Selects: The Great Nuclear Winter Debate of 1983

Summary

Summary of "Stuff You Should Know" Episode: The Great Nuclear Winter Debate of 1983

Podcast Information:

• Title: Stuff You Should Know
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Episode: Selects: The Great Nuclear Winter Debate of 1983
• Release Date: June 21, 2025

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Introduction to the Nuclear Winter Debate

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant, co-hosts of Stuff You Should Know, delve into the intricate and heated discussions surrounding the concept of nuclear winter that emerged prominently in 1983. This episode revisits historical debates, scientific analyses, and the socio-political ramifications of nuclear winter theories during the Cold War era.

Understanding Nuclear Winter

00:56 - Defining Nuclear Winter

Nuclear winter refers to the severe and prolonged global climatic cooling effect hypothesized to occur after widespread firestorms following a nuclear war. The term encapsulates the aftermath of nuclear explosions, focusing primarily on the atmospheric consequences rather than the immediate destruction caused by the blasts.

Chuck Bryant explains:

"The idea of nuclear winter is that there would be enough ash from the resulting fires to block sunlight, causing a significant drop in global temperatures."
[08:50]

Historical Context and Initial Scientific Perspectives

03:00 - Early Scientific Discussions

In the early 1980s, as nuclear arsenals were at their peak, a faction of hawkish scientists advocated for an increased nuclear buildup. In stark contrast, Carl Sagan and his colleagues raised alarm about the potential for nuclear winter, emphasizing the long-term environmental and existential threats posed by nuclear warfare.

04:17 - The Great Debate

The central debate of 1983 revolved around the severity and legitimacy of nuclear winter projections. Critics argued that the science behind nuclear winter was speculative and intended to dissuade nuclear proliferation, while proponents maintained that the potential consequences warranted immediate attention and policy action.

"If you're a scientist, there's no certainty in anything you say. It can always be disproven... So no science is going to be like, this is 100% certain."
— Josh Clark
[06:55]

Scenarios of Nuclear Winter

08:33 - Atmospheric Impact

Chuck Bryant outlines the delicate balance of Earth's atmosphere, describing it as a finely tuned system where even minor disruptions can lead to catastrophic outcomes.

"Too much sun, even by a little bit, could be catastrophic. And too little sun, but even by a little bit, could be catastrophic."
[08:33]

10:30 - Historical Analogies: Volcanic Eruptions

To contextualize nuclear winter, the hosts reference historical volcanic eruptions, such as the Krakatoa eruption in 1883 and Mount Tambora in 1815, which led to significant climatic anomalies like the "Year Without a Summer."

"The sky was red, and they think that's the way the sky looked was because of this volcano."
— Chuck Bryant
[12:08]

Scientific Consensus and Revisions

33:44 - TTAPS Report

The seminal work on nuclear winter, known as the TTAPS report (Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollard, and Sagan), was published in the prestigious journal Science. This report brought significant attention to the potential global risks of nuclear war beyond immediate devastation.

36:20 - Revisions and Evolving Models

Seven years post the initial report, the TTAPS findings were revisited and updated with more sophisticated climate models. The revised report, often referred to as the "Nuclear Autumn," presented scenarios that were somewhat less dire but still underscored the severe global consequences of nuclear warfare.

"They came upon what seemed to be a consensus that you could probably count on something like a 15-degree Celsius drop in global temperatures."
— Josh Clark
[39:17]

Controversies and Public Perception

35:48 - Publicizing Science and Backlash

Carl Sagan took proactive steps to educate the public about nuclear winter, including writing for Parade Magazine. This move, while aimed at raising awareness, drew criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Proponents saw it as necessary advocacy, while detractors labeled it as fear-mongering.

"Michael Crichton... attacked it in a 2003 speech... accused these guys of creating science by consensus."
[42:04]

43:51 - The Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock, maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, symbolizes the proximity of humanity to global catastrophe. In recent years, concerns over nuclear weapons and climate change have brought the clock alarmingly close to midnight.

"Right now we are the closest we've been since 1983. On January 22nd of this year, it was changed to three minutes to midnight."
— Chuck Bryant
[47:52]

Current Relevance and Future Implications

44:44 - Modern Threats and Rogue Nations

While the Cold War era saw massive nuclear arsenals, today's concerns shift towards regional conflicts, specifically between nations like India and Pakistan. The detonation of a handful of nuclear weapons in such conflicts could still trigger significant climatic disruptions.

"10 years of smoke clouds and a three-year temperature drop of about 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit... could lead to widespread crop failure."
— Chuck Bryant
[44:34]

51:13 - Solutions and Policy Recommendations

Carl Sagan advocated for the de-escalation of nuclear arsenals to thresholds that would prevent the onset of nuclear winter, ensuring that even if nuclear war occurred, its atmospheric consequences would be mitigated.

"We could take out all your major city centers and still fight your nuclear war, but the rest of the world won't be destroyed by it."
— Josh Clark
[51:20]

Conclusion

The 1983 debate on nuclear winter highlighted the profound implications of nuclear warfare beyond immediate casualties. As scientific models have evolved, the consensus underscores the necessity of nuclear disarmament and responsible policy-making to avert potential global climatic disasters. The ongoing proximity of the Doomsday Clock serves as a stark reminder of the fragile balance humanity maintains in the face of such existential threats.

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Notable Quotes:

• "If you're a scientist, there's no certainty in anything you say. It can always be disproven... So no science is going to be like, this is 100% certain."
  — Josh Clark
  [06:55]

• "Too much sun, even by a little bit, could be catastrophic. And too little sun, but even by a little bit, could be catastrophic."
  — Chuck Bryant
  [08:33]

• "We need to act now."
  — Chuck Bryant
  [49:24]

• "The probability of global catastrophe is very high. And the actions needed to reduce the risk of disaster must be taken very soon."
  — Chuck Bryant
  [48:56]

---

Further Resources: For those interested in exploring the topic further, the hosts recommend reading Robert Lamb's article on nuclear winter available at HowStuffWorks.

