Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Windigo]

just a grim thought but how much can some nuclear winter offset global warming?

:o

Glad I can answer this one for you:

CO2 cycles last for several hundred years. Nuclear winter is for decades.

So a short term negation of warming, with a return to our normal slow upward climb in temperatures in a few decades.

[Dammit Carl!]

So, silver lining....?

???

[MengJiao]

So, silver lining....?

???

  The significant reduction in anthropocentric activity due to various effects of thermonuclear war and unusually low temperatures might mitigate a bit the long-term effects of using fossil fuels, maybe?

[Pete Dero]

So, silver lining....?

???

You'll not be around to bare the negative effects of climate change O0 !

[Pete Dero]

This is what is left of Mariupol.



Video on CNN : https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/23/mariupol-devastation-video-ukraine-jc-orig.cnn/video/playlists/russia-ukraine-military-conflict/

[Dammit Carl!]

You'll not be around to bare the negative effects of climate change O0 !

Fucking well hope so.

[Gusington]

If there is a nuclear winter, killing off a lot of humans, wouldn't that offset a lot of the activity that leads to warming in the long run, for more than decades?

[Jarhead0331]

If there is a nuclear winter, killing off a lot of humans, wouldn't that offset a lot of the activity that leads to warming in the long run, for more than decades?

i think that is Meng's point.

[MengJiao]

If there is a nuclear winter, killing off a lot of humans, wouldn't that offset a lot of the activity that leads to warming in the long run, for more than decades?

i think that is Meng's point.

  Yeah, but I carefully wrote it in pseudo-scientific quasi-English in a poorly directed attempt at the humor of despair.

[jamus34]

Well, it's another first we can claim.

The only species on the planet that directly caused or contributed to their own extinction.

[Pete Dero]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/europes-nuclear-nightmare-isnt-even-close-to-over-as-an-undetonated-rocket-sits-in-kharkiv-nuclear-facility

Russian forces have not only looted and destroyed a laboratory used to monitor nuclear waste at Chernobyl, but an undetonated rocket is now primed to explode at any minute in a Kharkiv nuclear facility, Ukrainian regulators said Wednesday.

The country's State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate said personnel checking out the nuclear subcritical facility Neutron Source on Wednesday found an "object, preliminarily determined to be an unexploded MLRS 9K58 Smerch projectile," which it warns creates "a potential danger of a new explosion in the immediate vicinity of a nuclear installation."

While no damage was reported to parts of the facility that would immediately affect safety, regulators said it was impossible to disarm the rocket because of "constant battles in the area."

The facility has already repeatedly come under attack by Russian forces, the regulator said, and it came under shelling even as the inspection wrapped up.

"Please note that the [nuclear facility], like any other nuclear installation, is not designed for operation in combat conditions. The continuation of its bombing or shelling can lead to severe radiation consequences with contamination of nearby territories," the agency warned.

If conditions at Chernobyl are anything to go by, however, Russian forces are unlikely to heed the regulator's warnings.

Just a day before the discovery of the Smerch rocket, regulators said Russian troops who seized the power plant—the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986—had left it in shambles, with radiation monitors in the contaminated area around the plant no longer working and a crucial laboratory destroyed.

Perhaps more alarmingly, however, Ukrainian authorities said the laboratory that was looted contained "highly active samples and samples of radionuclides that are now in the hands of the enemy."

[Toonces]

Re: Russian use of nuclear weapons: I once had a reference that I've since lost that indicated Russia looks at nuclear weapons as part of a continuum on the spectrum of warfare escalation.  This is in contrast to us, where we look at nuclear and chemical weapons as a "red line" threshold of escalation.  Russian doctrine simply views them as another tool to get the job done.

Edit: this isn't the exact reference, but it's close enough.  Frightening stuff for sure...

[FarAway Sooner]

Given the role that fog of war is playing on both sides in this conflict--as well as for the spectators--I'd be surprised if we can accurately predict much.  After it's all over, I'm sure we'll be totally certain what the inevitable outcome had to be.  But that'll only be with the benefit of hindsight. 

All we know for sure is that we human beings are much crappier predictors than we pretend to be beforehand, or than we see ourselves to be after the fact.  If we end civilization as we know it, that'll put a huge dent in further carbon emissions.  But if we just send ourselves back to the technology level of the 1850s, you can kiss that carbon offset goodbye as soon as we get back antibiotics and coal-burning power.

[W8taminute]

If there is a nuclear winter, killing off a lot of humans, wouldn't that offset a lot of the activity that leads to warming in the long run, for more than decades?

i think that is Meng's point.

  Yeah, but I carefully wrote it in pseudo-scientific quasi-English in a poorly directed attempt at the humor of despair.

The funny/sad thing about all this is I believe it's true. 

[Con]

So, silver lining....?

???

You will become a trusted minion of our new overlords the Rad mutant Cockroaches