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Trump re-elected would mean unsafe climate for the world, democracy’s end in USA

Four more years of Trump would leave democracy, and hope for a safe climate, in tatters

From the perspective of the human species as a whole, the arc of its life on this planet, it may be the most important election ever.

A second Trump term would mean severe and irreversible changes in the climate No joke: It would be disastrous on the scale of millennia. VOX, By David Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com  Aug 27, 2020,  I f Donald Trump is reelected president, the likely result will be irreversible changes to the climate that will degrade the quality of life of every subsequent generation of human beings, with millions of lives harmed or foreshortened. That’s in addition to the hundreds of thousands of lives at present that will be hurt or prematurely end.

This sounds like exaggeration, some of the “alarmism” green types are always accused of. But it is not particularly controversial among those who have followed Trump’s record on energy and climate change……..

………..a Trump victory would make any reasonable definition of “success” on climate change impossible….

More Trump will ensure the continued escalation of global temperatures

We know from the latest IPCC report that the climate target agreed to by nations — no more than a 2° Celsius rise in global average temperatures — is not a “safe” threshold at all. Going from 1.5° to 2° means many more heat waves, wildfires, crop failures, migrations, and premature deaths. We know that every fraction of a degree beyond 2° means more still, along with the increasing risk of tipping points that make further warming unstoppable. Continue reading →

August 29, 2020 Posted by | climate change, election USA 2020 | 1 Comment

You can have four more years of Trump, or you can have a habitable planet. But you can’t have both.

Climate Apocalypse Now, Maybe it’s just a failure of human imagination to understand what is coming, Rolling Stone, By JEFF GOODELL   28 Aug 20

I’m not a religious person, or someone who sees messages written in clouds, but if I were, I might believe that Mother Nature is trying to tell President Donald Trump something right now. California is burning, a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph just blasted into the Louisiana coast, and nearly 180,000 are reported dead from a viral outbreak that is just a harbinger of what one scientist calls “a new pandemic era” driven in part by our changing climate and wanton destruction of ecosystems. But on the eve of Trump’s big speech to accept the Republican nomination, if Mother Nature had a voice, I imagine she would say something like this: Pay attention to me, asshole, or you — and every generation of humans to come — will regret it.
Despite what Mike Pence says, there are no miracles in America, or anywhere else. We humans are on our own. If we fuck this up, it’s on us.

And, of course, we are fucking it up. We are heating up the planet so fast that large parts of it will be uninhabitable by the end of the century. We are amping up storms like Hurricane Laura — it is the strongest storm to hit the Louisiana coast since 1856 — and turning the Gulf Coast into a shooting gallery — which city is going to get hit next? New Orleans? Houston? Tampa? Miami? They are all living on borrowed time. And it’s not just the hurricanes: As Greenland melts and Antarctica falls into the Southern Ocean, they will be swamped by rising seas, as will virtually every other low-lying city in the world. The rich will huddle behind sea walls; the poor will flee or drown.

We are mowing down rainforests, destroying the lungs of the planet, and pushing animals — and the viruses they carry — into new places, increasing the risks of spillover into humans. You think Covid-19, with a fatality rate of about one percent (depending on risk group), is bad? Wait until a Nipah virus, with a fatality rate of 50 percent or higher, morphs in a way that allows asymptomatic transmission. ………..

Maybe it’s a failure of human imagination to understand what is coming. Maybe it’s a failure of democracy and the media (including writers like myself). After all, at this vital turning point in the climate crisis, at a moment when most scientists agree is the last chance to save a stable climate, America elected a president who sees science as a church for losers, and who believes the climate crisis is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese. ……

Maybe the real message that Mother Nature is sending with these storms and fires in the midst of the Republican National Convention is not to Trump, but to us. And it says this: You can have four more years of Trump, or you can have a habitable planet. But you can’t have both. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/hurricane-laura-california-wildfire-climate-crisis-jeff-goodell-1050746/

August 29, 2020 Posted by | climate change, election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

Not all scientists are objective, especially nuclear scientists running for election

Foster “argues that his Ph.D. somehow makes him a better lawmaker, yet he has become part of the broken pay-to-play system that only rewards those who can afford to contribute to political campaigns.” Foster “has taken millions of dollars from big banks, hedge fund managers, insurance companies, big Pharma and even money from fossil fuel companies.”
Dwight Eisenhower warned of the rise of a “military-industrial complex” in the U.S. In fact, according to Douglas Brinkley, formerly director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, the original draft of the speech warned not only of a “military-industrial complex” but of a “military-industrial-scientific complex.”
“in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposing danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”
Science is objective—but are all scientists objective?  Science might be objective—but that doesn’t mean all scientists are  Nation of Change, By Karl Grossman-August 25, 2020
    There is science—and then there is scientific vested interests.

