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Nuclear renaissance coming now - solves climate change and space

travel
Muralidharan 18
Rathna K. Muralidharan (Program director at the non-profit Lexington Institute, a
public-policy research organization located in Arlington, Virginia, where she
manages events, conducts research, and supports staff analyses. Before joining
the staff of the Lexington Institute, Rathna worked at the National Consortium for
the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, and the Institute for the
Study of War’s Iraq Project. Most recently, she worked at the Hudson Institute
where she assisted in researching U.S. security concerns in South Asia. She has
conducted extensive research on U.S. counterterrorism policies and objectives),
"The Nuclear Reactor Renaissance: Space Exploration and National Security,"
Real Clear Energy, 7-13-2018,
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2018/07/13/the_nuclear_reactor_renaiss
ance_space_exploration_and_national_security_110313.html WJ
The nuclear power sector is seeing a resurgence in innovation, supported by new policies and
emerging technologies. The general public and various governments are starting to grasp the
value of nuclear power as an alternative, sustainable energy source. Unlike renewables, such as
wind and solar power, nuclear energy is not dependent on weather conditions for power
generation, having a capacity factor of over 90 percent. Nuclear power is also more eco-friendly than
natural gas and coal and its “carbon-free” attributes are seen as critical in the fight against climate
change.

For decades, advancements

in the nuclear power sector have been incremental and
focused largely on making systems “walk away safe.” Today, the industry is pushing the
boundaries and exploring applications for nuclear power in ways that have never before
been considered.
BWXT is at the forefront of this nuclear renaissance. This 6,000-employee company operates on the model
of letting capital drive strategy. BWXT is constantly evaluating new ways to ensure workers, funding, and
policies are utilized in the most effective way possible. The company also analyzes the needs of numerous
other industries to determine how nuclear power could provide innovative solutions.

This type of outward

thinking is what has created new technologies, such as medical
isotopes and common missile compartment tubes for Columbia-class nuclear
submarines. Now, BWXT is paving a path forward in two of the U.S. government’s top priorities: space
exploration and national security. These advancements will revolutionize both the
technology and defense sectors by offering creative solutions to ongoing issues.
One of BWXT’s primary focuses is space exploration. The company is currently building
a compact nuclear reactor for space shuttles to put an astronaut on Mars and possibly even
explore Jupiter’s moons by 2024. This reactor will be operable with few to no people.

In August 2017, BWXT was awarded the contract for the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) project by NASA to build a
nuclear reactor to power manned missions to Mars. According to NASA’s fact sheet on the program, “NTP offers
virtually unlimited energy density and a specific impulse roughly double that of the
high-est performing traditional chemical systems.”
The NTP reactor will be powered by low-enriched uranium (LEU) rather than the
traditional highly enriched uranium. This change in fuel source is advantageous because it
reduces the level of security regulations and could potentially be more affordable. NASA
nuclear power is the only fuel source capable of
recognizes that

powering missions farther out into our Solar System, making such
travel safer for astronauts by reducing the time humans are exposed to the physically
altering conditions of space, such as zero-gravity and cosmic radiation.
Space exploration can go faster and farther than ever before with nuclear reactors. The
UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs has stated that “for some missions in outer space, nuclear power sources
are particularly suited or even essential owing to their compactness, long life, and other
attributes.” By using nuclear power, NASA can significantly reduce the time it takes to travel
within and outside our Solar System. Mars can be reached in four months rather than six. Jupiter can be
reached in two to three years, and we can go beyond the Solar System in 12–14 years.

Nuclear reactors will also enable us to better study and utilize the resources in our Solar System by reducing travel time
nuclear reactors have
and reaching higher velocities. In comparison to the main engine of the Space Shuttle,
double the propulsion efficiency and can therefore support the delivery of “large,
automated payloads to distant worlds.” Powering spacecraft using nuclear energy will enable
shuttles to transport larger and heavier payloads between the Moon and Earth.
Nuclear power can also play a role in defending assets in outer space. In June, President
Trump announced his plan to create a sixth wing of the military to protect our interests beyond Earth’s surface, called the
“Space Force.” It is clear that the
U.S. government is very serious about the need to secure our
resources in space as key adversaries aim to do the same. Revolutions in nuclear
reactors come at the optimal time as the great power competition evolves into space.
On July 2, China announced its intentions to build a super heavy rocket that would surpass NASA’s Space Launch
System. Since China’s space program is run by the military, it’s feasible that this technology can be used for defense
purposes such as ballistic missiles and military satellites. In March, Russia announced the successful testing of a
hypersonic missile of the Kinzhal missile system. This weapon is capable of being “launched into space, navigating on its
own into Earth's atmosphere and avoiding radar and antimissile defenses.”

By using nuclear technology to support existing infrastructure, the U.S. can protect its
assets in space from threats. Nuclear-powered space tugs are one such capability. A space tug is stationed in
space and used to move cargo to different levels of orbit, such as from low Earth orbit to geospace. Payloads are at
the greatest risk of attack when they are being launched into orbit since they can be
struck by ballistic missiles before or during launch.
Since space tugs remain in orbit, they
are capable of running multiple payloads in space rather
than requiring a new tug be launched along with every delivery, thereby reducing costs and
space debris while also eliminating the threat of attack during launch. Nuclear-powered space
tugs would be more energy efficient than any other fuel source, giving space tugs a longer life span.

Innovations in nuclear reactor technology are not just limited to space. The same type of
reactor that is being developed to power shuttles headed to Jupiter can also be used
here on Earth to power military bases. Currently, U.S. military installations are 99 percent dependent on
local utilities for power, making them more vulnerable to outages and sabotage.
By installing a compact nuclear reactor on site, military bases would be energy
independent and critically able to continue operating in the event of an emergency. These
reactors would function as a battery powered by LEU, which is non-proliferable, and would require minimal maintenance
to operate.

The renewed interest around the nation and the world in sustainable energy sources is
spurring a nuclear renaissance. As more companies and countries seek resilient, long-term, and
environmentally friendly solutions, nuclear power is becoming an increasingly obvious choice. The
World Nuclear Association reported in June that “50 power reactors are currently being constructed in 13 countries.” With
companies like BWXT committed to using nuclear energy in a variety of fields to solve current and future problems, the
future is looking brighter and more resiliently powered.

Nuclear zero stops it -- strong anti-proliferation norms block access

to nuclear material and reactor development
Kumar 17
Vinod Kumar (Associate Fellow Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New
Delhi, India), 2017, The Expectant Global Nuclear Energy Renaissance: Movers,
Shakers and Spoilers. Resurgence of Nuclear Power, 39–70. doi:10.1007/978-
981-10-5029-9_3 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-5029-9_3
WJ
What are the trends that indicate the prospects of a renaissance happening, especially since
earlier signs, like in the USA, did not end in fruitful outcomes? A handful of global indicators could be
highlighted to support the assumption that a renaissance might be in the offing in the
global nuclear industry, though with inherent challenges. First, the hopes of revival in many
established nuclear bases such as USA and Russia even as some European nations such as UK,
France and the Scandinavians have reposed faith in nuclear power, which also indicates a revisiting of
phase-out policies in the industrial world. Second, the massive confidence that the developing world
has placed on nuclear energy as evident from the numerous expansion plans of those
nations with the existing nuclear energy infrastructure, as also the decision of many small and
emerging economies to make their plunge into nuclear energy. Third is a host of systematic factors that has
the potential to drive the renaissance, including the galloping pace of reactor technology
development, best practices emerging in civil nuclear liability laws, increasing access of insurance and risk
management tools, and above all the imperative of nations to promote clean fuel to meet
climate change mitigation targets.
3.3.1 Industrial World Still Relies on Nuclear Energy

While the US revival efforts have been ongoing since the beginning of the mil- lennium despite numerous constraints,
Russia is on a faster pace in expanding its nuclear energy infrastructure with notable advances
made in launching its Generation-III fast neutron reactors as well as in ensuring its technological footprint in emerging
markets through exports of its VVER light water reactors (NewEurope 2016). Besides its existing tally of 36 operating
reactors with a total capacity of 27,000 MW, Russia plans to add one large reactor per year till 2028, with around 22
planned units running up to around 21,000 MW capacity, alongside an equal number earmarked for exports (WNA 2016f).

