Just like the title says, I don’t understand how they can test nuclear bombs in the desert, or Bikini Atoll (in the ocean) without permanently irradiating the ecosystem (and consequently, Earth) beyond repair.
They’ve tested dozens and dozens of nuclear bombs throughout the years, and I’m confused why that hasn’t messed our world up?
In: 352
Initially, they tested them out in the open, and that does indeed create environmental hazards and effects. The sites that were used for testing are still radioactive today, and many people were exposed to harmful radiation downwind of the test sites.
In 1963, the Limited Test Ban Treaty was created to ban nuclear tests aboveground, and allow them only underground. If you test weapons underground, and totally contain the radioactive smoke and debris, then it doesn’t contaminate anything other than the hole it is in. That is a much smaller amount of contamination to worry about. The reason for the treaty was that people were getting concerned with how much additional radiation was being added to the air of the world.
Almost all nuclear states since then moved to underground testing. Since the 1990s, nobody except North Korea has tested any nuclear weapons, but even they tested them underground.
Latest Answers