Submitted 2 weeks ago by hsr@lemmy.dbzer0.com to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
On one hand many countries will invest in heavy industry, manufacturing, and fall back to fossil fuels.
On the other hand, economy overall should slow down and consumption of non-essential goods and services will drop.
I’m not expecting any definite answers or numbers, of course, just some food for thought.
Speed up by far. All the focus will be on producing enough stuff to replace whatever the enemy blows up. Any invention in the renewable department will only come as a result of having used all available fuel already.
The world population still increased during the previous world wars so unless we have a major nuclear exchange that probably won’t change. If we do have a major nuclear war global warming is suddenly not a big deal anyway.
Also a lot less death more injuries than previous wars. With the same amount or more of environmental destruction.
en.wikipedia.org/…/Environmental_impact_of_war
Might be a starting point. It’s not looking good.
Depends on how many humans die.
The tools that would kill enough humans to matter would hurt the biosphere much worse than it hurts humans. Otters and bees don’t have gas masks and nuclear shelters.
Think Covid but with purpose.
Yes, but the opposite way you might be thinking since mass death from war and other catastrophe is strongly correlated with very high birth rates. We’re on track for the global population to stabilize around 10 billion right now, but if billions die in a world war we will probably go exponential again for a long time.
Never heard of electric tanks or jets
im a proponent of green, sustainable, homemade war
Iran tried farm-to-table nukes, but they weren’t really popular.
NCD is leaking
The next US tanks is supposed to be a disele electric hybrid actually. But I’m not saying this because I think it’ll be some sort of improvement. It’s just interesting that they think that is the superior tech.
It has been tried many times in history since the first tanks. I wonder if modern battery tech makes it more feasible than it was 100 years ago.
There are hybrids, even in WWI there were French tanks with hybrid drivetrains, then WWII Germans also had super-heavy stuff with hybrid engines, and the AbramsX is supposed to also be like that.
About the only thing they’ve really embraced is electric motorcycles as they’re quiet.
My question is whether nuclear winter will mitigate the CO2 warming.
In war, the economy does not slow down. It is turbocharged.
A nuclear war could counter global warming by triggering a nuclear winter but the actual effects are very uncertain. Basically, for a nuclear winter, a lot of “dust” needs to be lifted into the stratosphere. Those huge, multi-megaton bombs that they had back in the day caused a mushroom cloud that rose all the way to the stratosphere. Today, smaller, more precisely targeted bombs are preferred. It also depends on how combustible the targets are. No one is really quite sure what the climate effect of nuking a city is.
A substantial reduction in the human population would largely end the burning of fossil fuels and trigger reforestation; removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Ultimately, I would expect WW3 to greatly mitigate global warming.
Honestly, both outcomes seem equally terrifying. Either we wreck the planet faster through war-driven industry or everything collapses so badly that emissions drop, but at an enormous human cost.
Congratulations.
In WW3 either you are going to die or you are going to die…
Most countries don’t have fossil fuels and 28% of oil is offshore. Also heavy industry is very mineral dependent. Let’s be honest, if there will be WW3 most of people will starve to death and start killing and eating each other. Most people don’t know how to get clean water without water pipe. Look how much aid is coming to little country like Palestine to keep them alive.
wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
War releases MASSIVE amounts of CO2 and green house gasses and destroys casts swaths of green spaces.
That’s your answer.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So it depends on the body count and and the average age of the people killed you are saying?
HK65@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
No, because after the war we’ll need to start rebuilding stuff we just destroyed, so the people remaining will increase their emissions many times. Also, hypernormalisation after a war might just render public opinion towards climate change indifferent.
So imagine if the problem was deforestation and people heating with chopped wood. War means that we’ll burn all their wooden houses down, and then see them cut down even more trees to rebuild them.
Also, large wars cause baby booms.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Thank god nuclear winter will cancel out global warming!