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Josh Clark]

Hello, Hello. Malcolm Glabel here from Revisionist History. Did you know T Mobile for Business has an awards show specifically for their customers? It's happening October 20th in sunny Orlando, Florida, and I'm encouraging you, yes, you to enter. This event honors outside the box thinking that changes industries, communities and even the world. And if that doesn't sound great already, I'll be there. And as the keynote speaker, if your company did something next level, using T Mobile for business, you're eligible. Entries close July 31, so head to t mobile.com enter to learn more and nominate your team.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hi, everybody. I picked this selection. This is Chuck, by the way, of Stuff youf Should know, co host, September 17, 2015. We did an episode called the Great Nuclear winter debate of 1983, and I picked this one because I don't remember even recording it. What in the world were they debating in 1983 about the great Nuclear Winter? It was probably just nuclear winter. And the Great refers to the debate. Now that I see how it's worded. But you know what I mean. I guess I'm going to learn right around with you because I'm about to listen to it right now. Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there somewhere off in the ether. But I don't think on ether, just in the ether.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

Trying not to breathe right now.

[Chuck Bryant]

We had a tank of ether in.

[Josh Clark]

Here, it'd be a much different podcast.

[Chuck Bryant]

Josh and Chuck's Ether Cats.

[Josh Clark]

Do they put those things in tanks?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I don't know. Surely. Yeah, right. No. Is it like in the bottle still? Like the 1800s?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think you just have it in a little milk bottle. You put it in a rag, you put it in your face, then go to Happy Town. Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

If there's any pharmacists out there that want to set us straight. Let us know how ether comes these days. It's probably a gas.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I imagine it's not like Hunter S. Thompson.

[Josh Clark]

I think we talked about it before in anesthesia, probably. It's like ether gas.

[Chuck Bryant]

What a weird start.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That has nothing to do with what we're about to talk about. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I was trying to relate it, but there really is nothing.

[Josh Clark]

One of my favorite, favorite topics of all time, nuclear holocaust from the Cold War.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we did one in the Cold War, didn't we?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, we've done several.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we batted around this thing. But we've never done a full nuclear holocaust podcast, have we?

[Josh Clark]

No. And nuclear holocaust is. That's not quite right. That's not the right way to put it. Because what we're talking about is actually the after effects from a nuclear holocaust.

[Chuck Bryant]

Isn't that the holocaust?

[Josh Clark]

If you want to be a purist, the nuclear holocaust is the immediate destruction as a result of exploding nuclear bombs over, like, population centers and stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was the whole kit.

[Josh Clark]

And caboodle, I should say. If you're a purist and you want to say it from my opinion, that's what a nuclear holocaust is.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, I think we know what's going on here.

[Josh Clark]

Got it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Robert Lamb wrote this stuff to blow your mind.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I have to say, I said, man, way to go on that one. That was a good one.

[Chuck Bryant]

You told him that?

[Josh Clark]

I did. I actually uttered those words.

[Chuck Bryant]

What did he say?

[Josh Clark]

Thanks, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's nice.

[Josh Clark]

But the thing that gets me about nuclear winter, which we will talk about in depth, what fascinates me about it just as much as the nuclear winter itself. Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Is the controversy, the debate that arose from it. Throughout the 80s, there was a huge debate.

[Chuck Bryant]

Debate on the severity.

[Josh Clark]

Debate. Yeah, debate on whether it was something to worry about or not.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Well, I looked up because I was like, does anyone think that this is a myth, an outright myth? And from what I saw in my research is that, no, this is fact. It's just a dispute. What's a dispute is the scenario and the severity of what would happen. But no one says, like, no, there would be no nuclear winter. There would be no problems after a nuclear bomb drop.

[Josh Clark]

So there used to be, like back in. In the early 80s when this was a huge new thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There was a group of scientists who were hawkish, very much in favor of the US building up its nuclear arsenal as much as possible and started a. Basically a PR letter writing campaign to discredit the science behind this, they. These guys don't know what they're talking about.

[Chuck Bryant]

So what did they think? That the bomb would drop and then, like, the next day the birds would be out?

[Josh Clark]

They said initially, yeah, that was kind of. Their position was just to poke holes in this and that it wasn't legitimate science. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it doesn't sound like that.

[Josh Clark]

And then ultimately the whole point was that this came from an argument over whether the US should engage in the sdi, the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star wars, which is the lasers that shoot nukes from space. Right. They shoot down nukes from space.

[Chuck Bryant]

We did a show on that, didn't we?

[Josh Clark]

No, we did. That was another one. But that's what the whole thing was. It's the context of it. It was an argument over what? Over either nuclear disarmament, which Carl Sagan and his friends were in favor of.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hippies.

[Josh Clark]

Or nuclear proliferation and the Star wars program.

[Chuck Bryant]

Warmongers. Right, the hippies versus the warmongers.

[Josh Clark]

But the weird thing is, this debate, Chuck, took place in the pages of academic journals, and it ended up being a fight between science and science deniers.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It sounds like these scientists that you mentioned might have been had their coffers full from the US Government.

[Josh Clark]

So potentially. Or private industry or something like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And the thing is, they use this old chestnut where. So if you're a scientist, there's no certainty in anything you say. It can always be disproven. Remember we talked about this in the Scientific Method episode?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

All your stuff can be disproven, ultimately, which is why it's just a theory.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So no science is going to be like, this is 100% certain.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Well, these other scientists who are poking holes in it would point out these guys aren't even certain. Which means that there's disagreement over whether we'll have a nuclear winter or not. So they were being very disingenuous in poking holes in it by saying these scientists aren't even certain in their findings. Well, no scientist is certain in their findings.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's so dangerous.

[Josh Clark]

But to the public, you think, oh, well, these scientists can't say that they're certain, so they must not know what they're talking about for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's dangerous. That's why we're at three minutes to midnight on the doomsday clock.

[Josh Clark]

That's exactly right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because some people might say, well, you're not certain, so let's just not act fast enough. Yeah, man.

[Josh Clark]

And I should say also, Chuck, we should prepare for a lot of listener mail. Because this is a conservative flashpoint, Nuclear winter is long standing one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, great. Sounds good.

