Daily Times

First came Harvey, then Irma and now Maria. All of these are hurricanes and they have, one by one, made their landslide arrivals in the US where they have wreaked untold damage to life and property.

Harvey alone is said to have caused $180 billion worth of the above. Yet he hadn’t even completely wound down before Irma showed up to do her worst in Florida. A category 5 hurricane, she left in her wake over one hundred dead and damage to property worth millions. People were still reeling from the shock when Maria appeared on the scene in Puerto Rico towards the end of last month.  Between them, this trio struck, in addition to Florida and Puerto Rico -Texas, Houston, Louisiana and Cuba.

There is no real secret as to why this recent chain of events. Climate change is said to be Mother Nature’s revenge. But the question is what has this time made her blood literally boil so suddenly? For global warming doesn’t just happen overnight; meaning that this explanation for three category 4 and 5 hurricanes in less than one month doesn’t cut it. Pollution and greenhouse gases alone can’t trigger almost overnight such a hat trick of natural disasters.

Researchers concur that nuclear tests can result in rising temperatures, contributing to the longer lasting and ever more scorching heat waves, dry seasons, heavier rainfall and increasingly more destructive hurricanes

North Korea’s recent and successful nuclear test has spread a wave of terror within the US. Indeed, its sixth detonation prompted the Trump administration to warn Pyongyang of a retaliatory American military response. Indeed, Washington has already conducted two tests of its Mother of All Nukes, reportedly the deadliest ever warhead that comes complete with a-$8 billion price tag.

Could this be it? Could nuclear tests be the reason for the sudden acceleration of global warming?

The latter occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) and toxic and greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere and absorb daylight and solar rays that have ricocheted off the earth’s surface. Generally speaking, this radiation would be released into the atmosphere. However, these can ‘live’ for up to hundreds of years, all the while trapping heat and thereby increasing the temperature of the earth. In short, this is what is known as the greenhouse effect. Meaning that the hotter the earth becomes the hotter oceans become, leading to more evaporation. The latter can prompt severe heavy rainfall, as Harvey, Irma and Maria are proving.

Research on the potential global impact of nuclear bombs suggests that even a small-scale war would rapidly lead to a perforation of the planet’s atmosphere as well as the destruction of its bio- and eco-systems. Moreover, radiation would likely go on for more than 10 years due to the absorption of sunlight and gases that are not favourable to our climate; and, in other words, to life itself.  Consequently, we would see depletion of the ozone layer, which serves to protect the earth from hazardous UV rays, by 40 percent in densely populated areas and up to nearly 70 percent in the poles.

Nuclear testing releases large clouds of smoke which go straight into the stratosphere, causing massive temperature drops since they block sunlight. Within the context of nuclear warfare – it is likely that the aforementioned would provoke larger fatalities than would the direct impact of the nuclear explosion itself. Indeed, researchers concur that nuclear bombs can result in rising temperatures, which are fuelling longer lasting and ever more scorching heat waves, dry seasons, heavier rainfall and increasingly more destructive hurricanes. There is reason that Harvey has been crowned the wettest hurricane in history.

Already in the US the consumption of petroleum products for energy represents the biggest wellspring of heat catching contamination, creating around two billion tonnes of CO2. Coal-consuming power plants are the greatest polluters. And the second largest wellspring of carbon contamination in the US comes in the transportation part, which creates around 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 a year. Our seas are also getting hotter, suggesting that hurricanes can become more powerful. Meaning that those of category 4 or 5 could become the norm, at least for the US.

Thus Mother Nature does seem well and truly furious with America. And if this is the case – then the US nuclear super bomb has already backfired.

The writer is a student at IIUI

Published in Daily Times, October 14^th 2017.