With a denier of science in The White House—whether it has to do with the climate crisis or Covid-19 and so on—there is a major push, including by Democratic officials, for making science the basis for governmental decision-making.

That’s completely understandable.

But what about the push by some scientists to politically further areas of science and technology which they favor? Science might be objective—but that doesn’t mean all scientists are.

Take Congressman Bill Foster.

An atomic physicist from Illinois, for 23 years he worked at Fermilab in Illinois, established in the 1960s and run by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. With the AEC disbanded in the 1970s, it fell under the U.S. Department of Energy, which still runs it.
…….  The claim that nuclear power is among “low-carbon sources” is also the current major nuclear industry PR claim. In fact, the “nuclear fuel cycle”—especially mining, milling, “enrichment” to produce nuclear plant fuel—is carbon-intensive. And nuclear plants themselves emit carbon—radioactive Carbon-14.

Foster in a Democratic primary this year was challenged by Rachel Ventura, a member of the Will County Board in Illinois, who describes herself as a “progressive.” She is also an environmentalist who earlier worked as a naturalist for Georgia State Parks.

“Will County is effectively the ‘dumping grounds’ for Chicago’s dirty energy industry and garbage,” she declared in campaign literature. “Will County is home to two coal plants, two refineries and one nuclear power plant,” the twin-reactor Braidwood nuclear power plant.

She told patch.com/Illinois that the “Green New Deal is a centerpiece of my campaign” for both environmental and economic reasons. “I believe we can replace warehouse jobs with jobs building windmills and installing solar panels. I believe that we can replace the sweatshops in Aurora [a city, the second in population in Illinois after Chicago and in the Congressional district]…with better-paying jobs building energy efficient window and doors.”

She supports the Future Energy Jobs Act, pending before the Illinois General Assembly, which emphasizes solar and wind power and energy efficiency and commits the state to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.

Ventura noted that Foster “argues that his Ph.D. somehow makes him a better lawmaker, yet he has become part of the broken pay-to-play system that only rewards those who can afford to contribute to political campaigns.” Foster “has taken millions of dollars from big banks, hedge fund managers, insurance companies, big Pharma and even money from fossil fuel companies.”

She wants to see nuclear power replaced by energy from solar, wind and hydropower.

Despite a modest budget—$80,000—she received 41.3 percent of the primary vote, 32,411 votes—to 58.7 percent, 46,116 votes, for Foster.

As to the Republican whom Foster will face on Election Day, it is Rick Laib, a Trumpster and sergeant in the Will County Sheriff’s Office, who stresses his opposition to abortion and the right for people to carry guns………..

In his farewell address as president in 1961, Dwight Eisenhower warned of the rise of a “military-industrial complex” in the U.S. In fact, according to Douglas Brinkley, formerly director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, the original draft of the speech warned not only of a “military-industrial complex” but of a “military-industrial-scientific complex.” Because of the “urging” of Eisenhower’s science advisor, James Killian, said Brinkley, the word “scientific” was eliminated. (Brinkley is now Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and professor of history at Rice University.)

Remaining in Eisenhower’s address were other words on the issue. Eisenhower said, “in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposing danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”

Eisenhower also said: “Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the federal government. Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists and laboratories.”

The chain of U.S. national laboratories which grew out of the crash program of World War II to build atomic bombs, the Manhattan Project, was—and is—the base for much of the scientific establishment about which Eisenhower was concerned.

In 1999, three-term U.S. Representative Michael Forbes, concerned about leaks of tritium from nuclear reactors at BNL, spoke out in connection to the radioactive pollution caused by the facility, located in his district. Its two reactors were leaking tritium directly into the underground water table below on which Long Island depends as its sole source of potable water.

As a result of Forbes’ criticism of the federal laboratory, he was opposed in a primary for the Democratic nomination by Regina Seltzer whose husband had been a BNL scientist. BNL personnel manned phone banks to campaign for Seltzer. She won the Democratic nomination over Forbes by 45 votes, but lost to the Republican candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, Forbes, a highly capable representative was driven out of Congress.

