posted by manchurian_candidate
To have the highest probability of survival you must be in a safe environment, away from nuclear contamination, pollution and civilization itself. I
have found only 3 places on earth which are safe
1) the Himalayas
2) Australian outback
3) Antarctica
“ . . if you take global warming into consideration . . “ [Edited by Don W]
Actually, there would be no safe place on earth if we had a nuclear exchange and maybe1,000 up to 10,000 atomic bombs were hurled back and fourth
around the world. The prevailing winds in the Northern Hemisphere blow west to east. I suppose the opposite is true in the Southern Hemisphere,
blowing east to west. This scenario is made even worse to contemplate when we recall it is impossible to predict the various radioactive by-products
from any particular nuclear bomb. Each isotope created in the blast has its own half life and some are into the 10s of 1000s of years and longer.
Back in the good old days of President Eisenhower, America had a Civil Defense program which was famous for its fallout shelters. The US Government
provided food and water for the rated number of occupants for 14 days. Bedding, sanitation equipment, decontamination facilities and Geiger counters
were provided in the larger shelters. It went unspoken that deadly force would be used to keep out late comers who exceeded the rated capacity or
people who had been contaminated by radioactive by-products.
It was absolutely impossible to tell whether14 days of supplies would be enough. So you’d face yet another problem of short food supplies. More
use of deadly force. That is why most people resigned themselves to dying if a nuclear exchange came, and almost as many decided to die in the
daylight and not cowering in some hole in the ground waiting to die.
Nairobi, Kenya, Quito, Equador and somewhere on Mindanao, sound best to me. Quito for its altitude, Nairobi for its location near the equator and on
the downwind side of Africa putting life-saving distance between it and the continental US which would be the major target. The equatorial regions
would be the last to be contaminated by fallout.
This untoward event - the near extinction of humanity - has already happened. Toba, a caldera size volcano in the region of Indonesia, blew up about
75,000 years ago and 95% of humans then alive died. I believe DNA indicates only 10,000 to 25,000 humans survived.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
Which brings me to the Dooms Day Bomb. Or a Get Even Bomb. Any country could take a few hydrogen bombs, wrap them in large quantities of cobalt, and
set them off inside their own country. The resulting radioactive contamination would gradually encircle the earth, likely killing not only all
humans but perhaps all life, including lowly bacteria and so on. This is the kind of thing Kim Jong Il could do and no one could stop him. Like Jim
Jones, “Take a drink of my Kool-Aid.”
[edit on 1/25/2007 by donwhite]