Y4. Sci 2:98/126 THE CLIMATIC, BIOLOGICAL, AND STRATEGIC HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES, OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NINETY-EIGHTH CONGRESS CONTENTS Dr. Carl Sagan, director, Laboratory for Planetary Studies, Cornell Uni- versity; Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, professor of geology, Harvard Universi- ty; and Dr. Edward Teller, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory..... Dr. Alan Hecht, Director, National Climate Program Office, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; accompanied by Vladimir V. Aleksandrov, Ph.D. Head, Climate Modeling Section, Computing Centre of the U.S.S.R., Academy of Sciences, Moscow Dr. Leon Goure, Director, Center for Soviet Studies, Science Applications International Corp.; and Dr. Theodore A. Postol, Center for Internation- al Security and Arms Control.. Appendix I: Additional material submitted for the record: "The Aftereffects of Nuclear War," by Edward Teller. "Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe: Some Policy Implications," by "The Climatic Effects of Nuclear War," by Richard P. Turco, et al "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions,' (III) THE CLIMATIC, BIOLOGICAL AND STRATEGIC EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1984 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:45 a.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James H. Scheuer (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. SCHEUER. All right, the meeting of the Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Agriculture Research and Environment will come to order. As all of you know, we're racing the clock to adjourn in the first week of October and these are very, very hectic days and weeks for all of us, and we're all overburdened and overscheduled and stretched to the breaking point. I say this by way of explanation for the fact that my colleagues haven't arrived yet. They're expected and I hope they'll be here soon, but in deference to all of your time, and in deference to the courtesy of the witnesses in coming here, I don't suppose we ought to wait any longer, so we will proceed. Scientists, like the ones we will be hearing today, believe that 65 million or so years ago, much of life on Earth was extinguished by a sudden catastrophic impact between our planet and an asteroid. That was the end of dinosaur life on Earth. In the past year, a number of scientists have begun to warn us that mankind now has the power to affect long-term biological and climatic changes unrivaled since that primordial collision 65 million years ago. They hypothesized that quite apart from short-term effects due to explosions, heat, and radiation and the problems of dust, soot, smoke, and ash, which are generated thereby, that a nuclear exchange involving today's enormous nuclear arsenals, even as little as 1 to 10 percent of the current nuclear arsenal, could lead to a chilling darkness that could last months or even years, threatening the very ability of Earth to sustain life. It would, in truth, be a nuclear winter. Now, if this hypothesis is correct even on a worst-case theory, then the implications of this hypothesis impose new realities on our thinking about nuclear deterrence. The first logical outgrowth of that theory is that no one, not even an aggressor nation which totally and preemptively, perhaps, destroyed its opponent's arsenals could win a nuclear con (1) |