A number of people have claimed that a full-scale nuclear war is likely to cause human extinction. I have investigated this issue in depth and concluded that even a full scale nuclear exchange is unlikely (<1%) to cause human extinction.

o, in 1964, McNamara declared a new nuclear policy, stating — in very similar terms to the Navy’s strategy of a few years earlier — that the U.S. needed only enough weapons to kill roughly 30 per -cent of the Soviet Union’s population and half of its industrial capacity. At that point, all of the major cities would be destroyed; launching any more... See more

This week is probably the closest we’ve ever gotten in my lifetime to the brink of nuclear-powered World War 3, yet people seem strangely indifferent to the developments. I share in this under-reaction. Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, have a stronger collective reaction?

It may be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium...and it is conceivable — though much less certain — that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed.