WASHINGTON – John Holdren, President Obama’s new science advisor, said this week that the threat posed by global warming is so severe that he has convinced the Obama administration to consider radical countermeasures, including the detonation of multiple nuclear warheads in an effort to create a modest nuclear winter.

Nuclear winter, like man-made global warming itself, is only a theory, but is widely accepted. Scientists say that in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange, massive amounts of the aerosolized remnants of incinerated buildings, people and vehicles would spew into the upper atmosphere and act like a giant sunscreen, greatly reducing the amount of heat that reaches earth.

While nuclear winter has traditionally been considered a terrifying ordeal that would kill off much of the life spared by the more immediate devastation wrought by shockwaves and radiation, Holdren sees new hope in its unique ability to chill the global climate.

“At first, we considered rather restrained approaches, like creating giant artificial volcanoes that would shoot light-reflecting pollution particles into the atmosphere,” said Holdren. “But we just can’t afford to limit our thinking to only the orthodox, the conservative, the safest approaches.”

“Nuclear winter is really just artificial volcanoes on a grander scale,” he added. “It’s not something we should reject out of hand.”

Holdren, who says he has buy in from the Pentagon, said the plan as he conceived it involves launching a “relatively small” salvo of nuclear missiles, probably “a few dozen at most.”

An early sticking point in his plan was the fact that the missiles would have to have real targets and not simply explode over undeveloped areas. “Unfortunately, you can’t just rely on vaporizing prairieland, desert or ocean areas,” said Holdren. “To maximize soot particles, you want lots of buildings, lots of vehicles, lots of people.”

The plan moved forward after former Vice President Al Gore delivered an emergency, seven-hour PowerPoint presentation to President Obama and members of his staff.

The good news, according to Holdren, is that even a small regional nuclear exchange could lower global temperatures for a decade or more. “All we’d need is about 20 modern nuclear bombs to be discharged, and we’d have a much cooler planet for a good while,” he said.

Holdren continued, “The annihilation of 20 cities around the world is a small price to pay for an end to global warming. As an added benefit, we could probably look forward to the loss of nearly 20 million human lives and hopefully hundreds of millions of animals. If you’re trying to reduce the carbon footprint, getting rid of the feet that produce them is a very efficient way to approach the problem.”

Holdren refused to speculate which 20 cities would be targeted, saying that was a political issue, not a scientific one, “as long as they are major cities and not the one I live in. My research must carry on.”

A Pentagon spokesman wouldn’t confirm the targets either, but did say the administration had pledged to the U.N. that it would turn its nuclear salvo on at least eight major American cities.

Whitehouse Spokesman Robert Gibbs confirmed the Pentagon’s statement, adding, “This will concretize our pledge to bear our rightful share of the sacrifices needed to return the world from the brink of global warming.

Gibbs said “many cities” in Western Europe would be targeted as well, leaving only a “handful, probably two or three” that would be targeted in the developing world. “We don’t think it’s fair to ask the folks who have been producing the lowest amount of CO2 to take on as much of this challenge as the industrialized world,” he said.

Sometimes, you really can fight fire with fire.

“Sadly, though, we needed to target a few third-world cities in order to get a uniform distribution of soot particles around the globe. But the United States stands ready with prepared disaster-relief rescue packages for each of the third-world targets.”

Once the plan receives final sign off by President Obama, Gibbs said it will be enacted immediately and without warning. “We need all the folks in the targeted cities to go about their daily routines until they are vaporized,” he said. “That’s the only way to ensure we get enough soot particles up there in the sky to create a proper cooling effect.”

Gibbs did confirm one specific detail. Washington will not be among the targets.

Originally posted 2009-04-14 20:53:38. Republished by Blog Post Promoter