changed it, how many times? Eighteen times since it was created in 1947 have they changed the hands on the clock. In the 1950s, it was at two minutes till midnight. In the early 1950s, the best I think it's been in the early 90s was 17 minutes till midnight.

• 48:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, nice.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, doesn't that feel good?

• 48:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  That's a lot of time.

• 48:36Josh Clark?

  Where are we at right now?

• 48:38Speaker 02

  Right now, we are the closest we've been since 1983, and on January 22nd of this year, it was changed to three minutes till midnight is where they sit. And they have a big, had a big press release, and I'll just read the opening and closing paragraphs, the opening paragraph. "In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapon modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity. And world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth." And then the final paragraph, and there's lots of fun stuff in between.

• 49:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Just like fart jokes and stuff. And then they close with, "In 2015, with the clock hand moved forward to three minutes to midnight, the board feels compelled to add, with a sense of great urgency, the probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risk of disaster must be taken very soon."

• 49:42Speaker 02

  They don't mess around.

• 49:42Josh Clark?

  No.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  And even though that we've, we had been doing a good job of reducing the amount of warheads between the United States and Russia, but things have slowed to a snail's pace now. From 2009 to 2013, Obama cut only 309 warheads from the stockpile. And they're basically saying, we're not doing this as fast as we need to.

• 50:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Like, we need to act now.

• 50:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, there's other people who are saying, we need to rebuild our nuclear arsenal because it's aging and rotting and will be useless by 2020 to 2030.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  How are we gonna drop nuclear bombs on people in the future?

• 50:20Josh Clark?

  Right. There's, it's weird, like, some people are trying to reignite the Cold War.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Well, trust me, I don't, I don't agree with it, but I, I know that most of those people aren't saying, hey, so we can bomb people, it's so we can keep each other in check.

• 50:36Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Which was the Cold War.

• 50:38Josh Clark?

  We could also just-

• 50:38Speaker 02

  All over again.

• 50:39Josh Clark?

  Get rid of nuclear bombs entirely.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  We could do that.

• 50:42Josh Clark?

  And, you know, Sagan's whole thing, I should say, and it's funny that he's kind of like the villain of this whole thing, of the whole nuclear winter debate, because he's such a revered figure.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 50:52Josh Clark?

  Such a great guy, but he really, I purposely made some serious missteps as far as publicizing the results went before they were fully in. But his whole thing was, and if you read his foreign policy thing, his article, it's really, really good. It's not too obtuse, so, like, it's kind of fun to read, but it's called Nuclear War and Climactic Catastrophe, colon, Some Policy Implications. And he says, like, we don't know, you know, what the, what the right answer is. We don't know if it's entirely possible that nuclear winter, maybe our ideas are overblown or whatever, but he says- I'm not willing to take the chance.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:36Josh Clark?

  Why should we take the chance?

• 51:37Speaker 02

  That's my thing. It's like, why risk it?

• 51:40Josh Clark?

  Right. So his solution is, how about this? US and USSR, how about you de-escalate the arms race, de-proliferate until you get down to a threshold that science has said, okay, nuclear winter probably couldn't happen beyond this payload, right?

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:59Josh Clark?

  So even if all of the nuclear bombs in the world at this lower number were set off, we still wouldn't go into nuclear winter.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 52:07Josh Clark?

  But you guys can take out all of your major city centers and still fight your nuclear war, but the rest of the world won't be destroyed by it.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:17Josh Clark?

  That was his solution, and no one took him up on it.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  I've never understood, I don't know, man, we'll do one on climate change at some point, too, but I've never understood why people, and I get that economics play a factor, but why risking the future of mankind for your ancestors to follow is worth it?

• 52:37Josh Clark?

  A lot of it is fear. Like, a lot of these people who have, over the last decades, you know, pushed for that kind of thing, like, fear that, you know, the US will be caught with his pants down, like, genuinely feared the Soviet Union, and like, their heart was in it like that. But, I mean, it's fascinating to me, this whole, like, basically, secret publicity war that's been going, that went on throughout the 20th and as well into the 21st centuries.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:04Josh Clark?

  There's a book, again, I think I mentioned it, called Merchants of Doubt.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:08Josh Clark?

  Everybody should read.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know what? Save your emails to me, because you can still think what you want to think.

• 53:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  I just personally don't get it. I'm not going to throw stones at you and say you're wrong. I probably should. But I won't, because it's not nice to throw stones.

• 53:24Josh Clark?

  It isn't, Chuck. Are you good?

