His 1977 book, The Dragons of Eden, won the Pulitzer Prize. He was well-known enough to be parodied by Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" and Berkeley Breathed in the "Bloom County" comic strip.īut with his Parade article, he risked puncturing that hard-won popularity and credibility. In the fallout from the article, he faced a barrage of criticism-not just from pro-nuclear conservatives, but also from scientists who resented him for leveraging his personal fame for advocacy. He was a charismatic spokesperson for science, particularly the exploration of the solar system by robotic probes. He hosted and co-wrote the PBS television series "Cosmos," which became the most-watched science program in history and made him a household name. But it was the author who brought authority and seriousness to the doomsday scenario: Carl Sagan.īy 1983, Sagan was already popular and publicly visible in ways most scientists weren't. There is no more important or more urgent issue.” We can safeguard the planetary civilization and the human family if we so choose. “We have placed our civilization and our species in jeopardy,” the author concluded. Even a smaller-scale war could destroy humanity as we know it. “But the long-term consequences could be much worse."Īccording to the article, it wouldn’t take both major nuclear powers firing all their weapons to create a nuclear winter. "In a nuclear 'exchange,' more than a billion people would instantly be killed,” read the cover. This article marked the public’s introduction to a concept that would drastically change the debate over nuclear war: “nuclear winter.” The story detailed the previously unexpected consequences of nuclear war: prolonged dust and smoke, a precipitous drop in Earth's temperatures and widespread failure of crops, leading to deadly famine.
Alongside this scene of devastation were the words: "Would nuclear war be the end of the world?" The Sunday news supplement’s front cover featured an image of the world half-covered in gray shadows, dotted with white snow. If you were one of the more than 10 million Americans receiving Parade magazine on October 30, 1983, you would have been confronted with a harrowing scenario.
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