A deranged Atlantic article argued like it’s wrong to worry about nuclear war’s likely catastrophic death toll without also talking about how it would “wreck” the climate.
The Atlantic published an article that posed as serious scholarship and was eco-extremist. “On Top of Everything Else, Nuclear War Would Be a Climate Problem,” the piece, written by Atlantic staff writer Robinson Meyer, pontificated to readers: “If you are worried about rapid, catastrophic changes to the planet’s climate, then you must be worried about nuclear war.”
It got worse as Meyer tried to put climate politics on the same level as mass slaughter: “On top of killing tens of millions of people, even a relatively ‘minor’ exchange of nuclear weapons would wreck the planet’s climate in enormous and long-lasting ways.” Hoover Institution senior fellow Bjorn Lomborg had a one-liner response to Meyer’s absurdity during a March 15 segment on Fox and Friends, calling the article’s premise out of whack with reality.”
Meyer proceeded to ponder that a one-megaton nuke would mean “immediately flattening buildings, knocking down power lines, and triggering gas leaks” in addition to the “organ-destroying effects of radiation.” Meyer wildly framed his whole example as a mere precursor to a larger climate Armageddon: “But only at this moment of the war do the climate consequences truly begin.”
The conclusion of his story was equally terrible:
The full impact of a nuclear swap could prove to be worse than the effects of bombs. The global devastation could have been followed by several years of conventional, gasoline- or diesel-powered military operations.The permanent effects on the climate system then would be worse, [emphasis added.]
Lomborg slammed Meyer for his nonsense: “I’m astounded when you hear people saying, ‘There is possibly a nuclear war, and you know what? That could be bad for climate change.’ Well actually, nuclear war is bad.” He smacked Meyer’s “obsessive focus just on climate change to the extent that you now actually worry about a nuclear war because it would be bad for global warming.”
Conservatives under attack Call The Atlantic (202) 266-6000 to demand that Meyer’s politicization of nuclear war be condemned.
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