When Charlottesville Was Nuked

Thirty-seven years ago, the United States Congress commissioned and published a work of fiction, an account of what life in Charlottesville, Virginia, might be like during a nuclear war. It’s contained in a longer report called The Effects of Nuclear War which came out in May of 1979. It’s widely available online.

I take an interest for 15 pretty solid reasons:

• I live in Charlottesville.
• The world still has enough nuclear weapons with which to destroy itself many times over.
• We pay a lot less attention to preventing such a disaster now than we did 37 years ago.
• More nations have nukes now and many more are close to having them.
• We know more now about the numerous nuclear accidents and misunderstandings that have nearly killed us all over the decades.
• India and Pakistan are actually at war.
• The United States and Russia are as close to war as they’ve been in 98 years.
• The United States is investing in newer and smaller, “more usable” nukes.
• This Congressional best case scenario for a U.S. city during a nuclear war is deeply disturbing.
• We now know that even a limited nuclear war would produce a nuclear winter, preventing the production of crops depicted in this tale.
• It’s not so clear to me that Charlottesville would still rank last on a list of targets for nuclear missiles. It is, after all, home to the Army JAG school, the National Ground Intelligence Center, various weapon makers, a heavily militarized university, and the CIA’s underground hideout.
• The United Nations has just set up negotiations for the coming year of a global treaty to ban nuclear weapons, and it’s worth trying to understand why.
• If we survive our possession of nuclear knowledge, we still have climate catastrophe to quickly and miraculously evade or prepare for.
• The Republican candidate for U.S. president.
• The Democratic candidate for U.S. president.

So, here are a few excerpts that I encourage you to consider:

read more

Read more by David Swanson at http://www.davidswanson.org” target=”_blank”www.davidswanson.org