One need not be a scientist at a federal facility involved in atomic science to develop an affinity for nuclear technology. Involvement in the U.S. nuclear Navy can also be a springboard. 

Take Congresswoman Elaine Luria.

Her online biography notes “Rep. Luria was one of the first women in the Navy’s nuclear power program.” She “served two decades in the Navy, retiring at the rank of Commander. Rep. Luria served at sea on six ships as a nuclear-trained Surface Warfare Officer, deployed to the Middle East and Western Pacific.”

In the online biography, Luria, of Virginia, states: “As a nuclear engineer in the Navy, I saw firsthand that nuclear power, when deployed safely and responsibly, can play a key role in our future as a zero-carbon energy source. That is why I introduced the bipartisan Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, which will encourage innovation in the design and deployment of advanced nuclear reactor technologies.”

Her Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, introduced in 2019, declares its purpose is to “direct the Secretary of Energy to establish advanced nuclear goals, provide for a versatile, reactor-based fast neutron source, make available high-assay, low-enriched uranium for research, development, and demonstration of advanced nuclear reactor concepts, and for other purposes.”

Luria is a Democrat and will face Republican Scott Taylor, a former Navy SEAL endorsed by Trump who had lost to her two years ago……   This past December “Congress voted to approve appropriations for fiscal year 2020 that includes $1.5 billion for nuclear energy programs, a 12.5 increase from the previous year,” the leading PR entity for the nuclear industry, the Nuclear Energy Institute, trumpeted. It quoted its president and CEO Maria Korsnick saying: “Today’s historic 2020 funding of $1.5 billion for nuclear energy programs reaffirms that nuclear energy is an essential driver in lowering carbon emissions. With Congress’ action, our government is signaling that nuclear energy is a vital part of our country’s commitment to a reliable and resilient energy system.”  https://www.nationofchange.org/2020/08/25/science-is-objective-but-are-all-scientists-objective/?fbclid=IwAR32pATHxLwEv5-3jnrQTNCHcuavdl6zT0T1W1Bmm5O4UlCpMcu33L_E1dw

August 27, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020 | 1 Comment

Compromise, compromise: U.S. Democrats almost merging into Republicans

Media Praise Biden’s ‘Centrist Coalition’ for Steering Clear of ‘Progressive Demands’, Fair 24 Aug 20,  “Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.”

That’s the line that an alien imposter who comes to America to run for president on The Simpsons (10/27/96) came up with after realizing any firm position on reproductive rights would draw some opposition, but a lukewarm compromise coupled with a sentimental devotion to the flag would get people cheering. Corporate media seem to be having a reaction similar to the cartoon alien as they opine on the nomination of former Vice President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate, with Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate.

The Daily Beast (3/18/20) heralded Biden’s liberal “patriotism” as an antidote to “uber-nationalist” Trump and “uber-internationalist” Sen. Bernie Sanders. At the Washington Post (8/21/20), columnist Michael Gerson praised Biden for trying to “build a centrist coalition in favor of political sanity.” Also at the Post (8/16/20), Jennifer Rubin hailed the Biden/Harris ticket’s centrism because it has “deprived Trump of the ‘socialist’ target Republicans yearned to confront”—as though Trump’s attacks were wedded to reality and facts.

The Los Angeles Times (8/12/20) shared that optimism, with political reporter Janet Hook reporting that the Biden/Harris ticket has “a center-left brand that steers clear of the most far-reaching progressive demands,” which “has complicated the Trump White House’s efforts to portray the ticket as ‘dangerous radicals’”:

Harris, like Biden…has rebuffed some demands of the party’s rising progressive wing. That’s a profile that could help Biden appeal to moderate swing voters he needs to win in states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

(As an example of how clear of progressivism the Biden team intends to steer, see Biden’s transition director’s promise of economic austerity if elected, telling the Wall Street Journal—8/19/20—“We’re going to be limited.”)Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos (Twitter, 8/20/20) cheered that the Democrats were “now objectively the party of faith, family values and national defense,” while the Intercept’s Lee Fang (Twitter, 8/20/20) praised “Biden’s plainspoken patriotism” (along with a supposed “embrace of popular social democratic reform”).
Prominent Republicans spoke repeatedly at the Democratic National Convention, signaling that Biden was firmly committed to the political center; some of his GOP backers wrote a piece for Foreign Policy (8/20/20) declaring that “Biden has far more in common with the other Republican presidents we worked for than Trump does.” ……….
At first glance, this is a victory lap for the corporate press and the Democratic establishment against the party’s left flank. For all the work of Sanders and the left-wing “Squad” in Congress, the Overton Window has barely budged at the presidential level. As Newsweek (8/4/20) pointed out, Biden is going against 87% of his  party’s members by opposing Medicare for All. ……….https://fair.org/home/media-praise-bidens-centrist-coalition-for-steering-clear-of-progressive-demands/

