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115-429: The Wild Shore was Robinson's first published novel. The Wild Shore (1984) is the story of survivors of a nuclear war . The nuclear strike consisted of 2,000–3,000 neutron bombs that were detonated in 2,000 of North America's biggest cities in 1987. Survivors have started over, forming villages and living off agriculture and sea. The theme of the first chapters is that of a quite normal pastoral science fiction , which

230-530: A credible minimum deterrence . Commodore Tim Hare , former Director of Nuclear Policy at the British Ministry of Defence , has described "sub-strategic use" as offering the Government "an extra option in the escalatory process before it goes for an all-out strategic strike which would deliver unacceptable damage". However, this sub-strategic capacity has been criticized as potentially increasing

345-451: A limited nuclear war (sometimes attack or exchange ), refers to the controlled use of nuclear weapons, whereby the implicit threat exists that a nation can still escalate their use of nuclear weapons. For example, using a small number of nuclear weapons against strictly military targets could be escalated through increasing the number of weapons used, or escalated through the selection of different targets. Limited attacks are thought to be

460-514: A utilitarian perspective, the value of protecting humanity is the product of its duration (how long humanity survives), its size (how many humans there are over time), and its quality (on average, how good is life for future people). On average, species survive for around a million years before going extinct. Parfit points out that the Earth will remain habitable for around a billion years. And these might be lower bounds on our potential: if humanity

575-400: A volcanic winter that could endanger the survival of humanity. The geological record suggests that supervolcanic eruptions are estimated to occur on average about once every 50,000 years, though most such eruptions would not reach the scale required to cause human extinction. Famously, the supervolcano Mt. Toba may have almost wiped out humanity at the time of its last eruption (though this

690-423: A 50 m/s wind, which is comparable to tornadoes. Each bomber carried 6 tons of bombs. A total of 381,300 bombs, which amount to 1,783 tons of bombs, were used in the bombing. Within a few hours of the raid, it had killed an estimated 100,000 people and destroyed 41 km (16 sq mi) of the city and 267,000 buildings in a single night — the deadliest bombing raid in military aviation history other than

805-454: A comet impact, and employing a missile system to defend against it. Mary Shelley 's 1826 novel The Last Man is set in a world where humanity has been nearly destroyed by a mysterious plague. At the turn of the 20th century, Russian cosmism , a precursor to modern transhumanism , advocated avoiding humanity's extinction by colonizing space. The invention of the atomic bomb prompted a wave of discussion among scientists, intellectuals, and

920-469: A concomitant population crash, population decline by choosing to have fewer children, and displacement of naturally evolved humans by a new species produced by genetic engineering or technological augmentation. Natural and external extinction risks include high-fatality-rate pandemic , supervolcanic eruption , asteroid impact , nearby supernova or gamma-ray burst , extreme solar flare , and alien invasion . Humans (e.g. Homo sapiens sapiens ) as

1035-485: A culture where use of these weapons is more acceptable and therefore is increasing the risk of war, as these modern weapons do not possess the same psychological deterrent value as the large Cold-War era, multi-megaton warheads. In many ways, this present change in the balance of terror can be seen as the complete embracement of the switch from the 1950s Eisenhower doctrine of " massive retaliation " to one of " flexible response ", which has been growing in importance in

1150-544: A diverse set of areas, including the underground subways of major cities, the mountains of Tibet, the remotest islands of the South Pacific, and even to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has contingency plans and supplies for long isolation. In addition, elaborate bunkers exist for government leaders to occupy during a nuclear war. The existence of nuclear submarines , which can stay hundreds of meters deep in

1265-483: A high potential to induce self-destruction. These patterns may include responses of individuals seeking power over conspecifics in relation to harvesting and consuming energy. Given the limitations of ordinary observation and modeling, expert elicitation is frequently used instead to obtain probability estimates. Although existential risks are less manageable by individuals than, for example, health risks, according to Ken Olum, Joshua Knobe , and Alexander Vilenkin,

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1380-781: A horrendous casualty rate, especially since over 400,000 American combatants had already died fighting in both the European and the Pacific theaters of the war. On July 26, 1945, the United States, the United Kingdom , and the Republic of China issued a Potsdam Declaration that called for the unconditional surrender of Japan. It stated that if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction". The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum, sending

1495-451: A large area using conventional explosives, called dirty bombs . The detonation of a "dirty bomb" would not cause a nuclear explosion, nor would it release enough radiation to kill or injure a large number of people. However, it could cause severe disruption and require potentially very costly decontamination procedures and increased spending on security measures. Radioactive materials can also be used for targeted assassinations. For example,

1610-519: A large-scale, "combined nuclear and conventional" war. In accordance with their doctrine, the Soviet Union conducted large-scale military exercises to explore the possibility of defensive and offensive warfare during a nuclear war . The exercise, under the code name of " Snowball ", involved the detonation of a nuclear bomb about twice as powerful as that which fell on Nagasaki and an army of approximately 45,000 soldiers on maneuvers through

