we've heard some beautiful music and some very inspiring personal stories

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today unfortunately i don't need to talk to us about some very dark things our
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world and everything that we hold precious is in great danger and it is up
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to us to protect it
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generation ago we all understood the nuclear war would destroy the world and
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millions of people around the world came together into it
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powerful international movement that stopped the arms race that helped in the
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cold war but when the cold war ended we all started to act as though the nuclear
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weapons had got away and they hadn't in fact there are today 15,000 nuclear
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warheads in the world
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the vast majority about ninety-five percent or in the arsenal of the United
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States and Russia the rest are shared by seven other nuclear weapon States and
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all nine of these countries are actively modernizing and upgrading the nuclear
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arsenals at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars we know that even a
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very limited nuclear war as might take place between India and Pakistan to the
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small nuclear weapon States would be a disaster for the entire human race if
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they went to war and use just half of the nuclear arsenals less than one half
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of one percent of the world's nuclear arsenals 20 to 30 million people would
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be killed in the first week from the explosions from the fires from the
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radiation but that's only part of the story because the fires that these
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weapons started we put 5 million tons of soda into the upper atmosphere blocking
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out the Sun disrupting climate and food production around the world and
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triggering a global family that could kill up to 2 billion people a third of
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the human race a war between the United States and Russia will be far worse
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we've been told for 25 years that we don't need to worry about this russian
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america and enemies anymore they won't fight
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well recent events in Ukraine and Syria have just shown have shown us just how
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false assurances were and the nuclear saber-rattling both countries engaging
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is underlying the danger we face so let's look for a minute
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what would happen if their weapons are used I want to start by describing to
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the effects of a modern nuclear attack on a large city we're all familiar with
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the image of her ocean wide flat by the atomic bomb
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this was one small weapon attack today at a large city like New York would
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involve not one weapon but 10 or 15 nuclear bombs each of them 10 or 50
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times more powerful than the weapon that destroyed hiroshima to understand what
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that would look like
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let me use the model of a single 20 might negative explosion this model
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actually underestimates the destruction that would take place if there are many
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smaller weapons use but it gives us an adequate understanding within a
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thousandth of a second of the detonation of this bomb a fireball would form
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reaching out for two miles in every direction for miles across within this
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entire area the temperature would rise to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit which
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is hotter than the surface of the sun and everything will be vaporized the
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building's the trees the people the upper level of the earth itself would
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disappear to a distance of four miles in every direction the explosion regenerate
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winds in excess of 600 miles per hour to a distance of six miles in every
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direction the heat would be so intense that automobile sheet metal would melt
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into a distance of 16 miles in every direction the heat would still be so
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great that everything flammable woodburn cloth paper gasoline heating oil plastic
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it was all ignite hundreds of thousands of fires which over the next half-hour
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would coalesce into a giant firestorm 32 miles across covering over 800 square
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miles within this entire area
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the temperature would rise to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit all the oxygen would
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be consumed and every living thing would die in the case of new york city we're
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talking about 15 million people dead and a half an hour and if this were part of
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a large-scale war between the United States and Russia this same level of
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destruction will be visited on every major city in both countries but again
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this is only part of the story because the fire started by these weapons we put
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a hundred and fifty million tons of sin into the upper atmosphere and that would
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drop temperatures across the planet by some 15 degrees in the interior regions
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of North America and Eurasia the temperatures will drop 50 degrees we
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have not seen conditions on this planet that cold in eighteen thousand years
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since the coldest moment of the last ice age and under these conditions
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ecosystems would collapse food production would stop the vast majority
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of the human race would starve to death and is possible we become extinct as a
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species that is important to understand this is not just some scenario I've
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cooked up some nightmare to frighten you
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this is a real and present danger even if some crisis like Ukraine and Syria
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doesn't escalate into war between the United States and Russia there's always
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the possibility that some accident will provoke a nuclear exchange and we know
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at least five occasions in the last 35 years when either Moscow or Washington
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prepared to launch nuclear war in the mistaken belief that was already under
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attack
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so why am I telling you these things because while this is the future that
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will be if we don't take action
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it is not the future that must be nuclear weapons are not a force of
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nature they're not an act of god we built them with our own hands and we
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know how to take them apart
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the choice is ours fortunately at this time a new movement is growing around
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the world led by the countries which do not currently have nuclear weapons
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movement to abolish these weapons once and for all the non-nuclear weapon
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States are calling on the nine countries which have these weapons to take their
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obligations seriously and to negotiate a treaty which will set up
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detailed enforceable verifiable regime for eliminating these weapons 140 of
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these countries have pledged to negotiate an interim treaty to ban the
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possession of nuclear weapons to make it illegal to own them as a way of
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pressuring nuclear-weapon States at the level of civil society are hundreds of
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thousands of people have come together in the international campaign to abolish
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nuclear weapon
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I can which brings together the members of some 500 organizations in 95
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countries around the world but if this campaign is to succeed each one of you
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needs to join your voice to the effort
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no one of you can do this all by yourself but every one of you needs to
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do that part of the task which is yours to do by telling you these things
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tonight i placed a terrible burden on your shoulders because once you know of
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this danger you have a responsibility to act to prevent this from happening and
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it's a responsibility that will not go away until these weapons are removed but
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if this is a burden i think it's also a gift every one of us wants to do good in
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our life we have been given the opportunity to save the world and that
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is a very good thing to do most of you are familiar i'm sure with a great tale
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the lord of the ring which tells of the desperate struggle to destroy the Ring
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of Power before it destroys middle-earth
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Oh on this earth nuclear weapons of the closest we've ever come to a ring of
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power and the struggle to read our world of these weapons is everybody is
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desperate and everybody's heroic as the question to taken by the fellowship of
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the ring that fellowship was limited to a couple of people the handful of
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dwarves and elves our fellowship requires all of us and if we come
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together we can succeed we can reject the future of destruction that these
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weapons will bring and choose instead of future of life for ourselves and our
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children so I ask all of you
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join this fellowship choose wisely act with courage and determination certain
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indeed our children may live
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thank you