As for
Europe, where feasibility of nuclear power continues to remain in popular debate,
countries that have preferred to retain nuclear power are announcing new projects or
seeking to replace ageing ones with new units. The UK, with plans to retire half of 15 operational reactors by middle of
next decade, has opted for a foreign-funded consortium model to kick off its Hinkley Point nuclear project, with Chinese
and French state-run energy firms as collaborators (BBC 2016; Riley and Mullen 2016). This is beside an intended plan to
allow the China General Nuclear Corporation to build a nuclear plant at Bradwell, as agreed during the Chinese
President’s visit in October 2015. France, which is heavily nuclear energy-dependent, is
seemingly weighing
on Areva’s Generation-III European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) not just to display its continuing
reliance on nuclear energy but also to establish its international standing as a nuclear supplier and
technology incubator.
Despite reported timeline delays and cost outruns (Guardian 2016), the EPRs at Flamanville plant in France,
Olkiluoto-3 in Finland as well as the proposed project at UK’s Hinkley symbolise a renewed thrust across
Europe for nuclear power, as also the role played by other new-generation reactors in this renewal. On the
other hand, the actual relevance of the nuclear industry in Europe is in the comparatively nascent
economies in Scandinavia, especially Finland and Sweden, which have preferred to retain nuclear as a
power source and probably delay or avoid a total transition to renewable means. Along with unit 5, which is
currently under con- struction, Finland is planning further expansion for units 6 and 7 in Olkiluoto (WNA
2016d). Another project, run by Fennovoima, is under construction to set up a VVER-1200 reactor and has a
unique model of co-ownership by Rusatom Overseas (Milne 2016b).

Sweden, on the other hand, produces 40% of its electricity from nine existing reactors and plans to replace
the ageing ones with an ambitious plan of 10 new reactors (Milne 2016a). However, Sweden’s contribution
to the nuclear revival is more significant. The nation not just revised its earlier plan, finalised in 1980s, to
close nuclear and forego life extension of reactors, but removed a tax from 2017 that discriminates against
nuclear power while subsides wind and biomass to progress towards the goal to total renewable energy by
2040. A certain fillip to nuclear energy, this reversal also means that stringent anti-nuclear sentiments that
prevailed in Scandinavia following the Fukushima incident, and phase-out models like Germany’s
Energiewende, has given way to more realistic approaches towards nuclear energy. In Europe, these revival
signs could be signs of an impending renaissance as it ignites fresh life into the industry.

3.3.2 Developing World as the Catalyst

At the other end of the spectrum, an expectant renaissance in nuclear energy is all about ‘a great
leap forward’ for many countries in the developing world for whom access
to sustainable means of energy is closely linked to the economic
progress and upliftment of their societies. Nuclear energy has
traditionally been an elitist preserve with the developed and the industrial
world always controlling the technology and restricting access through
non-proliferation structures including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
and supplier cartels like the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Even those countries in
underdeveloped regions with major uranium deposits, like in some African
countries, could not harness the economic potential of their natural
resources owing to the domination and control of advanced nations
over the affairs of the atom, and its normative structures.
Consequently, very few countries in the third world have been successful in establishing a nuclear industry that could be
Even those who managed to set up a comparatively
on par with their peers in the developed world.
active base—such as India, China or Brazil—had perennial struggles with the development of
reactor and reprocessing technologies, access to fissile materials or in dealing with
denial regimes over attempts to develop indigenous capabilities or gaining strategic
autonomy that mismatched with the global norms perpetuated by the Western-oriented
liberal security community. The renaissance, therefore, for the developing world is about the
establishment of robust nuclear industries, uninterrupted access to nuclear fuel
cycles and fissile materials, and meeting major developmental, economic and climate
change targets by placing nuclear at the centre of their energy security missions. In practice, this could also mean
that the epicentre of the global nuclear industry could be shifting to the developing world,
especially the bases in Asia, who could shape the future norms, best practices and structures for
this domain. According to estimates of the World Nuclear Association, around 45 countries are at various stages or plans
for nuclear energy programmes, with 32 of them being in Asian region (WNA 2016e). This includes Albania, Italy, Serbia,
Croatia, Portugal, Poland, Belarus, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey and Ireland (in Europe); Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal,
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Namibia (in Africa); and Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay (in
Americas). The gravity of the Asian shift is marked by the fact that nuclear projects in some subregions in Asia such as
the Middle East and East Asia will be almost the same number or more than those planned in the above two regions. For
example, 14 states in the Middle East (UAE and Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya,
Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, and Sudan) have plans for setting up nuclear plants.

Rapid spread of nuclear power technology is vital to rapid

decarbonization -- licensing and export restrictions prevent solutions
to climate change
Goldstein et al 19
Joshua S. Goldstein (professor emeritus of international relations at American
University), Staffan A. Qvist (Swedish energy engineer, author of “A Bright Future: How
Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow”), and Steven
Pinker (professor of psychology at Harvard University), " Nuclear Power Can Save the
World" NYT, 4-6-2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/climate-
change-nuclear-power.html WJ
As young people rightly demand real solutions to climate change, the question is not
what to do — eliminate fossil fuels by 2050 — but how. Beyond decarbonizing today’s electric grid,
we must use clean electricity to replace fossil fuels in transportation, industry and
heating. We must provide for the fast-growing energy needs of poorer countries and extend the grid to a billion people
who now lack electricity. And still more electricity will be needed to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by
midcentury.

Where will this gargantuan amount of carbon-free energy come from? The popular answer is
renewables alone, but this is a fantasy. Wind and solar power are becoming cheaper,
but they are not available around the clock, rain or shine, and batteries that could power
entire cities for days or weeks show no sign of materializing any time soon. Today,
renewables work only with fossil-fuel backup.
Germany, which went all-in for renewables, has seen little reduction in carbon emissions, and,
according to our calculations, at Germany’s rate of adding clean energy relative to gross
domestic product, it would take the world more than a century to decarbonize, even if the
country wasn’t also retiring nuclear plants early. A few lucky countries with abundant hydroelectricity, like Norway and
New Zealand, have decarbonized their electric grids, but their success cannot be scaled up elsewhere: The world’s
best hydro sites are already dammed.
Small wonder that a growing response to these intimidating facts is, “We’re cooked.”

But we actually have proven models for rapid decarbonization with economic and
energy growth: France and Sweden. They decarbonized their grids decades ago and now
emit less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. They remain
among the world’s most pleasant places to live and enjoy much cheaper electricity than Germany to boot.

They did this with nuclear power. And they did it fast, taking advantage of nuclear power’s
intense concentration of energy per pound of fuel. France replaced almost all of its fossil-fueled
electricity with nuclear power nationwide in just 15 years; Sweden, in about 20 years. In fact, most of the fastest
additions of clean electricity historically are countries rolling out nuclear power.
 Plants built 30 years ago in America, as in
This is a realistic solution to humanity’s greatest problem.
France, produce cheap, clean electricity, and nuclear power is the cheapest source in
South Korea. The 98 U.S. reactors today provide nearly 20 percent of the nation’s
electricity generation. So why don’t the United States and other countries expand their nuclear capacity? The
reasons are economics and fear.

New nuclear power plants are hugely expensive to build in the United States today. This is why so few are being built. But
they don’t need to be so costly. The
key to recovering our lost ability to build affordable nuclear
plants is standardization and repetition. The first product off any assembly line is expensive — it cost
more than $150 million to develop the first iPhone — but costs plunge as they are built in
quantity and production kinks are worked out.
Yet as a former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission put it, while France has two types of reactors and
hundreds of types of cheese, in the United States it’s the other way around. In recent decades, the United States and
some European countries have created ever more complicated reactors, with ever more safety features in response to
public fears. New,
one-of-a-kind designs, shifting regulations, supply-chain and construction
snafus and a lost generation of experts (during the decades when new construction
stopped) have driven costs to absurd heights.
These economic problems are solvable. China and South Korea can build reactors at one-sixth the current
cost in the United States. With the political will, China could replace coal without sacrificing economic growth, reducing
dozens of American start-ups are
world carbon emissions by more than 10 percent. In the longer term,
developing “fourth generation” reactors that can be mass-produced, potentially
generating electricity at lower cost than fossil fuels. If American activists, politicians and regulators
allow it, these reactors could be exported to the world in the 2030s and ’40s, slaking
poorer countries’ growing thirst for energy while creating well-paying American jobs.
Currently, fourth-generation nuclear power receives rare bipartisan agreement in Congress, making it a particularly
appealing American policy to address climate change. Congress recently passed the Nuclear Energy Innovation and
Modernization Act by big margins. Both parties love innovation, entrepreneurship, exports and jobs.