1725-542: A last attempt to save the hill, Kevin turns it into a memorial for his recently deceased grandfather, who was a pillar of the community. This makes the commercial development on the hill an unpalatable project for the town. At the end of the novel, Kevin attends Ramona and Alfredo's wedding, and mourns what he's lost and reflects on what he's achieved. Pacific Edge was the winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1991. In an interview with UCSD , Robinson said that "this

1840-464: A limited number of missiles against an adversary as a means of conveying a political message, warning or demonstration of resolve". It is believed that all current nuclear weapons states possess tactical nuclear weapons, with the exception of the United Kingdom , which decommissioned its tactical warheads in 1998. However, the UK does possess scalable-yield strategic warheads, and this technology tends to blur

1955-428: A message that they were not going to surrender. In response to the rejection, President Truman authorized the dropping of the atomic bombs. At the time of its use, there were only two atomic bombs available, and despite the fact that more were in production back in mainland U.S. , the third bomb wouldn't be available for combat until September. On August 6, 1945, the uranium-type nuclear weapon codenamed " Little Boy "

2070-430: A more credible response against attacks that do not justify all-out retaliation, such as an enemy's limited use of nuclear weapons. The second, a full-scale nuclear war , could consist of large numbers of nuclear weapons used in an attack aimed at an entire country, including military, economic, and civilian targets. Such an attack would almost certainly destroy the entire economic, social, and military infrastructure of

2185-469: A much shorter time and can have a long-lasting radiological result . A major nuclear exchange would likely have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to secondary effects, such as " nuclear winter ", nuclear famine , and societal collapse . A global thermonuclear war with Cold War -era stockpiles, or even with the current smaller stockpiles, may lead to various scenarios including human extinction . To date,

2300-421: A nuclear attack. Indeed, it became generally believed that the threat of nuclear war would deter any strike against the United States. Many proposals were suggested to put all American nuclear weapons under international control (by the newly formed United Nations , for example) as an effort to deter both their usage and a nuclear arms race . However, no terms could be arrived at that would be agreed upon by both

2415-489: A nuclear war. Therefore, they expected a large-scale nuclear exchange, followed by a "conventional war" which itself would involve heavy use of tactical nuclear weapons . American doctrine rather assumed that Soviet doctrine was similar, with the mutual in mutually assured destruction necessarily requiring that the other side see things in much the same way, rather than believing—as the Soviets did—that they could fight

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2530-656: A positive thing for the other organisms on the planet, and the planet itself, citing, for example, the omnicidal nature of human civilization. The environmental view in favor of human extinction is shared by the members of Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and the Church of Euthanasia who call for refraining from reproduction and allowing the human species to go peacefully extinct, thus stopping further environmental degradation . Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville 's 1805 science fantasy novel Le dernier homme ( The Last Man ), which depicts human extinction due to infertility,

2645-477: A program to update the bomber fleet to one that was all-jet. During the early 1950s the B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress were introduced, providing the ability to bomb the Soviet Union more easily. Before the development of a capable strategic missile force in the Soviet Union, much of the war-fighting doctrine held by western nations revolved around using a large number of smaller nuclear weapons in

2760-617: A qualitative advantage over the Soviet numerical supremacy in conventional weapons. Several scares about the increasing ability of the Soviet Union's strategic bomber forces surfaced during the 1950s. The defensive response by the United States was to deploy a fairly strong "layered defense" consisting of interceptor aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles , like the Nike , and guns, like the M51 Skysweeper , near larger cities. However, this

2875-631: A species may also be considered to have "gone extinct" simply by being replaced with distant descendants whose continued evolution may produce new species or subspecies Homo or of hominids . Without intervention by unexpected forces, the stellar evolution of the Sun is expected to make Earth uninhabitable, then destroy it. Depending on its ultimate fate , the entire universe may eventually become uninhabitable. Experts generally agree that anthropogenic existential risks are (much) more likely than natural risks. A key difference between these risk types

2990-494: A tactical role. It is debatable whether such use could be considered "limited" however because it was believed that the United States would use its own strategic weapons (mainly bombers at the time) should the Soviet Union deploy any kind of nuclear weapon against civilian targets. Douglas MacArthur , an American general, was fired by President Harry Truman , partially because he persistently requested permission to use his own discretion in deciding whether to utilize atomic weapons on

3105-449: A very short period of time. Such predictions usually include the breakdown of institutions, government, professional and commercial, vital to the continuation of civilization. The resulting loss of vital affordances (food, water and electricity production and distribution, medical and information services, etc.) would account for millions more deaths. More pessimistic predictions argue that a full-scale nuclear war could potentially bring about

3220-411: A war took place—others would be sure to follow over a period of decades, effectively rendering the planet uninhabitable in the same way that a "full-scale nuclear war" between superpowers would, only taking a much longer (and arguably more agonizing) path to the same result. Even the most optimistic predictions of the effects of a major nuclear exchange foresee the death of many millions of victims within

