The current global situation has many genuinely worried about the possibility of a nuclear war.
With the escalating tensions between Israel and Iran, people fear that Iranian sleeper cells in the US could potentially deploy weapons of mass destruction at any moment.
Additionally, ceasefire negotiations between nations feel unstable, and nuclear powers in Russia and China have issued warnings that US involvement in the Middle East conflict could spiral the world into an all-out apocalyptic war.
While AI has already predicted the catastrophic death toll of a potential World War III and identified the most dangerous places to be during such a conflict, one expert has revealed the specific regions where you might have a chance of surviving armageddon.
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Investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen painted a frightening picture of what nuclear war would look like during an episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast in 2024.
"Places like Iowa and Ukraine would be just snow for 10 years. So agriculture would fail, and when agriculture fails, people just die," Jacobsen warned podcast host Steven Bartlett. "On top of that, you have the radiation poisoning because the ozone layer will be so damaged and destroyed that you can't be outside in the sunlight."
Jacobsen's book Nuclear War: A Scenario lays out in detail how the end of the world would unfold during World War III, while her research suggests that preparation and location could mean the difference between life and death. "Hundreds of millions of people die in the fireballs, no question," she stated.
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When Bartlett asked where someone should go to be among the estimated 'three billion survivors,' Jacobsen's answer was specific. "People will be forced to live underground," Jacobsen said. "So you have to imagine people living underground, fighting for food everywhere except for in New Zealand and Australia."
Referencing a 2022 study by Professor Owen Toon in Nature Food, Jacobsen claimed the death toll would quickly consume the majority of the world's population.
"Professor Toon and his team[...] sort of updated [the] nuclear winter idea based around food, and the number that they have is five billion people would be dead," Jacobsen said.
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Nuclear winter describes the severe, long-lasting global cooling that would follow a large-scale nuclear war. When nuclear bombs hit major cities, the explosions would trigger massive fires, burning buildings, forests, and virtually everything in their path.
The smoke and soot from these fires would rise high into the stratosphere, where it would remain for years because rain can't wash it away at that altitude. This thick layer of soot would create a giant shade over the planet, blocking sunlight from reaching Earth's surface. As a result, temperatures in the US would plummet to roughly 40 degrees Fahrenheit, making farming impossible, the expert continued.
Humanity, as well as animals and fish, would face massive food shortages, widespread starvation, and ecosystem collapse.
According to Toon's study, Jacobsen argued that Australia and New Zealand would be the 'only places that could actually sustain agriculture.'
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These Southern Hemisphere nations are also far from the major nuclear powers like the US and Russia, which would likely trigger a world war. As island nations surrounded by the Pacific and Southern Oceans, their isolation would limit radioactive fallout from nuclear detonations in the northern hemisphere.
Well, it looks like we're packing our bags for a trip Down Under.