Looking for thoughts....

Jun 20, 2012 22:13

Quotes from “The Biological Consequences of Nuclear War” by Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, from The Cold and the Dark.

I've been reading this book for research purposes and some of the assumptions about society/survival below the equator are rubbing me the wrong way. Here's a couple examples with the bits I'm most particularly side-eyeing bolded:

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meta, universe: defcon, thinky thoughts

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Comments 13

beckyh2112 June 21 2012, 04:03:23 UTC
james_nicoll linked to a post that could be relevant earlier today, at least as regards Africa.

I will have more thoughts in the morning when I am less tired.

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beckyh2112 June 21 2012, 13:52:58 UTC
I think forgetting that Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere is a major failing on the part of the author.

I question the assumption that people would be forced to stake out areas of tropical rainforest to farm in order to sustain things. It's certainly a reasonable response, but I don't think it's the only reasonable response. (I am reminded of what 1491 had to say about how the economy worked before the arrival of Columbus. Doubt that is something people would go back to easily, but it is a possibility.)

Just based on looking at maps, I'd expect interior trade in South America to shift to the river. Keep in mind, I know nothing about the conditions of these rivers as places for shipping along.

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dunmurderin June 21 2012, 21:30:43 UTC
Thanks for the link! And as I told Luna, going to definitely check out 1491.

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dark_puck June 21 2012, 04:07:52 UTC
Wait, is he implying that the entire Southern Hemisphere is tropical?

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dunmurderin June 21 2012, 05:34:33 UTC
No, that's a misplaced comma on my part (which I've edited and added an ETA for). He's talking about the tropical region of the Southern Hemisphere. *doh*

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dark_puck June 21 2012, 05:36:23 UTC
Awww, and I had a snarky comment about Antarctica all planned out and everything.

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dunmurderin June 21 2012, 05:45:49 UTC
You can still post it! I likes snarky comments!

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anonymous June 21 2012, 06:35:02 UTC
1) The Southern hemisphere is heavily linked by trade to the North, but then everywhere is heavily linked to everywhere. An Africa cut off from the world would suffer massive economic contraction and die-offs, but civilization would probably not collapse.

The main short-term constraint would be lack of oil and industrial imports. Most of Africa is now reliant on moving goods around by road. So it would certainly get ugly, and a lot of people would die. But in the medium to long term, Africa has a lot of oil, a lot of mines, a lot of factories, millions of engineers, and several regions that are net food exporters (Uganda, Senegal, South Africa) even with relatively modest inputs of machinery and fertilizer.

2) Africa is full of universities. To be fair to Ehrlich, this was not necessarily the case in 1983; Africa today is producing about 10 times as many college graduates per annum as it was 30 years ago.

Doug M.

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dunmurderin June 21 2012, 07:32:38 UTC
Thank you! The main reason for asking about this -- as well as one of the reasons for reading The Cold and the Dark -- is that I'm working on a world where there was a nuclear war in 1983 and the balance of world power shifts primarily to the Southern Hemisphere and secondarily to the nations in the Northern Hemisphere below approximately 30 degrees North latitude (going on the presumption that 30-60 degrees North latitude will be the area hit hardest by the aftermath).

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anonymous June 21 2012, 20:46:07 UTC
30 north still leaves some bits of the USA -- Florida, south Texas, and Hawaii. Not much. (Though a rump US based in Hawaii could be amusing.) It leaves a bigger chunk of China, but likely still not enough to work with.

In terms of large countries that could still soldier on, you've got Mexico, India, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. Lots to work with.

Africa in 1983 would be both better and worse off than today. Better off because it was less dependent on imports, especially of oil and machinery; almost everyone was a subsistence farmer or close to it. Worse because almost everyone was a subsistence farmer or close to it.

Doug M.

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dunmurderin June 21 2012, 21:37:15 UTC
Yeah, I spent some time going over maps and dividing the world into zones based on lines of latitude.

In a nutshell, it comes down to this:

Green Zone: any country/territory fully below the Equator.

Yellow Zone: any country/territory between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer. Includes countries split by the Equator.

Orange Zone: any country/territory between the Tropic of Cancer and 30 degrees North latitude. Includes countries split by the Tropic of Cancer.

Red Zone: any country/territory between 30 degrees North Latitude and the Arctic Circle. Includes countries split by 30 degrees North latitude.

In the case of countries that are split, they're downgraded into the next worse zone though I'm thinking that in general only the areas that are actually within that worse zone (plus or minus some overlap since weather patterns and air currents don't follow lines of latitude exactly) are going to receive the effects

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lunatron June 21 2012, 14:40:18 UTC
I would highly suggest reading the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann, which, among many other things, talks about how the South American rainforests were cultivated, self-sustaining agriculture before the white men came, ravaged everyone with disease, and knocked their societies down to subsistence levels from its previous height.

So I don't think you'd need traditional American farms in the rainforest to support a large population.

Also, I think all the universities and schools in the Southern Hemisphere would be very offended by this guy.

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dunmurderin June 21 2012, 21:28:04 UTC
Gonna see if I can check that out from the library today (they've got a copy at my local branch; it's just a question of getting off my ass and going in before work).

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