A top investigative journalist has claimed that Australia and New Zealand are the only places you could survive a global nuclear war.
American author Annie Jacobsen published a post-apocalyptic non-fiction work earlier this year, entitled ‘Nuclear War: A Scenario’.
She spent years interviewing ex-defense secretaries, the former nuclear deputy commander, members of the Secret Service, nuclear academics and examining hordes of declassified documents before reaching a chilling conclusion.
The book, which presents the consequences of a hypothetical missile attack on the United States by North Korea, concludes that five billion people would be dead within 72 minutes of the first attack.
Steven Bartlett, host of the wildly popular podcast ‘Diary of a CEO’, suggested to Ms Jacobsen that Australia and New Zealand would be a viable place for the roughly three billion survivors.
“That’s exactly where you would go,” Mrs. Jacobsen replied. ‘They are the only places where agriculture can be maintained.’
A video of the interview was shared on TikTok, where social media users were quick to joke about Australia and New Zealand as a safe haven.
‘3 billion in Australia. We can’t even house all of our 30 million people,” one person wrote.
Australia and New Zealand would be the only places where you could survive a global nuclear war, according to top investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen
‘Sorry due to the impending nuclear war, New Zealand will be closed for the foreseeable future.’
A third added: ‘The housing market is already far too competitive in Australia.’
Some New Zealanders were quick to suggest that Australia could house most of the remaining population.
“On behalf of New Zealand, we would like to offer our brother in arms, Australia, to everyone who needs a home,” one person wrote.
Ms Jacobsen based her hypothesis on a 2022 academic journal article published in Nature, which outlined the likely impact on global food supplies in the event of a nuclear winter.
It showed that, unlike other countries, Australia produces enough wheat, which accounts for almost 50 percent of the country’s calorie intake, to feed its population.
“After eliminating international trade, wheat contributes almost 50 percent of Australia’s calorie intake, and Australia’s production of rice, corn and soybeans is less than 1 percent of that of wheat,” said the peer-reviewed report. academic article declared.
‘Therefore, wheat’s response to simulated nuclear war largely determines calorie intake in Australia.
Her book, which presents the consequences of a hypothetical missile attack on the United States by North Korea, concludes that five billion people would be dead within 72 minutes of the first attack (photo: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un)
‘Because spring wheat is used as wheat, and simulated spring wheat shows increasing or small reductions there under nuclear war scenarios where more favorable temperatures occur for food production, calorie intake in Australia is higher than in other countries.’
The researchers said New Zealand would also experience smaller impacts than other countries.
However, they warned that such a scenario could lead to both countries being swamped by “an influx of refugees from Asia and other countries facing food insecurity.”
The researchers found that massive fires and soot in the atmosphere would lead to food shortages and famine.
In almost all other countries, livestock and aquatic food production would not be able to compensate for reduced crop production.
If you live in Britain, there is a 90 percent chance that you will starve to death.
The study found that even war on a regional scale would devastate the global food supply and reduce food production by seven percent for several years.
Ryan Heneghan from Queensland University of Technology’s school of mathematics was among the international team that examined scenarios ranging from regional conflict to global holocaust.
“A relatively small nuclear war would be a global catastrophe in terms of food supplies,” he told AAP.
The team used computer models to simulate the impact of smoke from fires caused by nuclear war on the climate and crops.
The research report concluded that calorie intake would be lower than resting energy expenditure in most countries, with the exception of Australia and New Zealand.
“Australia has enough food to be self-sufficient… although while we can produce enough food for our own population, whether we can get it to major urban centers is another matter,” Dr Heneghan said.
“We (Australians) would eat wheat so that we could continue to grow enough wheat to sustain ourselves,” he said.
Ms. Jacobsen was at pains to point out that her painstaking research revealed how horribly real nuclear war really is.
“We are one misunderstanding away from a nuclear apocalypse,” she told the podcast.
‘And yet you have presidents who threaten nuclear war. In fact, the President of the United States doesn’t have to ask anyone to launch a nuclear missile.”