In a July 26 letter to the editor, “Why is it so hot?” Donald Froelich wonders why, after hearing warnings for decades about nuclear winters, we are now hearing about global warming instead. The answer is that nuclear winters never had anything to do with global warming; the two are unrelated threats. The phrase “nuclear winter” refers to the climate change that would be brought about by a nuclear war. The resulting smoke and dust would block so much sunlight from reaching the ground that the Earth would cool into an ice age. Global warming does not require any military confrontation. We can provoke this one perfectly well in peace time. The experts are right in both cases. The difference is that so far we have proved wise enough to avoid nuclear war and its ice age.
With respect to global warming, we are behind the curve. The question in this case is how much more damage we will tolerate before changing our ways.
