Preising 1

Gianna Preising

Ricci

English period 3

1 June, 2017

Nuclear Weapons:

The peace of the world is extremely fragile. Humans have worked hard to prevent

warfare, they have created treaties and alliances; most of these treaties, however, do not last

forever. Altercations begin to erupt. At one moment Afghanistan is functioning on its own and

then at another it is invaded. Polish people are living freely at one moment and then at another

moment their freedom is stripped. It has come to the point where warfare is inevitable. Bows,

swords, muskets, machine guns, and cannons were all used in historic war. Each of those

weapons lead to a path of destruction. Individually, these weapons had the capacity to take the

lives of many people, some maybe even faultless. Yet, these weapons did not kill thousands of

people with one shot. The historic war weapons also did not leave permanent footprints on our

earth. However, there is a certain weapon capable of killing thousands with one shot and

perennially destroying parts of the earth. This weapon has been used in the past and has killed

192,020 people with one single fire when it was dropped on Japan (“World War II Atomic Bomb

Numbers”). This weapon is the nuclear bomb. Nuclear weapons use fission and fusion to

generate an explosion. During fission, the nuclei of certain heavy atoms split, releasing vast

amounts of energy. Fission can also release excess neutrons, which can trigger a chain reaction if

they’re absorbed by nearby atoms. Fusion works the opposite way; when exposed to extremely

high temperatures and pressures, some lightweight nuclei can fuse together to form heavier
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weight nuclei, releasing immense amounts of energy in the process. A single warhead has the

capacity to release more explosive energy in a fraction of a second than all of the weapons used

in World War II, including the two atom bombs dropped on Japan. (“How Nuclear Weapons

Work”) The United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and North Korea are all

known to possess nuclear weapons. Other countries such as Iran, Pakistan, India, and Israel are

working to compile nuclear arms. These countries are the complication because they refuse to

abandon such weapons capable of mass destruction. There is no protection for the people when

nuclear weapons are present, a simple promise of ceasefire is not enough. Nuclear weapons need

to be obliterated.

One reason that nuclear weapons need to be obliterated is because they are severely

costly. Nuclear weapons are utterly expensive to construct and maintain. There are some nations

that would much rather fund development of nuclear weapons than ensure the welfare of their

citizens. There are only a handful of nations that can invest in nuclear weapons and advance in

being productive and wealthy simultaneously. Some countries, such as North Korea, are

indigent. The welfare of the citizens is not concerned in terms of weaponry. This leads to a

pessimistic effect on the treasury and exceedingly strident political criticism. When more focus is

diverted to the development of nuclear weapons, precious resources are often redirected from

more productive uses. Some countries cannot afford this and the people suffer from the

ramifications. Other countries that are assumed to be equipped and prosperous enough may

actually turn out to be on the contrary, or at least be more affected than one may have speculated.

The United States, for example, is in trillions of dollars of debt, but the country is still investing

in copious projects, including the development of nuclear arms. What many people do not
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perceive is that over the next decade it is estimated that it will cost the United States $400 billion

to operate, maintain, and modernize the U.S. arsenal, according to a new report from

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) (Oswald 1). That is higher than the previous estimate of

$348 billion that was made in 2014 for the year 2023. The CBO’s report does not encompass

some big ticket items according to Greg Mello of the local Los Alamos Study Group research

advocacy organization, such as clean up for nuclear weapons work and disposing of old nuclear

weapons buildings, which would put the ten-year costs at more than $500 billion. (Oswald 1) All

of this means that over the next 30 years, the cost of nuclear weapons for the United States will

unequivocally be over a trillion dollars at its current rate, and nobody has any politically realistic

idea where all of this money will come from. If the United States decides to continue to produce

nuclear arsenal, they will be put trillions of dollars further into debt, and for what? The United

States will either never use the weapons or they will use them to massacre hundreds of thousands

of people and pollute the earth. Nuclear weapons must be obliterated because even the most

prosperous countries cannot keep up with the expenses of constructing and maintaining the

arsenal.