This approach will need a sensible regulatory framework. Currently, as M.I.T.’s Richard Lester, a nuclear engineer, has
written, a
company proposing a new reactor design faces “the prospect of having to
spend a billion dollars or more on an open-ended, all‑or‑nothing licensing process
without any certainty of outcomes.” We need government on the side of this clean-
energy transformation, with supportive regulation, streamlined approval, investment in research and incentives
that tilt producers and consumers away from carbon.

All this, however, depends on overcoming an irrational dread among the public and many
activists. The reality is that nuclear power is the safest form of energy humanity has ever
used. Mining accidents, hydroelectric dam failures, natural gas explosions and oil train
crashes all kill people, sometimes in large numbers, and smoke from coal-burning kills
them in enormous numbers, more than half a million per year.
By contrast, in 60 years of nuclear power, only three accidents have raised public alarm: Three Mile Island in
1979, which killed no one; Fukushima in 2011, which killed no one (many deaths resulted from the tsunami
and some from a panicked evacuation near the plant); and Chernobyl in 1986, the result of extraordinary
Soviet bungling, which killed 31 in the accident and perhaps several thousand from cancer, around the same
number killed by coal emissions every day. (Even if we accepted recent claims that Soviet and international
authorities covered up tens of thousands of Chernobyl deaths, the death toll from 60 years of nuclear power
would still equal about one month of coal-related deaths.)

Nuclear power plants cannot explode like nuclear bombs, and they have not contributed to weapons
proliferation, thanks to robust international controls: 24 countries have nuclear power but not weapons, while Israel and
North Korea have nuclear weapons but not power.
Nuclear waste is compact — America’s total from 60 years would fit in a Walmart — and is safely stored in concrete casks
and pools, becoming less radioactive over time. After we have solved the more pressing challenge of climate change, we
It’s a far easier
can either burn the waste as fuel in new types of reactors or bury it deep underground.
environmental challenge than the world’s enormous coal waste, routinely dumped near
poor communities and often laden with toxic arsenic, mercury and lead that can last
forever.
Despite its demonstrable safety, nuclear power presses several psychological buttons. First, people
estimate risk according to how readily anecdotes like well-publicized nuclear accidents pop into mind.
Second, the thought of radiation activates the mind-set of disgust, in which any trace of contaminant fouls
whatever it contacts, despite the reality that we all live in a soup of natural radiation. Third, people feel better
about eliminating a single tiny risk entirely than minimizing risk from all hazards combined. For all these
reasons, nuclear power is dreaded while fossil fuels are tolerated, just as flying is scary even though driving
is more dangerous.

Opinions are also driven by our cultural and political tribes. Since the late 1970s, when No Nukes became a
signature cause of the Green movement, sympathy to nuclear power became, among many
environmentalists, a sign of disloyalty if not treason.

As the enormity of the climate crisis

Despite these challenges, psychology and politics can change quickly.
sinks in and the hoped-for carbon savings from renewables don’t add up, nuclear can
become the new green. Protecting the environment and lifting the developing world out of poverty are
progressive causes. And the millennials and Gen Z’s might rethink the sacred values their boomer parents have left
unexamined since the Doobie Brothers sang at the 1979 No Nukes concert.

If the American public and politicians can face real threats and overcome unfounded
fears, we can solve humanity’s most pressing challenge and leave our grandchildren a bright future
of climate stability and abundant energy. We can dispatch, once and for all, the self-fulfilling
prophesy that we’re cooked.

Warming causes extinction

Xu and Ramanathan 17
Yangyang Xu, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University; and
Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences at the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 9/26/17, “Well below 2
°C: Mitigation strategies for avoiding dangerous to catastrophic climate changes,” Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 114, No. 39, p. 10315-
10323

We are proposing the following extension to the DAI risk categorization: warming greater than
1.5 °C as “dangerous”; warming greater than 3 °C as “catastrophic?”; and warming in
excess of 5 °C as “unknown??,” with the understanding that changes of this magnitude, not
experienced in the last 20+ million years, pose existential threats to a majority of the
population. The question mark denotes the subjective nature of our deduction and the fact that catastrophe can strike
at even lower warming levels. The justifications for the proposed extension to risk categorization are given below.

From the IPCC burning embers diagram and from the language of the Paris Agreement, we infer that the DAI begins at
warming greater than 1.5 °C. Our
criteria for extending the risk category beyond DAI include the
potential risks of climate change to the physical climate system, the ecosystem, human
health, and species extinction. Let us first consider the category of catastrophic (3 to 5 °C warming). The
first major concern is the issue of tipping points. Several studies (48, 49) have concluded that 3 to 5 °C
global warming is likely to be the threshold for tipping points such as the collapse of the
western Antarctic ice sheet, shutdown of deep water circulation in the North Atlantic, dieback
of Amazon rainforests as well as boreal forests, and collapse of the West African monsoon, among
others. While natural scientists refer to these as abrupt and irreversible climate changes,
economists refer to them as catastrophic events (49).

Warming of such magnitudes also has catastrophic human health effects. Many recent
studies (50, 51) have focused on the direct influence of extreme events such as heat waves on public health by evaluating
exposure to heat stress and hyperthermia. It has been estimated that the likelihood of extreme events (defined as 3-sigma
events), including heat waves, has increased 10-fold in the recent decades (52). Human beings are extremely sensitive to
heat stress. For example, the 2013 European heat wave led to about 70,000 premature mortalities (53). The major finding
of a recent study (51) is that, currently, about 13.6% of land area with a population of 30.6% is exposed to deadly heat.
The authors of that study defined deadly heat as exceeding a threshold of temperature as well as humidity. The
thresholds were determined from numerous heat wave events and data for mortalities attributed to heat waves. According
to this study, a 2
°C warming would double the land area subject to deadly heat and expose
48% of the population. A 4 °C warming by 2100 would subject 47% of the land area and almost 74% of
the world population to deadly heat, which could pose existential risks to humans and
mammals alike unless massive adaptation measures are implemented, such as providing air
conditioning to the entire population or a massive relocation of most of the population to safer climates.

Climate risks can vary markedly depending on the socioeconomic status and culture of the
population, and so we must take up the question of “dangerous to whom?” (54). Our discussion in this study is focused
more on people and not on the ecosystem, and even with this limited scope, there are multitudes of categories of people.
We will focus on the poorest 3 billion people living mostly in tropical rural areas, who are still relying on 18th-
century technologies for meeting basic needs such as cooking and heating. Their contribution to CO2 pollution is roughly
5% compared with the 50% contribution by the wealthiest 1 billion (55). This bottom 3 billion population comprises mostly
subsistent farmers, whose livelihood will be severely impacted, if not destroyed, with a one- to five-
year megadrought, heat waves, or heavy floods; for those among the bottom 3 billion of the world’s population who are
living in coastal areas, a 1- to 2-m rise
in sea level (likely with a warming in excess of 3 °C) poses
existential threat if they do not relocate or migrate. It has been estimated that several hundred million
people would be subject to famine with warming in excess of 4 °C (54). However, there has essentially been
no discussion on warming beyond 5 °C.

