Could Humanity Survive a Nuclear Winter

The possibility of total annihilation through a nuclear war has been in the cultural zeitgeist since the start of the Cold War. Just the thought alone might be enough to induce nightmares in the masses, but the possibility has not been entirely off the table since then. Yes, the world’s superpowers have cooled down in the last couple of decades, but whenever there is political tension involving these superpowers, the topic seems to resurface. It is true that nuclear bombs were used on populated cities at the end of World War 2. But this came at a time when the United States was the only nation to yield such a destructive weapon, making Axis powers unable to retaliate. The potential for harm is significantly higher now when we factor in the fact that there are nearly 12,705 nuclear warheads in the world. And it is theorized that a nuclear war can have a cooling effect on Earth because of the dust and smoke a catastrophic event of this magnitude would create. In this episode of Imagine That, we di