An open letter by Dr. Helen Caldicott and Dr Andrew Glikson

| February 8, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Reducing human population would affect both supply and requirement of working hours. Punch Clock by Tom Blackwell | Flickr | CC BY-NC 2.0

Date of Publication: February 4, 2020

Author(s): Dr. Helen Caldicott , Dr Andrew Glikson

With a fleet of some 13890 nuclear weapons, 1869 of which on high alert, pointed toward cities and regions around the world, portents of extinction of humanity and much of nature have reached a new peak, as signified by the resetting of the clock of the atomic scientists to 100 seconds to midnight. As the world’s powers hold a gun at life on Earth, to be triggered at any time by accident or design, no one on Earth is any longer safe. As the nuclear gun is held against life on Earth, triggered at any time by accident or design, no one on is any longer safe, not least with the advance of supersonic missiles and a proliferation of nuclear weapons on Earth and in space.

 100 seconds to mid-night 

With the accelerated transfer of more than 910 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the onset of the industrial age, at more than 36.8 billion tons per year, and a likely rise of more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, the most rapid rise since 56 million years ago, the natural world and humanity are on course toward a mass extinction of species, manifested by global droughts, heat waves, fires, storms and cyclones.

While the train has left the station away from the climate that allowed human agriculture and civilization to emerge about 10,000 years ago, the threshold to a nuclear war is getting ever narrower. It is only about 75 years since the gas chambers have been switched off and now the planet is being turned into a fatal hothouse Earth, as evidenced by the increasing spate of fires around the world, including in Australia.

The science is clear, as confirmed by the world’s science bodies (WMO, IPCC, NASA, NOAA, NSIDC, Hadley-Met, Tindale, Potsdam, BOM, CSIRO). We call on people to look at the evidence with a view to future generations and of nature, regardless of ideologies.

We will be available to provide further scientific evidence.


 Dr. Caldicott is an Australian physician and anti-nuclear advocate, Dr. Glikson is Earth and climate scientist.

4.2.2020

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