[Josh Clark]

Let's talk about this.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Well, Robert starts where most people should start when talking about nuclear winter, and that's in the atmosphere. It's a very finely tuned system we have. I want to say it's like homeostasis, but it's not people. So I guess it's like an ecostasis where the sun, just enough sun gets through to make things, make the earth habitable and proliferate with plants and water and humans and animals and all kinds of great stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Too much sun, even by a little bit could be catastrophic. And too little sun, but even by a little bit could be catastrophic.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So we've. Thanks to humans, we've struck a great balance here with the sun. A great deal was made.

[Josh Clark]

And you can shine. Just don't shine too much sun.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it's working out awesome. The idea of nuclear winter is that there would be enough ash from. And smoke. It's really not the fallout from the nuclear bombs themselves, from what I understand. It's more the smoke from the resulting fires that would cause the blacking out of the sky and the sun not getting through.

[Josh Clark]

It's actually all of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But everything I read across the board said it's almost 100% the smoke that goes on.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, it's true. I mean, you shouldn't negate the idea that nuclear radiation poisoning is going to kill a lot of people as a result.

[Chuck Bryant]

But the blacking out of the skies is due to the smoke from fire.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

From the bomb that happened.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So this whole thing, the context of it, again, comes from the 70s, right, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, in 80s.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And back in, I think, 1975, a group issued a statement that said, you know, there probably wouldn't be that big of a fallout from nuclear explosions. A few years after that, another group, I think the first group was the National Academy of Sciences, another group said, you know what? We don't think that's exactly true. We think that there probably is some sort of. There will be something, but our models are too primitive to say for certain what the fallout would be. A few years after that, Carl Sagan and his crew got together and said, no, there's going to be serious consequences. And here's what they are.

[Chuck Bryant]

Billions of lives lost.

[Josh Clark]

Billions and billions. Right. And one of the things they base this on, this idea on that if you spew a bunch of smoke or particulate matter into the atmosphere, that it'll have a negative influence on the global climate is past history from volcanic eruptions.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. Most noted. Well, there are a few over the years, but one of the notable ones in 1883. At the time, then the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, Krakatoa. That volcano was massive to the tune of 36,000 deaths just from the volcano. And this is in Krakatoa in 1883.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There's only, like, 10 people there. Somehow.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's not like it was super populated.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And two thirds of Krakatoa collapsed. The smoke rose up and warmed the global temperature. Global by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Josh Clark]

I think it. No, it lowered it, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Lowered, sorry.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It took five years for temperatures to return to normal, and it affected. This was in Indonesia. And it actually, they think, increased the rainfall in Los Angeles by more than double that next year.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's in la, in Southern California.

[Josh Clark]

So that was the Krakatoa blast from 1883, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that. It literally changed the color of the sky for, like, years afterward. The sky was red such that they think, you know, the scream. The painting. The scream, Munch.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

The red sky. They think that's the way the sky looked was because of this volcano.

[Josh Clark]

That is so neat.

[Chuck Bryant]

Isn't that crazy?

[Josh Clark]

That guy was like, that volcano is crazy. That's what the man is saying.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's just one of them. What was the other one in Mount Tambora? Yeah. Indonesia, once again.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Indonesia's got bad luck with the volcanoes back in the 19th century.

[Chuck Bryant]

And this was actually earlier in 1815.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I remember learning about this when I was a kid, because Ohio got it really bad. A volcano went off in Indonesia in 1815, and the following year, much of the United States did not have a summer. It was actually called the Year Without a Summer.

[Chuck Bryant]

And Ohio was affected.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There was, like, snow on the ground in the middle of July.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did you learn that in state history class? I did.

[Josh Clark]

I remember that. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Georgia State History. That was like, a full course at our school.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Half of it was just sitting around with the teacher, like, standing, staring off into the distance.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. I remember ours was just, like, a lot of talk about Crawford Long and the Civil War.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. We didn't talk about Crawford Long and ours.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Because he wasn't from Georgia.

[Josh Clark]

We talked about Anthony Wayne.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The Battle of Fallen Timbers.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that summer without a winter, year without a summer. I mean, and then there's some, like, canals and locks that donkeys used to pull barges on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I just remember Crawford Long and a lot of racism, basically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Georgia history.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So that was Mount Tambora, the year without summer. There have been other events like when the oil fields burned during the war in the early 90s.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Apparently Carl Sagan predicted basically a nuclear winter from that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That pan out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's where they take some flak. It was not nearly as bad, the fallout from that smoke as Sagan predicted. No, but what can you do but predict you're gonna be wrong? Yeah, occasionally.

[Josh Clark]

Surely you're gonna be wrong.

[Chuck Bryant]

It doesn't mean you should be like, oh, well, that smoke didn't do much, so let's start building nuclear bombs again.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well, that's the whole thing. Chuck, I am so glad you said that because that's the whole mad thing to this argument.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's like, what are you arguing in favor for? If you're arguing against the idea of nuclear war, what precisely are you arguing for?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, like, it won't be that bad.

[Josh Clark]

We'll talk a little bit more about it, like later on in the show, what some people have argued about. But it seems like what you say, ultimately you're arguing in favor of more nuclear weapons. That seems wrongheaded by definition.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, not even just that. But using them won't be as bad as you say, right? Not just have them, but, well, the fallout wouldn't be as bad as they all predict. So use them.

[Josh Clark]

You almost get the impression like they're just like, well, let's just find out. Let's just shoot a couple off and find out what happens. Come on. You'll see them, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

And then as they die from smoke inhalation, they say, I was wrong. What have I done? Oh, goodness.

[Josh Clark]

Let's take a break.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. And we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit more about the nuclear winter.

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

I said nuclear in jest, but before the break.

[Josh Clark]

I know that was good stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, I just want to point that out because some people might think it was serious.

[Josh Clark]

No. And now that you said it was in jest, some people are like, what a jerk. Maybe that man was my hero.

[Chuck Bryant]

I posted something on Facebook the other day that said you're sciencing wrong as a joke and people called me out. They're like you can't use science as a verb. Like man.

