From the Inflation Reduction Act to Oliver Stone’s new film, there’s a renewed discussion about the role nuclear energy might play in the climate fight. Join us for an expert briefing drilling down on the issue, with highly qualified presenters including the former chair of the NRC.

REGISTER HERE

WHAT? You’re invited to a June 2 Zoom briefing designed for members of Congress, their staff, relevant federal agencies, and the media, but interested members of the public are invited. It features leading independent experts who have critically analyzed nuclear power’s potential role in fighting climate change.

These experts will present evidence showing the evolution of nuclear power’s costs and risks and discuss how to meet America’s low-carbon energy needs.

Whatever your current positions on nuclear power or climate change, you’ll gain new insights by hearing and questioning these highly credible expert sources.

WHO? The following distinguished experts on nuclear energy will present at the briefing:

• The Hon. Gregory Jaczko, former chair, U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, Stanford University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Director of Stanford’s Atmosphere/Energy Program, and author of No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air.
• Dr. M. V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, and Graduate Program Director of its Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs program.

WHEN & WHERE? The Zoom webinar will take place June 2, 2023, 1:30pm Eastern time/10:30 am Pacific time. You can register with just a few keystrokes here.  Feel free to share this invite and the registration link with colleagues who might be interested. The Zoom webinar is secure, and there will be plenty of opportunity for questions and dialog with the presenters.

WHY? The Biden administration and Congress both favor increased reliance on and federal funding for nuclear energy and advanced reactors. Nuclear is increasingly billed as a way to decarbonize power generation and help meet US climate goals, including the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Inflation Reduction Act includes hundreds of billions of dollars for existing and new nuclear plants, and to develop and deploy “advanced” nuclear reactors. Several other bills, for example the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act of 2023 recently introduced in the Senate, provide additional funding for conventional and “advanced” nuclear power. The briefing will offer expert assessment and an evidence basis for analyzing whether increasing US investment in and reliance on nuclear energy can help meet U.S. climate goals as promised.

REGISTER HERE

This briefing is sponsored by the Samuel Lawrence Foundation, with support from members of the National Decommissioning Working Group, and the Sierra Club Lower Hudson and Atlantic Chapters. For more information, contact Stephen Kent at skent@kentcom.com or (914) 589-5988

The post Zoom Briefing: Can Nuclear Energy Help Meet U.S. Climate Goals? appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for governments and the international community to focus more on human security issues and to shift resources from military spending, especially the nuclear weapons budgets, to accomplish this. However, the nuclear weapons and fossil fuel industries have vested financial interests in maintaining the nuclear arms race and a fossil fuel economy. They are a potent political force preventing change.

Governments, cities, religious communities, universities, banks and private investors can shift these financial incentives by divesting from the nuclear weapons and fossil fuel industries and re-allocating these investments according to ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) principals. Such actions provide political support for legislative efforts to cut nuclear weapons budgets, especially in the USA and UK.

During the webinar, held April 21, international experts and activists highlighted examples of nuclear weapons and fossil fuel divestment and examined how these can assist initiatives to cut nuclear weapons budgets and support public health, climate protection and sustainable development.

The event included  the preview of a Handbook on Nuclear Weapons Divestment which will be produced by the Move the Nuclear Weapons Money campaign.

The webinar was sponsored by Abolition 2000, Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and the World Future Council.

The post Move the Nuclear Weapons (and Fossil Fuel) Money appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

The threat from climate change is manifesting itself more and more strongly as the years go by through extreme weather events, forest fires on a vast scale, the bleaching of coral reefs, and receding glaciers, among others. This year also sees the world facing a pandemic which, as we speak, is costing thousands of lives every day and seems likely to have an impact on our civilization for years, if not decades to come.

Alongside these threats to human existence, however, is the lesser-considered, but more dangerous threat from nuclear technology that has the possibility to inflict a more devastating blow to the planet in 10 days than climate change will have in 100 years.

Read the Statement and add your name.

The post Abolition 2000 Statement Addressing the Threats to Planetary Survival appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

This Earth Day and as part of the Global Days of Action Against Military Spending, UFPJ Member group Code Pink is asking supporters to help spread the message that #WarIsNotGreen.  Code Pink also has created a Global Days of Action on Military Spending Toolkit with a variety of resources.

The post April 22: on the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, Divest from the War Machine appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

 Humanity faces two existential threats: increasing dangers of nuclear war and climate disruption, with its impact on world health. Human beings created these threats, which can only be reversed by mass popular actions.

In the context of the suffering and changes being wrought by the pandemic, the two-hour world conference will focus on the continuing urgent need to abolish nuclear weapons and its relationship to stanching the climate emergency and challenging injustices which have left so many people marginalized and vulnerable. Click here for speakers.