3335-480: A warhead to a target, a missile was much faster and more cost-effective than a bomber, and enjoyed a higher survivability due to the enormous difficulty of interception of the ICBMs (due to their high altitude and extreme speed). The Soviet Union could now afford to achieve nuclear parity with the United States in raw numbers, although for a time, they appeared to have chosen not to. Photos of Soviet missile sites set off

3450-586: A wave of panic in the U.S. military, something the launch of Sputnik would do for the American public a few months later. Politicians, notably then- U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy suggested that a " missile gap " existed between the Soviet Union and the United States. The US military gave missile development programs the highest national priority, and several spy aircraft and reconnaissance satellites were designed and deployed to observe Soviet progress. Human extinction Human extinction or omnicide

3565-470: A world without humans. Physicist Edmond Halley stated that the extinction of the human race may be beneficial to the future of the world. The notion that species can become extinct gained scientific acceptance during the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, and by 1800 Georges Cuvier had identified 23 extinct prehistoric species. The doctrine was further gradually undermined by evidence from

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3680-431: Is a largely unknown and understudied factor in nuclear deterrence thinking, as states possessing nuclear weapons are susceptible to retaliation in kind, while sub- or trans-state actors may be less so. The collapse of the Soviet Union has given rise to the possibility that former Soviet nuclear weapons might become available on the black market (so-called 'loose nukes'). A number of other concerns have been expressed about

3795-448: Is able to expand beyond Earth , it could greatly increase the human population and survive for trillions of years. The size of the foregone potential that would be lost, were humanity to become extinct, is very large. Therefore, reducing existential risk by even a small amount would have a very significant moral value. Carl Sagan wrote in 1983: "If we are required to calibrate extinction in numerical terms, I would be sure to include

3910-476: Is considered the first modern apocalyptic novel and credited with launching the genre. Other notable early works include Mary Shelley 's 1826 The Last Man , depicting human extinction caused by a pandemic , and Olaf Stapledon 's 1937 Star Maker , "a comparative study of omnicide". Some 21st century pop-science works, including The World Without Us by Alan Weisman , and the television specials Life After People and Aftermath: Population Zero pose

4025-441: Is contentious). Since anthropogenic risk is a relatively recent phenomenon, humanity's track record of survival cannot provide similar assurances. Humanity has only survived 78 years since the creation of nuclear weapons, and for future technologies, there is no track record. This has led thinkers like Carl Sagan to conclude that humanity is currently in a "time of perils" – a uniquely dangerous period in human history, where it

4140-536: Is decided. Edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Ćirković , Global Catastrophic Risks was published in 2008, a collection of essays from 26 academics on various global catastrophic and existential risks. Toby Ord 's 2020 book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity argues that preventing existential risks is one of the most important moral issues of our time. The book discusses, quantifies, and compares different existential risks, concluding that

4255-688: Is deconstructed in later chapters. Post-nuclear rural life is hindered from developing further by international treaties imposed by the victorious Soviets , with an unwilling Japan charged with patrolling the West Coast . The Wild Shore won the Locus Award for Best First Novel in 1985 and was nominated for both the Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards in 1984. Algis Budrys described it as "a frontier novel, with rich threads of Steinbeckian populism woven into its cast of characters." Although faulting

4370-503: Is doing far too little, in general, about small, hard-to-estimate risks of large-scale catastrophes. Some philosophers adopt the antinatalist position that human extinction would not be a bad thing, but a good thing. David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always serious harm, and therefore it is better that people do not come into existence in the future. Further, David Benatar, animal rights activist Steven Best , and anarchist Todd May , posit that human extinction would be

4485-447: Is lower than 1 in 14,000 per year (equivalent to 1 in 140 per century, on average). Another empirical method to study the likelihood of certain natural risks is to investigate the geological record. For example, a comet or asteroid impact event sufficient in scale to cause an impact winter that would cause human extinction before the year 2100 has been estimated at one-in-a-million. Moreover, large supervolcano eruptions may cause

4600-407: Is subject to unprecedented levels of risk, beginning from when humans first started posing risk to themselves through their actions. Paleobiologist Olev Vinn has suggested that humans presumably have a number of inherited behavior patterns (IBPs) that are not fine-tuned for conditions prevailing in technological civilization. Indeed, some IBPs may be highly incompatible with such conditions and have

4715-450: Is that empirical evidence can place an upper bound on the level of natural risk. Humanity has existed for at least 200,000 years, over which it has been subject to a roughly constant level of natural risk. If the natural risk were sufficiently high, then it would be highly unlikely that humanity would have survived as long as it has. Based on a formalization of this argument, researchers have concluded that we can be confident that natural risk

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4830-486: Is that there is a relatively low risk of near-term human extinction due to natural causes. The likelihood of human extinction through humankind's own activities, however, is a current area of research and debate. Before the 18th and 19th centuries, the possibility that humans or other organisms could become extinct was viewed with scepticism. It contradicted the principle of plenitude , a doctrine that all possible things exist. The principle traces back to Aristotle , and

