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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Slimy Heinlein Smear Attempt
Message-ID: <1246@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Sep-86 10:32:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.1246
Posted: Mon Sep 15 10:32:28 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Sep-86 01:37:43 EDT
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      I (tim sevener) wrote:
> > "Farnham's Freehold" is hardly a realistic view of the effects of
> > nuclear war whatsoever.  For example, because an all-out nuclear war
> > would destroy the ozone layer, animals and humans without their
> > eyes shielded would soon be blinded.  Then of course there is the 
> > likelihood of the Nuclear Winter effect.  Heinlein could be excused

       S. Luke Jones (...ihnp4!mtung!slj) replied:
> Speaking of pseudo-science, what Archangel handed you this privy
> information about what would happen after an all-out nuclear war?
> Would I be wrong to surmise the source's politics are to the left
> of, say, Edward Teller?  Does he say "millions and billions" a lot
> and publish most of his articles these days in that world-famous
> technical journal called PARADE Magazine?
> 

Here are some references for you:
Dr. Martyn M. Caldwell, a leading authority on the biological effects
of ultraviolet radiation, in a recent article in "Bioscience" titled
"Plant Life and Ultraviolet Radiation: Some Perspective in the History
of the Earth's UV Climate" states that the ozone layer has a critical
importance to life on earth, because it protects the earth's surface
from ultraviolet radiation in sunlight which
"would otherwise be lethal to unportected organisms as we now
know them."

The 1975 National Academy of Sciences Report, "Longterm Worldwide 
Effects of Multiple Nuclear-Weapons Detonations" stated:
"As biologists, geologists, and other students of evolution
recognize, the development of an oxygen-rich atmosphere, with its
ozone layer, was a precondition to the development of multicelled
plants and animals, and all life forms on land have evolved under
this shield."

B.W. Boville, of the Canadian Atmospheric Environment Service,
has written the ozone layer is " a crucial element to climate
and to the existence of all life on earth."
 
Dr. Fred Ikle, Reagan's Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
has stated that the severe reduction of the ozone layer through
nuclear explosions could "shatter the ecological structure that
permits man to remain alive on this planet."

A paper delivered at a UN-sponsored scientific conference in 
March, 1977 states "The whole biological world, so
dependent on micro-organisms, may, if doses [of ultraviolet
radiation] increase, be in serious trouble."

So I think we can pretty well establish the importance of
the ozone layer.  Next point, its destruction in nuclear war:

The 1975 National Academy of Sciences Report, "Longterm Worldwide
Effects of Multiple Nuclear-Weapons Detonations" found that
the explosion of 10,000 megatons of nuclear weapons would increase
the amount of nitric oxide in the stratosphere to something
between 5 and 20 times the normal amount., that it would reduce
the ozone layer in the Northern Hemisphere, where the report
assumes that the explosions would occur, by anything from 30 
to 70%, and that it would reduce it in the Southern Hemisphere by
anything from 20 to 40%.

These facts are cited by "Fate of the Earth" by Jonathan Schell.
I would recommend you read it.
                tim sevener  whuxn!orb