Climate change-induced species extinction is one major concern with warming of such
large magnitudes (>5 °C). The current rate of loss of species is ∼1,000-fold the historical rate, due largely to
habitat destruction. At this rate, about 25% of species are in danger of extinction in the coming decades (56). Global
warming of 6 °C or more (accompanied by increase in ocean acidity due to increased CO2) can
act as a major force multiplier and expose as much as 90% of species to the dangers of
extinction (57).
The bodily harms combined with climate
change-forced species destruction, biodiversity loss, and
threats to water and food security, as summarized recently (58), motivated us to categorize
warming beyond 5 °C as unknown??, implying the possibility of existential threats. Fig. 2 displays
these three risk categorizations (vertical dashed lines).
 2
States ought to:
--Establish a policy of using nuclear ICBMs to defend against asteroids, and eliminate all
other nuclear weapons
--Cooperatively reduce their nuclear ICBM arsenals down to the minimum amount
needed for asteroid deflection
--Submit to international monitoring by the IAEA for compliance
--Eliminate all other nuclear arsenals, research, and development
--Ratify a nuclear no first use policy against states

ICBMs are key to asteroid deflection --- only they can do it

Saitgarayev 16
Sabit Saitgarayev, Leading researcher of the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau, “Russia's
improved ballistic missiles to be tested as asteroid killers,” TASS. February 11, 2016.
http://tass.ru/en/science/855968

"Most rockets work on boiling fuel. Their fueling begins 10 days before the launch and,
therefore, they are unfit for destroying meteorites similar to the Chelyabinsk meteorite
in diameter, which are detected several hours before coming close to the Earth. For this
purpose, intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used, which requires their
upgrade," the scientist said.
The improved missiles could be used as the killers of the Apophis asteroid, "which will
come dangerously close to the Earth in 2036," he added

Nuclear deflection against asteroids is key --- extinction

Cooper 13 Necia Grant Cooper, Los Alamos National Lab. “Killing Killer Asteroids”
https://www.lanl.gov/science/NSS/pdf/NSS_April_2013.pdf

Whew! We can all temporarily breathe a sigh of relief. However, the likelihood that
one day a killer asteroid will be on a collision course with Earth is very
high. Under a 2005 congressional mandate, government-sponsored
surveys using ground and space-based telescopes have discovered 9,500 near-
Earth objects; 1,300 of these, are deemed potentially hazardous. New
asteroids and comets can be expected to enter Earth’s neighborhood as
the gravitational pull of passing stars and collisions between asteroids do
their work to alter the orbits of these (mostly) Solar-system residents. Also, we know
with certainty from many fields of study that 63 million years ago, a 6-mile-diameter
asteroid collided with Earth, striking Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, releasing 10
million megatons of energy, creating a huge crater, and causing the
extinction of the dinosaurs, a major change in climate, and the beginning
of a new geological age. Any near Earth object greater than a half-mile in
diameter can become a deadly threat, potentially causing a mass extinction
of us. Disrupting a Killer Asteroid These facts keep many professional and lay
astronomers busy monitoring the sky. Recognizing the risk, astrophysicists are working
on ways to intercept a killer asteroid and disrupt it in some way that will avert disaster.
Los Alamos astrophysicist Robert Weaver is working on how to protect humanity from a
killer asteroid by using a nuclear explosive. Weaver is not worried about the intercept
problem. He would count on the rocket power and operational control already developed
by NASA to intercept a threatening object and deliver the nuclear device. NASA’s Dawn
Mission has been able to place a spacecraft in orbit around Vesta, a huge almost-planet-
size asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and the NASA Deep Impact
mission sent a probe into the nucleus of comet 9P/Tempel. In other words, we have
the technology to rendezvous with a killer object and try to blow it up with a
nuclear explosive. But will it work? Weaver’s initial set of simulations on Los
Alamos’ powerful Cielo supercomputer demonstrates the basic physics of how a
nuclear burst would do the job. The simulations suggest that a 1-megaton
nuclear blast could deter a killer asteroid the size of Apophis or somewhat
larger. By far the most detailed of Weaver’s calculations is a 3D computer simulation of a
megaton blast on the surface of the potato-shaped Itokawa asteroid. Visited by Japan’s
Hayabusa asteroid lander back in 2005, Itokawa is a conglomerate of granite rocks, a
quarter of a mile long and about half as wide, held together by self-gravity (the
gravitational attraction among its constituents). Weaver used the most modern,
sophisticated Los Alamos codes to predict the progress of a megaton
nuclear blast wave from the point of detonation through the asteroid.
 3
The tradeoff is direct --- a shift away from nuclear weapons cause
bioweapon acquisition
Horowitz ’14 – professor of political science and the associate director of Perry World
House at the University of Pennsylvania. NDT Champ (Michael, Neil Narang is Assistant
Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. In 2015-2016, he served as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense for Policy on a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, “Poor
Man's Atomic Bomb? Exploring the Relationship between "Weapons of Mass
Destruction"” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 58, No. 3, Special Issue: Nuclear
Posture, Nonproliferation Policy, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/24545650)
Finally, we turn to estimating the effect of both nuclear and chemical weapons pur suit and
acquisition on the risk of initiating biological weapons pursuit in models 5 and 6. These
results are equally interesting because they provide support for the notion that biological weapons
(in addition to chemical weapons) can also be appro priately considered a "poor man's
nuclear bomb." Similar to the impact of posses sing nuclear weapons on the probability a state pursues chemical
weapons, nuclear weapons possession has a strong negative effect on biological
weapons pursuit in both models 5 and 6. After holding the underlying level of demand constant in model 6,
simply possessing a nuclear weapon appears to decrease the instantaneous risk
that a state will pursue biological weapons to virtually zero (1.44 χ 10~7). This is
consistent with the understanding of nuclear weapons as so powerful that they make the
possession of other types of WMDs less relevant. Even before countries such as the United States
abandoned their chemical weapons programs, for example, they aban doned their biological weapons program. The
United States eliminated its offensive BW program under a Nixon administration order in 1969 and had shut down the pro
gram by the time it signed the BWC in 1972. France and Great Britain similarly elim inated their offensive BW programs.
Russia stands in stark contrast to this argument, however. Evidence revealed after the cold war demonstrated that the
Soviet Union maintained a vibrant offensive BW program at the Biopreparat complex through the end of the cold war. This
demonstrates that grouping CBWs into a single category may not accurately represent the way countries actually think
about them. Biological weap ons, given their greater theoretical destructive capacity, may be considered somewhat
differently. This is a potential path for future research.

Empirics and economic theory prove.

Narang '16 (Neil Narang; Neil Narang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Co-
Director of the Global Security hub in the Orfalea Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2015-2016, he
served as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense on a Council on Foreign Relations International
Affairs Fellowship. He is currently a research scholar and steering committee member at the University of California
Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), faculty affiliate at the Stanford University Center for International
Security and Cooperation (CISAC), affiliated researcher at the Centre for Conflict Development and Peacebuilding
(CCDP) at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, and Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Narang specializes in
international relations, with a focus on issues of international security and conflict management. Specifically, his research
explores the role of signaling under uncertainty in situations of bargaining and cooperation, particularly as it applies to two
substantive domains: (1) crisis bargaining in both interstate and civil war, and (2) cooperation through nuclear and
conventional military alliances. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly,
Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, among others. He received his PhD in Political Science from
UCSD and he holds a BA in Molecular Cell Biology and Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He
has previously been a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Browne Center for International Politics, a nonproliferation
policy fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and a junior faculty fellow and visiting professor at Stanford
University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation; 4-1-2016; "All Together Now? Questioning WMDs as a
Useful Analytical Unit for Understanding Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation";
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10736700.2016.1153184, Taylor & Francis, accessed 12-8-2019;
JPark)