[Josh Clark]

I thought in the, remember last century you could use like everything as a verb.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's true.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. People have gotten extremely serious, extremely self serious.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm a not self serious person, so I don't fit in today's world.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. You're a relic. You're an old dinosaur.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just a stupid laughing dinosaur. Speaking of dinosaurs, you know what? Well, I guess we should talk about the KT Boundary extinction event, which was some people, some in science have theorized that that's what happened to the dinosaurs. There was an impact winter. Not quite the same as a nuclear winter, but the same effect as a nuclear winter due to the impact of an asteroid.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. And that would have happened at the border of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods again when the dinosaurs all died off. Still inexplicably, there's no, there's no definitive answer. Again though, we're talking science.

[Chuck Bryant]

No one found a journal.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Buried in your diary Today, something is streaking through the sky and it's making everyone nervous.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's very hot now, but I noticed the dinosaurs are dying, so that's good.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, this is a dinosaur riding it, in my opinion.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, oh, so that's bad.

[Josh Clark]

Right, Right. Okay, so let's talk nuclear winter. Right. You kind of said it earlier, but the whole idea behind nuclear winter is that if you shoot off nuclear bombs, especially a bunch of them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And you have to understand at the time that these scientists were really starting to debate this. There were like 70,000 nuclear warheads, like many, many times more nuclear warheads in existence in like the early 80s than there were today.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And when they started debating them, they really took up this cause because the Reagan administration was saying, we need the Star wars program because we can Prevent almost with 90% certainty a Soviet nuclear attack.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. With laser guns.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. And so these scientists who were concerned, scientists basically anti nuke scientists, said, wait a minute, there's something that you guys aren't thinking through here. If you do that, the Soviets are going to say, well, wait a minute, if this thing is 90% effective, then we need to build up our nuclear arsenal so that when we shoot everything we got at them still, that 10% will totally annihilate the United States. That the presence of the Star wars program was going to put the nuclear arms race into even higher gear than it already was. So they very much took it upon themselves to tackle this with science, but also publicize it and sell it to the Public. And it's that that's stuck in the craw of a lot of other scientists, but particularly scientists who were in favor of nuclear proliferation as a matter of national defense.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

The point of it is, when they tackled this, they said, here's the big problem with it. If you shoot off a bunch of nuclear bombs, a lot. A lot. A lot of nuclear bombs, which could totally go off as far as a nuclear war is concerned, it's going to cause a lot of smoke to enter the atmosphere. And that is where this domino effect is going to create this global catastrophe. And the whole outcome of it is based on the number of nukes that you shoot off, which is basically what Carl Sagan and his buddy Richard Turco divided the different types of nuclear winter into.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Mr. Sagan and Mr. Turco, are they doctors? Let's just call everyone a doctor.

[Josh Clark]

Well, yeah, Carl Sagan was a doctor of astrochemistry, I believe. And Richard Turco is.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's a veterinarian.

[Josh Clark]

I can't remember what he was.

[Chuck Bryant]

They wrote a book called A Path where no Man Thought. A Path where no Man Thought.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it seemed like there would be one more word there. And they have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 scenarios for what a nuclear winter might look like, ranging from minimal to extreme. And minimal. Best case scenario, which is just a little bit of a nuclear attack, not many bombs going off, maybe like, let's say Hiroshima or Nagasaki, which we'll talk about.

[Josh Clark]

Those were like 21 kilotons.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That means that there would be minimal cloud cover, not much environmental impact globally, and the targeted areas would be wiped out, of course, but the world itself would not have big consequences atmospherically.

[Josh Clark]

So if you are talking a nuclear war, especially a Cold War nuclear war, that was a fairly unlikely scenario. By the time the early 1980s rolled around and people started talking about the concept of a nuclear winter, those like Hiroshima and Nagasaki level nuclear bombs were, like, attached to the average fighter jet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

They were considered, like, just tactical. Like you just could shoot them off on a battlefield if you needed to.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So the idea that it would just amount to that is unlikely. Yeah, it was.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they were being nice.

[Josh Clark]

That's the best case scenario. They're trying to cover all avenues here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. Number two is marginal, and that's a few detonations again in the Northern Hemisphere. And they said it would lower the temperature by a few degrees and there would be some crops and some agriculture that suffered and probably some famine, but it would not. Oh, black Rain. Of course.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who wants that did happen in Hiroshima.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

They drank it and died from drinking it.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Because it was radioactive rain.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But they drank it because they were thirsty, because they had no water.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's devastating.

[Josh Clark]

You and everyone should have to go to the city of Hiroshima. Like, it is amazing what they've done to preserve what happened there as, like, a teaching lesson for everyone.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's really moving.

[Chuck Bryant]

We should have one of those here.

[Josh Clark]

We should. Instead, people are like, yeah, Japan forced the US to drop the bomb. It's fact.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Which is not correct. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So black rain would happen in that marginal scenario.

[Josh Clark]

Man, this is a really political episode, isn't it?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think anytime you tackle nuclear war, it's going to be divisive.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because some people think it's awesome.

[Josh Clark]

Nuke the whales, gotta nuke something.

[Chuck Bryant]

Things below the equator in that scenario in the Southern hemisphere would be just fine.

[Josh Clark]

So here's something that I found really interesting and wrong in this analysis of it. Sagan, I guess he was strictly talking about atmospheric effects.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But he mentions, like, famine and stuff like that. The thing is, that would have a.

[Chuck Bryant]

Global effect, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The rest of the world depends in large part on North American wheat and corn.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So if there's a nuclear fallout in North America that affects our crop yields dramatically and causes famine in the US it's going to cause famine elsewhere, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I think what he's saying is, as far as climatologically speaking.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

What he and Turco are saying is, as long as you're not shooting off nuclear bombs in the Southern Hemisphere, it's going to, climatologically speaking, be unaffected or largely ineffective because the wind goes down to the equator and then back up. Like the equator separates the hemispheres as far as the atmosphere is concerned.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, totally. There would still be global troubles.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

But in reading all these scenarios, it made me really want to move to Australia.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's another thing, too. How many people would be like, I need to get out of the United States, so I'm moving down to Mexico or I'm moving down to Brazil or I'm moving down to Australia. And then the infrastructure in those countries are just super stressed because the Northern Hemisphere that survived is suddenly moving down to the Southern Hemisphere.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think another widespread effect.