August 25, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

U.S. Democratic Party not really interested in reducing the bloated military spending

War, Peace and the Democrats, Common Wonders,  Wednesday, August 19th, 2020   By Robert C. Koehler

“There’s something happening here/What it is ain’t exactly clear . . .”

Or is it?            “……………………………Yes, there are progressive, antiwar Democrats out there, gaining power, getting elected to office, almost winning presidential primaries — scaring the bejesus out of the Democratic establishment — but the party itself still stands firmly in the middle of nowhere, fully in favor of empathy and compassion and yet, somehow, fully supportive of the endless wars most of its own voters hate and utterly unwilling to challenge the bloated and ever-expanding defense budget.Citing the analysis of William Hartung and Many Smithberger, the Milwaukee Independent described that budget thus: “As of 2019, the annual Pentagon base budget, plus war budget, plus nuclear weapons in the Department of Energy, plus military spending by the Department of Homeland Security, plus interest on deficit military spending, and other military spending totaled $1.25 trillion . . .”

This is untouchable money — not just to Trump and the Republicans but to most congressional Democrats.

Indeed, as Alexander Sammon points out in the American Prospect, Democratic majorities were crucial this summer to the defeat of three separate bills, introduced by progressive Democrats, to reduce military spending and/or undo the militarization of police departments. These included amendments in both the Senate and the House to the National Defense Authorization Act, diverting 10 percent of the Department of Defense budget to health care, education and jobs; as well as a Senate proposal to end the 1033 Program, which allows the Pentagon to transfer military gear to the police. The amendment’s defeat in the House was especially an outrage, Sammon notes, in that the Dems hold a majority in the House and could have passed it.

“If Democrats are going to enact anything that resembles their own agenda,” Sammon writes, “they’re going to have to aim way higher than cutting defense to near Obama-era highs. Taking military spending not to pre-Trump but to pre-9/11 levels should be a starting point. Democratic voters abhor the War on Terror; it’s what helped deliver Obama the presidency back in 2008. It’s incumbent on Joe Biden to deliver on that preference, not just to end engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan but to bring an end to the bloated defense budgets of the War on Terror era. His silence on the proposal even in the thick of a campaign against Trump sends a troubling message.”

War, militarism and the insanely bloated defense budget are never — never! — addressed with serious political pragmatism. Thus to see a peace symbol, the icon of a world beyond war, flicker meaninglessly for ten titillating seconds at the Democratic convention, was . . . well, discombobulating.  http://commonwonders.com/war-peace-and-the-democrats/

August 20, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

Bill McKibben not sure that Kamala Harris will be strong on addressing climate change

August 20, 2020 Posted by | climate change, election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

Biden Condemns Trump’s Nuclear Plans, (but he himself supports nuclear power)

August 13, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

What about Vermont Yankee’s nuclear waste? Or dealing with it?

Famette/Rice: And the nuclear waste?    12 Aug 20, 

What about Vermont Yankee’s nuclear waste? Or dealing with it?

High-Level Nuclear Waste (HLNW) is a byproduct of nuclear power plants and is extremely dangerous for thousands of years. The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, in Vernon, has been shut down since 2014 and the HLNW it produced over the years of operation has been transferred into stainless steel and concrete dry casks stored onsite. Currently, our federal government has not come up with a permanent site to store HLNW safely over time.

NorthStar, the corporation which now owns Vermont Yankee, wants to transport that waste to a Centralized “Interim” Storage (CIS) site that it owns in Texas. To transport this waste is a dangerous proposition since an accident would likely result in great damage to the environment and the life forms in the surrounding area. We should only move the material once to a permanent repository. Also, if Vermont Yankee’s HLNW is allowed to be transported across the country on our highways, railways and waterways to a temporary open-air storage site, such a precedent would likely result in thousands of shipments across the country as other nuclear plants are shut down during the coming four decades.

