Hearing specialists and commentators talk about the possibility of a nuclear war made me want to write this column with a somewhat bizarre title, I must admit. But I will try to highlight the links between the three components.
Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
Dinosaurs
Long before humans appeared in the biosphere, the Earth experienced five mass extinctions, the last of which killed the dinosaurs. A meteorite about ten kilometers wide that fell in Chicxulub, Mexico, 66 million years ago, would have largely caused the fifth extinction. The big rock from the sky fell on a very friable gypsum relief of the Yucatán Peninsula. Then, like an apple launched at high speed into a flour mixture, the projections generated by the impact of the meteorite will spread through the atmosphere. Sulfur compounds that will then come down in the form of acid rain. This will cause an annihilation of vegetation on the continent and an acidification of the oceans sufficiently important to massively annihilate the planktonic life, which is at the base of the food chains in the aquatic environment. In addition to this chemical carnage, the dust cloud from this impact will significantly block the sun’s rays from reaching Earth and will harm plant growth for years. The annihilation of plant production will be the beginning of a great famine, in turn fatal for wildlife.
Scientists also believe that when the meteorite hit Earth, it sparked massive fires in the Western Hemisphere. Add the carbon dioxide and smoke from these blazes to acid rain, dust clouds and plant hecatombs, and you have a deadly cocktail for 70% of the species in the biosphere. This Jurassic celestial accident would have exterminated all animals larger than a wolf, including obviously all the large dinosaurs. Some smaller ones survived and became the ancestors of birds. One only has to look at the scaly legs of a hen to be convinced that dinosaurs were not completely wiped from the face of the Earth during the fifth mass extinction.
Dinosaurs ruled the air, water and land for 175 million years before giving way to the mammals that lived in their shadow. Despite popular wisdom, it was a mountain that fell from the sky that gave birth to the mouse which, it must be remembered, is a mammal. For good reason, when the dinosaurs left, the small protomammals, especially nocturnal ones, which struggled to find a place in the shade of these giants, now had free rein to evolve and diversify rapidly. So much so that after the Jurassic fatal to the great saurians, the tertiary era was baptized that of the mammals.
So goes the story of the biosphere. Great disasters always bring casualties and winners, much like a new empire emerges alongside a once great dying civilization.
The disappearance of the dinosaurs allowed evolutionary forces to crown mammals, including this biped that shines by its lack of wisdom at the top of the family tree of life. This mammal so intelligent and creative that it has deeply dissected the laws of nature and has made weapons capable of doing much worse than the big rock that made the dinosaurs disappear.
“Nuclear Winter”
Yes, a massive nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia can cause a catastrophe similar to the one that precipitated the disappearance of the dinosaurs. In addition, here too, it is the consequences on the climate which would be, according to many scientists, much more deadly than the direct effects of the bombs on animal and plant life.
In September 2019, researchers from the Science and Global Security (SGS) laboratory at Princeton University imagined a scenario of an all-out war between NATO and Russia. Strangely, in addition to the tens of millions of immediate deaths and injuries from this total and massive nuclear confrontation, the aftermath of this planetary suicide would look a bit like the one that took the dinosaurs away. Among the other consequences anticipated by the authors, there are uncontrollable fires which would send astronomical quantities of soot and smoke into the atmosphere; a drop in global temperature; reduced rainfall; a massive destruction of photosynthetic activity, and therefore of agriculture, etc. This domino effect would have disastrous consequences on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
In the event of such a confrontation, the Earth would also be enveloped in a screen of radioactive dust with disastrous consequences for food production. Some researchers speak of “nuclear winter” to describe the long-term effects of this radioactive cloud.
This concept popularized by astrophysicist Carl Sagan is at the heart of the destructive effects of massive atomic warfare. A planetary nuclear winter would be a disaster for crop production and the start of major famines that could wipe out our species. In 2013, the International Association of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) estimated that a massive atomic war between India and Pakistan could, in this way, cause a billion deaths and expose 1, 3 billion people to radiation. Now imagine if the conflagration were to be global or between the forces of NATO and Russia.
With the so-called deterrence arsenals, we have the possibility of hastening the end of our planetary adventure. All it takes is an angry crank that no one dares reason not to put their finger in the gear. It only takes a little irresponsibility of ego to accelerate the current sixth extinction and include the human race, which is the main culprit. After we leave, Earth will immediately set about rebuilding its biosphere, as evidenced by the story of Prypiat.
Chernobyl and Prypiat
Prypiat is the agglomeration which is not far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which hit the headlines during this horrible invasion of Ukraine. After the memorable accident in 1986, the town was abandoned and has remained lifeless ever since. Let’s say without human life, because nature began to take back its rights as soon as the inhabitants left the city never to return. Now, 36 years later, the place has become a cited model for anyone interested in the great resilience of the planet. Like a small miniature laboratory, Prypiat shows us why the Earth has recovered from five mass extinctions during its history and that it could survive and digest all the products of human civilization which are believed to be indestructible as was the titanic. In his book titled A life on our planet, David Attenborough looks back on the metamorphosis of the city abandoned since the nuclear accident. Today, when we return to the site of this defunct and radioactive city, the trees have regained control of the square. The plants opened up the cobblestones, shattered the asphalt and came out everywhere. A respectable forest grew in the city and attracted a rich and diverse fauna. Biologists have observed foxes, elk, deer, wolves, wild boar, bison, bears and many more. In short, the takeover of Mother Nature is already well underway.
The history of the city of Prypiat teaches us in these dark times that we must not play with nuclear power.
It also teaches us that our essentiality in the biosphere is only a utopian vision of a species whose high intelligence, inflated ego, genetics of dissatisfaction and dependence on power will eventually take to the same place as dinosaurs. And we, unlike those huge lizards of the past, won’t even need help from heaven to cause chaos. We’ll do it alone like grown-ups.
Humans have succeeded in being their own predator. He has such an imagination for self-destruction and an incredible propensity for making bad decisions that it will soon be time to put him at the top of the list again, ahead of all other animal species. High on the endangered species list.