Contact — Peter Bergel
 Each year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists resets its “Doomsday Clock,” which is a graphic way of tracking the danger posed to humankind by nuclear weapons and other existential threats. In January 2023, they placed the clock at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe. It remained at 90 seconds to midnight last year, and on January 28 the Bulletin will announce the setting for 2025. It is likely to advance even closer to midnight, reflecting what some observers have called the highest level of nuclear danger since – or even including – the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. In a few days our country will inaugurate a new president. One of the highly publicized initiatives Mr. Trump has announced is to deeply cut federal spending. Many Americans who benefit from a myriad of government services, such as social security, Medicare and Medicaid, veterans’ benefits and many others, have expressed concern that the services they depend upon will wind up in the administration’s crosshairs. One large contribution to federal spending that benefits almost no one is the vast sums being budgeted to upgrade the US nuclear weapons arsenal over the upcoming decades. “Most Americans do not realize that as much as $1.5 trillion is slated to be spent on nuclear weapons that cannot be used and which – in truth – make us less, rather than more, secure,” said Peter Bergel, a board member of Oregon PeaceWorks, a statewide peace and justice organization. As California Rep. Ro Khanna said recently, “we need a more sensible approach. “ “Abolishing nuclear weapons would be an easy way to cut the budget,” Bergel suggested. Oregon PeaceWorks’ Nuclear Abolition Now project works to alert Oregonians to the nuclear threat. “In the 1980s Americans were very aware of nuclear dangers,” Bergel said, “but awareness has faded over the years, while the threat has not. Many Americans were not yet born when we last confronted it as a nation. We appeal to those in the media to help publicize this danger.” Nuclear weapons cannot be used without exposing the entire world to catastrophic radiation poisoning as well as “nuclear winter” – a phenomenon in which soot blasted into the atmosphere by nuclear explosions blocks the sun and deprives the earth of the capacity to grow crops. Widespread starvation would result, condemning most of the world’s population to death. “Everyone in the world would be safer if the 9 nuclear nations agreed to ban nuclear weapons, as they have done with biological and chemical weapons and land mines,” Bergel stated. “Indeed most of the world’s nations have already approved the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which does exactly that. However, the Nuclear 9 have not seized this opportunity.” The 2025 setting of the Doomsday Clock on January 28 will be yet another warning to the world, and especially the Nuclear 9, that we must either eliminate nuclear weapons or they will eliminate us. |
Peter Bergel is a retired director of Oregon PeaceWorks and Editor of The PeaceWorker. He has a long history of organizing for abolition of nuclear weapons and power.
This announcement was posted to thepeaceworker on January 17, 2025.