[Chuck Bryant]

Mexico, would help you too much, though.

[Josh Clark]

Well, weren't they, like, super helpful in Independence Day? Was it Independence Day or the morning or. No, the day after tomorrow, everybody starts having to move south because North America's just frozen ice sheet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but I just mean as far as you'd have to go pretty far south. Further south than Mexico if you want to escape the atmospheric fallout.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, you're right. So Ecuador.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like, what is it? Like half of Africa and South America are in the Southern hemisphere.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Probably not half.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The Northern hemisphere would show up at the Southern hemisphere's doorstep. It'd be like Christmas in July. We'll get used to it.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Your drain goes the other way when you release the water from the tub.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Neato.

[Josh Clark]

And I know Christmas doesn't fall in July. It was a metaphorical statement, everyone.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I get you nominal nuclear winners. Number three. That is what they consider the low end full scale nuclear war.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But still full scale. 6,000 to 12,000 nuclear weapons. That's all. Just 6 to 12,000 nuclear bombs.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And we're talking a megaton or more bombs. And a megaton was, I think, 50 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. So 12,000 times 50 of those for this kind of nominal nuclear war.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's a lot of zeros.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

They predicted noon sunlight would be about a third of what it was. Global temperature drops of 18 degrees. That's bad news, my friend. It would destroy a lot of the ozone layer. And again, the Southern hemisphere wouldn't experience major climactic changes.

[Josh Clark]

To cut to the Southern hemisphere, they're all at the beach. There's like tropical music playing.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they have no wheat.

[Josh Clark]

Who needs wheat when you got rum drinks?

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a T shirt. Josh Clark said that one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Number four. Substantial. That is full scale nuclear war. Freezing temperatures, big time fallout. The whole day would be like. It's overcast.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Billions of humans dead.

[Josh Clark]

Billions.

[Chuck Bryant]

Billions and billions species going extinct. And finally, possible damage to the southern hemisphere. Finally, possibly. And then the last two we can just bunch together, I think severe and extreme. Less than 1% of the sunlight getting through for months and months on end. Global temperature dropping. No photosynthesis happening. Every crop dying. All life perishing. Let's just go ahead and wrap it up right there.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. As Robert puts it, most of the planet's life would perish within the chilly confines of this black atmospheric tomb.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he's got a little Lovecraft in him, doesn't he?

[Josh Clark]

He does this unnamable tomb. Yeah, Chuckers. Let's take another break and then we will come back and talk about the fallout from nuclear winter theory.

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[Josh Clark]

Learning stuff with Joshua Stuff so like we said, Carl Sagan and his friends got together and basically took it upon themselves to educate the public about the potential catastrophe that could happen as a result of nuclear war. Everybody before was like, yeah, that would really suck to be in a city that a nuclear bomb went off on. Yeah, but maybe it wouldn't be my city. I live in Schenectady, New York.

[Chuck Bryant]

No one's going to bomb Schenectady So.

[Josh Clark]

I'm probably going to be okay. These guys said, hey, Western civilization. Not just in the US but also the ussr. That's not necessarily the case. You too will be affected. There's going to be big problems after a nuclear war. So much so that let's make sure that our leaders never do this. Right. Wake up, basically, is what they were doing. And so Sagan and his friends created a paper and it's now called the TTAPS paper after all of their names. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Turco, Tune, Ackerman, Pollock and Sagan.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. And they wrote this paper and had it published in Science, the preeminent scientific journal in the United States. It was a big deal.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The. They also held a very well publicized conference and Carl Sagan, apparently without the group's knowledge or blessing, went off and also wrote a piece in Parade magazine.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. To make sure that every Dick and Jane in the US knew about this. It was like a three page article about the nuclear winter, which is a new term at the time, complete with illustrations where like the. The earth was like this dead, lifeless. What's called like a gray chalk billiard ball, basically.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Just really scary stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

And then he also simultaneously wrote another longer piece that was in Foreign affairs that's a little more wonky. So Sagan went off after writing this scientific paper and publicized it to policymakers and to the American public.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. This is the early 1980s.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, it's 1983. And you. This was before all the science was in. This is from the first paper, before the first papers conference was even held, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And a lot of people, including people who were on his side about this issue, were really mad at him because it opened up this group and the whole idea of nuclear winter to allegations that they were fear mongering and that they were basically trying to sell the public on science, which is, you know, that's not what science does, right? Yes. Pure science is about research and coming up with facts, and whether they're popular or unpopular, it doesn't matter. Science is science and fact is fact, Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

A good theory is a good theory. But these guys, again, were concerned that something really, really bad could happen, and they went to the trouble of taking it upon themselves to advertise it to the public. But again, Sagan going off and doing this, it really opened him up for a lot of allegations and debate that took place afterward.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But some say that their work in the TTAPS report actually did help cool things down in the Cold War a little bit.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I mean, it wasn't just these American scientists. They worked with Soviet scientists as well. And apparently sometimes it went good, sometimes it didn't go so well. But both sides were working on this issue, and the fact that it got so much publicity actually created a firestorm of back and forth in the scientific community. And this issue ended up getting really well studied.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it did. And seven years later, they revised the report in 1990, and it had new, more modernized data. And it wasn't quite as dire, which some critics were like, all right, this is a little more reasonable.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. They revised it to call it the Nuclear Autumn.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And everyone loves autumn.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Autumn's great. Autumn all the time. That'd be wonderful.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man, that would be wonderful. That'd be Chuck's world. And there are disagreements over that still. And they basically, there's a few four variables that are always the factors that are the unknowns. And it's really. They're all, to me, kind of 14 versions of the same variable, which is we don't know how much smoke there would be.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

We just don't know. And number one is how much material is there to burn. So the idea is you drop a bomb on a city, a nuclear bomb, and everything catches on fire and that creates tremendous amounts of smoke. But since these are all theoretical and you don't know what would happen if you drop something the size on, like, let's say a major city like New York, they're like, what would be there to burn? Like, we just don't know.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's, that's. Yeah. So if you dropped it on a city, is it an old city? Is it. That's. That isn't super modern.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

And therefore isn't built out of like, lots of plastic that can get into the atmosphere and really mess things up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like the really bad stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If it's an old city, maybe the burning wouldn't be so bad even after a nuclear holocaust. Or maybe you're not shooting nuclear bombs to cities, but to other nuclear installations that are out in the middle of like nowhere in Nebraska.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Because we have. I mean, we've. There's been like 2,000 nuclear bombs detonated, but they only two on a cities.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Everything else has been out over the ocean or out in the middle of nowhere and there's been no fire.

