Can we prevent nuclear war? | Dr. Ira Helfand | TEDxVail

[Music] [Music] we've heard some beautiful music and some very inspiring personal stories today unfortunately I now need to talk to us about some very dark things our world and everything that we hold precious is in great danger and it is up to us to protect it generation ago we all understood the nuclear war would destroy the world and millions of people around the world came together into a powerful international movement that stopped the arms race it helped to end the Cold War but when the Cold War ended we all started to act as though the nuclear weapons had gone away and they hadn't in fact there are today 15,000 nuclear warheads in the world the vast majority about 95 percent or in the Arsenal's of the United States and Russia the rest are shared by seven other nuclear weapons States and all nine of these countries are actively modernizing and upgrading the nuclear arsenals at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars we know that even a very limited nuclear war as might take place between India and Pakistan through the smaller nuclear weapon states we'd be a disaster for the entire human race if they went to war and use just half of the nuclear arsenals less than one half of one percent of the world's nuclear arsenals twenty to thirty million people would be killed in the first week from the explosions from the fires from the radiation but that's only part of the story because the fires of these weapons started would put 5 million tons of soot into the upper atmosphere blocking out the Sun disrupting climate and food production around the world and triggering a global famine that could kill up to 2 billion people a third of the human race a war between the United States and Russia would be far worse we've been told for 25 years though we don't need to worry about this Russia and America aren't enemies anymore they won't fight well the recent events in Ukraine in Syria have just shown has shown us just how false those assurances were and the nuclear saber-rattling that both countries have engaged in has underlined the danger we face so let's look for a minute at what would happen if their weapons are used I want to start by describing to you the effects of a modern nuclear attack on a large city we're all familiar with the image of her ocean all wiped flat by the atomic bomb this was one small weapon an attack today at a large city like New York would involve not one weapon but 10 or 15 nuclear bombs each of them 10 or 50 times more powerful than the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima to understand what that would look like let me use the model of a single twenty Megaton explosion this model actually underestimates the destruction that would take place if there were many smaller weapons used but it gives us an adequate understanding within a thousandth of a second of the detonation of this bomb a fireball would form reaching out for 2 miles in every direction for miles across within this entire area the temperature would rise to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit which is hotter than the surface of the Sun and everything would be vaporized the building's the trees the people the upper level of the earth itself would disappear to a distance of 4 miles in every direction the explosion would generate winds in excess of 600 miles per hour to a distance of 6 miles in every direction the heat would be so intense that automobiles sheet metal would melt and to a distance of 16 miles in every direction the heat would still be so great that everything flammable would burn cloth paper gasoline heating oil plastic it would all ignite hundreds of thousands of fires which over the next half hour would coalesce into a giant firestorm 32 miles across covering over 800 square miles within this entire area the temperature would rise to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit all of the oxygen would be consumed and every living thing would die in the case of New York City we're talking about 15 million people dead in a half an hour and if this were part of a large-scale war between the United States and Russia this same level of destruction would be visited on every major city in both countries but again this is only part of the story because the fires started by these weapons would put a hundred and fifty million tons of soot into the upper atmosphere and that would drop temperatures across the planet by some 15 degrees in the interior regions of North America and Eurasia the temperatures were dropped 50 degrees we have not seen conditions on this planet that cold in 18,000 years since the coldest moment of the last ice age and under these conditions ecosystems would collapse food production would stop the vast majority of the human race would starve to death and it is possible we would become extinct as a species now it's important to understand this is not just some scenario I've cooked up some nightmare to frighten you this is a real and present danger even if some crisis like Ukraine of Syria doesn't escalate into war between the United States and Russia there's always the possibility that some accident will provoke a nuclear exchange and we know of at least five occasions in the last 35 years when either Moscow or Washington prepared to launch nuclear war in the mistaken belief that was already under attack so why am I telling you these things because while this is the future that will be if we don't take action it is not the future that must be nuclear weapons are not a force of nature they're not an act of God we built them with our own hands and we know how to take them apart the choice is ours fortunately at this time a new movement is growing around the world led by the countries which do not currently have nuclear weapons a movement to abolish these weapons once and for all the non-nuclear weapon states are calling on the nine countries which have these weapons to take their obligation seriously and to negotiate a treaty which will set up a detailed enforceable verifiable regime for eliminating these weapons 140 of these countries have pledged to negotiate an interim treaty to ban the possession of nuclear weapons to make it illegal to own them as a way of pressuring the nuclear weapons States and at the level of civil society hundreds of thousands of people have come together in the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapon I can which brings together the members of some 500 organizations in 95 countries around the world but if this campaign is to succeed each one of you needs to join your voice to the effort no one of you can do this all by yourself but every one of you needs to do that part of the task which is yours to do by telling you these things tonight I placed a terrible burden on your shoulders because once you know of this danger you have a responsibility to act to prevent this from happening and it's a responsibility that will not go away until these weapons are removed but if this is a burden I think it's also a gift every one of us wants to do good in our life we have been given the opportunity to save the world and that is a very good thing to do most of you are familiar I'm sure with a great tale the lord of the ring which tells of the desperate struggle to destroy the Ring of Power before it destroys middle-earth well on this earth nuclear weapons of the closest we've ever come to a ring of power and the struggle to rid our world of these weapons is every bit as desperate and every bit as heroic as the quest undertaken by the Fellowship of the Ring that Fellowship was limited to a couple of people the handful of dwarves and elves our Fellowship requires all of us and if we come together we can succeed we can reject the future of destruction that these weapons will bring and choose instead a future of life for ourselves and our children so I ask all of you join this fellowship choose wisely act with courage and determination so that indeed our children may live thank you [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 99,430

Rating: 4.8554688 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Global Issues, Alternative energy, America, Big problems, Cause, Drama, Ethics, Future, Government, Law, Movement, Nuclear weapons, Peace, Policy, Security, Social Change, War

Id: mUm82W7B2BY

Length: 9min 14sec (554 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

He’s talking about 2-3 billion people dying of famine as a result of nuclear war. Not exactly relaxing :)

[u/SchlossenHosen]

Respect the share, but TBH all I got out of this was being scared shitless!