• 53:27Speaker 02

  I'm great.

• 53:28Josh Clark?

  If you want to know more about nuclear winter, you can read this fine article written by Robert Lamb by typing "nuclear winter" in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. Since I said "search bar," it's time for listener mail.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  Oh, no, my friend. It's time for... Administrative Details.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  All right, this is the time that we all know and love. When Josh and I read out and say, "Thanks," we give thanks. We should call this Thanksgiving and not Administrative Details.

• 54:04Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. You ready?

• 54:05Speaker 02

  No, that's okay. Because Administrative Details is such a weird name.

• 54:09Josh Clark?

  This is longer than it's meant to be.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  So this is when we thank people for the very kind gifts that they have sent us over the months. And dude, I think this goes back all the way to January for me.

• 54:21Josh Clark?

  Oh, man. I've got one for Christmas cookies to Mona Colantine and Grandma Colantine.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  I think we always say her name wrong, by the way.

• 54:28Josh Clark?

  No, I think she corrected us and said it was like Valentine.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 54:32Josh Clark?

  So I think I'm saying it right.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Man, Mona's gonna be so mad at me.

• 54:34Josh Clark?

  Colantine.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  All right. Is the Administrative Detail music playing?

• 54:40Josh Clark?

  It sounds like it.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Great.

• 54:42Josh Clark?

  Can't you hear that?

• 54:42Speaker 02

  I'll get it started with, "Richard sent us a guide to the round things of the solar system." Very fun.

• 54:49Josh Clark?

  Very nice. I remember that, yes. Blair sent us a plug-in key holder. You come home, plug your keychain in, and you never forget it. It's pretty awesome, actually. You can get them on Amazon. Electric Socket Unplugged Chain Holder. Search for that, it'll bring it up.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  That's right. I got a postcard, very nice postcard, from Jean-Pierre Bonasco and Stephanie Crick from Port Lacroix, Antarctica.

• 55:12Josh Clark?

  Nice. And it's worth saying again, thank you to Mona Colantine and Grandma Colantine for our Christmas cookies. We look forward to them again this year.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  Yes, we certainly do. Oh, we've got nougat, homemade nougat from Kristin Ferguson again. It's so delicious.

• 55:27Josh Clark?

  I am hooked on that stuff.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  It's great. It is, she, you can find her at Solace Sweets.

• 55:33Josh Clark?

  Man, it is so good.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, Kristin's been sending us this homemade nougat for years, and I was always like, "Homemade nougat? I don't know about that." And then I put it in my mouth.

• 55:41Josh Clark?

  It's amazing stuff.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  It's really good.

• 55:43Josh Clark?

  I know. And then we also got some sweets from Dude Sweet Chocolate out of Texas. I think they might be out of Dallas. They made, like, they sent us really great chocolates, but they also make these incredible marshmallows, too. They made a sweet potato marshmallow.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 55:59Josh Clark?

  And Dude's at Dude Sweet Chocolate, thank you for those. They were amazing. Yumi was crazy for those marshmallows, like I am for the nougat.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  That was quite the bounty, I remember that. As always, every Christmas, our buddy Aaron Cooper in Kansas sends us... Great printouts of these great photo shops that he does of us that he puts online.

• 56:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you can see them on Internet roundup.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, we even got T-shirts this year of Shay Guevara, Josh and Chuck. So Coop, you're the best.

• 56:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that is true, Coop. Mark, Alan and the Trade Monkey team sent us some beautiful jewelry made by female artisans in Southeast Asia and traded fairly.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 56:37Josh Clark?

  The key.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Our buddy Van Ostrin sent us a book.

• 56:40Josh Clark?

  Which one, which book?

• 56:41Speaker 02

  Well, he's always sending us stuff, so I honestly can't even remember which book, but we have like boxes full of things that he sent.

• 56:48Josh Clark?

  He sent us a CD of The Shaggs' Philosophy of the World. You know, what's known as the worst album ever recorded.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:56Josh Clark?

  I've got it at my desk.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  That's a sense of humor.

• 56:58Josh Clark?

  The problem is my computer doesn't have a CD drive any longer. Have you noticed that it's gone?

• 57:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 57:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, computers don't have those any longer. Try to find it on my computer, I defy you.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  I was like, what's that little slot? And you're like, that's where the tissues come out.

• 57:15Josh Clark?

  It's the coffee cup holder.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Our buddies from Venice is Sinking Band sent us an LP, Sand and Lines, and a CD, What We Do is Secret. And there are our friends from Athens.