4945-640: Is the hypothetical end of the human species , either by population decline due to extraneous natural causes, such as an asteroid impact or large-scale volcanism , or via anthropogenic destruction (self-extinction), for example by sub-replacement fertility . Some of the many possible contributors to anthropogenic hazard are climate change , global nuclear annihilation , biological warfare , weapons of mass destruction , and ecological collapse . Other scenarios center on emerging technologies, such as advanced artificial intelligence , biotechnology , or self-replicating nanobots . The scientific consensus

5060-556: The Cold War . As long as the strategic American nuclear forces could overwhelm their Soviet counterparts, a Soviet pre-emptive strike could be averted. Moreover, the Soviet Union could not afford to build any reasonable counterforce, as the economic output of the United States was far larger than that of the Soviets, and they would be unable to achieve "nuclear parity". Soviet nuclear doctrine, however, did not match American nuclear doctrine. Soviet military planners assumed they could win

5175-543: The Cold War . In 1974, India , and in 1998, Pakistan , two countries that were openly hostile toward each other, developed nuclear weapons. Israel (1960s) and North Korea (2006) are also thought to have developed stocks of nuclear weapons, though it is not known how many. The Israeli government has never admitted nor denied having nuclear weapons, although it is known to have constructed the reactor and reprocessing plant necessary for building nuclear weapons. South Africa also manufactured several complete nuclear weapons in

5290-576: The Manhattan project lead manager J. Robert Oppenheimer recalled: We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, and most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita . Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multiarmed form and says, "Now, I am become Death,

5405-622: The Pacific War and, therefore, World War II, as Germany had already signed its Instrument of Surrender on May 8, 1945, ending the war in Europe . The two atomic bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan's adopting of the Three Non-Nuclear Principles , which forbade the nation from developing nuclear armaments. After the successful Trinity nuclear test July 16, 1945, which was the very first nuclear detonation,

5520-559: The People's Republic of China in 1951 during the Korean War . Mao Zedong , China's communist leader, gave the impression that he would welcome a nuclear war with the capitalists because it would annihilate what he viewed as their imperialist system. Let us imagine how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world, and a third could be lost. If it is a little higher it could be half ... I say that if

5635-488: The United States Navy (and their aircraft) deployed various such weapons as bombs, rockets (guided and unguided), torpedoes, and depth charges. Such tactical naval nuclear weapons were considered more acceptable to use early in a conflict because there would be few civilian casualties. It was feared by many planners that such use would probably quickly have escalated into a large-scale nuclear war. This situation

5750-460: The human extinction , or at least its near extinction, with only a relatively small number of survivors (mainly in remote areas) and a reduced quality of life and life expectancy for centuries afterward. However, such predictions, assuming total war with nuclear arsenals at Cold War highs, have not been without criticism. Such a horrific catastrophe as global nuclear warfare would almost certainly cause permanent damage to most complex life on

5865-535: The hypocenter immediately after the blast. The exercise was conducted on September 14, 1954, under command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov to the north of Totskoye village in Orenburg Oblast , Russia . A revolution in nuclear strategic thought occurred with the introduction of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the Soviet Union first successfully tested in August 1957. In order to deliver

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5980-467: The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko was described by medical professionals, as "an ominous landmark: the beginning of an era of nuclear terrorism ." Alternatives to nuclear warfare include nuclear deterrence , nuclear disarmament and Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons . During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted atomic raids on

6095-406: The "acceptability" of using nuclear weapons. Combined with the trend in the reduction in the worldwide nuclear arsenal as of 2007 is the warhead miniaturization and modernization of the remaining strategic weapons that is presently occurring in all the declared nuclear weapon states, into more "usable" configurations. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute suggests that this is creating

6210-483: The 1980s, but subsequently became the first country to voluntarily destroy their domestically made weapons stocks and abandon further production (1990s). Nuclear weapons have been detonated on over 2,000 occasions for testing purposes and demonstrations. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resultant end of the Cold War, the threat of a major nuclear war between the two nuclear superpowers

6325-520: The Clock has been set at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been. The most recent advance of the Clock's time setting was largely attributed to the risk of nuclear escalation that arose from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nuclear warfare scenarios are usually divided into two groups, each with different effects and potentially fought with different types of nuclear armaments. The first,

6440-567: The Cold War , though none resulted in the use of nuclear weapons. Many such scenarios have been depicted in popular culture , such as in the 1959 film On the Beach , the 1962 novel Fail-Safe , the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb , the 1983 film WarGames , and the 1984 film Threads . The above examples envisage nuclear warfare at a strategic level, i.e., total war . However, nuclear powers have

6555-464: The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events were the only times nuclear weapons have been used in combat . For six months before the atomic bombings, the U.S. 20th Air Force under General Curtis LeMay executed low-level incendiary raids against Japanese cities . The most destructive air raid to occur during

