Associate Professor Tillman Ruff AM – Nobel Peace Prize Laureate – addressed over 160 members and guests last Wednesday on the subject ‘The humanitarian imperative to eliminate nuclear weapons’.
Tillman drew attention to Sir Angus Mitchell’s mission, while President of Rotary International, to embrace the globe post-WW2 e.g. the re-inviting of Rotarians in Japan and Germany. Tillman pointed out that Rotarians have always believed in peace. He went on to talk about the two major risks facing the world today: climate destruction and nuclear weapons. A pre-condition for safeguarding everything in life is controlling each of these.
The proliferation of nuclear weapons, Tillman said, could break the chain of life. One nuclear weapon today can have four times the power of all nuclear weapons ever used before, or 13 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb. In one fell swoop, 1600 sq km around Melbourne could be eliminated. The ozone layer would be depleted; temperatures would fall by between 5 and 8 degrees; marine life would be ruined. In a regional nuclear war, 2 billion people could be at risk of starvation. 100 Hiroshima bombs represent less than one half of 1% of the world’s nuclear arsenal. Human extinction from nuclear warfare is therefore a real possibility.
Tillman passionately declared that no effective humanitarian response is possible – in his view total nuclear disarmament is the only answer. Yet the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) and Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaties have been abrogated, so a new arms race is ratcheting up, taking us ever close to nuclear war. The Doomsday Clock stands at two minutes to midnight, closer than it has ever been, and we are on the brink of a new cold war. Cyber warfare is a worrying trend, with hacking into ‘command and control’ – potentially triggering a nuclear conflict – no longer an impossibility.
Is there any hope? According to Tillman, there is. In 2017, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was signed by 70 parties. It provides a defined pathway to peace, and the involvement of ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), of which Tillman was a founder, was the reason for its being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Some 500 partner organisations stand behind it, yet only 21 of the 50 required states to ratify it have to date agreed to do so. Australia has so far refused to be a signatory. Tillman encouraged the belief that civil society has a role to play e.g. the medical profession and faith leaders can speak out; and banks, super funds, local and state governments that invest in companies manufacturing nuclear weapons can be pressured into pulling out.
Nearly 80% of the Australian population want us to join the UN Treaty however it is Tillman’s view that Australia is more part of the problem than part of the solution. Nuclear weapons won’t go away, but they can be dismantled by humans. Is it better to strive for the end of nuclear weapons rather than see the end of us as human beings? Rotary, he said, can help make sure the answer to that question is the right one.
