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In this episode, we hear more presentations from the Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction symposium held at the New York Academy of Medicine in New York City in February 2015. Some of the speeches include visuals which can be seen by watching the presentations in streaming format on the official conference hosting site. Since the conference, U.S. politicians and mainstream media have only amplified the reignited hatred of Russia, particularly president Vladimir Putin, and made nuclear war more likely. Read Demonization of Putin as Personally Behind Clinton Hack Is Old Propaganda Technique, Mikhail Gorbachev: Appears ‘The World Is Preparing for War’ and Thanks, Trump. Doomsday Clock Now Two and a Half Minutes to Midnight.

Steven Starr

First up is Steven Starr, Associate of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Senior Scientist at Physicians for Social Responsibility. Hear Dr. Caldicott’s 2010 interview with Starr. Visit Starr’s website NuclearDarkness.org to learn more about the consequences of nuclear war, nuclear winter and how nuclear weapons explosions would irreparably harm the global climate. In Starr’s presentation, Nuclear War: An Unrecognized Mass Extinction Event, he explains how nuclear war would be the crime to end all crimes, and would mean the end of all human life on earth. Among the issues addressed are the phenomenon of nuclear winter, why political leaders by and large do not discuss nuclear war, and the lack of awareness among todays youth (and most of the public) about the continuing and now increasing nuclear threat. Starr mentions a 2015 article he co-wrote with Lynn Eden and Theodore Postol, What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above midtown Manhattan?.

Starr notes that the worlds leading climatologists say that nuclear war threatens our survival as a species. Even a small nuclear exchange would render the earth uninhabitable. Political leaders refuse to meet with scientists who could explaint he consequences of detonating weapons. Read the 2017 article Senator Markey wants to curb Trump’s power to use nuclear weapons and the Peace Action citizen alert to block President Trumps ability to launch nuclear weapons. Starr elucidates the firepower of todays nuclear weapons, and the number of weapons ready to fire in the U.S. an Russian arsenals.

Bruce Gagnon

The second speaker in this session is Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons in Space. Listen to Dr. Caldicotts 2009 interview with Gagnon and her three 2011 interviews with Gagnon here, here and here. Gagnons symposium presentation was entitled The Ongoing Dangerous Militarization of Space and Nuclear War. He starts off encouraging people to read the Global Networks newsletter Space Alert

Gagnon covers the missile defense systems the U.S. is using to threaten Russia, the U.S. under President George W. Bush having pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty which had limited the development of missile defense, a key component of first-strike nuclear war planning. He also discusses the U.S. Space Commands use of computer war games as practice and how missile defense makes launch-on-warming a more problematic policy than ever. President Obama broke his campaign promise to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. Gagnon notes that the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal under Obama (who won a Nobel Peace Prize for simply talking about nuclear disarmament at the start of his first term), is causing major instabilities in U.S./Russian relations, in effect representing a whole new arms race. Read The Trillion Dollar Question the Media Have Neglected to Ask Presidential Candidates about Obamas trillion-dollar nuclear weapons upgrade. He discusses the U.S. militarys provocative goal of regime change in Moscow to benefit [...]