6670-608: The Principle of Population ) and fiction (e.g., Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville 's The Last Man ). In 1863, a few years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species , William King proposed that Neanderthals were an extinct species of the genus Homo . The Romantic authors and poets were particularly interested in the topic. Lord Byron wrote about the extinction of life on Earth in his 1816 poem " Darkness ", and in 1824 envisaged humanity being threatened by

6785-461: The Soviet Union pursued its own atomic capabilities through a combination of scientific research and espionage directed against the American program. The Soviets believed that the Americans, with their limited nuclear arsenal, were unlikely to engage in any new world wars, while the Americans were not confident they could prevent a Soviet takeover of Europe, despite their atomic advantage. Within

6900-448: The Soviet Union, with an estimated 16 million deaths in the Soviet Union (half of whom were estimated to be killed on impact and the rest fatally injured) before bomber aircraft from the U.S. Strategic Air Command reached their targets. Although the Soviet Union had nuclear weapon capabilities at the beginning of the Cold War , the United States still had an advantage in terms of bombers and weapons. In any exchange of hostilities,

7015-498: The U.S. casualties from the preceding island-hopping campaigns , American commanders estimated that between 50,000 and 500,000 U.S. troops would die and at least 600,000–1,000,000 others would be injured while invading the Japanese home islands. The U.S. manufacture of 500,000 Purple Hearts from the anticipated high level of casualties during the U.S. invasion of Japan gave a demonstration of how deadly and costly it would be. President Harry S. Truman realized he could not afford such

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7130-463: The US nuclear war fighting plan/ SIOP every decade since. For example, the United States adopted a policy in 1996 of allowing the targeting of its nuclear weapons at non-state actors (" terrorists ") armed with weapons of mass destruction . Another dimension to the tactical use of nuclear weapons is that of such weapons deployed at sea for use against surface and submarine vessels. Until 1992, vessels of

7245-601: The United States and the Soviet Union. On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan (see also Soviet atomic bomb project ). Scientists in the United States from the Manhattan Project had warned that, in time, the Soviet Union would certainly develop nuclear capabilities of its own. Nevertheless, the effect upon military thinking and planning in

7360-464: The United States developed and maintained a strategic force based on the Convair B-36 bomber that would be able to attack any potential enemy from bomber bases in the United States. It deployed atomic bombs around the world for potential use in conflicts. Over a period of a few years, many in the American defense community became increasingly convinced of the invincibility of the United States to

7475-416: The United States was dramatic, primarily because American military strategists had not anticipated the Soviets would "catch up" so soon. However, at this time, they had not discovered that the Soviets had conducted significant nuclear espionage of the project from spies at Los Alamos National Laboratory , the most significant of which was done by the theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs . The first Soviet bomb

7590-478: The United States would have been capable of bombing the Soviet Union, whereas the Soviet Union would have more difficulty carrying out the reverse mission. The widespread introduction of jet -powered interceptor aircraft upset this imbalance somewhat by reducing the effectiveness of the American bomber fleet. In 1949 Curtis LeMay was placed in command of the Strategic Air Command and instituted

7705-495: The United States, the authority to produce and develop nuclear weapons was removed from military control and put instead under the civilian control of the United States Atomic Energy Commission . This decision reflected an understanding that nuclear weapons had unique risks and benefits that were separate from other military technology known at the time. For several years after World War II ,

7820-509: The ability to undertake more limited engagements. "Sub-strategic use" includes the use of either "low-yield" tactical nuclear weapons, or of variable yield strategic nuclear weapons in a very limited role, as compared to exchanges of larger-yield strategic nuclear weapons over major population centers . This was described by the UK Parliamentary Defence Select Committee as "the launch of one or

7935-408: The abrupt disappearances of species from the fossil record were not evidence of catastrophic extinctions, but rather represented unrecognised gaps in the record. As the possibility of extinction became more widely established in the sciences, so did the prospect of human extinction. In the 19th century, human extinction became a popular topic in science (e.g., Thomas Robert Malthus 's An Essay on

8050-414: The affection of Ramona Alvarez, Alfredo's former long-term girlfriend. On the professional side, Alfredo has been influenced by corporate money and attempts to rezone the last virgin hill inside the town for a commercial development. Kevin loses in all accounts: After attempting a relationship with Kevin, Ramona comes back to Alfredo, and the rezoning of the hill is passed by the council and by a town vote. In

8165-541: The arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union, Western Europe 's nuclear reserves were nevertheless a significant factor in strategic planning during the Cold War . A top-secret White paper , compiled by the Royal Air Force and produced for the British Government in 1959, estimated that British V bombers carrying nuclear weapons were capable of destroying key cities and military targets in

8280-519: The atomic raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By early August 1945, an estimated 450,000 people had died as the U.S. had intensely firebombed a total of 67 Japanese cities. In late June 1945, as the U.S. wrapped up the two-and-a-half-month Battle of Okinawa (which cost the lives of 260,000 people, including 150,000 civilians), it was faced with the prospect of invading the Japanese home islands in an operation codenamed Operation Downfall . Based on