- NBC = Nuclear/Bio/Chemical weapons

Rather than engage in a theoretical debate comparing the ease of acquisition and destructive potential across NBC
weapons, we chose an empirical and inductive approach of observing historical patterns in
states’ pursuit and acquisition ofdifferent WMDs to determine whether states appeared to behave as if these
weapons were substitutes or compliments. To do this, we estimated something akin to a cross-elasticity of
demand across WMDs by measuring the impact of pursuing and possessing any one type of WMD on the risk a
state will eventually pursue another type, holding that state’s underlying ‘‘willingness’’ to pursue a WMD (demand)
constant. In other words, at any given level of demand—which we approximate using a set of control variables
that previous research has shown to be correlated with states’ willingness to pursue a nuclear weapon—we tried to
estimate the independent effect that acquiring one type of weapon would have on the probability
that a state will pursue another. To begin, this approach required accurate historical data on nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons pursuit and acquisition across time and space. And although there is
some emerging consensus around which states pursued and possessed nuclear weapons over time, there was no
we relied on six
previously established data on chemical and biological weapons proliferation.15 To compile this data,
different sources: (1) the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, (2) the Center for
Nonproliferation Studies, (3) Arms Control Association, the (4) Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, (5) the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, and (6) the
Stimson Center.16 Fortunately for us, the coding in these six sources were highly correlated. However, they did not
always agree on which states pursed or acquired chemical and biological weapons in any given year. Nevertheless, we
were able to confirm the robustness of our results to different sampling rules that required either unanimity
across sources, agreement across a majority of sources, or any single source reporting pursuit or possession of a
chemical or biological weapon by a state in any particular year. The results of our analyses were telling. Specifically, we
found that the underlying demand for NBC weapons appears to be correlated. That is, many of the
same factors that cause states to “go nuclear” also appear to systematically influence the risk
that states will seek chemical and biological weapons. With respect to the relationship between
different weapons of mass destruction, we found that NBC weapons generally appear to function as complements at the
pursuit stage: simply initiating pursuit of any one WMD appears to independently increase the risk that a state will seek all
three simultaneously, controlling for other factors. Finally, and perhaps most interesting, we found some evidence that
WMDs do function as substitutes in one important fashion: once states acquire nuclear weapons,
they appear far less likely to pursue or possess chemical and biological weapons. That is,
the data appears to support the popular notion that chemical and biological weapons function as a “poor man’s atomic
bomb,” since acquiring a nuclear weapon appears to satisfy demand and reduce the risk of chemical
and biological weapons pursuit, but not vice-versa. This last finding is also remarkably consistent with the idea that
nuclear weapons acquisition may uniquely entail some prestige. Of course, these results are not without their limitations.
First, these are systematic empirical regularities estimated across states in the international system over time. There
certainly are, however, important historical cases that do not fit these general patterns well. For example, both the United
States and the Soviet Union maintained chemical weapons programs for decades after they acquired nuclear weapons.
Second, the pursuit and acquisition of WMDs are relatively rare events, particularly with respect to nuclear weapons. For
this reason, some of our findings may be driven by the behavior of only a handful of states, which could limit the
applicability of the findings. Finally, our results are only instructive if the historical data under analysis are accurate.
However, because WMD programs are notoriously secret, determining which states actively pursue or possess a nuclear,
chemical, or biological weapon in any given year is a non-trivial measurement challenge. We
were careful to
check the robustness of our findings to different datasets and different sampling rules, but this still
assumes some independence across measurements. In the end, we emphasized these limitations
and encouraged caution in making strong policy inferences based on our results. Misleading Inferences So what
inferences—if any—from this research can we draw to the likely impact of deep nuclear reductions on the risk of chemical
and biological weapons proliferation? Might policies that limit the supply of nuclear weapons simply shift proliferation risk
elsewhere? Even more to the point, could actors increasingly view chemical and biological weapons as the “poor man’s
atomic bomb,” in inverse relationship to declining global nuclear stockpiles? The short answer to these questions is that
we cannot yet know the likely impact of deep nuclear reductions on chemical and biological weapons proliferation. This is
because existing research—including our own study—does not provide the type of empirical evidence needed to forecast
these outcomes with any real confidence. To illustrate this, I anticipate four mechanisms through which restrictions in the
global supply of nuclear weapons might be posited to increase the risk of chemical and biological weapons proliferation. I
then show that each of these inferences is nevertheless unsustainable based on the findings described above. The first
inference that one may be tempted to draw from past findings is that a policy focused on achieving reductions in the
global nuclear stockpile could cause a rise in chemical and biological weapons proliferation as more states view them as a
“poor man’s atomic bomb.” As noted above, our findings suggested that states appear to seek chemical and biological
weapons for many of the same reasons as they pursue nuclear weapons. Furthermore, our findings also indicate that
states that do not possess nuclear weapons appear to be systematically more likely to
pursue chemical and biological weapons than states that do possess them. When combined, it may seem
reasonable to suppose that, conditional on some level of demand for one of these types of weapons, reductions in
the global supply of nuclear weapons could cause some states to pursue chemical and
biological weapons as “imperfect substitutes” for the deterrence and compellence benefits of
nuclear weapons.

Uniquely causes extinction

Casadevall 12
Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Molecular
Microbiology & Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health, The future of biological warfare, Microb. Biotechnol, September
2012, 5(5): 584–587

It is an axiom of human history that whatever technology is available will be applied

in warfare as one side or the other seeks to gain an advantage. Humans are unique among the species in their
capacity for fighting prolonged conflicts where the nature of the war reflects the types of technologies available. Stone,
metal, leather, wood, domesticated animals, wheels, etc. were each exploited by ancient societies in warfare. In late
antiquity the adoption of the stirrup in Western Europe transformed warfare by enhancing the fighting capacity of the
mounted warrior, which eventually led to the emergence and prominence of the knightly class. More recently gunpowder,
steam engines, aircraft, chemicals, electronics and nuclear physics were employed in warfare. In each epoch, the
Biological warfare is ancient but
technologies available had enormous influence on the strategy and tactics used.
its applicability to the battlefield has
been limited by its unpredictability, blowback possibility and
uncertain efficacy. However, the biological revolution that began in the mid‑20th century has led to the
development of powerful technologies that could potentially be used to generate new
biological weapons of tremendous destructive power. Although biological warfare is
currently prohibited by the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC) a review of prior attempts
to limit the use of certain weapons such as the medieval crossbow, and more recently gas
warfare, provides little encouragement for the notion that a technology that is useful in
war can be limited by treaty. Furthermore, the BTWC restrictions apply only to signatory nation states and are
irrelevant to terrorist organizations or lone wolves type of terrorists. Given the human track record for conflict and the
potential power of biological warfare we are led to the sad conclusion that biological warfare has a future, and that society
must prepare for the eventuality that it will used again by either nations or individuals. In this essay I will try to peek into
the far horizon to identify some general themes that might be helpful in protecting against future horrors fully aware that
the nature of technological change is so rapid and profound that any such view must necessarily be myopic. Existential
threats to humanity In considering the importance of biological warfare as a subject for
concern it is worthwhile to review the known existential threats. At this time this writer can
identify at three major existential threats to humanity: (i) large‑scale thermonuclear war followed by a
nuclear winter, (ii) a planet killing asteroid impact and (iii) infectious disease. To this trio
might be added climate change making the planet uninhabitable. Of the three existential threats the first is
deduced from the inferred cataclysmic effects of nuclear war. For the second there is geological evidence for the
association of asteroid impacts with massive extinction (Alvarez, 1987). As to an existential threat from
microbes recent decades have provided unequivocal evidence for the ability of
certain pathogens to cause the extinction of entire species. Although infectious disease has
traditionally not been associated with extinction this view has changed by the finding that
a single chytrid fungus was responsible for the extinction of numerous amphibian
species (Daszak et al., 1999; Mendelson et al., 2006). Previously, the view that infectious diseases
were not a cause of extinction was predicated on the notion that many pathogens
required their hosts and that some proportion of the host population was naturally resistant. However, that
calculation does not apply to microbes that are acquired directly from the
environment and have no need for a host, such as the majority of fungal pathogens. For those types of
host–microbe interactions it is possible for the pathogen to kill off every last member of a
species without harm to itself, since it would return to its natural habitat upon killing its last host. Hence, from the
viewpoint of existential threats environmental microbes could potentially pose a much
greater threat to humanity than the known pathogenic microbes, which number somewhere
near 1500 species (Cleaveland et al., 2001; Taylor et al., 2001), especially if some of these species
acquired the capacity for pathogenicity as a consequence of natural evolution or
bioengineering.

