When I was a kid, at the height of the cold war, we were told that it was not the blast effects or fallout from an all-out nuclear war that would be most devastating, but rather the nuclear winter that would follow. Sand and dust lifted into the air by the explosions would remain suspended in the atmosphere for years, covering the entire globe and blocking the sun. This would lead to the demise of plants which depend on photosynthesis and, in turn, the animals that eat them. The surface of the earth would be cold and dark. Rivers, lakes and oceans would freeze.
Perhaps just a dozen or so nukes, as opposed to the complete arsenals of the U.S. and soviets, would be sufficient to drive temperatures down a couple degrees and buy us another hundred years or so to utilize our bounty of cheap and plentiful fossil fuels. Perhaps we can find someplace to detonate these weapons that needs to be nuked anyway, preferably someplace with a loose sandy soil...
Mike Koerner