8395-554: The best way of repaying it might be to "pay it forward", and ensure that humanity's inheritance is passed down to future generations. There are several economists who have discussed the importance of global catastrophic risks. For example, Martin Weitzman argues that most of the expected economic damage from climate change may come from the small chance that warming greatly exceeds the mid-range expectations, resulting in catastrophic damage. Richard Posner has argued that humanity

8510-402: The chance that some specific nearby star will become a supernova, but more about the chance that supernovas are more deadly to nearby life than we believe." Some scholars argue that certain scenarios such as global thermonuclear war would have difficulty eradicating every last settlement on Earth. Physicist Willard Wells points out that any credible extinction scenario would have to reach into

8625-474: The deaths of approximately 200,000 people and contributed to the surrender of Japan , which occurred before any further nuclear weapons could be deployed. After World War II , nuclear weapons were also developed by the Soviet Union (1949), the United Kingdom (1952), France (1960), and the People's Republic of China (1964), which contributed to the state of conflict and extreme tension that became known as

8740-511: The destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another. Immediately after the atomic bombings of Japan, the status of atomic weapons in international and military relations was unclear. Presumably, the United States hoped atomic weapons could offset the Soviet Union's larger conventional ground forces in Eastern Europe , and possibly be used to pressure Soviet leader Joseph Stalin into making concessions. Under Stalin,

8855-501: The difference between "strategic", "sub-strategic", and "tactical" use or weapons. American, French and British nuclear submarines are believed to carry at least some missiles with dial-a-yield warheads for this purpose, potentially allowing a strike as low as one kiloton (or less) against a single target. Only the People's Republic of China and the Republic of India have declarative, unqualified, unconditional " no first use " nuclear weapons policies. India and Pakistan maintain only

8970-435: The early 1980s, a specific mechanism by which nuclear war could result in human extinction, again raised the issue to prominence. Writing about these findings in 1983, Carl Sagan argued that measuring the severity of extinction solely in terms of those who die "conceals its full impact", and that nuclear war "imperils all of our descendants, for as long as there will be humans." John Leslie 's 1996 book The End of The World

9085-425: The equivalent of 10 cybernetic human life-years. Some economists and philosophers have defended views, including exponential discounting and person-affecting views of population ethics , on which future people do not matter (or matter much less), morally speaking. While these views are controversial, they would agree that an existential catastrophe would be among the worst things imaginable. It would cut short

9200-425: The future of their descendants. Extinction is the undoing of the human enterprise." Philosopher Robert Adams in 1989 rejected Parfit's "impersonal" views but spoke instead of a moral imperative for loyalty and commitment to "the future of humanity as a vast project... The aspiration for a better society – more just, more rewarding, and more peaceful... our interest in the lives of our children and grandchildren, and

9315-422: The greatest risks are presented by unaligned artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Potential anthropogenic causes of human extinction include global thermonuclear war , deployment of a highly effective biological weapon , ecological collapse, runaway artificial intelligence , runaway nanotechnology (such as a grey goo scenario), overpopulation and increased consumption causing resource depletion and

9430-452: The hopes that they will be able, in turn, to have the lives of their children and grandchildren as projects." Philosopher Nick Bostrom argues in 2013 that preference-satisfactionist , democratic, custodial, and intuitionist arguments all converge on the common-sense view that preventing existential risk is a high moral priority, even if the exact "degree of badness" of human extinction varies between these philosophies. Parfit argues that

9545-644: The invasion . Since 1947, the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has visualized how close the world is to a nuclear war. The Doomsday Clock reached high points in 1953, when the Clock was set to two minutes until midnight after the U.S. and the Soviet Union began testing hydrogen bombs, and in 2018, following the failure of world leaders to address tensions relating to nuclear weapons and climate change issues. Since 2023,

9660-588: The lives of eight billion presently existing people, destroying all of what makes their lives valuable, and most likely subjecting many of them to profound suffering. So even setting aside the value of future generations, there may be strong reasons to reduce existential risk, grounded in concern for presently existing people. Beyond utilitarianism, other moral perspectives lend support to the importance of reducing existential risk. An existential catastrophe would destroy more than just humanity – it would destroy all cultural artifacts, languages, and traditions, and many of

9775-419: The natural sciences, particularly the discovery of fossil evidence of species that appeared to no longer exist, and the development of theories of evolution. In On the Origin of Species , Darwin discussed the extinction of species as a natural process and a core component of natural selection. Notably, Darwin was skeptical of the possibility of sudden extinction, viewing it as a gradual process. He held that

9890-555: The non-dock industrial production destroyed. The U.S., despite not having a third device ready to be dropped, gave Japan one last warning that there would be another bombing if they did not surrender, and the target would be Tokyo . Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers on August 15, 1945, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, officially ending

