Tucson is the first city in Arizona to endorse UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons October 9, 2019

Tucson City Council Meeting Attendees: Left to Right:Ted Warmbrand, Kathy Altman, Russell Lowes, Jack Cohen Joppa. Front: Felice Cohen Joppa, Ivy Schwartz.

“The only sure way to rid ourselves of the nuclear threat is to rid ourselves of nuclear weapons” -UN Secretary General

In July 2017, the UN nations put forward a direct process to eliminate these most destructive weapons,
confidence having evaporated that diminishing nuclear weapons was an achievable goal by the
nuclear nations. 122 nations approved the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons [UN-TPNW].
September 26 International Day to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons showed that more than half the
required nations have ratified the treaty. This sets it in motion to become international law. Bravo for
moving ahead without the paralysis of the Nine nuclear weapons holders!

The Tucson City Council unanimously approved a resolution endorsing the UN TPNW on August 6
2019, the 74th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. We entered the stream of many other US
municipalities, states, civic and faith organizations. See www.preventnuclearwar.org for the list.
Tucson is the first Arizona city to do so!

Now we Tucsonans are on prime territory to have a significant civic conversation: when the UN TPNW
becomes international law will we ask: What to do about our neighbor’s employer- Raytheon? How
will we reshape the Tucson economy away from dependence on taxes gleaned from the weapons
making prowess of Raytheon/United Technologies? Can our brother and sister engineers and line
workers innovate and re-calibrate their prowess to make the planet better as in livable and peaceful?
One aspect of MAD – mutually assured destruction– is the in-congruent side of the interconnection of
climate and nuclear . Both categories have man-made elements that set humans on a path to
extinction. Cheers tot the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons for heading us to man-made
solutions despite the inertia for eliminating such weapons of the last quarter of a century.

The US campaign to end these weapons is strategized in a number of ways: BackFromTheBrink
[BFTB] promotes five policy points to embrace. These are:

Renouncing First Use;
Ending the sole unchecked authority of any US President to launch the first strike;
Taking the US nuclear weapons arsenal off hair trigger alert;
Canceling the plan to replace the entire US arsenal with enhanced nuclear weapons; and,
Actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear
arsenals.

Please join PSR in this campaign. This week, drop a note to our Congressional delegation members
with your concerns. Find them at www.congress.gov/members. They need to lead to a better place.
Only we can push them. This is the least we each can do.