Ultimate Upheaval: Revisiting the Nuclear Winter Scenario and Other Possible Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War

This paper attempts to compile nuclear events, including weapon use and tests as well as debates surrounding nuclear winter. It also briefly discusses these devastating environmental effects in the light of a hypothetical nuclear war between two South Asian nuclear neighbours.

The world’s concern for complete elimination of all nuclear weapons has evidently faded away with the recent developments in South Asia. The prospects of peace and disarmament also seem to have receded. In the light of the above discussion about nuclear weapons and their lethal effects on humans and physical environments, one can easily see that the aftermath of a global nuclear war would be more than devastating. In such a war, no nation on earth would remain untouched and no people unaffected. The so-called ‘nuclear winter’ would make life miserable and ultimately impossible for the survivors. It is believed that global nuclear war would drive human civilisation back to Stone Age.