Reality asserts itself: Interview with Alan Robock

Alan Robock, professor of meteorology at Rutgers University and a science adviser to IPPNW on the climate effects of nuclear war, was interviewed yesterday (May 5) on the The Real News. In a segment called “Reality assert itself,” Prof. Robock told editor Paul Jay that “both [presidents] Reagan and Gorbachev learned about the nuclear winter results from scientists–and I have quotes of both of them saying that helped them decide to change the arms race. And it made people focus on these horrible direct effects of nuclear weapons.

From the interview:

There were two conferences in the last year on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, one in Oslo in March in 2013, and one in Mexico in February 2014. And 130 to 140 countries came, and came to this conference, including a couple of the nuclear nations–India and Pakistan were there. But the P5, they call them, the permanent members of the Security Council, boycotted it. But the rest of the world understands that a war between the nuclear powers threatens them because it would be a global climate effect. The smoke would go around the world, would last for many years, and it would affect everybody. It doesn’t matter where the bombs are dropped. And so they’re pressuring much more the countries that have nuclear weapons. And they claimed that we’re not going to come because this disrupts from the process that we’re going through to get rid of weapons, of course, which doesn’t exist. And so a third meeting’s going to be held in Vienna, Austria, this fall. And I think this pressure from the rest of the world is really building up pressure on the countries to pay attention to this.”

Watch the whole interview on TheRealNews.com.