Climatic catastrophes: the international implications of the greenhouse effect and nuclear winter

Human society is threatened by two possible climatic catastrophes of human origin: a slow global scale warming due to increasing concentrations of infrared-absorbing gases, and a sudden but drastic surface cooling due to the smoke and dust which would be generated by a major nuclear war. The slower process is almost certainly taking place now and may be impossible to stop before the end of the twenty-first century. The more sudden catastrophe is at present purely a theoretical possibility, which could be avoided completely by more rational human behaviour. Both are very complex physical phenomena, the magnitude and time-scales of which are at present difficult to quantify accurately but which can only be coped with appropriately by resort to global cooperation on an unprecedented scale. This paper explores the nature and some of the policy implications of these phenomena