Outweighs nuclear war

Farmer 17 Ben Farmer [Defence Correspondent In Munich], 18 FEBRUARY 2017,
"Bioterrorism could kill more people than nuclear war, Bill Gates to warn world leaders,"
Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/biological-terrorism-could-kill-
people-nuclear-attacks-bill/ // ash
Bioterrorists could one day kill hundreds of millions of people in an attack more deadly
than nuclear war, Bill Gates will warn world leaders.
Rapid advances in genetic engineering have opened the door for small terrorism groups
to tailor and easily turn biological viruses into weapons.
A resulting disease pandemic is currently one of the most deadly threats faced by the
world, he believes, yet governments are complacent about the scale of the risk.
Speaking ahead of an address to the Munich Security Conference, the richest man in
the world said that while governments are concerned with the proliferation of nuclear and
chemical weapons, they are overlooking the threat of biological warfare.
Mr Gates, whose charitable foundation is funding research into quickly spotting
outbreaks and speeding up vaccine production, said the defence and security
establishment “have not been following biology and I’m here to bring them a little bit of
bad news”.
Mr Gates will today (Saturday) tell an audience of international leaders and senior
officers that the world’s next deadly pandemic “could originate on the computer screen of
a terrorist”.
He told the Telegraph: “Natural epidemics can be extremely large. Intentionally caused
epidemics, bioterrorism, would be the largest of all.”
“With nuclear weapons, you’d think you would probably stop after killing 100million.
Smallpox won’t stop. Because the population is naïve, and there are no real
preparations. That, if it got out and spread, would be a larger number.”
 4
CP Text: States ought to adopt a policy of No First Use and abide by
said policy
A credible policy of No First Use requires a fundamental re-
understanding of military policy, including drastically reduced
nuclear arsenals, change of rhetoric, altered war plans, no-early-
second-use, and gradual phase out.
Miller 17
Miller, Steven E.. “The Utility of Nuclear Weapons and the Strategy of No-First-Use.”
Presentation, November 15-17. SHS TG
If NFU is to be more than a declaratory policy, then it must be meaningfully reflected in
the war planning and force postures of the nuclear powers. Because the possibility of
first use inheres in the possession of a nuclear arsenal, it is not easy to create a posture
that effectively displays genuine fidelity to the NFU pledge. Because it is easy to
proclaim NFU as a declaratory policy, little weight has been given in the past to the NFU
pledges made by various nuclear powers. It seems safe to say, for example, that the
United States and its NATO allies gave no credence whatsoever to the NFU
commitment made by the Soviet Union. What must nuclear-armed states do if they wish
to genuinely adopt a strategy of no-first-use? How might they make this a credible and
reassuring step? How could they configure their forces so as to reflect a real NFU
policy? In the context of anything like present nuclear forces, it is not clear that there is a
wholly convincing answer to these questions - or at least, an answer that would be
wholly convincing to a suspicious adversary. But an implication of NFU is that the
present force postures must be left far behind. Then, as a general matter, the answer
must be that a real NFU policy would have to ripple through the entire military posture
and preparations of the nuclear-armed state. And the end result would need to be a
doctrine that does not rely on first use and a nuclear force posture that has little or no
capacity to be used first. War planning. NFU cannot be real if militaries develop war
plans that include, or even depend upon, the expectation of first-use of nuclear
weapons. It has long been a commonplace to note the gap that often exists in nuclear
powers between declaratory policy and operation policy. The Soviet Union's NFU
pledge, for example, coexisted with war plans for a European war that called for
substantial use of nuclear weapons from the outset of hostilities.25 A genuine strategy of
no-first use would need to be reflected in operational war plans. These would have to
assume an entirely non-nuclear character and to extirpate all scenarios in which
recourse is made to the first use of nuclear weapons. Eradicating the idea that nuclear
first use is an option would have enormous implications. It would alter the expectations
of politicians and commanders. It would (or should) influence military investment
decisions - more conventional capability may be necessary, for example.26 It could
affect public articulations of defense policy and military doctrine. In the Soviet period,
Moscow's NFU pledge was undermined by a profusion of military writings that
emphasized nuclear preemption and warfighting and otherwise were in tension with
NFU. But a genuine NFU strategy would need to harmonize doctrinal expositions and
political explanations of defense policy with the constraints of the NFU commitment.
Changes in public rhetoric alone will not be sufficient to convince the world that a NFU
strategy is firmly in place. But they could help send the message that NFU was being
taken seriously. NATO presently proclaims at every occasion that nuclear weapons are
essential and that nuclear first-use is an integral component of alliance military strategy.
If NATO instead were to proclaim that nuclear weapons are irrelevant to most of the
alliance's security needs and that it could not envision circumstances in which it would
use nuclear weapons first, this would certainly set a very different tone. War planning, of
course, is not a public activity, though it has public outcroppings. So though this is a
necessary step if NFU is to be real, it must be coupled with other, more visible steps, if
others are to be convinced that NFU is more than declaratory policy. Exercises and
training. Militaries, goes the old aphorism, fight the way they train. Military organizations
are honed through years training and exercises to operate in certain ways with certain
expectations. If exercises sometimes or routinely involve scenarios that include nuclear
first use, this will be visible to observers of the exercises and will be have impact on the
way the military thinks and behaves. NFU cannot be real if militaries are practicing as if
nuclear weapons will be used first. In the context of a strategy of NFU, exercises should
ingrain the idea that first-use is entirely out of the picture and should not figure at all in
the calculations of military commanders. Force Composition and Disposition. A strategy
of NFU would require or permit dramatic alterations in force posture. A purely deterrent
force could be much smaller and simpler than the present arsenals of the larger nuclear
powers. There would be no need for emphasis on speed or offensive readiness.
(Readiness for survivability would, of course, remain desirable.) The force postures most
compatible with NFU, and most convincing to other powers, would possess little or no
capability for first-use. This proposition - that states should seek to minimize the first-use
capacities of their nuclear arsenals - has potentially profound implications for nuclear
posture. It could lead far down a road toward latent, residual, undeployed nuclear
capabilities. In effect, this would entail the aggressive pursuit of deep dealerting.27 In the
context of a strategy of NFU, nuclear forces need only survive an attack and be capable
of retaliation. No other demands are placed upon them. This means that all readiness
measures associated with first use options are superfluous, unnecessary, and even
undesirable. Some categories of nuclear weapons - nonstrategic nuclear forces, for
example - would become expendable. Forward deployed weapons, such as the
American nuclear capabilities deployed in Europe, would be neither necessary nor
appropriate. With offensive readiness no longer important, there would be no reason to
leave warheads routinely mated to delivery systems. There might be little reason,
indeed, to possess actively deployed nuclear weapons. There might be no compelling
reason to leave nuclear weapons in the custody of military organizations. So long as
survivability could be assured, there might be an argument for keeping few, if any, fully
assembled nuclear weapons in the arsenal. Following this logic still further, in this sort of
nuclear environment, states might grow comfortable not only with NFU, but with the
notion of no-early-second-use - retaliation does not need to be prompt in order to deter.
The end point of this logic might be something like the capacities of present day Japan,
which might be regarded as a massively dealerted nuclear power. It possesses nuclear
expertise, delivery systems, and fissile material. In some weeks or months it could build
nuclear weapons for retaliation if it needed to. But no one fears its first use options.
Thus, the premise of NFU, if taken seriously, produces a logic that can lead in stunning
directions. In short, once nuclear arsenals are limited to purely deterrent purposes, it
becomes possible to envision substantial alterations of force posture that would give
considerable reality to NFU commitments. For the larger nuclear powers, one could
imagine much smaller forces, deeply dealerted, incapable of rapid use, perhaps with
warheads unmated from delivery systems, perhaps with warheads withdrawn from
regular deployment. This is a very different nuclear force, far from anything presently in
view, but one entirely compatible with a world dominated by deterrence and NFU.
CONCLUSION To truly embrace a strategy of NFU has fundamentally important
implications in terms of both purpose and posture. Nuclear-armed states must be
prepared to abandon the practice of exploiting nuclear weapons for the attainment of a
variety of different purposes. Only one purpose is compatible with NFU: the deterrence
of nuclear attack. All other purposes associated with nuclear weapons must be
jettisoned or achieved by other means. This is the crux of the issue. If nuclear weapon
states were really prepared to limit themselves purely to nuclear deterrence, not only
would NFU be acceptable but many of the associated force posture alterations would
become palatable, if not congenial. However, most nuclear-armed states appear to have
objectives beyond nuclear deterrence that are thought to be served by their nuclear
weapons, leading to the embrace of first use doctrines and the retention of first use
options. Above all, the sole superpower has linked its nuclear capability to at least a
handful of objectives other than nuclear deterrence, and hence finds NFU to be entirely
objectionable. Washington correctly appreciates that NFU is incompatible with its
present nuclear doctrine. So long as this remains the case, the genuine strategy of NFU
will make little headway in the corridors of power. If the time someday comes when the
nuclear powers are truly interested in a meaningful embrace of NFU, this will be a
significant step toward the marginalization of nuclear weapons. It will mean that their role
in international politics and national policy is much more circumscribed. Once nuclear
weapons have been restricted to the narrow purpose of neutralizing the nuclear
weapons of others, a familiar logic comes into play: if the only purpose for nuclear
weapons is deterrence, then if no one has them no one needs them.
 Case
Nuke war key to save the biosphere -- you can either die a hero or live
long enough to see yourself become the villain.
Caldwell 16 -- Joseph George Caldwell is a mathematical statistician and systems and software engineer. He is author of articles and books on
divers topics (e.g., population, environment, statistics, economics, politics, defense and music, including The Late Great United States (2008); Can America
Survive? (1999); How to Stop the IRS and Solve the Deficit Problem (The Value-Added Tax: A New Tax System for the United States) (1987); How to Play the
Guitar by Ear (for mathematicians and physicists) (2000). See Internet website http://www.foundationwebsite.org to view these and other articles. He holds a BS
degree in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a PhD degree in Statistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. http://www.foundationwebsite.org/#PlanetaryManagement