[Josh Clark]

Right. The assumption is that, though, if you shot a nuclear bomb at a modern city, a lot of really toxic smoke would be produced.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's probably the worst case scenario in both the immediate and Nuclear holocaust and the fallout, the nuclear winter as a result, because of all the smoke that would be created.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, look at the fallout from 9, 11. And that was two buildings.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

The second variable is how much would remain in the atmosphere and then how much goes back to the Earth. Yeah. No one really knows that at all. How much sunlight would be deflected. Again, just theorizing.

[Josh Clark]

And you can go back and plug in these numbers.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The problem is, if you're a detractor of nuclear winter theory, you would, would say, that's a guess, where'd you get that number? And you could take every number and come up with a different model for each one. They usually don't do that. But even still, it's like, which one's going to be the one?

[Chuck Bryant]

And again, it goes back to how much smoke would there be to begin with? And then finally, when did it happen? If it was actually in winter, perhaps it's not so bad.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Nuclear winter. And winner, ironically, is the best case scenario.

[Chuck Bryant]

The best case scenario of the bad scenarios.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So they did initially back off of their findings. They said that it was there could initially be like a 35 to 40 degree drop in global temperatures. Celsius.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So we're talking like 70 degrees, 72 degrees Fahrenheit drop in temperatures.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's for full on nuclear war.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yes. Later on, as they revised their findings and more, again, more and more scientists got involved and studied this issue. They came upon what seemed to be a consensus that you could probably count on something like a 15 degree Celsius drop in global temperatures, which would be substantial and could still have widespread effects. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So from this debate, nuclear winter kind of got settled on, there was a scientific consensus that came about and there was also consensus that not only would there be huge problems inland, there would be oceanic problems as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Because one of the things, one of the great casualties of detonating nuclear bombs is the ozone layer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The fireball from the blast burns up nitrogen, converting it to nitrogen oxide. Nitrogen oxide just punches holes, basically chemically burns the ozone layer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So then when all that smoke that's acting as like an umbrella that's blocking out the sunlight falls back to Earth, all that particulate matter falls back to Earth and is radioactive, by the way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Now the sunlight that does come through is way hotter and has way more UV light than it had before the nuclear bombs went off because we had.

[Chuck Bryant]

Our little delicate balance that's now disrupted.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. The problem with that, for the oceans is that that UV light would likely be too intense for phytoplankton at the ocean surface. Yeah, well, that is the keystone species for the ocean aquatic environments. The ecosystems all start with phytoplankton. Zooplankton feed on phytoplankton, little fish feed on zooplankton, larger fish feed on little fish, and so on and so on until. So if you get rid of the phytoplankton, you're in big trouble.

[Chuck Bryant]

Big trouble.

[Josh Clark]

So there would be huge ramifications. And science came to a consensus on this. But again, it was attacked very early on by nuclear proliferation hawks as basically being against the interests of United States national security.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And then later on it continued to be attacked. It became a customary traditional flashpoint among conservatives as a great example of the lengths that hippie environmental scientists will go to, to dupe the American public into being scared about nuclear bombs and just nuclear stuff in general. Like Michael Crichton famously attacked it in a 2003 speech and he, his whole thing, he was very famously a climate denier. He was a climate skeptic until his death, as far as I know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is he dead?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And he wrote some great books. But he was also like contrarian by nature is what he said as well. But I get the impression that he tended to land on the more conservative anti environmental side.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And on this case he also attacked the nuclear winner as well. And what he accused these guys of doing is creating science by consensus. Right. That to me is, that's just like a one, two sucker punch. So the initial scientist that challenged nuclear winner said, you guys can't even agree. There's no consensus. Like you can't be certain in what you're saying, so therefore we don't need to take you seriously. So they said, okay, you know what? We're going to get all these scientists around the world together to study this issue and we're going to come to a consensus. And when they did, years later, guys like Michael Crichton said, you guys are practicing science by consensus and politicizing science. It's not real science. So it was like they were very much damned if they did and damned if they didn't. And ultimately you just have to kind of decide, is it worth the risk? Maybe. We can't say for certain.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And at the time you couldn't say for certain. What's cool is that some of these same climate scientists are still at work and they have come up with, with fairly recent models using very sophisticated Climate models compared to the stuff they were using back in the 80s and even the 90s. The stuff they're using now says, actually we think nuclear winter might be worse than was initially predicted.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And even if it's not a full scale nuclear war, I think the worry, there's not as much worry these days for something like that. What the worry is now is that some rogue nation gets a hold of one, or maybe even not a rogue nation, just India and Pakistan drop a couple of nuclear bombs.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's the model. And like that is entirely possible. I think a 1 megaton detonation is what they did this model on. And it had a substantial effect.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they said 10 years of smoke clouds and a three year temperature drop of about 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit, which doesn't.

[Josh Clark]

Sound like much, but if you go back and you read that scientist study, his executive summary of the study, he points out that that kind of drop ultimately equals a shortened growing season by 10 to 20 days. And that last 10 to 20 days makes or breaks a crop. Like that means you can either harvest it or it dies before it matures and can be harvested. And so even just a couple of degrees can lead to widespread crop failure. Yeah, but this is just. If India and Pakistan shoot 50 bombs at one another in a regional war, it could have that effect around the world.

