EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letters to the editor (one recently submitted and one published) are from activists dedicated to putting an end to the threat of nuclear war. Letters to the editor are an important tool in not only reaching our fellow citizens and sharing our views, and also reminding our news outlets know that this issue is of extraordinary importance to all of humanity. Please share your letters to the editor; send them to outreach@gzcenter.org.
A Tale of Two Nightmares: Global Pandemic and Nuclear War
By Mona Lee, Seattle
At some level, human civilization has long been aware of the likelihood of a deadly global pandemic. For decades, scientists and governments have warned of that probable scenario. Like the prospect of nuclear war, we have always known of the possibility of a pandemic, but most people never fully believed the nightmare would come true until it did. Now we are living it. Our hospitals and health care preparedness are strained to the breaking point, Masses of people have lost their means of livelihood. Hundreds of thousands are dying
Likewise, we have long known that nuclear war is possible. In fact, we know full well that there are enough deployed nuclear weapons to wipe out life on the planet several times over. Yet ironically, human awareness of nuclear weapons tends to be suspended in the same kind of disbelief as the likelihood of a pandemic was before we awoke in the midst of it.
My family has always had a greater awareness of nuclear weapons than most. I raised my children on a small farm next door to the Trident Base. My son still lives there. Living in the shadow of the bomb, we have realized that what we are experiencing with the pandemic is minimal collateral damage in comparison to what even the smallest nuclear war would do. After vaporizing our farm, an exchange of maybe only 1% of the world’s nuclear stockpile would overwhelm emergency response capabilities and impact climate change enough to cause a global famine. The world’s production, trade and communications systems would be devastated. Radiation sickness would abound, and civilization would ultimately be reduced to a more primitive state.
Nuclear weapons may seem like an issue that can be addressed later, but the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight which means we are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been. Yet the Trump Administration continues to encourage a new arms race by destroying treaties, increasing nuclear weapons spending, and building new nuclear weapons. Instead our government should be engaging other nuclear armed nations in negotiations to eliminate this threat to life on earth.
The 2021 US budget includes nearly $49 billion for nuclear weapons, enough money to purchase 460 million COVID 19 test kits at an estimated cost of $100 each with enough money left over for facemasks and other protective equipment to offset the shortage being experienced by many hospitals. It’s time to refocus our national priorities from creating threats to preventing and treating them. By redirecting money slated to be spent on nuclear weapons, we can take care of those most impacted by COVID-19 now.
Let’s call our Members of Congress and demand that funding for nuclear weapons be shifted to support the health needs of those impacted by this pandemic, so we don’t wake up one day and find ourselves in an even worse night mare.
(Submitted to Crosscut.com)
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Nuclear War Would Be MUCH, MUCH DEADLIER than Coronavirus
By Glen Anderson, Olympia
The Coronavirus pandemic is seriously disrupting our world. Trump escalated the disruptions and increased the deaths by denying the reality, preventing the government from planning for pandemics, and suppressing the knowledge of scientists and doctors.
A nuclear war would be much more disruptive and cause millions or billions of deaths.
Trump make nuclear war much more likely because Trump has been destroying treaties that were reducing the dangers, such as the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA) and the INF Treaty, which Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987.
Trump and both parties in Congress are funding reckless new nuclear weapons that are designed to be more likely to be used and are provoking an unrestrained nuclear arms race.
Washing our hands and using disinfectants would not protect us from nuclear holocaust and radiation. Entire cities would be burned to a crisp – reduced to radioactive ash.
Nuclear war could kick so much ash into the atmosphere that it would blot out the sun and cause “nuclear winter” preventing sunlight from reaching earth for several years, so no plants would grow while we freeze to death.
A nuclear war would be thousands of times worse than Coronavirus. The world is asking strong actions to stop this pandemic. We must also take strong actions to abolish nuclear weapons.
Inform yourselves. Urge Congress to pass the smart pending legislation (e.g., the Back from the Brink package – www.preventnuclearwar.org). Work with the Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, (360) 491-9093.
(Published in The Olympian; May 15, 2020; https://www.theolympian.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article242720026.html)