Communities in the Southwest are speaking out in opposition to accepting our toxic waste. As members of the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance (VYDA), we support their concerns and are against the transportation and interim storage of Vermont Yankee’s waste at a CIS. We feel it is safer to keep our waste within our state in monitored, hardened, onsite storage in stainless steel and concrete dry casks while a scientifically-based permanent storage site is located.

For the above reasons, join us in contacting U.S. Rep. Peter Welch and urge him to vote against any bill that would authorize Centralized Interim Storage of High-Level Nuclear waste? https://www.timesargus.com/opinion/commentary/famette-rice-and-the-nuclear-waste/article_436e1a1b-deb3-5b6a-87a9-228cfb16afbc.html

Audrey Famette lives in Montpelier. Nancy Rice lives in Randolph Center.

August 13, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Trump administration keen for nuclear power, – so is Joe Biden

August 10, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, politics | Leave a comment

Joe Biden’s pro nuclear plan ignores the nuclear waste question

August 4, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

America’s choice – environmental and climate catastrophe under Trump, or some hope under Democratic rule

July 23, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, environment | Leave a comment

If he wins election, Joe Biden would restore Iran nuclear deal

Biden would restore nuclear deal if he wins elections: George Washington University professor,  By Javad Heirannia Tehran Times, June 7, 2020 

“Biden would restore, or rejoin, the nuclear agreement with Iran. But now he would want an extension of the time that Iran could resume for nuclear research and have breakout capabilities,” Professor Askari tells the Tehran Times.

Professor Askari, who served as special advisor to Saudi finance minister, also says a Democratic president “would set about undoing Trump’s foreign policy errors.”

Following is the text of the interview:…………………..

Q: If Joe Biden is elected the next president of the United States, will he change his approach toward China? Also, what would be his approach to Iran and the nuclear deal in general?

A: I think a Biden, or for that matter any Democratic President, would set about undoing Trump’s foreign policy errors. Yes, he would try to chart a new course with China. Tough but with a plan that is step by step to restore workable relations. Not a series of disjointed reactions to the moment in time. He would restore, or rejoin, the nuclear agreement with Iran. But now he would want an extension of the time that Iran could resume for nuclear research and have breakout capabilities. In this way, he would appear as tough but at the same time reduce tensions in the Persian Gulf and America’s military exposure around the world. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/448604/Biden-would-restore-nuclear-deal-if-he-wins-elections-George

June 8, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, politics, politics international | Leave a comment

Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, on climate and nuclear power

Georgia’s Presidential Primary: Biden And Sanders On Climate WABE

MOLLY SAMUEL • MAR 17, 2020 “…… BOTH VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN AND U.S. SEN. BERNIE SANDERS AGREE THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS AN URGENT ISSUE. IN THE INTRODUCTIONS TO THEIR CLIMATE PLANS, BIDEN CALLS CLIMATE CHANGE AN “EXISTENTIAL THREAT;” SANDERS CALLS IT A “GLOBAL EMERGENCY.”

Sanders and Biden agree that the U.S. should re-commit to the Paris Climate Agreement, the international accord that President Donald Trump is pulling the country out of. They also say the U.S. should be a world leader on climate change. And they have pledged to reject donations from the fossil fuel industry.

Both say that we need to make sure workers from, say, the coal industry, and their communities, aren’t left behind in a transition to cleaner energy sources.

They want to make big investments in infrastructure and in research and technology; they want to help get more electric vehicles on the roads, and improve railroads and public transit.

And they both say they embrace the Green New Deal, the proposal in Congress that lays out climate legislation. Sanders’s climate plan is actually called the Green New Deal, and he was endorsed by the Sunrise Movement, an advocacy group that’s pushing for the Green New Deal to be adopted.

Timeline and Spending

Biden says he’d spend $1.7 trillion over the next ten years. Sanders proposes to spend almost ten times that amount, $16.3 trillion.

On the schedule side, Biden’s goal is net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Sanders has a 2050 goal to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, but he also has an ambitious 2030 goal: to have all electricity and transportation powered by renewable energy sources by then.

Different Tactics

Both candidates have extensive plans, and we’re not getting all the details in here. But here are some of the tactics where they begin to diverge.

Part of what Biden wants to invest in is carbon capture technology, to basically suck carbon dioxide out of the air and store it to help counteract emissions.

Biden wants to regulate natural gas much more strictly, and to ban new oil and gas leases on federal lands. And he’d encourage renewable energy development in those places.

Sanders wants to basically remake the country’s electric system.

