Beyond Nuclear letter to the editor in the Washington Post: The looming danger of nuclear weapons

Letter to the Editor, Washington Post:

While the United States and Russia possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, the fact that seven other nations have nuclear weapons, albeit in smaller quantities, is highly significant.  

The report “Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk?” by Ira Helfand warns that even “a limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan would cause significant climate disruption worldwide.” The resulting global cooling would significantly affect “agriculture, food supplies, and human nutrition” and could result in billions of deaths.

Even North Korea’s handful of nuclear weapons is dangerously destabilizing [“Former U.S. officials plan talks with N. Koreans,” front page, Feb. 20]. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock is at two and a half minutes to midnight, due in large part to President Trump’s provocative statements. It’s high time to take President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 warning to heart: “The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.”

Kevin Kamps, Takoma Park

The writer is a radioactive waste specialist for Beyond Nuclear.

John Oliver's "Catheter Cowboy" tutors Trump on the Nuclear Triad

Watch the YouTube video, showing a segment from John Oliver's "Last Week, Tonight" on HBO.

Civil rights icon Coretta Scott King was an anti-nuclear activist too!

The civil rights hero Coretta Scott King, an equal partner in the world betterment work of her husband the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is in the news. As reported by Democracy Now!, in segments entitled "Made Me Feel We Were Back in the 1950s: Coretta Scott King Memoirist on Silencing of Elizabeth Warren," and "Sen. Elizabeth Warren Silenced by GOP for Reading Coretta Scott King's Letter about Jeff Sessions," Coretta Scott King's words written 31 years ago were considered too hot for the U.S. Senate floor by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky), so Sen. Warren (Democrat-Massachusetts) was "red carded" -- blocked from speaking any more about Sen. Jeff Sessions' (Republican-Alabama) nomination by President Donald J. Trump for Attorney General.

(See also New York Times coverage, including a link to Sen. Warren's Facebook Live reading of Coretta Scott King's letter (done just moments after Sen. Warren was silenced by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor), and the written text of the 1986 letter, as well as the full congressional testimony -- all of which, Democracy Now! has reported, arch-segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC, Chair of the Judicicary Committee overseeing Sessions' nomination for a federal judgeship in 1986), almost certainly intentionally (that is, it was not a mistake or clerical error), did not include in the official Congressional Record at the time.)

Less known than her civil rights activism is that Coretta Scott King was also an anti-nuclear weapons activist. A photo, displayed at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-violent Social Change, shows Coretta Scott King marching with Women's Strike for Peace. Her placard reads "Let's Make Our Earth A Nuclear-Free Zone."