Observation. Earth is undergoing the sixth mass planetary species extinction (see Richard Leakey's
and Roger Lewin's book, The Sixth Extinction). Unlike earlier mass species extinctions, the current mass species extinction is being
caused entirely by human activity. The rate of planetary species extinction is directly
proportional to the total amount of industrial production, which is directly proportional to the planetary human
population times the average rate of production (or rate of consumption or standard of living) per person. All nations strive to
increase industrial production (or consumption or standard of living) for their people. Many nations, such as the
US, strive for increased population ("a large population is a king's glory"). Given the human propensity for industrial production (and, in
general, "growth" in all things), the only way to reduce the rate of planetary species extinction is to reduce the global human
The only known level of global human population that lived in harmony (balance,
population.
slowly changing equilibrium) with the biosphere was a few million people. Ergo: In order
for the mass planetary species extinction to cease, it appears that the planetary human
population must decline to a few million people.
Mission Statement. At the end of the Petroleum Age, the human population of Earth will fall to a few million -- the number sustainable by
the current flux of solar energy. It appears quite possible that large-scale economic activity may soon destroy
the ecological balance of the biosphere in which the human species evolved and on which it is dependent for its
continued survival. The Foundation website is committed to trying to avert this human-caused destruction of a human-friendly biosphere
and the consequent extinction of mankind. It is committed to the establishment of a long-term-sustainable "double nickel" human
population consisting of five million spatially concentrated high-tech people and five million spatially dispersed hunter-gatherers. The
purpose of the high-tech population is to assure that the global population of Earth is limited to a total of ten million people (a level that is
known to have lived in harmony with the biosphere for millions of years). The purpose of the hunter-gatherer population is to assure that a
local catastrophic event does not cause the extinction of mankind.

Donald Trump Has Raised the Likelihood of a Near-Term Global Nuclear War. Donald
Trump has called (22 December 2016) for an expansion of the US nuclear warfare
capability. The consensus appears to be that his comments have increased the
likelihood of nuclear war, or made it likely that such a war will occur sooner.
I am an expert on global nuclear warfare and ballistic missile defense. My book Can America Survive? describes several exemplar global-
If a global nuclear war were to occur, the human-caused sixth mass
nuclear-warfare attacks.
species extinction would end. The US and China would likely not survive, but Russia might. (Reasons why the US would
likely not survive but Russia might are discussed in my book, The Late Great United States.)

Complex societies do not decline gracefully; they collapse catastrophically. (See Joseph A.
Tainter's book, The Collapse of Complex Societies.) As long as the Petroleum Age continues, the human population decline can be held
off, and there is no strong incentive for global nuclear war. Global nuclear war will likely occur as the Petroleum Age ends and nations
compete for shrinking energy resources. Many people pray that global nuclear war does not occur. It is very likely to occur. The only real
uncertainty is when.

Since an estimated thirty thousand species are made extinct each year because of human industrial activity, the sooner this activity ends,
the sooner the Sixth Extinction will end, the more species will remain, and the higher the
likelihood of long-term human survival. Our present high-population civilization is crucially dependent on massive
amounts of energy, and it will collapse as the energy runs out. Recurrent solar energy and nuclear energy cannot replace the high levels of
petroleum energy. When petroleum reserves exhaust, human population will decline (whether a global nuclear war occurs or not).

if Global Nuclear War Is to Occur, then

With Respect to the Long-Term Survival of Mankind,

Sooner Is Better than Later. The longer the petroleum era lasts, the
greater the damage to the biosphere, and the greater the chance of human
extinction. The only thing that really matters in the long term is the ecological state of the planet when the global industrial era
comes to an end, and the mass extinction ends. As long as high human population levels continue, the mass species extinction
continues. From the viewpoint of long-term survival of mankind, if global nuclear warfare does occur, then sooner is definitely better than
later.

Donald Trump May Have Substantially Increased the Likelihood of the Long-Term Survival
of Mankind. By his pronouncements on nuclear warfare, Donald Trump may or may not
have raised the likelihood of an eventual global nuclear war. The likelihood of an
eventual global nuclear war is already very high, and it is unlikely that his statements
could change it much. It would appear, however, that he may very well have made a
significant change in the timing of that war. He has likely moved the occurrence of that
war much closer. By doing so, he may well bring about an early end to the Sixth
Extinction, and he may well have significantly increased the likelihood of the long-
term survival of mankind.

Nuclear war won’t cause extinction – claims are massively over-

exaggerated
Eken 17 -- Mattias Eken, PhD Candidate in Modern History, University of St Andrews “The understandable fear of nuclear weapons
doesn’t match reality” https://theconversation.com/the-understandable-fear-of-nuclear-weapons-doesnt-match-reality-73563

Claims exaggerating the effects of nuclear weapons have become commonplace, especially
after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. In the early War on Terror years, Richard Lugar, a former US senator and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, argued that terrorists armed with nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to the Western way of life. What he failed to explain is how.

It is by no means certain that a single nuclear detonation (or even several) would do
away with our current way of life. Indeed, we’re still here despite having nuked our own
planet more than 2,000 times – a tally expressed beautifully in this video by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto).
around 500 of all the nuclear weapons
While the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty forced nuclear tests underground,

detonated were unleashed in the Earth’s atmosphere. This includes the world’s largest
ever nuclear detonation, the 57-megaton bomb known as Tsar Bomba, detonated by the Soviet Union on October 30 1961.
Tsar Bomba was more than 3,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. That is immense destructive power – but as one
physicist explained, it’s only “one-thousandth the force of an earthquake, one-thousandth the force of
a hurricane”.

The Damascus incident proved how incredibly hard it is to set off a nuclear bomb and the limited effect that would have come from just one warhead detonating.

scientists have controversially argued that an even limited all-out nuclear war
Despite this, some

might lead to a so-called nuclear winter, since the smoke and debris created by very large bombs could block out the sun’s rays
for a considerable amount of time.

