For nuclear winter and the collapse of civilization, it’s not the question of some nuclear weapons detonated in hostilities, but of enormous arsenals: the North Korean (or Chinese or French or British) arsenals are not large enough to do damage comparable to the US-Russian arsenals.
This is true, but it might draw other countries into a nuclear conflict. I think that the odds of a full deployment of a nuclear arsenal on the scale of the United States’ or Russia’s is probably are probably well under .1%, but the odds of a partial deployment, or the full deployment of a smaller arsenal, on the scale discussed in the paper you linked on nuclear winter, are much higher.
I consider the probable risk to human existence or civilization from nuclear weapons in this century to be fairly negligible, but the risk of an event on the scale of a major genocide may be significant.
For nuclear winter and the collapse of civilization, it’s not the question of some nuclear weapons detonated in hostilities, but of enormous arsenals: the North Korean (or Chinese or French or British) arsenals are not large enough to do damage comparable to the US-Russian arsenals.
This is true, but it might draw other countries into a nuclear conflict. I think that the odds of a full deployment of a nuclear arsenal on the scale of the United States’ or Russia’s is probably are probably well under .1%, but the odds of a partial deployment, or the full deployment of a smaller arsenal, on the scale discussed in the paper you linked on nuclear winter, are much higher.
I consider the probable risk to human existence or civilization from nuclear weapons in this century to be fairly negligible, but the risk of an event on the scale of a major genocide may be significant.