Shelters are irrelevant---long-term environment AND radiation damage is too strong.

Until recent years the evaluation of nuclear warfare effects has been chiefly in terms of the direct impacts of the blast, heat and local radioactive fallout as they destroy humans, artifacts and social structure. Much of the public debate over the notions of a winnable, limited nuclear war and of survival thereafter has focused on the enormity of demands placed upon medical assistance for those people who live through the initial blast, the rationale or absurdity of plans to carry out massive evacuations as a means of deterring or mitigating the consequences of nuclear attacks, and the complexity of reconstruction.

Now, greater attention is turning toward the environmental consequences of nuclear detonations. This is basically because of increasing recognition that regardless of the immediate impact on lives, health, buildings, public facilities and the means of production, nuclear explosions might drastically alter if not, perhaps, fatally impair the life support systems of the globe. The vision of increasing through civil defense the number of survivors from direct impacts becomes morbidly whimsical if the survivors are in environments no longer capable of providing essential water and food.

It is now generally believed that there is no tenable concept of a winnable nuclear war. Most observers agree that once a nuclear exchange is started it would most likely quickly escalate to a "total" war. Whether or not they are correct could only be proven by an initially limited nuclear exchange that might or might not trigger a broader, cataclysmic conflict. It has, however, become clear that the consequences of a mass nuclear exchange, if it were to occur, would be so catastrophic that all efforts must be exercised to prevent it. What are these consequences?

The following papers review recent efforts towards providing information on the short and long-term environmental consequences of total nuclear war. They do not deal with social or economic disruption to normal functions of society, nor with psychological trauma that may be caused by the extreme events, nor the breakdown of medical and other emergency support systems, topics which are nevertheless of profound importance in consideration of global consequences of such a calamitous event (see, for instance. Chazov and Vartanian, 1982; Laulan, 1982).

In the case of a widespread nuclear exchange as envisaged by some analysts, the intermediate and long-term effects would not necessarily be contained within any specific geographic area. In those circumstances the concept of a battlefield would no longer be applicable even if it were possible to limit the exchange to so-called tactical weapons. The use of tactical or counterforce targets would, in the view of those analysts, quickly extend to attacks on other than purely military nuclear installations.

The quality and extent of impairment to widespread life support systems from various patterns of nuclear explosions have been in controversy. Some sanguine observers have predicted that populations remote from direct bomb produced effects of light, heat and explosive blasts, and adequately protected from short-term fallout, would survive those early threats to life and health and promptly could set about the task of reconstructing their damaged physical and social systems. At the other extreme, observers have asserted that the impacts of a major exchange of nuclear warheads would wound the environment sufficiently to render the globe unable to support any substantial human population beyond a period of months or years. In between, and depending in part on assumptions made as to the number and nature of the detonations, are a variety of estimates as to the scope of environmental effects.