Good Trouble Ahead
Starting now!
Lest anyone need reminding, Saturday, April 5th will mark the (first of hopefully many) Hands Off! demonstrations nationwide [1] to protest the unconstitutional, destructive and intrusive policies being carried out by our national administration. We need to turn out in extraordinary numbers (for Americans), following very recent examples in Türkiye, Serbia, Georgia, - even Gaza, where huge numbers of people have taken peacefully to the streets to protest against the actions of authoritarian regimes. Less well publicized in the Global Climate Action on April 11th [2], when we will remind everyone that climate change is only getting worse due to inaction or insufficient action.
But that is not what this post is about.
Over the next two months Congress will be marking up legislation regarding our nuclear arsenal, and the clock will continue ticking down to zero on the New START treaty between the US and Russia. Action is required to encourage our leadership to enter into an agreement to continue abiding by the current treaty while a new one is negotiated, lest the already festering nuclear arms race explode to levels last seen in the 1970s.
A number of scientific organizations are organizing to visit members of Congress in May to personally argue the case for rationality in our nuclear weapons policy. But the effort has already begun: There are already two resolutions, House Resolution 100 [3] and Senate Resolution 61 [4] urging continued arms control talks with Russia, together with restraint in expansion of nuclear weapons arsenals. The Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction, of which I am a member, is calling upon citizens to contact their elected representatives to urge support for those Resolutions. You can participate via the link below [5].
Over the past two years I have written several posts on issues related to nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare. It is a problem generations in the making, spanning the presidencies of members of both parties. This is, and should remain, a bipartisan issue. My most recent post on this topic was reposted as [6], and it contains links to still others should you want more detail. The bottom line is that we are in the process of updating and building on an arsenal which is so large that even if only a fraction of it were to be used the after effects would be sufficient to extinguish humanity as well as all the higher life forms on this planet. Not to mention the horrendous immediate effects, and those of our adversary's weapons.
Between now and mid-May, I plan to follow up with updates on the status of the ever more expensive US nuclear arms modernization, modeling efforts to increase the confidence in predictions concerning nuclear winter, and related topics.
Notes
[1] For an event near you go to https://handsoff2025.com
[2] For an event near you go to https://fridaysforfutureusa.org/april-11-2025-global-climate-strike/
[3] House Resolution 100: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolution/100?emci=61fa1f9b-020f-f011-90cd-0022482a9fb7&emdi=a1a556a0-ca0f-f011-90cd-0022482a9fb7&ceid=30329012
[4] Senate Resolution 61: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-resolution/61?emci=61fa1f9b-020f-f011-90cd-0022482a9fb7&emdi=a1a556a0-ca0f-f011-90cd-0022482a9fb7&ceid=30329012
[5] Contact your Congressional and Senatorial representatives using this link: https://physicistscoalition.org/action-foster-bill-2025/?emci=61fa1f9b-020f-f011-90cd-0022482a9fb7&emdi=a1a556a0-ca0f-f011-90cd-0022482a9fb7&ceid=30329012
[6] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/save-money-and-increase-national