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Today’s speaker was Dr. Ann Frisch from the White Bear Lake Rotary Club. Dr. Frisch serves as a Senior Advisor for “Nonviolent Peaceforce” which is a Non-Profit organization working to promote unarmed civilian protection as a tool for reducing violence in conflict situations around the world. She is also involved with Rotary’s efforts to reduce the global risk associated with nuclear weapons. This was the subject of today’s presentation, which took the form of a discussion session with the members in attendance. Dr. Frisch asked us each to consider two things: 1) What questions did we have about the subject of nuclear weapons and, 2) Who would we trust to provide answers to this question. The first part of this was easy as there were many questions from the group. The second part was difficult as most questioners responded with “I don’t know” or “No One” when asked who they would trust to provide an answer. Following are the questions posed by the group:
- What would be the environmental impact of various levels of nuclear blasts? (i.e.something less than complete destruction of our world)
- How do we guarantee liberty without the threat of using nuclear weapons?
- What is the strategy that would replace “mutually assured destruction”? (i.e. the newer, smaller players like Korea may not be able to launch weapons sufficient to destroy the world, but how does their entry into the picture change things?)
- What is the impact of pulling out of the Iranian nuclear agreement?
- If we get rid of all nuclear weapons have we really changed the ultimate horror possibilities? (i.e. there are other threats equally as bad, such as chemical weapons)
- How can the U.S. be trusted to keep our promises around nuclear weapons when we have taken steps such as killing Kaddafi and Hussein?
- We know what countries have nuclear capability. What weapons don’t we know about like dirty bombs, chemical weapons, etc.?
- What is the potential damage to the Electro Magnetic Pulse that could be caused by nuclear weapons? (impact to the power grid)
- Can we get rid of nuclear weapons? What do we do with the nuclear material?
Members stated they didn’t know who could answer most of these questions or who they would trust. In a few cases it was felt that the scientific community could provide some answers, such as for the question on impact to the Electro Magnetic Pulse. Dr. Frisch later sent me the attached link to a "Trello Board" which maintains information on this subject and might be a source of information for us as we think about these questions.
https://trello.com/b/RUjRPAL8/ragfp-nuclear-weapons-education