Besides the imminent threat of climate change and humanities lack of will to adequately address it, the reason why the Doomsday Clock has been moved forward in 2015 and the reason why it has stayed just minutes before midnight since its inception is because of the threat posed to humanity by nuclear weapons.

Dear U.S. Representatives in the White House, Senate, and Congress,

Despite the unprecedented power of the nuclear weapons dropped by the U.S. on Japan in 1945 which killed over 129,000 people (the vast majority of them innocent civilians) while maiming and sickening many more, such weapons are nothing compared to the thermonuclear weapons which currently threaten humanity as they’re potentially thousands of times more powerful yet kill just as indiscriminately as their predecessors. In a world with around 16,000 nuclear weapons humanities future can not be secured until it rids itself of these weapons.

With the Prime Minister of Israel scheduled to address Congress in March regarding Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons I urge you to seize the opportunity to propose creating a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the world’s most volatile region by proposing an agreement that states if Israel verifiably gives up its nuclear weapons then Iran will verifiably give up its suspected pursuit of developing its own. From there similar agreements could be reached between the U.S., Russia, U.K., France, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea enabling humanity to back out of this decades long nuclear stand-off.

With the signing of such agreements the former nuclear weapon possessing nations along with all the nations which never had or wanted them despite having the capability to build them could sign a nuke ban defense treaty which guarantees full support to any country threatened with or attacked with a nuclear weapon. If humanity isn’t ready to give up all of its nukes then perhaps a limited number of them could be kept under joint control by members of such a nuke ban defense alliance and could serve as a deterrent to any nation that considers threatening others with nuclear weapons.

The main obstacles to nuclear disarmament are the U.S. and Russia who still possess nuclear weapons stockpiles over twenty times larger than that of any other nation. This is inexcusable therefore I urge the U.S. government to increase its efforts to work with Russia on nuclear arms reduction because odds are only after significant bilateral reductions will other nations with far fewer nuclear weapons get serious about their own nuclear disarmament.

The threat of thermonuclear war has loomed over the head of humanity for far too long. On this 70th anniversary of the creation and use of the first nuclear weapons lets stop the hypocrisy and start putting more effort into working on the solutions starting with the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East and the U.S. and Russia cutting their nuclear weapons stockpiles in half.

Sincerely…
White House     U.S. Senate     U.S. House of Representatives