Opinion: Join Back From The Brink In Amherst And Work To Prevent Nuclear War

UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned at the commencement of the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference on August 1, 2022,, “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.” How much longer are we willing to accept our continued teetering on the brink of nuclear disaster?

The war in Ukraine has focused public attention on the nuclear danger in a way not seen in decades. Yet, rather than heed the Secretary-General’s warning, or comply with international law as outlined in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the nuclear-armed states are speeding into a new arms race. Relations continue to deteriorate between the United States, Russia, and China and nuclear threats remain between India and Pakistan and on the Korean Peninsula. Alarmingly, recent studies summarized in the journal Nature Food indicate that more than five billion people — roughly 63% of the world’s current population — could die of famine in the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia. Even a limited nuclear war, using less than 3% of the world’s stockpiles could kill a third of the world’s population within two years. Recovery from a nuclear war would be impossible, yet the world’s leaders continue to gamble with Armageddon. The only sensible path forward is prevention, to pull back from the nuclear brink.

Many of us are rightfully concerned with the climate crisis. But a nuclear war could cause an even more catastrophic climatic impact in a single afternoon. It could be tomorrow or it could be next year. Despite growing public attention, there exists very little pressure on our leaders to change course from nuclear escalation toward disarmament. In 2021, in the midst of a global pandemic, the nine nuclear-armed states spent $82.4 billion on their nuclear arsenals, of which the United States spent $44.2 billion. For contrast, the entire budget of the United Nations, the organization tasked with the maintenance of international peace, is just $3.12 billion. The United States invested a mere $1 billion in international climate finance for 2022 to address the global climate crisis. We need powerful, intersectional movements to put an end to endless war and weapons buildups, to create the conditions for peace, and for real investment in climate adaptation.

In the 1980s, the Nuclear Freeze Movement was started here in Western Massachusetts. It ballooned into a mass movement that exerted real political pressure and helped to bring an end to the Cold War Arms race. It helped lead to some of the most important arms control measures in history, where tens of thousands of nuclear weapons were dismantled.

Today, there is a growing, worldwide movement to abolish nuclear weapons. In the United States, the Back from the Brink campaign (BftB), founded here in Western Massachusetts and modeled on the Freeze Campaign, is building a national campaign to demand the United States enter negotiations with the other nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. As of November 2022, BftB resolutions have been adopted by seven state legislative bodies and 60 municipalities, including Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Des Moines, Honolulu, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Tucson, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Washington D.C. Some 330 local, county, and state officials have endorsed the campaign. In June 2022, Representatives Jim McGovern and Earl Blumenauer introduced a Congressional resolution calling for the adoption of BftB’s policy platform in the U.S. House. Hundreds of civil society organizations have endorsed the campaign.

Please join Back from the Brink on Sunday, December 4 from 5-7 pm for a reception at The Drake, in Amherst , 44 North Pleasant Street. On December 4 we will also be honoring four local leaders for their support and leadership of BftB. We’ll honor U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern for his long-standing leadership on the issue. We’ll also honor and recognize both State Senator Jo Comerford and State Representative Lindsay Sabadosa for their role in promoting a BftB resolution in the Massachusetts state legislature, and Sister Mary Caritas, former President of Mercy Medical Center, for her tireless efforts to promote BftB locally, most notably in securing the endorsement of a BftB resolution by the Springfield and Holyoke City Councils.

Please join us as we celebrate the successes of the campaign and look ahead to our plans to scale up and hire a team of professional organizers. You can register for the event and, if you wish, make a sponsorship contribution, by clicking here.  More information: Contact Brennan Tierney Brennan@preventnuclearwar.org  /401-935-5312. Event Link: https://preventnuclearwar.org/freeze-to-bftb/

Additional Sources

1. 2021 Nuuclear Weapons Spending Report
2. LA Times:  Even A Limited Nuclear War Would Kill One Third Of World’s Population

Brennan Tierney is a development consultant with Back from the Brink, a national grassroots campaign working toward fundamental changes to nuclear weapons policy. He is also a M.Ed student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and teaches 8th Grade Civics at Amherst Regional Middle School.