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NATO Announces Nuclear Drills as Nobel Goes to Atomic Weapon Abolitionists
Disarmament advocate Beatrice Fihn stressed that the exercise is practice for "wiping out hundreds of thousands of civilians" with weapons that would also "flatten cities and poison survivors."
Oct 11, 2024
The NATO military block announced Friday that its annual nuclear exercise is set to begin next week—news that arrived just as Japanese atomic bomb survivors who advocate for disarmament received the Nobel Peace Prize.
"There is bad timing, there is dropping a brick... and then there is this. Nice work," the Geneva Nuclear Disarmament Initiative said in response to NATO Spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah on social media.
Dakhlallah shared a NATO statement explaining that "Steadfast Noon," the two-week military drills scheduled to start Monday, will include 2,000 soldiers from eight air bases and more than 60 "nuclear-capable jets, bombers, fighter escorts, refueling aircraft, and planes capable of reconnaissance and electronic warfare" flying over western Europe.
"Nuclear deterrence is the cornerstone of allied security," NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in the statement. "Steadfast Noon is an important test of the alliance's nuclear deterrent and sends a clear message to any adversary that NATO will protect and defend all allies."
Mary Wareham, deputy director of the crisis, conflict, and arms division at Human Rights Watch, also responded to the spokesperson on social media, asking, "Any comment from NATO on today's announcement that the Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese association of atomic bomb survivors organization Nihon Hidankyo?"
Since the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, survivors known as hibakusha have shared their experiences to promote peace. The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday honored the group Nihon Hidankyo, which "has provided thousands of witness accounts, issued resolutions and public appeals, and sent annual delegations to the United Nations and a variety of peace conferences to remind the world of the pressing need for nuclear disarmament."
The committee highlighted that "the nuclear powers are modernizing and upgrading their arsenals; new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons; and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare. At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen."
The peace award and plans for NATO's exercise come as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, and provocations against Iran have heightened global fears of nuclear war. Russia and the United States have by far the largest arsenals, but China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom also have nuclear weapons.
Beatrice Fihn, director of Lex International and a senior fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, stressed on social media Friday that NATO exercise is practice for "wiping out hundreds of thousands of civilians" with weapons that would also "flatten cities and poison survivors."
Fihn previously directed the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which in 2017 won the Nobel Peace Prize for its work on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. On Friday, she urged countries that haven't yet signed the treaty to "listen" to the Nobel committee and Nidon Hidankyo.
ICAN's current executive director, Melissa Parke, said in a Friday statement that the campaign "is honored to have been able to work alongside Nihon Hidankyo and the hibakusha to push for the total elimination of nuclear weapons."
"Their testimonies and tireless campaigning have been crucial to progress on nuclear disarmament in general and the adoption and entry into force of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons," she added. "We call on the nuclear-armed states and their allies which support the use of nuclear weapons, including of course Japan, to heed their call to abolish these inhumane weapons, to make sure what they have been through never happens again."
Gregory Kulacki, who has worked with disarmament advocates in Japan as East Asia project manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program, similarly said Friday that "the testimony of the Hibakusha demonstrates the grave risks we still run by the very existence of nuclear weapons, which have only become more destructive. It's time for the world to not only acknowledge the risks of nuclear weapons but take action to enact a permanent international ban against them."
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Helene's Catastrophic Potential Stokes Fear Amid Florida Insurance Crisis
Florida already has one of the nation's largest shares of homeowners "who don't have meaningful insurance."
Sep 26, 2024
Hurricane Helene continued barreling toward Florida on Thursday, highlighting the impacts of the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, including difficulties securing insurance coverage in regions most affected by extreme weather.
"The Air Force Hurricane Hunters found that the maximum sustained winds have increased to near 120 mph," the National Hurricane Center said Thursday afternoon. "This makes Helene a dangerous Category 3 major hurricane. Additional strengthening is expected before Helene makes landfall in the Florida Big Bend this evening."
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said during a White House briefing that forecasts suggest Helene will make a "dead-on hit to Tallahassee" and "this is going to be a multistate event with the potential for significant impacts from Florida all the way to Tennessee."
Although this Atlantic hurricane season hasn't yet been as intense as U.S. scientists expected, trends in extreme weather disasters have led some insurance companies to exit the Florida market in recent years. Farmers Insurance announced last year that it would stop covering property in the state, in an effort to "effectively manage risk exposure."
While the Insurance Information Institute, an industry trade group, said in May that "legislative reforms passed in 2022 and 2023 have created a pathway to a stable Florida market," reporting from this week shows that residents—who aren't ultrarich—are still struggling to get and keep coverage.
"Florida ranks sixth among states with the largest shares of homeowners who don't have meaningful insurance. About 18% of homeowners across the state—about 1 in 6—are without it," NBC Newsnoted Wednesday. "Nearly 20% of Florida homeowners pay $4,000 or more a year for homeowners insurance—the largest share in the country, according to the Census Bureau."
According toThe Palm Beach Post, the global reinsurance broker Gallagher Re said in a Wednesday analysis that "landfall in the Big Bend or Panhandle region of Florida as a major hurricane (Category 3, 4, or 5) has historically translated to insured losses in the low single-digit billions."
"But Helene is not a typical storm," the firm explained. "Given Helene's very large wind radius, this would still bring hurricane-force wind gusts and high storm surge to coastal areas in the heavily populated Tampa Bay area, tropical storm force winds across most of the Florida peninsula, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and southern Appalachia."
Gallagher Re suggested that "Helene's private insurance market losses should be expected to land in the range" of $3 billion to $6 billion, but if the hurricane "unexpectedly" moves toward Tampa, it could be over $10 billion.
