Make a difference in the challenge to confront global warming and prevent nuclear war and the development and use of nuclear weapons.
Today, PSR is joining with dozens of organizations, representing millions of Americans, calling on the U.S. Senate to pass clean energy and climate legislation. Please tell your Senators that we can no longer delay action if we are to protect our health and the health of future generations from catastrophic climate change.
Nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear terrorism pose a grave threat to the United States and the world. At the Moscow Summit today Russian President Medvedev and President Barack Obama committed to a follow-on agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty I (START) to be concluded by December, 2009. This new treaty will reduce U.S and Russian nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles, and will require verification of these reductions.
From the 1,700 strategic warheads on high alert delivery vehicles that each nation has, this treaty will cut approximately 200. While the cut in nuclear warheads is not huge this agreement re-establishes U.S. leadership and engagement on nuclear nonproliferation policy. It also sets the stage for deeper cuts in U.S.- Russian arsenals (totaling 95% of nuclear weapons worldwide) in the coming year. As Secretary of State Clinton told Congress in January, once we agree to a START follow-on treaty, the United States “will seek deep, verifiable reductions in all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons—whether deployed or nondeployed, strategic or nonstrategic.”
Bi-partisan statesmen, including President Obama, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Arizona Senator John McCain have expressed support for the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Today’s summit announcement is a step towards realizing that vision.
Last year, six nuclear armed cruise missiles were unintentionally flown across the United States and a U.S nuclear submarine collided with a British nuclear submarine in the Atlantic Ocean. “When it comes to our national security and public health, maintaining huge nuclear arsenals is a liability, not an asset. It is of the utmost urgency that we get to substantially lower numbers of nuclear weapons throughout the world,” noted Dr. Peter Wilk, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Whether by accident or intention, the detonation of a nuclear weapon by anyone, anywhere in the world, would have a catastrophic impact on all our lives,”
Physicians for Social Responsibility strongly urges Congress to support this new treaty when it comes up for ratification in the fall.
Why would anyone send a toaster to every member of Congress? Participate in PSR's first ever video contest and find out!
Please take a few minutes today to ask the people in your networks to join PSR in our work to eliminate nuclear weapons, to reverse global warming and the toxic degradation of the environment, and to promote safe energy.
PowerPoint presentation on how nuclear weapons put the United States at risk today--and how we can reduce and eventually eliminate the danger posed by the thousands of nuclear weapons still stockpiled in nuclear arsenals, the tons of nuclear bomb making material vulnerable to theft by extremists, and the specter of more nations potentially seeking nuclear weapons. Read more »
The military operational costs of the war in Iraq, now greater than $500 billion, have surpassed those for the entire Vietnam conflict. These escalating operational costs are alarming, yet the long-term public health costs will be much greater. Read more »
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