Planet Earth in Jeopardy: Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War

I am not an expert in this topic. Therefore, I need books like this to help keep me informed. This book was very helpful to me.The book is really very concise, and very digestible, considering its subject matter. I want to let you know that this volume describes the aftermath of a MAJOR nuclear exchange. Not that any nuclear exchange could ever be called "minor," but this book deals with an all-out, total, full scale war scenario. It tries to take a scientific look at what the effects of a full scale exchange between the former Soviet Union and the U.S. might have been like. The effects postulated here, for the most part, are VASTLY worse, for the planet as a whole, than what could happen in a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, for example. Still, the old weapons are still out there, and it might be worth getting a copy of this to stay informed. We never know what the future may bring.In chapters that average only about ten or eleven pages, the author walks us through many relevant scenarios. Chapter One is sort of an intoduction, laying the groundwork for later discussions. It helps us understand exactly what a "megaton" is, for example, by comparing megatonnage to the firepower employed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This chapter also describes the computer modeling used in these forecasts; the basic idea of "nuclear winter" and how it might be brought about; and related issues such as fallout, EMPs, catastrophic damage to the ozone layer, and chemical disturbances in the Earth's atmosphere resulting from dispersal of chemical-laden smoke. Uncertainties in the computer models are also discussed. Chapter Two provides an overview of the world's nuclear arsenals, as of 1985. It talks in some detail about "targeting strategy" at the time, and about the possibility of escalation, etc. Chapter Three goes into the immediate effects of a nuclear exchange -- firestorms, shock waves, etc. Chapter Four sounds odd at first glance -- it is entitled "Smoke and Dust." But in the reading of the chapter, we are led to understand the huge significance of smoke and dust in nuclear war scenarios. They are every bit as important to understand as actual fallout. The huge amounts of smoke and dust released by urban explosions would be expected to remain in the atmosphere for some time, blocking out the sun, and leading ultimately to the nuclear winter sceario. Chapter Five goes into more detail, about nuclear winter issues affecting climate and weather. Chapter Six helped me to understand the damage to our ozone layer, which would stem from war of this nature. It also goes into problems which would arise from the release of huge quantities of toxic gas, from attacks on chemical plants, manufacturing centers, refineries, etc. Chapter Seven is about what most of us would expect from a book like this -- radiation and fallout. Chapter Eight is mostly about the way plants would probably respond to war. I mean "plants" as in living components of t