• 57:27Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Georgia.

• 57:28Josh Clark?

  Huge, huge thanks to Hillary Lozar, who has sent us a lot of cheese over the last year. Some of the best cheese, Flathead Lake cheese.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, Montana.

• 57:38Josh Clark?

  Which like they make a hoppy gouda that's to die for.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  It is very good.

• 57:43Josh Clark?

  Flathead Lake cheese. And she sent us some awesome T-shirts that say Mouth Feel on them.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:49Josh Clark?

  They sent our bar episode.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  She's the best. She and her husband Mike have been big time fans. They're very active on our Facebook page and they like drove to Seattle for our show from Montana.

• 57:59Josh Clark?

  From Montana.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's a teacher.

• 58:01Josh Clark?

  Yep, and they sent you, me and Emily earrings, so thanks for that from all of us.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 58:06Josh Clark?

  Jerry got nothing.

• 58:08Speaker 02

  Tommy Luckrich, Tommy Luckrich. Luckrick? Luckrich.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  He sent us a nice letter.

• 58:15Josh Clark?

  The man whose last name you say four times.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Well, he's the guy, he's walking from Seattle to New York City. And if you want to follow this, I don't, he might be there by now. Tommywalks.tumblr.com, you can check that out.

• 58:27Josh Clark?

  Okay. Huge, huge thanks from me personally, Dolores Snow, who I don't know if you remember when we did the Hot Wheels episode?

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Boy, do I.

• 58:37Josh Clark?

  I said that the Hot Wheels I would love to have was this like, like station wagon camper that said Good Time Camper on it.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Oh, I remember.

• 58:45Josh Clark?

  She mailed it to me.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  That's pretty remarkable.

• 58:47Josh Clark?

  Yep. So, thank you very much, Dolores Snow. That was very nice of you.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, if anyone's listening, uh, my favorite Hot Wheel was the one that had a thousand dollars stuffed in the body of the car.

• 58:56Josh Clark?

  That's a good one.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Um, Stefan, uh, Stefan Brahm, he sent us some currency banknotes.

• 59:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Which I've never collected money, but he sent a 1953 dollar certificate, a 1957 series two dollar bill, and an 1874 fractional currency 10 cent note.

• 59:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was pretty neat.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  I think you got the 10 cent note, didn't you?

• 59:18Josh Clark?

  Cause we spent it. I spent it on candy.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  No. They're like, what's this? It's 10 cents, sir.

• 59:25Josh Clark?

  It's a fraction of a note. Uh, meteorologist Michael Erb, who also moons, moonlights as a young adult murder mystery author, sent us a book of one of his murder mysteries, Kevin McLeod and the Seaside Storm. It's about a little weather detective. It's pretty cute.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  Uh, Jeff Payton sent us a book, Darwin's Black Box.

• 59:47Josh Clark?

  Whoa. And Bethany at thebaseelement, the dot base dot element at gmail dot com. If you want any of the Flir to Sell caramels she sent us, we can highly recommend them. And I got one more from both of us, Chuck, too. Dan Kent, name ring a bell?

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  It does.

• 1:00:07Josh Clark?

  He sent us the pint of Pliny the Elder.

• 1:00:10Speaker 02

  Ew.

• 1:00:11Josh Clark?

  Yes, thank you, Dan.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  That's why it rings a bell.

• 1:00:13Josh Clark?

  You're a top-notch human being. I think we met him in San Francisco at our show, too.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:00:17Josh Clark?

  Thanks, dude.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  I believe so.

• 1:00:18Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  The famous, world-renowned Pliny the Elder beer.

• 1:00:22Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Which I finally tried and it was delicious.

• 1:00:24Josh Clark?

  It is delish.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:00:26Josh Clark?

  Thank you very much, everybody. We have more. If you didn't hear your name, hang tight. We've got probably a couple more episodes worth of administrative details.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:00:35Josh Clark?

  Or Thanksgiving is what we're calling it now. And in the meantime, you can get in touch with us. Send us an email to [email protected]. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 1:01:07Josh Clark?

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• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. You ever show up late to the game and your friends have already saved your seat and your drink and even a plate? Well, that's looking out, and that's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know that staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right, just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Just visit att.com/guarantee for details.

• 1:02:10Josh Clark?

  Introducing Voices of Vivgard. Vivgard is also known as its generic name, Efgart Tigamod Alpha F. And this new show features firsthand stories from people living with a rare disease. Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the voices of Vivgard. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.