‘Chops, spuds for survivors’

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 1

‘Chops, spuds for survivors’

PA Rotorua New Zealanders would have a good chance of surviving the aftermath of nuclear war, said a scientist with the Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Lower Hutt, Mr David Lowe, yesterday. He was opening a series of lectures on the effects of a limited nuclear war on New Zealand, organised by the Royal Society of New Zealand in conjunction with the University of Waikato. Mr Lowe said that New Zealand was well placed to be one of the least

affected countries after a nuclear holocaust. “However, we may have to survive on a diet of mutton chops and spuds and adjust to the lifestyle of 100 years ago,” he said. Grass would be relatively unaffected by the effects of a nuclear winter that was the result of the use of nuclear weapons. Grasses could withstand temperature shocks and light levels, could drop by a third without limiting seriously their growth, he said. All root vegetables would have a good chance

of survival. “We could live on, the food we were able to produce at a subsistence economy level,” Mr Lowe said. ? New Zealanders need not fear the danger of radioactive fall-out By the time the polluted clouds reached New Zealand the radioactivity would have “decayed" or would have dissipated into the atmosphere. A drop in temperature of up to Bdeg. could be expected, Mr Lowe said. However,- it was possible there would be no drop. “It is a difficult area in

which to make predictions as it is not known how much smoke would cross the equator from the northern hemisphere,” Mr Lowe said. Smoke from 40 to 50 cities struck by nuclear weapons would be sufficient to create a nuclear winter by blocking out the sun. It is not all good news for New Zealand. Epidemics could wipe out half the population and there would be no fresh supplies of drugs to combat diseases. This would mean people who needed regu-

lar treatment, like diabetics, would probably perish. “Drugs have a very limited shelf life — ranging from weeks to months,” Mr Lowe said. Most of New Zealand’s supplies came from the northern hemisphere which would be the regionworst hit by a nuclear holocaust. A thousand million people in the northern hemisphere would die almost immediately in a nuclear attack and within a year three times as many would die of starvation, he said.