Scientists working at the Federal Institute for Stupid Ideas (FISI) have discovered an old technique with a new application. Nuclear winter, a term popularized in 1982 by astrophysicist Carl Sagan is a hypothetical condition resulting when detonation of large numbers of nuclear weapons blow smoke and ash into the atmosphere and prevent the sun’s light from reaching the earth. According to the theory, the reduction in sunlight will lead a dramatic cooling of the planet's surface--by as much as 20 degrees--and a possible worldwide winter. According to the FISI scientists, an adaptation to this technique, called “Controlled Nuclear Winter” could solve the problem of global warming by offsetting greenhouse-gas based warming with nuclear bomb-based cooling.
“Nuclear weapons by themselves cannot produce enough smoke and ash to cool the earth sufficiently,” says Hans Selkirk head of the Institute, “which is why the bombs need to be detonated over highly flammable cities. Our studies show that if we blow up cities of the proper aggregate size we can make sure that the earth’s temperature drops just enough, but not too much. And if we use smallest bomb needed to completely incinerate a given city we can minimize the amount of nuclear radiation and subsequent mutant children that result from our saving the planet.”
FISI has received funding for a pilot program, designed to produce parametric models of city size and temperature drop and to optimize the bombs used. The models will then be calibrated by dropping bombs on several cities and measuring the cooling. “It would be irresponsible of us to roll out this program worldwide without some thorough testing beforehand.” said Selkirk, “We need several data points to be sure our models are correct.”
According to plans, FISI will carry out tests over the first chosen cities—Tehran and Pyongyang immediately and San Francisco just before the November elections.
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