On 25 May, Mark Lynas gave the British Pugwash Lecture at the Hay Festival.
Watch the video here:
Nuclear war is a far greater immediate threat to humanity’s survival than climate change, yet we are in near-total denial. The environment campaigner and Six Degrees author puts the issue back to the top of the global agenda. We are standing on a nuclear knife edge, and while climate heating threatens humanity over many decades, nuclear war could destroy civilisation in just a few hours. But the climate experience teaches us that a worldwide mobilisation can work. Lynas presents an unflinching view of the nuclear nightmare, and describes the imperatives for human civilisation to survive long term.
‘Six Minutes to Winter: Nuclear War and How to Avoid It’, is published by Bloomsbury
The world is currently closer to superpower conflict than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. World War III is a real possibility, and with 12,000 warheads in the arsenals of more than half a dozen countries, we are standing on a nuclear knife edge. Despite receiving very little attention, nuclear war is a far greater threat to humanity’s immediate survival than climate change. While climate heating threatens humanity over many decades, nuclear war could destroy civilisation in just a few hours. A major missile exchange would mean months of near-total darkness, followed by a decade-long global nuclear winter that would destroy most life on Earth. Virtually everyone would starve in the resulting worldwide famine, and there would be no reliable refuge. We are sleepwalking to Armageddon. There are no mass marches, no COPs, no nuclear Greta. But the climate experience teaches us that ignoring a problem is no solution, and that a worldwide mobilisation can work. Six Minutes to Winter presents an unflinching view of the nuclear nightmare, but also describes how weapons can be taken off hair-trigger alert and ultimately abolished altogether. If human civilisation is to survive long term, we have no alternative.