Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown

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It is impossible to reach such temperature unless fission bombs or thermonuclear bombs are used which greatly exceed the bombs now under consideration. But even if bombs of the required volume (i.e., greater than 1,000 cubic meters) are employed, energy transfer from electrons to light quanta by Compton scattering will provide a further safety factor and will make a chain reaction in air impossible." The letter invited a rebuttal from Bethe. In a letter titled " Ultimate Catastrophe?" published in the same journal, Bethe wrote:

If, after calculation, [Compton] said, it were proved that the chances were more than approximately three in one million that the earth would be vaporized by the atomic explosion, he would not proceed with the project. Calculation proved the figures slightly less -- and the project continued." Reignition in the 1970s In summary, extremely conservative calculations have demonstrated that it is completely impossible for either the earth’s atmosphere or sea to sustain fusion reactions of either thermonuclear or nuclear chain reaction type. In particular, such reactions cannot be triggered by the explosion of nuclear weapons, even those having unrealistically high yield and impractically high yield-to-weight." Artist rendering of Gliese 436 b (otherwise known as GJ 436 b) (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCF)In response to the multitude of criticisms, Dudley published another short letter in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. While accepting some of the criticisms, he raised additional what-if scenarios speculating that a runaway reaction may still be possible. Bernard Felt, editor in chief of the Bulletin at that time, wrote a wry conclusion to the debate between Dudley and Bethe: I will not comment directly on the several pejorative comments made about nuclear energy production and weapons research. Nor will I attempt to clear up Professor Dudley's confusion over variable half-lives, the availability of "aether energy," the earth's gravitational field, or the reproducibility of large-scale physical phenomena." And if hydrogen, what about hydrogen in sea water? Might not the explosion of the atomic bomb set off an explosion of the ocean itself? Nor was this all that Oppenheimer feared. The nitrogen in the air is also unstable, though in less degree. Might not it, too, be set off by an atomic explosion in the atmosphere?" The cause of this perplexing phenenenon is still unknown and, of course, the mystery of the missing methane still has astronomers scratching their heads. The Strangest Thing of All?

However, since Dr. Dudley chose in his rebuttal to give new emphasis to the possibility of a hydrogen plus hydrogen reaction in the ocean, Dr. Bethe would be fully justified in wishing to respond to this, thereby setting off a chain reaction which we could probably not contain. The idea was again brought into the spotlight in 1975 when Horace C. Dudley, a professor of radiation physics at the University of Illinois Medical Center, published a letter of concern titled “ The ultimate catastrophe” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The letter outlined a doomsday scenario where an unintentional chain reaction would destroy the entire planet, igniting all the nitrogen in the atmosphere and all the hydrogen in the oceans and melting our planet all the way to its core.It is shown that, whatever the temperature to which a section of the atmosphere may be heated, no self-propagating chain of nuclear reactions is likely to be started. The energy losses to radiation always overcompensate the gains due to the reactions. Because of this close proximity, the planet's temperatures exceeds 526ºC (or 980°F), which is hot enough to ward off water in liquid form. Yet, our current models indicate that a planet like this. which is composed mostly of hydrogen gas and has such high surface temperatures, should have significant quantities of methane in its atmosphere. Over the last decade, astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets, and it seems like each new discovery is a little bit stranger than the last. Take TrEs-2b, it's a planet made of a substance that's darker than coal. Then there's Gliese 436 b (otherwise known as GJ 436 b). This alien world is located approximately 30 light-years from Earth towards the constellation of Leo. And it is made of excruciatingly hot ice. Wait. What? In June 2015, scientists reported that the atmosphere of Gliese 436 b was evaporating, [26] resulting in a giant cloud around the planet and, due to radiation from the host star, a long trailing tail 14 × 10