Nuclear War Can Trigger Mini Ice Age
A nuclear war is destructive in every sense of the word. But little did we know that a nuclear war can also alter the face of the planet and might trigger a mini ice-age, and it is feared to be worse than the effects of climate change caused by fossil-fuels.
Nuclear wars might lower the Earth’s average surface temperature by 7°C which experts refer to as a ‘decade-long mini ice age’.
This is about 2 degrees colder from the last ice age some 20,000 years ago. But according to Alan Robock at Rutgers University, although colder, the mini ice age will be shorter but enough to cause devastating farm collapse which can eventually lead to starvation.
How bad is it if it happens? According to the same report “It’s hard to predict exactly how devastating this famine would be if thousands of Earth’s largest cities were reduced to rubble and global infrastructure collapsed, but whatever small fraction of all humans don’t succumb to starvation, hypothermia or epidemics would need to cope with roving, armed gangs desperate for food.”
Because of these, experts say that we are looking at a future of climate change due to the burning of fossil-fuel and climate change due to nuclear war.
Although there are no looming nuclear wars between nations, they said that some countries are building nuclear weapons, which is capable of initiating the mini-ice age. The report said that “the nuclear war triggering the mini ice age will most likely start by accident or miscalculation.”
The organization called Future of Life has proven that it is possible for an accident in this magnitude to happen. They said there were examples from history which can show that the theory could actually be correct.
One famous incident happened in 1961 when two nuclear bombs accidentally dropped in North Carolina due to a bomber losing its wing. One of the two bombs landed safely with a parachute, the other broke on impact. But because of the failure of two ignition wires to cross, a nuclear bomb explosion was prevented.
This climate change due to nuclear war was already described by scientists in 1983 according to a report. They have referred to it as a ‘nuclear winter’ which pertains to the mini ice age. The cause of this is quite simple, researchers found out that the smoke from nuclear weapons would form a global ‘stratospheric’ smoke layer that will envelop the Earth and will last for about 10 years. This means the smoke fly higher than commercial jets where no rain can dissolve them. In turn it will be blocking the heat from the sun. Normal smoke from fire doesn’t reach the atmosphere, but nuclear smoke will endanger the Earth.
Researchers suggests that to prevent this mini ice age, we should all remain vigilant and work against these two types of climate change, from nuclear wars and from fossil-fuels.
But the efforts of nations to build nuclear weaponry, like the US and Russia, poses a threat to both mankind and to Earth.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.