He wants to expand government-run power authorities and have them generate electricity from renewable sources, to eventually drive coal- and gas-fired power plants out of business.

Beyond the regulations Biden is calling for on natural gas, Sanders wants to flat out ban fracking. He also wants to ban imports and exports of fossil fuels.

And Sanders calls carbon capture technology, which Biden supports, a false solution.

Approaches To Nuclear
Sanders is also opposed to nuclear power. He says he wants to stop nuclear power plants from getting their licenses renewed and not allow any news ones to be built……..

While Sanders is against all of it, Biden supports research on a new generation of smaller, cheaper nuclear reactors. And he doesn’t rule out continuing to use the existing ones.  https://www.wabe.org/georgias-presidential-primary-sanders-and-biden-on-climate/

March 19, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020 | 3 Comments

Joe Biden to encourage nuclear power, and Bernie Sanders is not all that anti nuclear

March 12, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020 | 1 Comment

EXPERTS:  NUCLEAR WEAPONS SHOULD BE FRONT-BURNER ISSUE IN 2020 RACE FOR WHITE HOUSE

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist Briefing Audience Told: “We Are Living in a World Where the Next President Will Decide if the Number of Nuclear Weapons Go Up or Down.”

CHICAGO, IL///March 2, 2020///Two leading experts raised serious concerns today about the lack of substantive discussion among U.S. presidential candidates about their plans for U.S. nuclear weapons and related threats around the globe. They noted that arms control agreements resulted in the number of nuclear weapons in the world being slashed from 70,000 to 14,000, with that progress now in danger of being reversed.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists briefing held one day before Super Tuesday included an appeal to both candidates and the news media to move nuclear weapons to the forefront of the 2020 elections.

Former Obama science adviser John P. Holdren said: “We live in a soundbite and Twitter culture. It’s difficult to express nuclear weapons threats in 240 words or an eight-second quote … We should be talking about embracing a no-first-use policy. We have much cheaper and safer ways to deal with conventional and biological attacks than using nuclear weapons and therefore launching a much wider nuclear war. That threat is not worth it. Candidates should be talking about their views on ‘no first use.’”

Holdren now is the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Co-Director of the School’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, Professor of Environmental Science and Policy in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Affiliated Professor in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science. Holdren also is Visiting Distinguished Professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and Senior Advisor to the President at the Woods Hole Research Center, a pre-eminent scientific think tank focused on global climate change. From January 2009 to January 2017, he was President Obama’s Science Advisor and Senate-confirmed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Alexandra Bell, the senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, said: “There are well over 4,000 nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile. Anyone running for President is asking the public to trust them … The next President is going to decide if we live in a world when the number of nuclear weapons is going up or going down. If we lose the (arms control) agreements, we are definitely headed to a world where that number is going up. That is why this should be a major issue in the 2020 election cycle.”

Previously, Bell served as a senior adviser in the Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security. She has also worked on nuclear policy issues at the Ploughshares Fund.

Holdren said that the issue of “no first use” was considered at length during the Obama Administration and that a decision was deferred in the President’s second term “on the assumption that Hillary Clinton would win” the 2016 election.

Bell noted that President Trump is the first U.S. president since John F. Kennedy to fail to initiate a major arms control agreement in their first term in office. She said: “Whoever the next person is to sit behind that Resolute Desk is going to having to deal with a number of issues that have been left behind to them.”

Both Holdren and Bell agreed that the news media (except for a handful of key outlets) are not paying enough attention to nuclear weapons issues. But they also agreed that it is incumbent on experts to find a way to talk about nuclear weapons that engages presidential candidates, elected officials, the media, and the public.

John Mecklin, editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, moderated the expert panel discussion.

For more background information, see Nuclear Weapons Policy and the U.S. Presidential Election, an edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists available free online until March 31, 2020.

ABOUT THE BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS

December 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the first edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, initially a six-page, black-and-white bulletin and later a magazine, created in anticipation that the atom bomb would be “only the first of many dangerous presents from the Pandora’s Box of modern science.”  The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ iconic Doomsday Clock was reset on January 23, 2020 to 100 seconds to midnight.  www.thebulletin.org.

MEDIA CONTACT:  Max Karlin, (703) 276-3255 and mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A streaming recording of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ briefing will be available at www.thebulletin.org/nukes2020vote as of 5 p.m. CST/6 p.m. EST/2300 GMT on March 2, 2020.

 

 

March 3, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, weapons and war | 1 Comment

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