An Education Outside the Classroom

An Education Outside the Classroom

By Erin Barry

The past three weeks working with Reverse the Trend have been an amazing educational experience in nuclear disarmament, one that I do not believe would have been possible in the classroom. Prior to this internship, my exposure to nuclear weapons had been through class discussion in my international relations course at Williams College. We asked the question, should the world move towards a Global Zero with no nuclear weapons? We came to the consensus that no, the world needs nuclear weapons as a form of “assurance” as we had all been indoctrinated with the mutually-assured-destruction theory. I understood the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but if all the great powers had nuclear weapons, and everyone is too afraid to use them, then there is no great power conflict, right? In those discussions, nuclear weapons were seen as a way of saving lives. The sick irony is clear to me now.

As I read arguments against M.A.D. from ICAN and NAPF, I began to question what I had learned in my education. What truly changed me, however, was learning about the horrific health, social, and economic toll that nuclear testing had on marginalized peoples, specifically the effects of nuclear testing on the Marshallese Islands. I had never learned anything like it in any of my classes. No longer were the effects of nuclear weapons fargone mistakes from the second world war, but had continued into today, and terrorized entire communities with cancer, sickness, and death for more than a generation. Not only that, but the staggering economic cost of nuclear weapons in a time of economic crisis, with both a pandemic and a recession, shocked and disgusted me. Furthermore, the number of times nuclear weapons have almost been used by accident truly invalidated the “logical” argument for nuclear weapons. Such world-ending weapons cannot be used in logical reasoning when an assumption for those calculations ( ie. nuclear states are rational and free from any mistakes) is completely invalid. 

I have always cared about environmental policy, and have structured my college education around it by being a political science and environmental studies double major.  Never before had I realized, however, the strong intersection between nuclear disarmament and environmental justice. As I’ve grown older, I have found my passion for environmental issues shifting from advocating for the rights of the land, to the rights of the people on the land. This is where the main intersection lies, as nuclear weapons; their testing, possession, and creation; represent a massive injustice against people and their right to live on their land without facing an existential threat. 

On January 22, 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force, with the support of 51 states parties and 86 signatories. The TPNW represents a moment of hope for nuclear disarmament. When I first learned about the Treaty and began monitoring UN Security Council meetings, I had doubts that the TPNW could have a true impact. As of today, no nuclear weapons state has signed the treaty. And yet, as I have attended more meetings and read more on the subject, it has become clearer what the TPNW represents. It represents a change in the status quo. It represents a formal recognition of how public opinion, state governments, and NGOs have turned their backs against nuclear weapons. Nuclear-Weapon-States oppose the treaty fiercely because they fear its long term consequences. They fear that their citizens may realize what the rest of the world now demands. As many have said, the entry-into-force of the TPNW truly represents the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons. With younger generations leading the call, this new status quo can usher in a new era of peace and empathy for us all.