"Oppenheimer" is a historical film, but the threat posed by nuclear weapons is very real today. Nine countries now have nuclear weapons, with the United States and Russia possessing about 90% of the world’s nearly 13,000 weapons.
You might be tempted to think you would be safe if nuclear weapons were used halfway across the globe from your location. Sure, you would be able to avoid the immediate blast effects, but you would experience the after-effects. There is significant evidence that the entire globe could be impacted by even a small-scale nuclear war.
For example, one study assessed the global effects of a “limited” nuclear war between India and Pakistan, revealing that the fires produced in the conflict would send so much soot into the atmosphere that the sun’s rays would be diminished for years. This would result in reduced global temperatures, which in turn would cause widespread crop failures and worldwide famine, potentially affecting billions of people.