Make a difference in the challenge to confront global warming and prevent nuclear war and the development and use of nuclear weapons.
Support strong nationwide action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
It has been a privilege on behalf of PSR to be participating for the past two days in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Annual Conference on Nuclear Policy. This gathering with over 700 top level participants from 40 countries has been grappling with some of the most pressing issues facing our world today.
The presenters at the conference are highly experienced in national security matters and the discussions have been very thoughtful. However, as a health professional and PSR’s Executive Director, I am deeply concerned that much of the discussion about nuclear policy lacked the sense of urgency that these issues demand. We are currently not on a sustainable path. To protect our fragile world and all who inhabit it, we need to dramatically shift our policies and actions with regard to both nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors.
After our success helping to secure the ratification of New START, it is clear that transformational change is needed. PSR believes that the time is right to advance efforts on further dramatic reductions, de-alerting nuclear weapons, and on increasing the rate of dismantlement of non-deployed weapons. Given the unfolding nuclear reactor disaster in Japan, the time is also right to shift away from reliance on nuclear power.
The session on “Deep Reductions: Stability at Low Numbers” was encouraging. National security experts James Acton (from the US), Alexi Arbatov (from Russia) and Bon Li (from China) agreed that all countries would be safer with fewer nuclear weapons. As they recommended, to enhance both strategic and economic stability, it is vitally important that the U.S. and Russia begin work toward a New START follow-on agreement to get down to 1000 warheads.
But this doesn’t go far enough. With the grave threat to human health posed by even a few hundred nuclear weapons deployed on each side, PSR has been calling for a clearer commitment to beginning negotiations toward completely eliminating nuclear weapons. We have also been calling for a moratorium on construction of new nuclear reactors.
In the closing session, it was great to hear from Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller. She was the lead negotiator on New START and an effective advocate for the treaty in the US Senate. Last year, she even participated in a PSR speaker’s tour. Ambassador Gottemoeller celebrated "the wild rollercoaster it was" to achieve New START ratification and thanked us all for our invaluable help.
At this session she was joined by Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who declared Russia is ""ready to move on to next steps", while also noting what a complex world we live in. He spoke of Russian concerns we are familiar with including missile defense, conventional weapons imbalances, tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and weapons in space.
Ambassador Gottemoeller responded by reminding us of the President's three goals for the next round of negotiations: decreased strategic deployed weapons, decreased non-strategic deployed weapons, and non-deployed weapons. She spoke of "a new phase of innovation" that is required and invited NGOs to participate.
And participate we must.
Both a bold policy agenda and a strong sense of urgency are needed at this critical moment. Delay now will make it harder to ever achieve the transformational change necessary to fulfill our mission. We know that nuclear weapons are not an asset, but instead are a liability to both national security and public health. We must share this key message broadly to bring about the changes we desire.
Please join the growing international movement to abolish nuclear weapons at: 1 More 4 Zero.org
Now is the time for Congress to make the right choices on spending and to take meaningful reductions in our bloated nuclear arsenal and military budget.
Please join us for special webinar on our new nuclear famine report that will take place on Thursday, May 10th at 8:30 PM Eastern.
Nuclear Famine: A Billion People at Risk
The newly generated data on the decline in agricultural production that would follow a limited, regional nuclear war in South Asia support the concern that more than one billion people would be in danger of starvation. Epidemic disease and further conflict spawned by such a famine would put additional hundreds of millions at risk. Read more »
The U.S. and Nuclear Terrorism
This report on nuclear terrorism in the US provides detailed analysis of the medical and public health consequences of nuclear terrorism or accidents. Read more »
PSR Reports Spring 2011
Inside this issue: 50 years of physician anti-nuclear advocacy; pressing for better toxics policy; next steps for the Clean Air Act; and more. Read more »
RSS Feed Privacy Policy Contact Us
All content © Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.
While reduced number of warheads deployed looks like progress the US is poised to rebuild, for the first time, the entire nuclear weapons production complex. This would be an escalation of the arms race that would saddle us with new nuclear weapons production for the next 100 years.
April 1, 2011