10005-627: The novel's "failure to sustain the weight of its undertakings," he concluded that Wild Shore was "a remarkably powerful piece of work, still a good book, almost without doubt a harbinger of great books to come from Robinson. It is also a really interesting and good book." In The Gold Coast (1988) the reader learns about Southern California in 2027, a dystopian extension of the 1980s' Los Angeles and car oriented culture and life-style: "an endless sprawl of condos, freeways and malls." The book follows two groups of characters, connected by 27 year-old Jim McPherson and his father Dennis. The Gold Coast

10120-446: The number of people in future generations who would not be born.... (By one calculation), the stakes are one million times greater for extinction than for the more modest nuclear wars that kill "only" hundreds of millions of people. There are many other possible measures of the potential loss – including culture and science, the evolutionary history of the planet, and the significance of the lives of all of our ancestors who contributed to

10235-518: The ocean for potentially years at a time, should also be considered. Any number of events could lead to a massive loss of human life, but if the last few (see minimum viable population ) most resilient humans are unlikely to also die off, then that particular human extinction scenario may not seem credible. "Existential risks" are risks that threaten the entire future of humanity, whether by causing human extinction or by otherwise permanently crippling human progress. Multiple scholars have argued based on

10350-446: The only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict occurred in 1945 with the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . On August 6, 1945, a uranium gun-type device (code name " Little Boy ") was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima . Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium implosion-type device (code name " Fat Man ") was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki . Together, these two bombings resulted in

10465-477: The planet unlivable. A 1950 Gallup poll found that 19% of Americans believed that another world war would mean "an end to mankind". Rachel Carson 's 1962 book Silent Spring raised awareness of environmental catastrophe. In 1983, Brandon Carter proposed the Doomsday argument , which used Bayesian probability to predict the total number of humans that will ever exist. The discovery of " nuclear winter " in

10580-634: The planet, its ecosystems, and the global climate. A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2006 asserted that a small-scale regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more. In a regional nuclear conflict scenario in which two opposing nations in the subtropics each used 50 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons (c. 15 kiloton each) on major population centers,

10695-428: The possibility of human extinction does have practical implications. For instance, if the "universal" doomsday argument is accepted, it changes the most likely source of disasters, and hence the most efficient means of preventing them. They write: "...you should be more concerned that a large number of asteroids have not yet been detected than about the particular orbit of each one. You should not worry especially about

10810-475: The process was not the nuclear attacks, but the Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo . On the night of March 9–10, 1945, Operation Meetinghouse commenced and 334 Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers took off to raid, with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of incendiaries and explosives on Tokyo . The bombing was meant to burn wooden buildings and indeed the bombing caused fire that created

10925-420: The public at large about the risk of human extinction. In a 1945 essay, Bertrand Russell wrote that "[T]he prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense." In 1950, Leo Szilard suggested it was technologically feasible to build a cobalt bomb that could render

11040-407: The researchers predicted fatalities ranging from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country. The authors of the study estimated that as much as five million tons of soot could be released, producing a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America and Eurasia (including most of the grain-growing regions). The cooling would last for years and could be "catastrophic", according to

11155-640: The researchers. Either a limited or full-scale nuclear exchange could occur during an accidental nuclear war , in which the use of nuclear weapons is triggered unintentionally. Postulated triggers for this scenario have included malfunctioning early warning devices and/or targeting computers, deliberate malfeasance by rogue military commanders, consequences of an accidental straying of warplanes into enemy airspace, reactions to unannounced missile tests during tense diplomatic periods, reactions to military exercises, mistranslated or miscommunicated messages, and others. A number of these scenarios actually occurred during

11270-424: The rest of the world were lost to them. This option was rejected with the formation of NATO and the decision to permanently station troops in Europe. In the summer of 1951, Project Vista started, in which project analysts such as Robert F. Christy looked at how to defend Western Europe from a Soviet invasion. The emerging development of tactical nuclear weapons was looked upon as a means to give Western forces

11385-670: The security of nuclear weapons in newer nuclear powers with relatively less stable governments, such as Pakistan , but in each case, the fears have been addressed to some extent by statements and evidence provided by those nations, as well as cooperative programs between nations. Worry remains, however, in many circles that a relative decrease in the security of nuclear weapons has emerged in recent years, and that terrorists or others may attempt to exert control over (or use) nuclear weapons, militarily applicable technology, or nuclear materials and fuel. Another possible nuclear terrorism threat are devices designed to disperse radioactive materials over

11500-515: The size of the "cosmic endowment" can be calculated from the following argument: If Earth remains habitable for a billion more years and can sustainably support a population of more than a billion humans, then there is a potential for 10 (or 10,000,000,000,000,000) human lives of normal duration. Bostrom goes further, stating that if the universe is empty, then the accessible universe can support at least 10 biological human life-years; and, if some humans were uploaded onto computers, could even support

11615-500: The size of the "cosmic endowment" that because of the inconceivably large number of potential future lives that are at stake, even small reductions of existential risk have great value. In one of the earliest discussions of ethics of human extinction, Derek Parfit offers the following thought experiment: I believe that if we destroy mankind, as we now can, this outcome will be much worse than most people think. Compare three outcomes: (1) Peace. (2) A nuclear war that kills 99% of