To accommodate people across the world the conference will be held from 9 – 11 am EDT (3 – 5 pm in Central Europe; 10 pm – 12 am in East Asia) with simultaneous interpretation. The conference will be held in concentric circles with up to 500 people in the conference itself and simultaneous live streaming so everyone can join by listening in. Register here. Livestream URL to be posted here. Video of the conference will be posted here.

Conference organizers understand the urgent priority of caring for those who are sick and most in need. We are also deeply aware that once this plague has passed, the twin existential threats of nuclear war and the climate catastrophe and the need to address social and economic injustice will be, if anything, greater than before.

Initiating organizations include: American Friends Service Committee, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK); Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security; Gensuikin (Japan Congress against A & H Bombs); Gensuikyo (Japan Council against A & H Bombs); International Peace Bureau; International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A & H Bomb Sufferer’s Organizations); Peace Action; Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung; United for Peace & Justice, and Western States Legal Foundation. Click here for full list of sponsoring organizations.

An Online World Conference 2020 Youth Assembly is planned for Saturday, May 2 at 9 am EDT. Click here for more information and to register.

The post Online World Conference 2020: Abolish Nuclear Weapons; Resist and Reverse Climate Change; For Social and Economic Justice appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

UFPJ holds the health of our environment as part of the world with Peace and Justice we strife to manifest.  As part of  the Poor People’s Campaign – A National Call for Moral Revival, we connect the need for work on climate change with the demand to halt War and Militarism.

There is an opportunity later this month to be on the right side of history when the Supreme Court considers the future of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Please consider this information and attend the protest in DC if possible.  Let them hear you!!

On Feb 24, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case to determine if the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) can cross the Appalachian trail. This is the first time the Supreme Court has heard a case about a pipeline in years — and a major opportunity to put a meaningful check on the power of pipelines and the fossil fuel industry.

While lawyers make their case to the Justices inside the courtroom, our people-powered movement will demonstrate that a majority of the public outside the court wants a check on the power of fossil fuel and pipeline companies.

This is an open call to all pipeline fighters, mountain defenders, water protectors and climate resisters to join us in DC on the morning of February 24, 2020. Click here to RSVP.

With the undue influence that fossil fuel and pipeline companies have currently, it is critical that we unify our movement through escalated action against all pipelines and let our position be known to the Supreme Court and the public.

Like all pipelines, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a disaster in the making. If built, the ACP would produce emissions equal to 20 coal plants a year. The project would also require 38 miles of mountaintop removal, devastating countless communities including the African American community of Union Hill, Virginia and the homes of 30,000 Indigenous people across North Carolina.

It’s up to all of us to stand up against environmental racism and the unchecked power of the fossil fuel industry. Stand with us at the Supreme Court on Monday, February 24th.

There will be roles and responsibilities available for anyone interested. To make it possible for as many people to participate as possible, we’ll organize a communal breakfast, prayer vigil, and briefing before our rally.

The post An Opportunity to Raise Your Voice for Environmental and Racial Justice! appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

 Propaganda and information warfare erode our capacity to understand our predicament and to formulate a useful collective response to it. But climate change and the danger of nuclear war are linked in additional, more fundamental ways. Global warming is only one face of the stresses placed on global ecosystems by a way of life dominated by endless competition among huge, authoritarian organizations. The damage done to the environment, together with the depletion of easily retrievable resources, intensifies competition among countries for what’s left, contributing to the rising risk of war among nuclear-armed states. The same order of things generates increasing polarization of wealth and political power. The dual crises of war danger and the environment ultimately also are crises of democracy and justice.

With authoritarian nationalist forces ascendant in the largest economies and the most powerful nuclear-armed countries, the quest for solutions will not begin with governments. We need to build movements with enough breadth and depth to address the causes of these challenges, not just the effects. From April 24 to 26, people from around the world will gather in New York City for  the World Conference 2020: Abolish Nuclear Weapons; Resist and Reverse the Climate Crisis; For Social and Economic Justice. This conference takes place the weekend before the Review Conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), in a year that also marks the seventy-fifth year since the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the fiftieth year since the NPT entered into force. That treaty requires the nuclear-armed states to negotiate in good faith for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals, a promise that remains unfulfilled to this day.

The conference will bring together a diverse array of people and movements to discuss ways to build the movements we need if we are to change the dead-end course of our civilization. There will be speakers from environmental and peace movements in Europe, East and South Asia, and the Middle East, and from important initiatives here in the United States, such as the Poor People’s Campaign. A full list of speakers can be found here.  Preceding The World Conference on April 24, there will be a day-long Youth Assembly. To register for the conference, click here.