An additional reason why nuclear weapons should be obliterated is the fact that they can

eradicate the earth as humanity knows it. The last count declared that there are currently 23,200

intact nuclear weapons and 95% of those weapons are possessed by the United States and Russia

(Starr 6). A Hiroshima sized bomb set about 12 square kilometers on fire, but an average Russian

warhead would set about 225 square kilometers on fire. This means that the average Russian

warhead can set almost 19 times more square kilometers on fire than the atom bomb did. The fire

produced from the modern day nuclear weapons would have temperatures that are hotter the
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temperatures found in the center of the sun (Starr 6). Just an ordinary fire can devastate

everything that is in its path; if an modern day nuclear bomb was ever detonated, the earth would

be experiencing a fire worse than sun fire. Everything in these flames would be charred and ]

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ated until nothing could survive; it is onerous to conceptualize that anything could ever regrow.

In nuclear war, there would be hundreds or even thousands of nuclear detonations. Millions of

tons of smoke would ascend into the stratosphere, above the cloud level, and then expeditiously

spread throughout the planet. The smoke would essentially form a blanket around the earth and it

would block the warming sunlight from reaching the surface of the earth. The smoke would

assuredly block at least ten percent of the sunlight for the Northern Hemisphere (Starr 7).

Nuclear darkness would rapidly decrease surface temperatures and ultimately create Ice Age

weather conditions that would last for years on end. All humanity can forget about the

probability of global warming and look to the definite recurrence of an Ice Age if a nuclear battle

ever does become a phenomenon. Not only could the smoke shield warm light from reaching

earth, the smoke could also abolish a substantial allocation of the ozone layer. According to

Steven Starr of ​Peace Magazine,​ “25-45% of the ozone layer would be destroyed over the

[mid-latitudes and 60-70% over the northern high latitudes, vastly increasing the amount of

harmful UV light reaching the surface of the Earth.” (7). Not only will nuclear detonations burn

allocations of the earth and then freeze the earth while simultaneously stripping away the ozone

layer, but a massive radioactive fallout would additionally be produced. The radioactive fallout

would release a million times more radiation than the accident at Chernobyl did in 1986 (Starr

7). The ramifications would be even more disastrous if the bombs were to be targeted at nuclear

reactors. A nuclear bomb coming in contact with a reactor would escalate the fallout by a factor

of ten. Chernobyl is still uninhabitable thirty years after the accident and a nuclear warhead was
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not even involved; the complication occurred solely in the nuclear power plant (“Chernobyl

Accident and Consequences”). The detonation of nuclear weapons would leave the earth

uninhabitable. The only way to insure that this outcome will not occur is by eliminating nuclear

arsenals and abolishing nuclear weapons altogether.

A further reason why nuclear weapons must be obliterated is because they have the

power to generate mass death and extinction. The process of building, maintaining, and storing

nuclear weapons is extraordinarily perilous which led to numerous military personnel being

slaughtered in nuclear weapon accidents. If the warheads are culpable for casualties before they

are even launched, it highlights the fact that the weapons are far too dangerous to be

experimenting with. It is especially frightening when there is an unambiguous prospect that

nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands. Politically unstable countries, such as Russia,

are looking to sell and spread their weapons, nuclear proliferation, and the weapons could fall

into the hands of rogue terrorists. Once terrorist groups have possession over such weapons

capable of tremendous devastation, there is no foretelling what will become of the world. What

is distinctly known is that the terrorists will target populous cities for frivolous reasons. Entire

cities would be annihilated along with the hundreds of thousands of people inhabiting the cities.

