Shadowing Practice: What Happens AFTER Nuclear War? - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
Nuclear war would forever split human history into anything that happened before and the post -war apocalypse.
2
In the worst case, mass fires consume everything within tens of thousands of square kilometers, killing hundreds of millions within hours.
3
But the worst part comes after that.
4
Nuclear war could trigger a nuclear winter that might kill billions, maybe even completely collapsing our civilization.
5
how does it work and what would it look like fire causes winter
6
when a nuclear weapon is detonated a bubble of gas hotter than the sun is forced into existence so hot
7
that everything within kilometers immediately begins to burn the terror bubble
8
expands rapidly filling the sky over its target creating a devastating shock wave
9
that causes most of the immediate destruction basically you break a lot of stuff and set it on fire.
10
And in the worst case, this turns into a firestorm that consumes everything and everyone on the ground.
11
Right after the explosion, a gigantic mushroom cloud rises over the destruction like a demon throning over its perverse work.
12
But in the following hours, a far more deadly cloud forms.
13
The fire burning cities, forests, or fields heats up so much air that it creates its own microclimate and wind system.
14
Hot air and hot smoke rise, pulling in fresh air from the surroundings and fresh oxygen stoking the flames even more.
15
This creates an updraft and forms a colossal pyrocumulonimbus cloud
16
that carries the soot and aerosols from the flames high into the stratosphere.
17
Under normal conditions, the soot rising from a big fire is quickly washed out by rain.
18
But a pyrocumulonimbus cloud can reach altitudes well above the height where rain clouds form.
19
Once above the tropopores, there's simply no weather to remove soot from the atmosphere, so it can stay aloft for years.
20
If this happens to a single city, it's a tragedy, but a fairly local one.
21
But in a full -scale nuclear war, warring nations following the cold logic of mutually assured destruction could use hundreds or even thousands of nuclear weapons all at once,
22
creating hundreds of firestorms, sending up to 150 million tons of soot, a cube the size of a skyscraper, directly into the stratosphere.
23
In the next few days and weeks, the soot begins to blanket the Earth at high altitudes, absorbing light high above the ground and preventing sunlight from reaching the surface.
24
This is not like science fiction, where the sky turns dark and the sun disappears.
25
Winter is what happens when just a little less sunlight hits the ground, and now suddenly, a lot less sunlight gets through.
26
Yesterday, the world was normal.
27
Today, nuclear winter begins.
28
Winter causes hunger.
29
How bad nuclear winter would be is still an active area of research.
30
It all hinges on one thing.
31
How much stuff will burn really hot?
32
How many firestorms will be caused by the heat of the explosions?
33
This depends on many factors, from the materials the city is made of, to the time of the year, if a forest is nearby, and so on.
34
So just keep in mind, we're working with some assumptions.
35
Here's the good news.
36
Nuclear winter is not permanent, and definitely no new ice age.
37
The effects on the climate only last as long as the soot remains in the atmosphere, which is at most a decade or so until it clears out and temperatures normalize.
38
The bad news is that this causes almost immediate climate change within a few weeks.
39
It disrupts our climate system faster than any living being can adapt to.
40
In this new climate, our seasons are suddenly all wrong.
41
Winters are much longer, summers shorter and colder, or gone altogether.
42
This also means less evaporation over the oceans, which means less rain and maybe large -scale droughts.
43
This is bad because our food eats the sun.
44
Without good summers and enough rain, growing seasons shrink or even collapse.
45
The majority of humanity lives in an area called the mid -latitude, a strip of land that has the ideal temperature for our species.
46
Not just because it's not too hot or cold, it's also where the plants we eat grow best.
47
The vast majority of the food we eat stems from a few highly efficient crops
48
that are mostly produced in a few very agriculturally productive regions, like the US Great Plains or Ukraine.
49
From these bread and rice baskets of the world, they get traded and shipped around the world.
50
In the worst case of a full -scale nuclear war, the temperatures in the mid -latitudes will probably stay below freezing for several years.
51
Nothing at all can grow under these conditions, and the world's bread baskets would suddenly turn empty.
52
If food production crashes, the world's food producers would very likely ramp up prices or even stop selling food to other countries,
53
if they are still able to farm their fields at all.
54
It's easy to calculate how many people can be alive on Earth.
55
You take all the calories we can produce and divide them by what the average person needs to survive.
56
If you have more people than calories, then within a few weeks, you don't anymore.