Update, March 15: This event, like many others, has been cancelled due to the global health crisis.  But the planning committee plans to go forward with on-line events with a lineup of activists and analysts from around the world. Keep tabs on these plans as they develop at the website World Conference 2020: Abolish Nuclear Weapons; Resist and Reverse the Climate Crisis; For Social and Economic Justice.

The post It’s 100 Seconds to Midnight: The Existential Threats Posed by Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

What’s going on here?

At one time Connecticut had a hugely diverse manufacturing base. It now depends on manufacturing handouts from the Pentagon. Today, 69% of the Federal discretionary budget – what Congress votes on every year – now goes to weapons and war. That leaves 31% to be split up among transportation, labor, health, education, housing, environment and so on.

Connecticut’s full Congressional delegation annually votes more and more money to the weapons and war budget. Connecticut’s governor and state legislators applaud every “gun” that is made here.

But every job created in weapons manufacturing displaces two jobs in creating civilian goods and services.

And now the climate warming crisis demands that we convert from fossil fuels to sustainable energy. We must retool the weapons and fossil-fuel industries.

Please join us at our Conference

Middlesex Community College, Chapman Hall
Saturday, November 9th
12 noon to 4PM
Free & open to all, lunch provided

Keynote: Medea Benjamin, peace & justice activist 
Panel 1: Background of CT War Economy 
Panel 2: Building Movements to ReTool CT Economy 

The post Retooling the Connecticut War Economy appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

Funding endless war is an existential threat to human life and one of the leading causes of climate change, which is why it’s urgent that we come together in Washington D.C. and make the connection between U.S. militarism and climate change.

Did you know that the Pentagon spends 64% of our discretionary budget on the military, which is responsible for polluting our planet more than 140 countries combined!?

A green future is possible. But to do so, we must unite in the struggle against militarism and #ClimateChange.

This Friday, November 8th we’ll need all hands-on deck to show the world that there is an anti-war movement that understands war and the cost to the planet.

Join Jodie Evans of CODEPINK, and Jane Fonda at the rally this Friday, November 8, in Washington DC on the southeast lawn of the Capitol Building, across from the Library of Congress and near the intersection of 1st St & Independence Ave SE, 11am-12pm, as we urge the U.S. government to #DivestFromWar.

For more information:  https://www.codepink.org/firedrillfridays

If you can’t join us in DC, you can learn more about the connection between climate change and militarism at www.codepink.org/wing

In Solidarity,

CODEPINK  & United for Peace & Justice Coordinating Committee

The post Join Us Friday! Militarism & Climate Change Fire Drill Friday Nov 8 appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

The U.S. maintains over 800 military bases outside its territory, estimated at 95% of all foreign military bases in the world. These bases are viewed by people around the world as a major threat to world peace. Our foreign military bases are instruments of global domination carried out through wars of aggression and occupation. The U.S. has undermined governments, including democracies; killed millions, causing the mass migration of people fleeing violence and destruction; and produced vast environmental damage. The U.S. military and its far-flung operations are the single largest consumers of fossil fuel in the world, recklessly driving climate change.

The idea that we can solve our problems through force also sustains a culture of violence that has led to a society that has more guns than people. Increasingly, weapons designed for the battlefield are playing a part in one-sided political warfare at home, stoked by political rhetoric that portrays millions of ordinary people as “enemies.”

Our government’s actions abroad are shaped to serve the interests of energy multinationals and the military-industrial complex.  It is time to leave the road of endless war and to move towards a foreign policy that furthers global peace, and with it, real security for the American people.

Humanity faces unprecedented ecological challenges to its survival. We can no longer afford to fight among ourselves. We must unite against those who risk the destruction of all to serve the ends of a privileged few.

 Our Demands to the 2020 Presidential Candidates

End the Endless Wars; Don’t Start New Wars

UFPJ calls on all Presidential candidates to commit to end the wars, to cease provocative and unlawful threats of military action, to demilitarize U.S. foreign policy, and to reorient our policies towards diplomacy and humanitarian assistance.

Abolish Nuclear Weapons

UFPJ calls on all Presidential candidates to pledge to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war by renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first; ending the sole, unchecked authority of any president to launch a nuclear attack; taking U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; cancelling the U.S. plan to replace its entire arsenal with new or upgraded weapons; and actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

Cut the Pentagon Budget, Fund our Communities, and Mitigate the Climate Emergency

UFPJ calls on all Presidential candidates to pledge to reverse spending priorities and to redirect funds currently allocated to nuclear weapons and unwarranted military spending to support safe and resilient cities; to mitigate climate change; to create jobs by rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, and to ensure basic human services for all, including education, environmental protection, food security, housing and health care.

Close the 800+ U.S. Military Bases Across the Globe

UFPJ calls on all Presidential candidates to close U.S. foreign bases in order to promote a just, peaceful and sustainable world.

The post United for Peace & Justice Calls for a New Foreign Policy appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.