Speakers:
Archbishop John C.Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe
Jay Coghlan, NukeWatch NM
PDACNM welcomed Archbishop John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe to their monthly gathering. His courage in speaking out against the proliferation of nuclear weapons inspired PDACNM to follow his example and continue the fight against this peril, especially given the threat of a possible imminent war between two nuclear powers.
Why We Are in a New Nuclear Arms Race and What You Can Do to Stop It
Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, has worked successfully against radioactive incineration at the Los Alamos National Lab, and in Clean Air Act, Freedom of Information Act and National Environmental Policy Act lawsuits against the Department of Energy. He prompted a 2006 independent study that concluded plutonium pits last at least a century, refuting the NNSA’s assertion that we “need” new-design nuclear weapons and expanded plutonium pit production.
Jay described how the new nuclear arms race is more dangerous than the first one. How it might lead to a nuclear hot war over Ukraine. And how devastating a nuclear war would be for everyone, including us.
The following excerpt is from ICAN – International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. You can read the rest of the article here.
On 11 January 2022, Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico circulated a letter in support of nuclear weapons abolition and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to all the parishes in his diocese.
In the letter, Wester outlines the risks and consequences of the new nuclear arms race and highlights the unique role of New Mexico in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and of the Santa Fe diocese to support nuclear disarmament. He calls for an open dialogue on nuclear disarmament and redirecting resources from the nuclear arms race to peaceful objectives, like cleaning up nuclear contamination and addressing climate change.
New Mexico is at the heart of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, with two major nuclear weapons laboratories – the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories- located in the state and nearly 40% of the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget allocated for work in New Mexico. It was also the site of the first nuclear test explosion in July 1945 and has the largest repository of nuclear weapons in the country.
The Archdiocese of Santa Fe has a “special responsibility” he states, to support the TPNW (Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Arms) and to encourage its active implementation. “It is the duty of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, the birthplace of nuclear weapons, to support that Treaty while working toward universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament,” Wester writes.
Why We Are in a New Nuclear Arms Race and What You Can Do to Stop It
Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, has worked successfully against radioactive incineration at the Los Alamos National Lab, and in Clean Air Act, Freedom of Information Act and National Environmental Policy Act lawsuits against the Department of Energy. He prompted a 2006 independent study that concluded plutonium pits last at least a century, refuting the NNSA’s assertion that we “need” new-design nuclear weapons and expanded plutonium pit production.
Jay will tell us how the new nuclear arms race is more dangerous than the first one. How it might lead to a nuclear hot war over Ukraine. And how devastating a nuclear war would be for everyone, including us.
You’ll learn about the nuclear weapons “modernization” program and the fancy new warheads being designed for it. You’ll be shocked to learn the amount of taxpayer money being wasted on this unnecessary program.
Jay will explain how the nuclear “modernization” program is dependent on new plutonium bomb cores (called “pits”) to be produced at the Los Alamos National Lab and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. And why future plutonium pit production, in addition to its grotesque costs and environmental harms, could actually degrade national security.
Finally, we will engage with Jay in discussing how we can work together to slow the international arms race by hobbling the nuclear modernization program. Since the Pentagon has called expanded pit production the #1 modernization issue, then all we have to do is to stop future pit production, right?
How will we do this? Let’s talk about it on March 9th! Please join us!
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