57
Humanity has only a few weeks' supply of crops and food, not enough to survive this drastic drop in production
58
but the climate is not the only issue modern industrialized agriculture is a complex affair
59
that relies on functioning supply chains to provide unthinkable amounts of industrially produced fertilizer
60
and chemicals to kill weeds
61
and vermin massive numbers of specialized modern machinery is plowing sewing harvesting
62
and distributing after a nuclear war especially if the countries
63
that produce the food were part of the nuclear exchange there may simply be no more fuel, fertilizer, or machine parts, because there are no more oil refineries,
64
ports, and other essential infrastructure left, damaging global food production even more.
65
Okay, so now that we've set the stage, let's look at what science says about the actual wars that could happen.
66
Actual nuclear war.
67
Today, there are two main conflicts that scientists think about when making calculations of nuclear winter, a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, and one between the US and Russia.
68
The most likely smallish nuclear exchange would be fought today between India and Pakistan, with relatively low -yield weapons.
69
Even in a pretty mild nuclear war like this, the immediate explosions would kill around 27 million people, which is horrible enough.
70
In just a few hours, more people would die than in all of World War I.
71
The ensuing fires would not cause a nuclear winter, but a mild nuclear autumn.
72
But even this would disrupt the climate and thereby global agriculture, enough to starve up to 250 million people worldwide.
73
Unfortunately, India and Pakistan are in an arms race and have been increasing the number and power of warheads in their arsenal.
74
The next stage of escalation would be war with hundreds of nuclear weapons,
75
the bombs and fires destroying many major population centers and killing over 100 million people.
76
A war on this scale would cause a nuclear winter
77
that would damage global agriculture enough to cut the available calories for humanity in half.
78
The number of people that starve to death would be as high as 2 billion.
79
One in four humans alive today.
80
The worst -case scenario is a full -scale global war between NATO nations and Russia, or China, which also continues to build its nuclear arsenal.
81
In a war between a former, future and current superpower, thousands of nuclear weapons could be detonated.
82
In a scenario with around 4 ,400 nuclear weapons, 360 million people would perish right away.
83
We have no other event to even compare the death and destruction to.
84
It's like humanity dropping an asteroid on itself.
85
The nuclear wind that follows such an apocalyptic war would tank human calorie production by as much as 90%.
86
Not only would almost all of our agriculture take an immediate and deadly hit, the climate would take at least a decade to recover.
87
Because a war like this would specifically hit the world regions that produce most of the food for humanity, recovery will be much, much harder than with other conflicts.
88
Within two years, the global death toll from starvation could rise to about 5 billion.
89
In mid -latitude countries like Russia, China, Canada, the US and much of Europe, only a few percent of the population might survive.
90
Humanity will never be the same again.
91
While nowhere is truly safe, some nations in the Southern Hemisphere may fare well enough to endure while the rest of the world collapses.
92
All the nuclear weapon states are in the Northern Hemisphere, so a few countries like Australia, New Zealand
93
and Argentina may be able to endure for a bunch of
94
different reasons their nuclear winter would be milder they have a lot of livestock
95
that would not be as affected as crops
96
so they would probably stop exporting food
97
and focus on keeping their own people alive assuming they aren't
98
invaded for their food by other starving nations it's safe to say
99
that the world would become extremely unpleasant for a long time
100
and it's impossible to know how many people would have died
101
when the nuclear winter ends in the worst case human civilization could collapse
102
and the survivors would be thrown back thousands of years slowly trying to recover a world full of scars
103
and graves eventually when they've rebuilt civilization
104
would they ever build nuclear weapons again we know for sure
105
that we need to do anything we can to make sure
106
nuclear war never happens this video was supported by open philanthropy
107
if you want to know what you can do to reduce the risk of nuclear war, you can either support expert organizations or become a citizen expert yourself and learn more.
108
We've compiled a list of further reading and expert recommendations in the infobox and our sources doc for you.
109
Thank you so much for helping us clear out the Kurzgesagt Warehouse for our big move.
110
But, watch out, sometimes, creepy things are hiding behind those boxes.
111
Wild DREAD appears.
112
What will you do?
113
Quick, grab something from one of those boxes to defend yourself.
114
You used Awe.
115
It's very effective against DREAD.
116
Look, you've unlocked some amazing deals.
117
Save up to 50 % on awe -inspiring products at our biggest sale ever.
118
Some of our finest creations are eager to find a new home, like the Duck Plushie, our elaborately designed notebook series, and a few of our very best infographic posters.
119
The birds will be moving the last boxes to the new warehouse soon, so grab a notebook, plushie, pin, or poster before the moving sale ends,
120
or before Dredd gets a hold of them.
121
The birds really appreciate it.
122
Thank you.
