Hi, I have quite a lot to say about this, but I’m actually currently writing a research paper on exactly this issue, and will write a full forum post/link-post once it’s completed (ETA June-ish). However, a couple of key observations:
Cost of living is likely to be irrelevant in nuclear aftermath as global finance and economics is in tatters (the value of assets will jump around unpredictably, eg mansions less important than electric vehicles if global oil trade ceases), prices will change dramatically according to scarcity, eg food prices.
Energy independence and food security are probably the most important (>50% combined index value) because without energy food production is slashed to pre-industrial yields, and without food security the risk of unrest is very high.
Latitude and temperature are less important than the impact on specific countries, eg temperature change is important not mean temperature, tropical crops like rice will die in a single frost. Europe could suffer −20 C or −30 C temperature change according to climate models, which makes agriculture impossible. Yet Iceland with vast fish resources could potentially increase food production.
Rainfall could have a massive impact. The tropical monsoons could be very disrupted and are essential for agriculture in many areas.
The could very well be almost no trade taking place in a severe nuclear aftermath as nations struggle internally, or due to fuel shortages (many countries are dependent on oil for agriculture at scale). Without trade many countries are fragile in areas of energy and manufacturing. Many component parts of power generation facilities, electricity & food distribution and communications infrastructure are manufactured in only a few places and within a few months without imports/exports such infrastructure may fail (eg lubricants, spark plugs, transformers, fibre optics, etc). Expect most things to grind to a halt without trade.
There is a lot more that could be said but you’re right that the large South American food producers (Argentina etc) look relatively more promising, as well as the usual suspects NZ & Australia. Though each will have severe problems in an actual nuclear winter and organisation such as food/fuel rationing and distribution from rural to urban areas will be immensely problematic. Not to mention the need for public communication processes to ensure people know there is a plan and survival is possible, again to avoid societal mayhem. Social cohesion, and stability indicators are probably very important.
One problem with composite indices is that very low scores on one dimension can be masked by reasonable scores on others. Countries should be ruled out if they fail on a critical dimension.
Finally, the act of ‘escaping to’ the ‘most promising’ location is not generalisable, and so the ethics of it are questionable. As Kant notes, the test is ‘what if everyone did the same as me, would that undermine the institution in question?’ and in this case it seems like the answer is yes. 8 billion people fleeing to Argentina would defeat the purpose of acting ahead of war to maximise the chances of each particular country. Carrying capacity calculations are important here too. I haven’t even considered HEMP yet, which could very much complicate matters.
Come to Brazil. We can make room for +1bi individuals, easy. With nuclear winter, we may even manage to get some ski resorts ;) (Ofc if we don’t start a war w Argentina. That’s the problem w South America)
Thank you so much for the amazing reply! I increased the weight of energy security.
I don’t like the Global Food Security Index, because it’s about the quality of food, not whether the country is producing/exporting food. Which other indicator would you use, and where do I get the data?
Hi, I have quite a lot to say about this, but I’m actually currently writing a research paper on exactly this issue, and will write a full forum post/link-post once it’s completed (ETA June-ish). However, a couple of key observations:
Cost of living is likely to be irrelevant in nuclear aftermath as global finance and economics is in tatters (the value of assets will jump around unpredictably, eg mansions less important than electric vehicles if global oil trade ceases), prices will change dramatically according to scarcity, eg food prices.
Energy independence and food security are probably the most important (>50% combined index value) because without energy food production is slashed to pre-industrial yields, and without food security the risk of unrest is very high.
Latitude and temperature are less important than the impact on specific countries, eg temperature change is important not mean temperature, tropical crops like rice will die in a single frost. Europe could suffer −20 C or −30 C temperature change according to climate models, which makes agriculture impossible. Yet Iceland with vast fish resources could potentially increase food production.
Rainfall could have a massive impact. The tropical monsoons could be very disrupted and are essential for agriculture in many areas.
The could very well be almost no trade taking place in a severe nuclear aftermath as nations struggle internally, or due to fuel shortages (many countries are dependent on oil for agriculture at scale). Without trade many countries are fragile in areas of energy and manufacturing. Many component parts of power generation facilities, electricity & food distribution and communications infrastructure are manufactured in only a few places and within a few months without imports/exports such infrastructure may fail (eg lubricants, spark plugs, transformers, fibre optics, etc). Expect most things to grind to a halt without trade.
There is a lot more that could be said but you’re right that the large South American food producers (Argentina etc) look relatively more promising, as well as the usual suspects NZ & Australia. Though each will have severe problems in an actual nuclear winter and organisation such as food/fuel rationing and distribution from rural to urban areas will be immensely problematic. Not to mention the need for public communication processes to ensure people know there is a plan and survival is possible, again to avoid societal mayhem. Social cohesion, and stability indicators are probably very important.
One problem with composite indices is that very low scores on one dimension can be masked by reasonable scores on others. Countries should be ruled out if they fail on a critical dimension.
Finally, the act of ‘escaping to’ the ‘most promising’ location is not generalisable, and so the ethics of it are questionable. As Kant notes, the test is ‘what if everyone did the same as me, would that undermine the institution in question?’ and in this case it seems like the answer is yes. 8 billion people fleeing to Argentina would defeat the purpose of acting ahead of war to maximise the chances of each particular country. Carrying capacity calculations are important here too. I haven’t even considered HEMP yet, which could very much complicate matters.
The following case study is particularly illuminating of the problems even ‘good’ locations like NZ might suffer: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4313623?refreqid=excelsior%3A166e17f569637767a9caded49a1ced42 contact me if you want the full text.
Come to Brazil. We can make room for +1bi individuals, easy. With nuclear winter, we may even manage to get some ski resorts ;)
(Ofc if we don’t start a war w Argentina. That’s the problem w South America)
Thank you so much for the amazing reply! I increased the weight of energy security.
I don’t like the Global Food Security Index, because it’s about the quality of food, not whether the country is producing/exporting food. Which other indicator would you use, and where do I get the data?
In a previous project we used the UN FAO food Pocketbook, although I think the way they compile data changed after 2012. We used the ‘kcal production per capita’ metric, from here: https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/a9f447e8-6798-5e82-82b0-a78724bfff03/
You can see what we did in the following two papers:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33886124/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/risa.13398
There are FAO CSVs for more recent years available to download here: https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS
That’s one suggestion.