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| An anti-nuclear war protest in Islamabad on February 28 |
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a non-partisan federation of national medical organizations in 64 countries, representing tens of thousands of doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned citizens, claiming to share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world freed from the threat of nuclear annihilation, has warned that “an unprecedented global catastrophe” awaits the globe against the backdrop of warmongering in India and Pakistan.
In a statement, IPPNW, founded in 1980 by physicians from the United States and the former Soviet Union who shared a common commitment to the prevention of nuclear war between their two countries, has expressed concern that both countries have traded threats of nuclear retaliation, pointing out, "This is how nuclear war begins."
IPPNW statement comes amidst a top peace activist and expert, Dr Jeff Masters, warning that a 'limited' nuclear war between the two countries is "capable of causing a catastrophic global nuclear winter that could kill two billion people." This catastrophe would happen, he states, quoting a study, even if the nuclear weapons used are "less than 0.7% of the world's total nuclear arsenal of about 14,500 warheads."
Quoting a paper by Brian Toon of the University of Colorado, Alan Robock of Rutgers University, and Rich Turco of UCLA, "Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War", the expert says, "A war between India and Pakistan using fifty Hiroshima-sized weapons with 15-kiloton yield on each country, exploded on cities, would immediately kill or injure about forty-five million people. However, the final toll would be global and astronomically higher, according to recent research."
Referring to another study by Mills et al, Dr Masters says, "Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict" leading to "urban explosions" could start 100 firestorms, which are "self-feeding fires that suck air into themselves and generate immense columns of rising smoke which lofts into the stratosphere, where it spreads globally."
The expert predicts, there would be an "intense heating of the stratosphere by 30°C (54°F), due to absorption of sunlight by the smoke there. In the hot stratosphere, ozone would be destroyed by chemical reactions, causing global ozone losses of 20 - 50 percent over populated areas. UV light would increase by 30 - 80 percent over midlatitudes, suggesting widespread damage to human health, agriculture, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems beyond what the cold temperatures and drought would wreak."
He further warns, "Global precipitation would fall 6% during the first five years, and be reduced by 4.5% ten years later, resulting in a crippling increase in regional droughts", adding, "Over the Asian monsoon region, including the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia, annual rainfall would fall by 20% - 80%, so that even the 'winner' of the nuclear war between India and Pakistan would experience devasting famine..."
Text of the IPPNW statement:
IPPNW calls on India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan to take immediate steps to deescalate the tensions in the disputed Kashmir region and to reduce the grave danger of nuclear war.Recent acts of terror and military incursions in the long-disputed territory have exacerbated a conflict that threatens to plunge these two countries into a fifth and, conceivably, final major war since partition. Both countries have traded threats of nuclear retaliation. This is how nuclear war begins.
Dr Ira Helfand, IPPNW’s American Co-President and author of "Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk – Global Impacts of Limited Nuclear War on Agriculture, Food Supplies, and Human Nutrition", warned that an exchange of nuclear weapons between the two countries would not only quickly kill millions in the region, but would cause “an unprecedented global catastrophe.”
Soot lofted into the upper atmosphere as a result of firestorms created by nuclear explosions would severely disrupt the global climate, leading to worldwide crop shortages and mass starvation affecting more than a quarter of the world’s population.
Since 1998, when the Governments of India and Pakistan made their fateful decisions to test nuclear weapons, both countries have been engaged in a Cold War-style nuclear arms race. Missile flight times between Delhi and Islamabad are only three to five minutes and there is the constant risk of nuclear war by accident, error, or miscalculation.
Dr Arun Mitra, IPPNW’s Indian Co-President said, “India and Pakistan must end their border clash before it engulfs the world. Leaders from both sides must sit down to finally resolve their issues peacefully at the negotiating table and to take immediate steps to reduce and eliminate the threat that their nuclear weapons pose to all humanity.”
IPPNW is working in concert with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and with major global health federations to advance the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The “ban treaty” opened for signature at the United Nations in September 2017. It will enter-into-force once 50 nations have ratified or acceded to it.
There are currently 70 signatories and 22 states parties. South Africa, the only country to have developed and later destroyed its nuclear weapons, is the latest to join the treaty only days ago.
“Until all the nuclear-armed states, including India and Pakistan, comply with the prohibitions spelled out in the ban treaty and eliminate their nuclear weapons,” Dr Helfand said, “the entire world will remain at risk of a catastrophic nuclear war from which there will be no recovery.”
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