It may well seem as though we have enough, and more than enough, nowadays to keep track of, protest against or agitate for. Indeed, the ever-expanding list of things we absolutely have to follow and speak out about leaves me, for one, dizzy and exhausted.
And yet, the problem of the disconnect between the public’s awareness of nuclear arms and their governments’ rush to modernize and even expand nuclear stockpiles grows more acute as time goes on. While people assume they are as safe now as, say, when the START treaties were signed and put into effect, the fact is that nuclear non proliferation agreements and structures have been crumbling over the past decade and more.
According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, last year global Nuclear Weapons Spending Surpassed $100 Billion - enough money to feed three hundred forty-five million people facing hunger and starvation for two years.
And the problem isn’t only the obscene and absurd waste of money represented by nuclear arms. The fragile protection offered by mutually assured destruction has crumbled as more countries become nuclear powers, and as more of those countries engage in conventional wars and military actions, the probability of accidental – or deliberate – escalation to the use of nuclear weapons increases.
I know when everything is a five alarm fire, nothing is a five alarm fire. You get numb to urgency. I get that! I’m exhausted and heartsick all the time now. One more thing I have to feel outrage over, and write/post/blog about and share? Really? Come on!
This cause is fundamental though. Like climate change, the spread and ever increasing power of nuclear weapons poses an existential threat to civilization. But unlike climate change, it also poses a broader threat to life on Earth itself.
Howsoever tired we are, howsoever fervently we want to crawl into a hole and pull it in after us, we can’t ignore the looming threat of nuclear arms.
Link
Threat of Nuclear War Is Rising, But Scientists Say the Public Can Change That - Click