After nuclear war: impacts upon New Zealand agriculture and wildlife - a reply

Authors: Kearns MP
Publication: New Zealand Veterinary Journal, Volume 35, Issue 3, pp 37-38, Mar 1987
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Animal type: General
Subject Terms: Veterinary profession
Article class: Correspondence

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Abstract: The recent letter on this subject6 requires comment upon several aspects. These include the pinpointing of the inclusion of this subject in the Wildlife Society Seminar as anti-nuclear agitation, utilising an invalid computer model, inclusion of a subject which is non-scientific, giving consideration to conditions which may be purely hypothetical, and introducing left wing party politics into the N.Z.V.A. The correspondent suggests that we should rely upon the resilience with which New Zealand has successfully overcome previous disasters and that only topics with large volumes of scientific information should be discussed. To attempt a full reply to this “back of an envelope” type of ill-considered correspondence would be tedious. Let it suffice to say that, yes, a nuclear impact upon New Zealand would be speculative and we can only rely upon modelling studies to predict these effects. Even a medium scale northern nuclear war is predicted to produce major cooling of the lower atmosphere and such cooling could be produced by only a 100 megatonne exchange. Cooling of the southern hemisphere mid-latitudes could result from a nuclear war totally confined to the northern hemisphere and a recent prediction forecasts a 10% decrease in solar radiation in New Zealand within 40 days of a northern nuclear war which would produce mean temperature decreases of up to 5°C. Implications of environmental and social consequences of nuclear war upon New Zealand are discussed in publications by the Royal Society of New Zealand and the New Zealand Ecological Society. The effects upon agriculture are examined by Salinger and Harwell and Hutchinson. It is agreed that such models have limitations as there are substantial uncertainties as to the amounts of smoke and dust which would be injected into the atmosphere and predictions must -be treated with caution…

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