Food security

Nuclear winter would trigger a global famine, but one expert says his doomsday diet could save humanity

A full-scale nuclear war would likely trigger a worldwide period of cold and darkness that could spark a famine.

However, David Denkenberger, a mechanical engineer at the University of Alaska who runs the nonprofit Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED), told Business Insider that it would still be possible to save humanity with some type of sustainable "disaster diet."

Experts have warned that a nuclear war between India and Pakistan would unleash a global catastrophe that would result in 50 to 125 million direct fatalaties and cause a sharp drop in the global temperature -- devastating the world's food supply.

Researchers found "that if Pakistan attacks urban targets in 2025 with 150-kiloton nuclear weapons and if India responds with 100-kiloton nuclear weapons, smoke from burning cities would release 16 to 36 teragrams of black carbon into the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight and cooling the global surface by 2 to 5°C (3.6 to 9°F)," according to a news story on the website of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.