To inflict such ecological societal annihilation with weapons alone, we would have to
detonate hundreds if not thousands of thermonuclear devices in a short time. Even in
such extreme conditions, the area actually devastated by the bombs would be limited:
for example, 2,000 one-megaton explosions with a destructive radius of five miles each
would directly destroy less than 5% of the territory of the US.
Of course, if the effects of nuclear weapons have been greatly exaggerated, there is a very good reason: since these weapons are indeed extremely dangerous,
any posturing and exaggerating which intensifies our fear of them makes us less likely to use them. But it’s important, however, to understand why people have
come to fear these weapons the way we do.
After all, nuclear weapons are here to stay; they can’t be “un-invented”. If we want to live with them and mitigate the very real risks they pose, we must be honest

about what those risks really are. Overegging them to frighten ourselves more than we need to keeps
nobody safe.

Nuke war won’t cause extinction---BUT, it’ll spur political will for
meaningful disarmament.
Daniel Deudney 18. Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins
University. 03/15/2018. “The Great Debate.” The Oxford Handbook of International
Security. www.oxfordhandbooks.com, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198777854.013.22.
//reem
Although nuclear war is the oldest of these technogenic threats to civilization and human survival, and although important
the nuclear world is
steps to restraint, particularly at the end of the Cold War, have been achieved,
increasingly changing in major ways, and in almost entirely dangerous directions. The
third “bombs away” phase of the great debate on the nuclear-political question is more consequentially divided than in the
first two phases. Evenmore ominously, most of the momentum lies with the forces that are
pulling states toward nuclear-use, and with the radical actors bent on inflicting
catastrophic damage on the leading states in the international system, particularly the
United States. In contrast, the arms control project, although intellectually vibrant, is
largely in retreat on the world political stage. The arms control settlement of the Cold
War is unraveling, and the world public is more divided and distracted than ever. With the recent election
of President Donald Trump, the United States, which has played such a dominant role in
nuclear politics since its scientists invented these fiendish engines, now has an
impulsive and uninformed leader, boding ill for nuclear restraint and effective
crisis management. Given current trends, it is prudent to assume that sooner or later, and probably
sooner, nuclear weapons will again be the used in war. But this bad news may contain
a “silver lining” of good news. Unlike a general nuclear war that might have occurred during the
Cold War, such a nuclear event now would probably not mark the end of civilization (or of
humanity), due to the great reductions in nuclear forces achieved at the end of the Cold
War. Furthermore, politics on “the day after” could have immense potential for
positive change. The survivors would not be likely to envy the dead, but would surely
have a greatly renewed resolution for “never again.” Such an event, completely
unpredictable in its particulars, would unambiguously put the nuclear-political
question back at the top of the world political agenda. It would unmistakeably
remind leading states of their vulnerability It might also trigger more robust efforts to
achieve the global regulation of nuclear capability. Like the bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki that did so much to catalyze the elevated concern for nuclear security in
the early Cold War, and like the experience “at the brink” in the Cuban Missile Crisis of
1962, the now bubbling nuclear caldron holds the possibility of inaugurating a
major period of institutional innovation and adjustment toward a fully “bombs
away” future.

Not even all-out nuclear war causes extinction – the tropics survive
Walker 16
Robert Walker (inventor and programmer). “Could Anything Make Humans Extinct In The Near Future?” Science 2.0. April
5th, 2016. http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/could_anything_make_humans_extinct_in_the_near_future-169780
And this is about whether we can go extinct, not about things like famine or war. Even
an all out nuclear war leading to a nuclear winter would not make the tropics as hard to
live in as the Arctic - so some humans would surely survive. And the radioactivity
could also be dealt with, enough so that some humans would survive it. Of course we
must not let that happen. But it wouldn't make us extinct, and that's the topic here. Would
anything else do this? What about climate change, or asteroid impacts? I've written this for anyone - so if you have a
scientific background, do excuse me when I occasionally venture into the more "wacky" ideas that bother some people
though any scientist would see that there is no possibility of them happening.

The best scientific data doesn’t support nuclear winter

Seitz 11
Russell Seitz (physicist at Harvard). MODIFIED FOR OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE—STRUCKTHROUGH AND REPLACED
WITH “CONFLICT.” “Nuclear winter was and is debatable.” Correspondence, Nature, vol. 475, 2011.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7354/pdf/475037b.pdf

Alan Robock’s contention that there has been no real scientific debate about the ‘nuclear
winter’ concept is itself debatable (Nature 473, 275–276; 2011). This potential climate
disaster, popularized in Science in 1983, rested on the output of a one-dimensional
model that was later shown to overestimate the smoke a nuclear holocaust [conflict]
might engender. More refined estimates, combined with advanced three-dimensional
models (see go.nature.com/ kss8te), have dramatically reduced the extent and severity
of the projected cooling. Despite this, Carl Sagan, who co-authored the 1983 Science
paper, went so far as to posit “the extinction of Homo sapiens” (C. Sagan Foreign Affairs
63, 75–77; 1984). Some regarded this apocalyptic prediction as an exercise in
mythology. George Rathjens of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology protested:
“Nuclear winter is the worst example of the misrepresentation of science to the
public in my memory,” (see go.nature.com/yujz84) and climatologist Kerry Emanuel
observed that the subject had “become notorious for its lack of scientific integrity”
(Nature 319, 259; 1986).

There will be nuclear autumn, not nuclear winter—all-out nuclear war won’t
majorly disrupt the climate
Newman 2k
Judith Newman (American journalist and author). “20 of the Greatest Blunders in Science in the Last 20 Years.” Discover
Magazine. October 2000. http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featblunders

Nuclear Winter of Our Discontent In 1983, astronomer Carl Sagan coauthored an article
in Science that shook the world: "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple
Nuclear Explosions" warned that nuclear war could send a giant cloud of dust into the
atmosphere that would cover the globe, blocking sunlight and invoking a climatic change
similar to that which might have ended the existence of dinosaurs. Skeptical atmospheric
scientists argued that Sagan's model ignored a variety of factors, including the fact
that the dust would have to reach the highest levels of the atmosphere not to be
dissipated by rainfall. In a 1990 article in Science, Sagan and his original coauthors
admitted that their initial temperature estimates were wrong. They concluded that an
all-out nuclear war could reduce average temperatures at most by 36 degrees
Fahrenheit in northern climes. The chilling effect, in other words, would be more of a
nuclear autumn.

Nuclear winter theory is the result of propaganda – nuke war wouldn’t

cause extinction
Wigner 4
Eugene P. Wigner (Physicist, Nobel Laureate). “Ch. 1: The Dangers from Nuclear Weapons: Myths and Facts.” 2004.
http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p912.html

° Facts: Unsurvivable "nuclear winter" is a discredited theory that, since its

conception in 1982, has been used to frighten additional millions into believing that trying
to survive a nuclear war is a waste of effort and resources, and that only by ridding the
world of almost all nuclear weapons do we have a chance of surviving. Non-
propagandizing scientists recently have calculated that the climatic and other
environmental effects of even an all-out nuclear war would be much less severe than the
catastrophic effects repeatedly publicized by popular astronomer Carl Sagan and his
fellow activist scientists, and by all the involved Soviet scientists. Conclusions reached from these
recent, realistic calculations are summarized in an article, "Nuclear Winter Reappraised", featured in the 1986 summer
issue of Foreign Affairs, the prestigious quarterly of the Council on Foreign Relations. The
authors, Starley L.
Thompson and Stephen H. Schneider, are atmospheric scientists with the National
Center for Atmospheric Research. They showed "that on scientific grounds the global
apocalyptic conclusions of the initial nuclear winter hypothesis can now be relegated to a
vanishing low level of probability." Their models indicate that in July (when the
greatest temperature reductions would result) the average temperature in the United
States would be reduced for a few days from about 70 degrees Fahrenheit to
approximately 50 degrees. (In contrast, under the same conditions Carl Sagan, his associates, and the Russian
scientists predicted a resulting average temperature of about 10 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, lasting for many weeks!)
Persons who want to learn more about possible post-attack climatic effects also should read the Fall 1986 issue of
Foreign Affairs. This issue contains a long letter from Thompson and Schneider which further demolishes the theory of
Continuing studies indicate there will be even smaller reductions
catastrophic "nuclear winter "
in temperature than those calculated by Thompson and Schneider. Soviet
propagandists promptly exploited belief in unsurvivable "nuclear winter to increase fear
of nuclear weapons and war, and to demoralize their enemies.