What would happen if the world went into a nuclear war?

Written by Johnson Chang

I know many people have been talking about a potential nuclear war on Youtube, Instagram and other channels, so I wanted to do some research to find out for myself. Relations between America and China aren’t going well currently, and countries such as Israel, Palestine, Russia and Ukraine are already at war, so there’s little stopping the rise of nuclear smoke clouds? I’ve done some research, including watching videos on YouTube, and finally gotten to the answer. 

First, we must recognise the fundamentals of a potential nuclear war - air pollution, entire cities and countries wiped off the map, a massive death toll, and other terrifying elements. But that is why countries haven’t used nuclear weapons on each other since WW2. Before 1945, when the first nuclear bomb came to be, the idea that a single bomb the size of a dump truck could blow up entire cities - or even countries - was new to humanity. Governments have all spent time researching this topic, and they have come to a common conclusion: No government should use a nuclear bomb to solve a problem, ever. 

While that is the current reality, I’m here to talk about a potential reality. A reality where countries would start the first ever nuclear war. As soon as the first nuclear bomb is set off, huge problems would start to arise. Over time, because of radiation and the explosion itself, the death toll would reach tens of millions. Then, imagine hundreds - or possibly thousands - of them all detonated at once, across the globe. The global climate would change, weather patterns would change, and the radiated toxic clouds would block the last of the sun’s rays, plunging the world into at least a decade of darkness. 

Then more of them are detonated, leaving permanent damage on the environment: water is irradiated, land is irradiated, entire ecosystems would be gone in a matter of days. Land would become unlivable, and humans would be forced to live underground, in complete isolation. Over time - as is biologically proven - we would develop diseases while in isolation. After that, it is all waiting. As humanity gets used to living underground and develops new traits to help them with it, the Earth would slowly heal, but that would take many decades, perhaps even centuries. Humanity would have a few abnormal years ahead of it.