[Chuck Bryant]

So we mentioned Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those are the only places we can look. But like we pointed out, the bombs were so different back then, it's not the best comparison. But as far as looking at what kind of fires could happen, you can't tell a whole lot. In Hiroshima there were more fires than in Nagasaki just because of the way the geography is in the two cities. But in neither case did they see a ton of secondary fires. Like, it wasn't blacking out the sky, there was black rain. But apparently a week later most of that stuff had cleared up. But again, that is, you can't even really compare the two.

[Josh Clark]

No, it's a single 21 kiloton bomb.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

We're talking 50 of those going off in the same area.

[Chuck Bryant]

But that report that you mentioned on, just like if India and Pakistan, how much was it? 10 megatons?

[Josh Clark]

50. 50 or no, it was 1 megaton. So 50 of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, it was enough to cause the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board to move the Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight. Yeah, and the Doomsday Clock is. Some people say it's good science, some people say they're fear mongering. But what it is is it's a design that basically says, here's how close we are to destroying ourselves as a civilization. And there are a lot of factors that go into it, like biotechnology or cyber technology, but the main two are obviously nuclear weapons and climate change are the two main things that factor into where the Doomsday Clock sits. And I think in the 1950s, they've only changed it how many times? 18 times since it was created in 1947 have they changed the hands on the clock? In the 1950s, it was at two minutes till midnight. In the early 1950s, the best I think it's been in the early 90s was 17 minutes till midnight.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Doesn't that feel good? Yeah, that's a lot of time.

[Josh Clark]

What are we at right now?

[Chuck Bryant]

Right now we are the closest we've been since 1983. And on January 22nd of this year, it was changed to three minutes till midnight is where they sit. And they had a big press release. And I'll just read the opening and closing paragraphs. The opening paragraph. In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapon modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity. And world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth. And then the final paragraph. And there's lots of fun stuff in between. Yeah, just like fart jokes and stuff. And then they close with. In 2015, with the clock hand, move forward to three minutes to midnight. The board feels compelled to add with a sense of great urgency. The probability of global catastrophe is very high. And the actions needed to reduce the risk of disaster must be taken very soon. They don't mess around.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

And even though that we've. We had been doing a good job of reducing the amount of warheads between the United States and Russia, but things have slowed to a snail's pace now. From 2009 to 2013, Obama cut only 309 warheads from the stockpile. And they're basically saying, we're not doing this as fast as we need to.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like we need to act now.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Well, there's other people who are saying we need to rebuild our nuclear arsenal because it's aging and rotting and will be useless by 2020-2030.

[Chuck Bryant]

How are we going to drop nuclear bombs on people in the future?

[Josh Clark]

Right. It's weird. Like some people are trying to reignite the Cold War.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, trust me, I don't agree with it, but I know that most of those people aren't saying, hey, so we can bomb people. It's so we can keep each other in check.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which was the Cold War.

[Josh Clark]

We could also, all over again, get rid of nuclear bombs entirely.

[Chuck Bryant]

We could do that.

[Josh Clark]

And you know, Sagan's whole thing, I should say, and it's funny that he's kind of like the villain of this whole thing, of the whole nuclear winter debate, because he's such a revered figure, such a great guy, but he really purposefully made some serious missteps as far as publicizing the results went before they were fully in. But his whole thing was. And if you read his foreign policy thing, his article, it's really, really good. It's not too obtuse. So, like, it's kind of fun to read. But it's called Nuclear War and Climactic Catastrophe Colon some policy Implications. And he says, like, we don't know, you know, what the. What the right answer is. We don't know if it's entirely possible that nuclear winter, maybe our ideas are overblown or whatever. But he says, I'm not willing to take the chance.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Why should we take the chance?

[Chuck Bryant]

That's my thing. It's like, why risk it?

[Josh Clark]

Right. So his solution is, how about this US and ussr? How about you de. Escalate the arms race, de proliferate until you get down to a threshold that science has said, okay, nuclear winter probably couldn't happen beyond this payload. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So even if all the nuclear bombs in the world at this lower number were set off, we still wouldn't go into nuclear winter.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

But you guys can take out all of your major city centers and still fight your nuclear war, but the rest of the world won't be destroyed by it. Yeah, that was his solution. And no one took him up on.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've never understood. I don't know, man. We'll do one on climate change at some point too. But I've never understood why people. And I get the economics play a factor, but why risking the future of mankind for your ancestors to follow is worth it.

[Josh Clark]

A lot of it is fear. Like a lot of these people who have over the last decades pushed for that kind of thing. Like fear that the US will be caught with his pants down. Genuinely feared the Soviet Union and, like, their heart was in it like that. But, I mean, it's fascinating to me, this whole, like, basically secret publicity war that's been going, that went on throughout the 20th and it's well into the 21st century. Yeah, there's a book again, I think I mentioned it called Merchants of Doubt. Everybody should read.

[Chuck Bryant]

So good. And you know what? Save your emails to me because you can still think what you want to think. Yeah, I just personally don't get it. I'm not going to throw stones at you and say you're wrong. I probably should, but I won't because it's not nice to throw stones.

[Josh Clark]

It isn't. Chuck, are you good?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm great.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to know more about nuclear winter, you can read this fine article written by Robert Lamb by typing nuclear winter in the search [e-mail] Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no, my friend. It's time for.

[Josh Clark]

For administrative detail. All right.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is the time that we all know and love when Josh and I read out and say thanks. We give thanks. We should call this Thanksgiving and not administrative details.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. Ready?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, that's okay because administrative details is such a weird name.

[Josh Clark]

This is long ago. It's meant to be.

[Chuck Bryant]

So this is when we thank people for the very kind gifts that they have sent us over the months. And dude, I think this goes back all the way to January for me.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man. I've got one for Christmas cookies to Mona Colentine and Grandma Colentine.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think we always say her name wrong, by the way.

[Josh Clark]

No, I think she corrected us and said it was like Valentine.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, right.

[Josh Clark]

So I think I'm saying it right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Man, Mona's gonna be so mad at me.

[Josh Clark]

Colintine.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Is the administrative detail music playing?