Florida isn't the only state facing insurance trouble thanks to climate chaos. Voxreported last year that "insuring property in California has been a dicey proposition," pointing to torrential rainfall that "caused as much as $1.5 billion in insured losses" and "the costliest wildfires in U.S. history, including the 2018 Camp Fire, which led to more than $10 billion in losses."
Amid the intertwined climate and insurance crises, scientists, campaigners, and homeowners have demanded policy action—and elevated criticism of right-wing attacks on crucial programs.
In a June blog post, Rachel Cleetus, policy director with the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate and Energy program, wrote that "Congress and regulators need to ensure more transparency in the insurance market on how companies are evaluating risks as they make decisions about premiums. There also needs to be better information on what kinds of incentives companies are providing for adaptation measures that would help reduce risks."
"Alongside the necessary but ultimately bounded role of insurance in a warming world, public and private decision-makers must also shift investments away from business-as-usual maladaptive and risky choices to more resilient ones," Cleetus continued. "The nation must scale up resources for climate resilience and ensure they are reaching communities in a just and equitable way. Funding for safe, affordable, and climate-resilient housing must be expanded."
The Climate & Community Institute on Wednesday also shared recommendations in a new report—Shared Fates: A Housing Resilience Policy Vision for the Home Insurance Crisis—using case studies from California, Florida, and Minnesota.
"We propose the creation of Housing Resilience Agencies (HRAs), either by states or the federal government," the institute said. These agencies would:
- Provide public disaster insurance that offers fair and equitable protections;
- Coordinate and oversee comprehensive, community-oriented disaster risk reduction;
- Address existing market failures by providing coverage for oft-neglected sectors such as multifamily housing providers, mobile home dwellers, and heirs properties; and
- Host public risk models, climate risk advisory councils, and diverse governing boards to inform decision-making in a transparent and democratic manner.
"In order to confront the growing housing safety and affordability crisis, we need to understand our fates as shared," the institute added. "We must reimagine our home insurance system for it to reduce risk and provide equitable and fair protection."
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Faith Leaders Chain Themselves to Citi HQ to Protest Fossil Fuel Financing
"We cannot profit off of death and destruction," one participant said. "We must love each other and the Earth."
Jul 30, 2024
Two dozen faith leaders and their supporters were arrested on Tuesday after chaining themselves to the doors of Citigroup's New York City headquarters to protest its financing of the climate emergency.
Around 50 people participated in the protest, which is part of the Summer of Heat series of actions demanding that Wall Street—and Citi in particular—stop funding oil, gas, and coal.
"I am here because I believe that there is a god in everyone and that calls us to take responsibility for destruction done in our name," Lina Blout of Earth Quaker Action Team said as she was being arrested. "We are all connected. We must live for the planet and each other, and not short-term profit."
Citi was the leading financier of fossil fuel expansion since the Paris agreement entered into force in 2016, spending $204 billion on the development of new oil, gas, and coal. It was also the second leading funder of fossil fuels over all, at nearly $400 billion. In addition to ditching climate-warming energy sources, participants in Summer of Heat want banks like Citi to "exponentially" up funding for renewables, respect the human rights of Indigenous and local communities, and contribute to a "climate reparations fund."
"We cannot profit off of death and destruction," Blout said. "We must love each other and the Earth."
Tuesday's action, led by GreenFaith, was part of the Summer of Heat's Faith Week, running from July 28 to August 3.
"We the people will not tolerate the bad practices of companies like Citi to fund and invest in oil companies who kill our world and it's future."
"Our faiths teach us that the Earth is a sacred trust and we are responsible for its care," GreenFaith wrote on social media. "Why is Citi continuing to violate that trust by giving hundreds of millions of dollars to oil and gas companies? We're here telling Citi: We can do better. We must do better!"
The faith leaders, dressed in white, converged on Citi at around 7:50 am Eastern Time. A total of eight people locked themselves to the doors, causing "chaos" as employees tried to enter for work. The blockade lasted for around half an hour.
"If you've got to walk through a gauntlet of protesters and cops to get to your job maybe you're working at the wrong place," nonprofit consultant Valerie Costa wrote in response to footage of the protest.
Among those arrested at the action were two frontline leaders from the U.S. Gulf Coast, which has been treated as a sacrifice zone by the oil and gas industry for decades.
"There is no future if we were to allow big oil and gas industries who produce death chemicals and products that will wipe out society," Debra Sullivan Ramirez, the president, CEO, and founder of Mossville Environmental Action Now, who was arrested Tuesday, told Common Dreams. "We the people will not tolerate the bad practices of companies like Citi to fund and invest in oil companies who kill our world and it's future."
In one incident, Citi security tried to force open a door while a protester was still chained to it, and then to yank him away from the door. When police joined in, the protester fell down.
"Police were contorting his legs behind the door," another demonstrator said, adding that "it looked painful."
Tuesday's protest brings the total number of arrests from Summer of Heat actions up to more than 450 since June 10, according to organizers.
It also follows a week that saw the four hottest days on record and comes as a heat dome is expected to descend upon much of the U.S., putting the Southwest, Southeast, and Great Plains at particular risk for potentially deadly heat, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) warned.
"Fossil-fuel driven climate change has increased the frequency and severity of extreme heat events over the last half century," UCS said.
The group urged local, state, and national authorities to take immediate measures to protect people such as implementing heat plans, ensuring access to cooling centers, and enshrining protections for outdoor workers.
"But ultimately," UCS said, "limiting the number of days of extreme heat in the long term necessitates that policymakers and decision-makers in all sectors of society do their part to cut heat-trapping emissions, halt the decades-long deception and obstruction by fossil fuel companies that has enabled runaway climate change, phase out fossil fuels, and accelerate the transition to a clean and just energy system."
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