📺 Same Channel
B221
Your Skeleton Is Electric
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1113
Could Humans Evolve Flight?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2133
Can Earth Run Out of Water?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B232
Your Brain Peaked at Birth
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C133
Why Ebola Keeps Coming Back
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2555
What If You Never Slept?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B27
3 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Terrible! 2/3
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C18
Would You Upload Your Mind?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Your Brain on Magic Mushrooms
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B264
What the Flu Does to Your Body
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Is War Over? — A Paradox Explained
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C15
How ADHD Medication Works
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
The Most Complex Language in the World
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
Let’s Steal a New Moon
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C1758
How Stress Changes Your Brain
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B21
3 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Awesome! 3/3
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B252
Can We Stop the Extinction?
University StudentsWorking Adults
B26
YOU Own the Moon. And Mars. And Venus.
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C1209
The True Cost of War
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B23
What Is Life? Is Death Real?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
✨ Recommend Video
B232 sentences
Largest California wildfire of 2025 reaches "mega fire" status
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
143 sentences
The Man Who Survived Both Atomic Bombs
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
250 sentences
Solar Storm Could Black Out Half of America - This Map Shows Where
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
67 sentences
How to Survive WWIII
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
208 sentences
What If a Needle Hit The Earth At The Speed Of Light?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
8 sentences
Corrupt Your Files
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2227 sentences
Breaking Iran War Update - Massive Explosions Reported As Iran Prepares For US Nuclear Attack
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
96 sentences
What Happened After the DEADLIEST Asteroid Hit Earth?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
65 sentences
Chernobyl (2019) It's not 3 roentgen its 15000
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
108 sentences
100 Day Apocalypse Simulation
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 122 sentences and 1804 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:08. The speaker talks at a natural 162 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| humanity noun | /hjuˈmænɪti/ | Humankind; human beings as a group. |
| cloud noun | /ˈklaʊ̯d/ | A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air. |
| agriculture noun | /ˈæɡ.ɹɪˌkʌl.t͡ʃɚ/ | The art or science of cultivating the ground, including the growing and harvesting of crops, and the rearing and management of livestock. |
| destruction noun | /dɪsˈtɹʌkʃən/ | The act of destroying. |
| collapse verb | /kəˈlæps/ | To break apart and fall down suddenly; to cave in. |
| calorie noun | /ˈkæləɹi/ | A non-SI unit of energy, equivalent to 4.184 kilojoules, that can raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. This is the unit normally… |
| explosion noun | /ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/ | A violent release of energy (sometimes mechanical, nuclear, or chemical); an act or instance of exploding. |
| crop noun | /kɹɑp/ | A plant, grown for it, or its fruits or seeds, to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, or fuel or for any other economic purpose. |
| mild adjective | /ˈmaɪld/ | Gentle and not easily angered |
| civilization noun | /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/ | An organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political, or technical… |
| sunlight noun | /ˈsʌnˌlaɪt/ | All the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun; especially, that in the visible spectrum and that bathes the Earth. |
| latitude noun | /ˈlætɪtud/ | The angular distance north or south from a planet's equator, measured along the meridian of that particular point. |
| starve verb | /stɑɹv/ | To die because of lack of food or of not eating. |
| atmosphere noun | /ˈætməsˌfɪɹ/ | The gases surrounding the Earth or any astronomical body. |
| arsenal noun | /ˈɑːsənəl/ | A military establishment for the storing, development, manufacturing, testing, or repairing of arms, ammunition, and other war materiel; an armoury. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| clear out verb | To completely empty. | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| heat up verb | To heat, to cause to become hotter. | |
| hide behind verb | To use someone or something as a shield in order to avoid taking responsibility for something; to avoid attention by using someone or something as a shield. | |
| throw back verb | /θɹoʊ ˈbæk/ | To hinder the development of something. |
| wash out verb | To wash the inside of something. | |
| watch out | Used to warn someone of an imminent danger. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is detonated · will be caused · is made |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've set · We've compiled · you've unlocked |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | atmosphere, which is · oceans, which means · people, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 7 contractions and reduced forms, such as we've, aren't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: throne /θɹəʊ̯n/, altogether /ɔl.tuˈɡɛð.ɚ/, thereby /ðɛɹˈbaɪ/, philanthropy /fɪˈlæn.θɹə.pi/, unthinkable /ʌnˈθɪŋkəbəl/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: destruction /dɪsˈtɹʌkʃən/, explosion /ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, shock /ʃɔk/, wash /wɑʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: humanity /hjuˈmænɪti/, agriculture /ˈæɡ.ɹɪˌkʌl.t͡ʃɚ/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, infrastructure /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/, recommendation /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like humanity, cloud, agriculture.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.