[Josh Clark]

Sounds like it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great.

[Josh Clark]

Can't you hear that?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll get it Started with. Richard sent us a guide to the round things of the solar system. Very fun.

[Josh Clark]

Very nice. I remember that. Yes. Blair sent us a plug in key holder. You come home, plug your keychain in and you never forget it. It's pretty awesome actually. You can get them on Amazon. Electric socket, unplug chain holder. Search for that. It will bring it up.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. I got a postcard. Very nice postcard from Jean Pierre Bonasco and Stephanie Crick from Port Lockroy, Antarctica.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. And it's worth saying again. Thank you to Mona Colentine and Grandma Colentine for our Christmas cookies. We look forward to them again this year.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, we certainly do. Oh, we've gotten nougat, homemade nougat from Kristen Ferguson again. It's so delicious.

[Josh Clark]

I am hooked on that.

[Chuck Bryant]

So stuff it's. Great. It is she. You can find her at Solace Sweets.

[Josh Clark]

Man, it is so good.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Christian's been sending us this homemade nougat for years, and I was always like, homemade nougat? I don't know about that. And then I put it in my mouth.

[Josh Clark]

It's amazing stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's really good.

[Josh Clark]

And then we also got some sweets from Dude Sweet chocolate out of Texas. I think they might be out of Dallas. They made, like. They sent us really great chocolates, but they also make these incredible marshmallows, too. They made a sweet flavor. Potato marshmallow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

And dudes at dude sweet Chocolate. Thank you for those. They were amazing. Yumi was crazy for those marshmallows, like I am for the nougat.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was quite the bounty. I remember that.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

As always, every Christmas, our buddy Aaron Cooper in Kansas sends us great printouts of these great photoshops that he does of us that he puts online.

[Josh Clark]

And, yeah, you can see them on Internet roundup.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we even got T shirts this year of Shay, Guevara, Josh, and Chuck. So, Coop, you're the best.

[Josh Clark]

You know that? That is true, Coop, Mark Allen and the Trade Monkey team sent us some beautiful jewelry made by female artisans in Southeast Asia and traded fairly key.

[Chuck Bryant]

Our buddy Van Nostrand sent us a book.

[Josh Clark]

Which. Which book?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, he's always sending us stuff, so I honestly can't even remember which book. But we have, like, boxes full of things that he sent.

[Josh Clark]

He sent us a CD of Shags, the philosophy of the world. You know what's known as the worst album ever recorded?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. God. At my desk.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a sense of humor.

[Josh Clark]

The problem is my computer doesn't have a CD drive any longer. Have you noticed that's gone?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Computers don't have those any longer. Try to find it on my computer. I defy you.

[Chuck Bryant]

I was like, what's that little slot? And you're like, that's where the tissues come out, Right?

[Josh Clark]

It's the coffee cup holder.

[Chuck Bryant]

Our buddies from Venice is Sinking band sent us a lp, sand and lines, and a cd. What we do is secret. And there are our friends from Athens.

[Josh Clark]

Yep, Georgia. Huge, huge thanks to Hilary Lozar, who has sent us a lot of cheese over the last year. Some of the best cheese. Flathead lake cheese.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Montana.

[Josh Clark]

Which, like, they make a hoppy gouda. That's to die for.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is very good.

[Josh Clark]

Flathead lake cheese. And she sent us some awesome T shirts that say mouth feel on them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Our bar episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

She's the best. She and her husband Mike have been big time fans. They're very active on our Facebook page. And they like drove to Seattle for our show from Montana.

[Josh Clark]

From Montana, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

She's a teacher.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. And they sent Yumi and Emily earrings. So thanks for that from all of us.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Jerry got nothing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Tommy Ludgrick. Tommy Luckrich. Lukrick Luttrich. He sent us a nice letter.

[Josh Clark]

The man whose last name you say four times.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, he's the guy. He's walking from Seattle to New York City. And if you want to follow this. I don't. He might be there by now. Tommywalks tumblr.com you can check that out.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Huge, huge thanks from me personally to Laura Snow, who I don't know if you remember when we did the Hot Wheels episode. Boy, do I. I said that the Hot Wheels I would love to have was this like, like station wagon camper that said good time camper on it. I remember she mailed it to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's pretty remarkable.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. So thank you very much, Laura Snow. That was very nice of you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. If anyone's listening, my favorite Hot Wheel was the one that had a thousand dollars stuffed in the body of the car. That's a good one, Stephan. Stefan Brahm. He sent us some currency banknotes.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which I've never collected money, but he sent a $1953 certificate, a 1957 series $2 bill and an 1874 fractional currency 10 cent note.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's pretty neat.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think you got the 10 cent note, didn't you?

[Josh Clark]

Because we spent it on candy.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. What's this? It's 10 cents, sir.

[Josh Clark]

It's a fraction of a note. Meteorologist Michael Erb, who also moons moonlights as a young adult murder mystery author, sent us a book of one of his Murder Mysteries, Kevin McLeod and the Seaside Storm. It's about a little weather detective. It's pretty cute.

[Chuck Bryant]

Jeff Payton sent us a book.

[Josh Clark]

Darwin's Black Box and Bethany at the base element. The.base.elementmail.com. if you want any of the Fleur de Sel caramel she sent us, we can highly recommend them. And I got one more from both of us. Chuck. Dan Kent. Name ring a bell?

[Chuck Bryant]

It does.

[Josh Clark]

He sent us the pint of Pliny the Elder.

[Chuck Bryant]

Ew.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, thank you, Dan.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's why it rings a bell.

[Josh Clark]

You're a top notch human being. I think we met him in San Francisco at our show too. Yes, thanks.

[Chuck Bryant]

I believe the famous world renowned planning the Elder beer.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which I finally tried and it was delicious.

[Josh Clark]

It is delish.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you very much everybody. We have more. If you didn't hear your name, hang tight. We've got probably a couple more episodes worth of administrative details. That's right, or Thanksgiving is what we're calling it now. And in the meantime, you can get in touch with us, send us an email to stuff podcastowstuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuff you should know.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

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