11730-560: The target nation, and would likely have a devastating effect on Earth's biosphere. Some Cold War strategists such as Henry Kissinger argued that a limited nuclear war could be possible between two heavily armed superpowers (such as the United States and the Soviet Union ). Some predict, however, that a limited war could potentially " escalate " into a full-scale nuclear war. Others have called limited nuclear war "global nuclear holocaust in slow motion", arguing that—once such

11845-446: The things we value. So moral viewpoints on which we have duties to protect and cherish things of value would see this as a huge loss that should be avoided. One can also consider reasons grounded in duties to past generations. For instance, Edmund Burke writes of a "partnership...between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born". If one takes seriously the debt humanity owes to past generations, Ord argues

11960-494: The world's existing population. (3) A nuclear war that kills 100%. (2) would be worse than (1), and (3) would be worse than (2). Which is the greater of these two differences? Most people believe that the greater difference is between (1) and (2). I believe that the difference between (2) and (3) is very much greater. The scale of what is lost in an existential catastrophe is determined by humanity's long-term potential – what humanity could expect to achieve if it survived. From

12075-499: The worst came to the worst and one-half dies, there will still be one-half left, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. After a few years there would be 2.7 billion people again. The concept of a "Fortress North America" emerged during the Second World War and persisted into the Cold War to refer to the option of defending Canada and the United States against their enemies if

12190-408: Was a small response compared to the construction of a huge fleet of nuclear bombers. The principal nuclear strategy was to massively penetrate the Soviet Union. Because such a large area could not be defended against this overwhelming attack in any credible way, the Soviet Union would lose any exchange. This logic became ingrained in American nuclear doctrine and persisted for much of the duration of

12305-481: Was an academic treatment of the science and ethics of human extinction. In it, Leslie considered a range of threats to humanity and what they have in common. In 2003, British Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees published Our Final Hour , in which he argues that advances in certain technologies create new threats to the survival of humankind and that the 21st century may be a critical moment in history when humanity's fate

12420-485: Was an important tenet of Christian theology. Ancient philosophers such as Plato , Aristotle , and Lucretius wrote of the end of humankind only as part of a cycle of renewal. Marcion of Sinope was a proto-protestant who advocated for antinatalism that could lead to human extinction. Later philosophers such as Al-Ghazali , William of Ockham , and Gerolamo Cardano expanded the study of logic and probability and began wondering if abstract worlds existed, including

12535-427: Was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an energy of about 15 kilotons of TNT (63,000 gigajoules), destroying nearly 50,000 buildings (including the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division ) and killing approximately 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers. Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium-type nuclear weapon codenamed " Fat Man "

12650-457: Was generally thought to have declined. Since then, concern over nuclear weapons has shifted to the prevention of localized nuclear conflicts resulting from nuclear proliferation , and the threat of nuclear terrorism . However, the threat of nuclear war is considered to have resurged after the Russian invasion of Ukraine , particularly with regard to Russian threats to use nuclear weapons during

12765-546: Was more or less a deliberate copy of the Fat Man plutonium device. In the same year the first US-Soviet nuclear war plan was penned in the US with Operation Dropshot . With the monopoly over nuclear technology broken, worldwide nuclear proliferation accelerated. The United Kingdom tested its first independent atomic bomb in 1952, followed by France developing its first atomic bomb in 1960 and then China developing its first atomic bomb in 1964. While much smaller than

12880-622: Was nominated for the Campbell , Locus , and British Science Fiction award in 1989. Pacific Edge (1990), set in the El Modena neighborhood of Orange in 2065, narrates a summer in the life of Kevin Clayborne, a young house renovator recently elected for the town council of El Modena. Kevin finds himself at odds with the town mayor, Alfredo Blair, both personally and professionally. On the personal side, both Kevin and Alfredo are vying for

12995-463: Was one of my few original ideas" and that he came up with the idea for the novels while still at UCSD on a drive to Orange County, California to visit his parents. Nuclear war Nuclear warfare , also known as atomic warfare , is a military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry . Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction ; in contrast to conventional warfare , nuclear warfare can produce destruction in

13110-614: Was particularly exacerbated by the fact that such weapons at sea were not constrained by the safeguards provided by the Permissive Action Link attached to U.S. Air Force and Army nuclear weapons. It is unknown if the navies of the other nuclear powers yet today deploy tactical nuclear weapons at sea. The 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review emphasised the need for the US to have sub-strategic nuclear weapons as additional layers for its nuclear deterrence. Nuclear terrorism by non-state organizations or actors (even individuals)

13225-496: Was used against the Japanese city of Nagasaki, with the explosion equivalent to about 20 kilotons of TNT (84,000 gigajoules), destroying 60% of the city and killing approximately 35,000 people, including 23,200–28,200 Japanese munitions workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese combatants. The industrial damage in Nagasaki was high, partly owing to the inadvertent targeting of the industrial zone, leaving 68–80 percent of

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