Why a Post-Nuclear World Would Look Nothing Like “Mad Max”
tl;dr: Sensationalist but unconvincing.<p>This is because of statements like made here:<p>&gt;<i>“But global warming would be over.” Why? “Because CO2 production would stop with the destruction of civilization.” Man-made climate change, and the drought conditions that come with it, would cease.</i><p>I find this is just ignoring reality. CO2 content in atmosphere is the result of a balance in the world. It&#x27;s a result of processes that bring more CO2 there, and process that remove it.<p>There&#x27;s plenty of CO2 production that happens without civilization. And almost all of CO2 removal is not the result of civilization. The balance is not quite solid, but it is there.<p>The man-made climate change is about changing that balance (and the balance with some other gasses like methane). Annual man-made CO2 emissions are however only a small portion of the total CO2 currently in atmosphere, and of total CO2 removed. Even if civilization wouldn&#x27;t make any CO2 emissions, the CO2 content of atmosphere would not go to zero.<p>For CO2 levels in atmosphere, there is an annual fluctuation of about 3–9 ppm which is negatively correlated with the Northern Hemisphere&#x27;s growing season. [1]<p>Thus, a far more important factor in the CO2 balance of Earth after a nuclear winter would be how vegetation and seawater plankton survive. If large areas of forests were destroyed, and if seas would be poisoned, then the conversion of CO2 to oxygen and absorption of carbon to plankton would change drastically. The impact of that would be vastly larger than the CO2 output of any human industries.<p>Climate change would not be over because of lack of civilizsation; climate change would be unpredictable because we wouldn&#x27;t know what are all the things that blew up in the air and what impact they have.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth&#x27;s_atmosphere" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth&#x27;s_atmo...</a>