Can the nuclear race in the Indian subcontinent lead to a major famine in the world, with even big nations like the United States of America and China being hit by an acute shortage of food?
With India successfully test-firing Agni-V, the long-range ballistic missile capable of hitting targets as far away as 5,500 km, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War has come out with a new report. This report predicts significant climate disruption around the globe in the event of a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
The report, prepared in association with the Physicians for Social Responsibility, US, will be released on Tuesday. It points out that the new missile test has once again ratcheted up tensions in the South Asia region. A regional nuclear war, like for instance a clash between India and Pakistan, would cause a significant climate disruption around the globe, leading to a sharp decline in agricultural production. This is the first major report on the consequences of a regional nuclear war on agricultural production, global climate and environment, and the health of human beings, animals and plants.
Both the USA and China could be hit by a famine, endangering the lives of the nearly one billion malnourished people on earth, according to Dr Ira Hefand, who prepared the report based on primary research articles to be published in the journal, Climatic Change. Dr Hefand is the vice-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, North America unit.
According to the study, the nuclear weapons danger is real and growing —nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the thousands of weapons still on hair-trigger alert in the United States and Russia, put the planet at risk. Along with global warming, nuclear war is the greatest preventable danger facing humankind. There are still more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and no comprehensive process is under way to abolish them. Opinion polls show that a majority of the world’s inhabitants want their governments to start negotiations to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
Physicians for Social Responsibility is the largest physician-led organisation in the US, working to prevent nuclear war and proliferation and to slow, stop and reverse global warming without using expensive, unsafe nuclear power and toxic degradation of the environment.