Nuclear weapons are inherently indiscriminate and inhumane. The risk of nuclear war threatens the survival of humanity.
If just one nuclear weapon were detonated over a large city, millions of civilians would be killed by the immediate effects.[1] Many more would die as a result of exposure to ionising radiation, either from radiation sickness or from serious illnesses, such as cancer and leukaemia, that would develop later.
Hiroshima survivor, Setsuko Thurlow, has told of how her fellow schoolchildren were “carbonized or vaporized” in heat of up to a million degrees Celsius when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city in 1945.[2] Radiation affected survivors of the initial blast “in mysterious and random ways”, Setsuko says “with some dying instantly, and others weeks, months or years later by the delayed effects”.
What would happen if a nuclear bomb was detonated over Glasgow?
NUKEMAP Modelling of a surface burst nuclear detonation in Glasgow city centre: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Today, nine states together possess nearly 13,500 nuclear weapons, most of them several times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. These states are currently engaged in a nuclear arms race[3] that is bringing the world ever closer to doomsday.[4]
Studies have shown that a nuclear war using just 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons would cause a sharp drop in global temperatures and rainfall that would last for years.[5] This would impact food production in some regions, putting two billion people at risk of starvation.[6] A larger nuclear war would likely bring about a “nuclear winter”, with global average temperatures dropping to levels last seen during the Ice Age. Food production would be impossible and “most of us would be sentenced to death by famine”.[7]
There is widespread awareness of the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons use in Scotland, yet Scottish organisations continue to invest in the companies that make them. Excluding nuclear weapons producers from investment is the only ethical option, and the best way for investors to mitigate the risk of nuclear weapons use.
[1] See, eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iPH-br_eJQ&vl=en-GB.
[2] Statement to the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, Mexico, 13-14 February 2014: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/nayarit-2014/statements/Hibakusha-Thurlow.pdf.
[3] See A Pytlak and R Acheson (eds), Assuring Destruction Forever: 2020 edition (Reaching Critical Will, 2020): https://reachingcriticalwill.org/resources/publications-and-research/publications/14711-assuring-destruction-forever-2020-edition.
[4] The Doomsday Clock is currently set at 100 seconds to midnight: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/.
[5] A Robock et al, “Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts” (Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 2003–2012, 2007): https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/7/2003/2007/.
[6] Ira Helfand, MD, Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk? Global Impacts of Limited Nuclear War on Agriculture, Food Supplies, and Human Nutrition (2nd ed, 2013): http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/two-billion-at-risk.pdf.
[7] Alan Robock, quoted here: https://nukedivestmentscotland.org/climate-consequences-of-nuclear-war/.
Don't Bank on the Bomb Scotland 