̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - public

Public awareness of ‘nuclear winter’ too low given current risks, argues expert

fpjl2 — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 09:36:22 +0000

There is a lack of awareness among UK and US populations of 'nuclear winter', the potential for catastrophic long-term environmental consequences from any exchange of nuclear warheads.

This is according to the researcher behind new polling conducted last month and released today by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER).

Paul Ingram, CSER senior research associate, says that – despite risks of a nuclear exchange being at their highest for 40 years due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine – what little awareness there is of nuclear winter among the public is mainly residual from the Cold War era.

̽��ֱ��scientific theory of nuclear winter sees detonations from nuclear exchanges throw vast amounts of debris into the stratosphere, which ultimately blocks out much of the sun for up to a decade, causing global drops in temperature, mass crop failure and widespread famine.

Combined with radiation fall-out, these knock-on effects would see millions more perish in the wake of a nuclear war – even if they are far outside of any blast zone. Ideas of nuclear winter permeated UK and US culture during the Cold War through TV shows and films such as Threads and ̽��ֱ��Day After, as well as in novels such as Z for Zachariah.

̽��ֱ��latest survey, conducted online in January 2023, asked 3,000 participants – half in the UK, half in the US – to self-report on a sliding scale whether they felt they knew a lot about “nuclear winter”, and if they had heard about it from:

Contemporary media or culture, of which 3.2% in the UK and 7.5% in the US said they had.
Recent academic studies, of which 1.6% in the UK and 5.2% in the US claimed they had.
Beliefs held during the 1980s, of which 5.4% in the UK and 9% in the US said they had heard of or still recalled.*

“In 2023 we find ourselves facing a risk of nuclear conflict greater than we’ve seen since the early eighties. Yet there is little in the way of public knowledge or debate of the unimaginably dire long-term consequences of nuclear war for the planet and global populations,” said Ingram.

“Ideas of nuclear winter are predominantly a lingering cultural memory, as if it is the stuff of history, rather than a horribly contemporary risk.”

“Of course it is distressing to consider large-scale catastrophes, but decisions need to account for all potential consequences, to minimise the risk,” said Ingram.

“Any stability within nuclear deterrence is undermined if it is based on decisions that are ignorant of the worst consequences of using nuclear weapons.”

̽��ֱ��survey also presented all participants with fictional media reports from the near future (dated July 2023) relaying news of nuclear attacks by Russia on Ukraine, and vice versa, to gauge support in the UK and US for western retaliation.

In the event of a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine, fewer than one in five people surveyed in both countries supported in-kind retaliation, with men more likely than women to back nuclear reprisal: 20.7% (US) and 24.4% (UK) of men compared to 14.1% (US) and 16.1% (UK) of women.

̽��ֱ��survey used infographics summarising nuclear winter effects laid out in a recent study led by Rutgers ̽��ֱ�� (published by Nature in August 2022). ̽��ֱ��Rutgers research used climate modelling and observations from forest fires and volcanoes, and found that even a limited nuclear war could see mass starvation of hundreds of millions in countries uninvolved in any conflict.

Half the survey sample in each country (750 in the UK and US) were shown the infographics before they read the fictional news of nuclear strikes, while the other half – a control group – were not.

Support for nuclear retaliation was lower by 16% in the US and 13% in the UK among participants shown the “nuclear winter” infographics than among the control group.**

This effect was more significant for those supporting the parties of the US President and UK Government. Support for nuclear retaliation was lower by 33% among UK Conservative Party voters and 36% among US Democrat voters when participants were briefly exposed to recent nuclear winter research.***

Added Ingram: “There is an urgent need for public education within all nuclear-armed states that is informed by the latest research. We need to collectively reduce the temptation that leaders of nuclear-armed states might have to threaten or even use such weapons in support of military operations.”

Ingram points out that if we assume Russia’s nuclear arsenal has a comparable destructive force to that of the US – just under 780 megatons – then the least devastating scenario from the survey, in which nuclear winter claims 225 million lives, could involve just 0.1% of this joint arsenal.

̽��ֱ��findings are published in a report on the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk website.

* ̽��ֱ��responses to each of these three questions were not mutually exclusive, with some participants claiming to know about nuclear winter from two or three different sources.

