Steps to Safety: Reducing the Danger of Nuclear Weapons

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Steps to Safety Reducing the Danger of Nuclear
Weapons
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Hiroshima
before and after the Little Boy bomb hit
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Nuclear Terrorism Manhattan

• 52,000 people die immediately
• 238,000 people exposed to direct radiation
• 1.5 million affected by radioactive fallout

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Nuclear Terrorism

• 2,170 metric tons of nuclear bomb making material
  in poorly guarded facilities
• Bomb making knowledge widely available
• Extremists have sought a nuclear bomb materials

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Nuclear War in South Asia

• A nuclear war between India and Pakistan could
  lead to
• 20 million deaths in major cities in India and
  Pakistan
• Radioactive contamination throughout the region
• Global climate disruption from smoke and soot

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Nuclear Winter in the World

• Nuclear explosions ignite fires that burn whole
  cities
• Soot lofted high into the atmosphere absorbs
  incoming sunlight
• Global cooling leads to shorter growing
  seasonsless rainfall
• Famine and disease spread globally
• Global Death Toll from Starvation 1 billion

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British French nuclear submarines collide in
Atlantic
February 3, 2009

• nuclear weapons poised on high alert
• Britain France have 584
• US Russia have 20,000
• even state-of-the-art technology can fail

Image HMS Vanguard, which is believed to have
been involved in an underwater collision with a
French submarine
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Nuclear Weapons on High AlertAn Accident
Waiting to Happen?

• High alert Nuclear Weapons can go off in just 2
  to 3 minutes
• Accidental nuclear launch is possible
• De-alert nuclear weapons to provide more decision
  time

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Nuclear Reductions with Russia

• Massive stockpiles make us less safe
• US and Russia have 90 of nuclear weapons
  worldwide

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Reduce Nuclear Arsenals

• April 1, 2009, US and Russian Presidents agree to
  new nuclear weapon reductions treaty.
• Whats needed?
• A new treaty that gets each nation verifiably
  down to 1,000 nuclear weapons
• A decrease in US-Russian arsenals would devalue
  nuclear weapons globally

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Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
three types of nuclear testing

• A global ban on nuclear testing
• Prevents development of nuclear weapons
• Safe and realistic step to reduce nuclear risk

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Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

• 148 nations have signed and ratified this
  important treaty
• For the Treaty to be implemented, China, Egypt,
  India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea,
  Pakistan and the United States must ratify
• The United States has signed this Treaty, but
  ratification will take a 2/3rd vote in the U.S.
  Senate
• U.S. ratification will lead other states to ratify

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Monitoring Sites Worldwide
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Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

• The CTBT is more important than ever to
  strengthen international support for the Nuclear
  Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• Today Republicans and Democrats agree
• President Obama said he aimed to "immediately and
  aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the
  Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty."
• Former Secretary of State for President Ronald
  Reagan, George P. Shultz, it detected the North
  Korean nuclear test" and although his fellow
  Republicans "might have been right voting against
  it some years agothey would be right voting for
  it now.

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Bipartisan Support for CTBTand a Nuclear Weapons
Free World
Kissinger, Shultz, Perry, Nunn Renew Vision of
Nuclear Free World
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A Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

• A world free of nuclear weapons
• is a world in which the possibility of
• their use no longer exists.

Concerning President Obama's commitment to the
removal of nuclear weapons from the Earth, I
certainly support that ambitious goal. McCain,
April 2009 Press Conference
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Cost of Nuclear Weapons

• In 2008, US spent
• 52.4 billion
• on nuclear weapons-related programs
• (14X the amount spent on developing new sources
  of energy)

Source Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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Steps to Safety

• Take Nuclear Weapons off of High Alert
• Reduce U.S./Russian Nuclear Arsenals to 1000, as
  first step to deeper reductions on way to global
  elimination
• Ratify the CTBT
• Secure all loose nuclear material in 4 years
• Negotiate a ban on production of nuclear weapon
  (fissile) material

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Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC)

• NWC is a proposed treaty to ban nuclear weapons
  by
• prohibiting nuclear weapons
• development
• production
• testing
• stockpiling
• transfer
• use
• threat of use
• banning production of fissile material
• requiring destruction of nuclear weapons in
  stages
• placing fissile material under UN control

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Advocate for a Safer World

• Call your Senators and ask them where they
  stand on CTBT
• Capital Switchboard 202-224-3121

Join PSRs Legislative Alert List