Certain countries will retaliate and a nuclear war will unfold. Once the warheads are launched,

they cannot be recalled and the damage cannot be undone. There is no defense for nuclear

weapons and there would not be any time for an evacuation attempt due to the fact that it only

takes nuclear weapons 12 to 30 minutes to reach their targets (Starr 6). Innumerable survivors of

the strike would be killed off by disease in the aftermath. Various cancers and radiation diseases

would emerge throughout the survivors in the surrounding areas because of the the radioactive
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fallout and the abolishment of substantial allocations of the ozone layer. In the nuclear Ice Age

that would be created from a nuclear war, growing seasons would be eliminated for at least a

decade, which in turn would make most humans and large animals starve to death if they had not

already frozen to death. The weapons that have been known as “man-killers” since World War

II, would not just be “man-killers”; they could cause various species of animals and plants to fall

into the cold clench of extinction. One generation of one species could could cause hundreds,

thousands, or millions of other species of organisms to become permanently extinct and to

change life on earth as previously known, if it is even possible for any life to exist after a nuclear

war. Nuclear weapons need to be obliterated to save life on earth.

Nuclear weapons must be obliterated because they are utterly expensive to construct and

maintain, they are detrimental to the environment, and they have the capability to generate mass

death and extinction.“I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us

nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give

us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” Ronald Reagan stated

this in 1989 in his SDI speech, even 28 years ago influential characters, such as Ronald Reagan,

knew that nuclear weapons must be obliterated because of their calamitous capabilities. Daisaku

Ikeda, a buddhist philosopher, author, educator, antinuclear activist, and president of Japan’s

largest new religious movements, once said, “Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and

Nagasaki that the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity

and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.” (“Calling for Nuclear Weapon Convention”) Countries

should not ever ignore the catastrophes that nuclear weapons could cause because the country

wants to have pride or wants to feel as though they superior by being able to flaunt nuclear
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capabilities. The detonations of nuclear bombs between Russia and the United States could leave

the earth uninhabitable. Once the earth is destroyed, it will never be the same; there will be no

future generations of mankind and possibly almost no life at all. Keeping peace between all

nations is arduous, but stronger treaties could be made and more developed countries could set

an example to be followed by the rest of the world’s nations. Peace and serenity can be achieved

if the world works together to lower their arms and look at one another equally, as brothers.
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Works Cited

Aliprandini, Michael, and Chuck Goodwin. "Nuclear Proliferation: An Overview." ​Point of View

Reference Center​, 2017 EBSCO Industries, 1 Mar. 2016. Accessed 5 May 2017.

"Fact Sheets." ​Chernobyl Accident And Its Consequences - Nuclear Energy Institute.​ N.p., Mar.

2015. Web. 01 June 2017.

Fessenden, Marissa. "The Health Effects of the Atom Bomb Are Still Being

Studied."​Smithsonian.com​. Smithsonian Institution, 06 Aug. 2015. Web. 31 May 2017.

Grover, Herbert D. and Gilbert F. White. "Toward Understanding the Effects of Nuclear War."

Bioscience,​ vol. 35, no. 9, Oct. 1985, pp. 552-556. EBSCO​host

Hall, Michelle. "By the Numbers: World War II's Atomic Bombs." CNN. Cable News Network,

06

Aug. 2013. Web. 15 May 2017.

"How Do Nuclear Weapons Work?" ​Union of Concerned Scientists​. N.p., 30 Sept. 2016. Web.

24

May 2017.

Oswald, Mark. "Report: U.S. Nukes to Cost $400B over Next Decade." ​Albuquerque Journal

(NM),​ 16 Feb. 2017. Points of View Reference Center (EBSCO​host). A

​ ccessed 12 May 2017.

"President Reagan's SDI Speech." ​President Reagan's SDI Speech | Missile Defense | Historical

Documents.​ AJ Software & Multimedia, 2015. Web. 29 May 2017.

"Seven Biggest Pros and Cons of Nuclear Weapons." ​Green Garage,​ 2015. Accessed 9

May 2017.

Starr, Steven. "Climatic Effects of Nuclear War." ​Peace Magazine,​ 1 July 2009.
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​Points of View Reference Center​. Accessed 9 May 2017.

"Toward 2015--Calling for a Nuclear Weapons Convention | Daisaku Ikeda Website."​Daisaku

Ikeda.​ Soka Gakkai, 25 Apr. 2012. Web. 02 June 2017.

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Grover, Herbert D. and Gilbert F. White. "Toward Understanding the Effects of Nuclear War."

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Aug. 2013. Web. 15 May 2017.

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 Preising 14

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