** Support for nuclear retaliation in the UK was 18.1% in the group that were presented with the infographic, against 20.8% in the control group.
Support for nuclear retaliation in the US was 17.6% in the group that were presented with the infographic, against 21% in the control group.

***22.3% of informed UK Conservative Party voters supported nuclear retaliation, against 33.3% of those uninformed. Among US Democrats these figures were 15.8% and 24.6% respectively.

̽��ֱ��fieldwork was conducted online by polling company Prolific on the 25 January 2023, with a total of 3000 participants (1500 in the UK and US respectively).

Survey study of awareness in UK and US populations also shows that brief exposure to latest data on ‘nuclear winter’ deepens doubts over nuclear retaliation.

Ideas of nuclear winter are predominantly a lingering cultural memory, as if it is the stuff of history, rather than a horribly contemporary risk

Paul Ingram

Getty Images

US Navy nuclear test, Bikini Atoll.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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COVID has increased trust in genetics, study finds

cg605 — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 15:37:45 +0000

̽��ֱ��pandemic has gone hand-in-hand with a much-increased public profile of science − genetics in particular. Be it the prominence of PCR testing or the development of vaccines, genetics has been in the spotlight in an unprecedented way. Given this, researchers from the Universities of Bath, Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, and Aberdeen wanted to know what the public felt about genetics and whether this new exposure of the science had made a difference.

̽��ֱ��Genetics Society funded and commissioned a survey of over 2,000 randomly selected British adults through a public polling company Kantar Public. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that as a baseline most people were trusting of genetic technologies before the pandemic. Nearly half (45%) reported they trusted it to work for the societal good, 37% were neutral on this question, while 18% said they did not, and only very few (1-2%) were strongly distrusting.

When asked if their trust in genetics had gone up through the pandemic, four times more people said their trust had increased than those who reported that it had gone down. Trust in science more generally had strongly gone up with a third of people saying it had increased.

̽��ֱ��results suggest that not only has trust in science gone up, but people want to hear more about it. Less than 10% thought that there was too much coverage of science in the media, while 44% reported that they want to hear more about it.

Anne Ferguson-Smith, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and International Partnerships and Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� and President of the Genetics Society said: “These results really challenge us to double our efforts. We need to rise to the new opportunity and the challenge created by the outcomes of this survey”.

Co-lead Professor Laurence Hurst of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the ̽��ֱ�� of Bath said: “this is potentially important to know – scientists have a tendency to stick in their labs, but it looks like, for the most part, the public not only trust us but that this trust has gone up somewhat and many want to hear more from us about our work.”

Professor Jonathan Pettitt, co-lead from the ̽��ֱ�� of Aberdeen said: “It is hard to see any upsides to the pandemic but perhaps this is one? We never knew that so many people wanted to hear more from scientists.”

Co-lead Professor Alison Woollard of the Department of Biochemistry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford said: “We think we have established the limits of science communication. Despite all the talk of PCR over the last many months, we found that 30% hadn’t heard the term or knew it was a tool for testing for the virus. It is hard to see how any science can have more exposure than PCR has had. We need to be realistic and understand that, no matter what, we will never reach everyone. For informing people about things like vaccines this is important to know.”

Dr Adam Rutherford from the UCL department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment said: “We often hear that trust in science is at a low point, but what we found is that most people do trust the science of genetics as the basis of how we address global issues such as pandemics. However, scientists should not be complacent: we also found that the exposure of genetics during the pandemic made those suspicious of science more distrusting, despite the evidence. In a world where these voices can easily be amplified, we must be vigilant that our processes, methodologies and results are clearly and transparently communicated.”

Dr Cristina Fonseca, project coordinator for the Genetics Society, said “having a representative random survey is really vital and allows us insight into the true diversity of opinions.”

This article was adapted from a press release from the Genetics Society.

A survey of over 2,000 British adults finds that trust in genetics is high and went up significantly during the pandemic. It also finds that there is a hunger for more coverage of genetics.

These results really challenge us to double our efforts. We need to rise to the new opportunity and the challenge created by the outcomes of this survey.

Anne Ferguson-Smith

Sebastian Condrea / Moment via Getty Images

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