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  • Thu
    27
    Feb
    2020

    How Close to Doomsday? Stopping a New Nuclear Arms Race

    6:00 pmBoiler Room, Hotel Shattuck Plaza

    Join former California Governor Jerry Brown, former U.S. Secretary of Energy and Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Co-chair and CEO, Dr. Ernest J. Moniz, and Dr. Bethany Goldblum, nuclear physicist and director of the Nuclear Policy Working Group at UC Berkeley, for an urgent conversation about today’s growing risk of nuclear use, as well as solutions that can bring us back from the brink. NTI’s Corey Hinderstein, former Department of Energy official and leader of its Iran Task Force, will moderate the event—which will include real-time audience voting and Q&A.

    Amid increasingly tense relations with Russia and Iran, the advance of new technologies like cyber and artificial intelligence, and the persistent threat of terrorism, we face the highest risk of use of a nuclear weapon since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And according to theDoomsday Clock, which symbolizes the gravest threats to humankind, we’re now 100 seconds to midnight--closer to midnight than at any point since its creation in 1947. Like climate change, weapons of mass destruction pose an existential threat to the United States and the world.As we draw closer to the California primary and the 2020 election, it’s critical that voters educate themselves and demand that our leaders and candidates address today’s threats and the risks we will pass on to future generations.

    Thursday, February 27th
    6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. PT
    The Boiler Room in the Hotel Shattuck Plaza,
    Berkeley, CA

    RSVP: https://howclosetodoomsday.eventbrite.com

    About the Speakers

    Gov. Brown, a UC Berkeley graduate, served as California's Governor from 1975-83 and again from 2011-19. While he was Governor, California established nation-leading targets to protect the environment and fight climate change. Brown currently serves as chair of the California-China Climate Institute housed at UC Berkeley, executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

    Described by CQ Magazineas a “rock star physicist,” Dr. Moniz is a leader on reducing the existential risks posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as climate change. As Energy Secretary, he negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement with then-Secretary of State John Kerry. In 2017, he took the helm of NTI, a nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization focused on the reduction of nuclear and biological threats.

    Dr. Bethany Goldblumis founder and director of the Nuclear Policy Working Group, a research-based educational programming effort that provides opportunities for students from a variety of fields to conduct multidisciplinary research on topics in nonproliferation and nuclear security. She also serves as executive director of the Nuclear Science & Security Consortium, a program to develop a new generation of laboratory-integrated nuclear experts.
    The event is co-sponsored by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Nuclear Policy Working Group and is free and open to the public.

    Light food and drinks will be provided.