This statement has been issued in response to Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons and the subsequently increased risk of nuclear conflict and global catastrophe.
Note that signatories speak on their own behalf, and not for their affiliated institutions. You can add your name to the list here.
The statement was signed by over 1,000 scientists and delivered to key governments and decision makers. Read the press release here.
A Statement from Scientists on the Use and Threats of Use of Nuclear Weapons
January, 17, 2023
From the beginning of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly issued threats to use nuclear weapons. As the war has continued, the risk of nuclear war has grown. Nuclear war would affect all people and this risk demands a global response.
We state unequivocally that any threat to use nuclear weapons, at any time and under any circumstances, is extremely dangerous and totally unacceptable. We call on all people and governments everywhere to clearly condemn all nuclear threats, explicit or implicit, and any use of such weapons.
In February, President Putin threatened that interference in the situation in Ukraine would be met with immediate “consequences that you have never faced in your history”. In September, he suggested he might order the use of nuclear weapons “if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened,” including the territory in Ukraine that Russia has illegally seized.
The use of a nuclear weapon for the first time in more than 77 years would risk global catastrophe. If Russia were to use any nuclear weapons in its war on Ukraine, the risk of nuclear escalation would be extremely serious. Once nuclear weapons are used in a conflict, particularly between nuclear-armed adversaries, there is a risk that it could lead to an all-out nuclear conflagration. If the United States or NATO were to launch a nuclear retaliatory strike against Russia in response to a Russian nuclear attack in Ukraine it would create significant risk of an escalatory cycle of nuclear destruction. As U.S. President Joseph Biden said in early October, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as an ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”
Today, it is widely understood that there can be no adequate humanitarian response following the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons kill and injure people immediately and indiscriminately, destroy cities, and contaminate the soil, water, and atmosphere with radioactivity. The smoke from burning cities in a nuclear war could darken and cool Earth’s surface for years, devastating global food production and ecosystems and causing worldwide starvation. For these reasons, 145 nations at the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference on August 22, 2022, endorsed the demand that “nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances.”
Despite this, all nine nuclear-armed states are investing in sustaining and modernizing their nuclear arsenals and have plans to use them to wage nuclear war if they choose. So long as countries possess these weapons of mass destruction, there is a risk they will be used. Threats to use nuclear weapons, especially in a time of war, make their use more likely.
With this statement, we add our voices to those already speaking out about the immense danger posed by nuclear weapons and call for immediate and concrete actions towards their elimination.
Scientists were the first to warn governments and publics what these terrible weapons can do. In 1946, the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, chaired by Albert Einstein, warned the world about nuclear weapons, calling for their elimination and declaring that otherwise, “If war breaks out, atomic bombs will be used, and they will surely destroy our civilization.”
The Steering Committee of the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction,
Laura Grego
Senior Scientist and Research Director, Global Security Program
Union of Concerned Scientists
Daryl G. Kimball
Executive Director, Arms Control Association
Frederick K. Lamb
Core Faculty Member, Program in Arms Control & Domestic and International Security
Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy Emeritus
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Zia Mian
Senior Research Scholar and Co-Director, Program in Science and Global Security
Princeton University
Stewart Prager
Professor of Astrophysical Sciences, Emeritus and affiliated faculty member, Program on Science and Global Security
Princeton University
Frank von Hippel
Senior Research Physicist and Professor of Public and International Affairs, Emeritus
Co-Founder, Program on Science and Global Security
Princeton University
Steve Adler
Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Natural Sciences, Princeton
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Michael Aizenman
Professor of Physics and Mathematics, Princeton University
Member, National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academia Europaea
Steven Balbus, F.R.S.
Savilian Professor of Astronomy, University of Oxford
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Barry Barish
Linde Professor of Physics, Emeritus, California Institute of Technology
2017 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Sir Michael Berry, F.R.S.
Melville Wills Professor of Physics, Emeritus, University of Bristol
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Roger Blandford
Luke Blossom Professor In The School Of Humanities And Sciences
Professor Of Physics And Of Particle Physics And Astrophysics, Stanford University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Mike Botchan
Dean of the Biological Sciences Division, College of Letters and Science
Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology
University of California, Berkeley
Member, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Edouard Brezin
Professor Emeritus, ENS Paris
Former President, French Academy of Sciences
Foreign member American Academy of Arts and Sciences
National Academy of Science, Royal Society
Alessandra Buonanno
Research Professor, University of Maryland
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Claude Canizares
Bruno B. Rossi Distinguished Professor in Experimental Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Carlton M. Caves
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico
Member, National Academy of Sciences
David Ceperley
Professor of Physics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Paul Michael Chaikin
Julius Silver, Roslyn S. Silver, and Enid Silver Winslow Professorship, Professor of Physics, New York University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Demetrios Christodoulou
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Physics, ETH -Zurich
Member, National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academia Europaea
Shaw Prize Laureate
George W. Clark
Breene M. Kerr Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Member, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Morrel Cohen
Distinguished Scientist, Rutgers University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Stanley Deser
Ancell Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Brandeis University
Member, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Foreign Member, Royal Society of the United Kingdom
Walter Englander
Gershon Cohen Professor, Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Alexei V. Filippenko
Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley
Member, US National Academy of Sciences
Eduardo Fradkin
Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Physics
Director, Institute for Condensed Matter Theory
Department of Physics, University of Illinois
Daan Frenkel
Member, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Jerome I Friedman
Institute Professor and Professor of Physics, emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1990 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Nigel Goldenfeld
Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics, UCSD
Member, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Carol Gross
Professor, University of California, San Francisco
Member, National Academy of Sciences
David Gross
Chancellor’s Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
2004 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Philip Hanawalt
Professor of Biology, Emeritus, Stanford University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Wick Haxton
Distinguished Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Roald Hoffmann
Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor, Emeritus, Cornell University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
1981 Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry
Rush D. Holt
Former Member of Congress and CEO Emeritus, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Member, National Academy of Sciences
John J Hopfield
Howard A Prior Professor of Molecular Biology, Emeritus, Princeton University
President, American Physical Society (2006)
Benjamin Franklin Medalist in Physics, Franklin Institute (2019)
Member, National Academy of Sciences
David Huse
Professor of Physics, Princeton University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Victor Kac
Professor of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Roger Kornberg
Professor of Medicine, Stanford University
2006 Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Sarah Kurtz
Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study
School of Natural Sciences, Princeton
Member, National Academy of Sciences
James Langer
Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Chung K. Law
Robert H. Goddard Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Princeton University
Member, National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Tony Leggett
Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Member, National Academy of Sciences
2003 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Elliott Lieb
Professor of Mathematics and Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus
Princeton University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Allan Macdonald
Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Juan Maldacena
Carl P. Feinberg Professor
School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Christopher McKee
Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of California, Berkeley
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Arno Penzias
Member, National Academy of Sciences
1978 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
John Polanyi
Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto
1986 Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry
Hugh D. (David) Politzer
Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics
California Institute of Technology
Member, National Academy of Sciences
2004 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Helen Quinn
Professor Of Particle Physics And Astrophysics, Emerita, Stanford University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Sir Richard J. Roberts, Ph.D. F.R.S.
Chief Scientific Officer, New England Biolabs
1993 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine
Lucia B. Rothman-Denes
Carlson Professor, Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service
Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Chicago
Member, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
John H. Schwarz
Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus, California Institute of Technology
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Eric Selker
Professor of Biology, University of Oregon
Member, National Academy of Sciences
John Selker
President, American Geophysical Union Hydrology Section
Irwin Shapiro
Timken University Professor
The Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Suzanne Staggs
Henry DeWolf Smyth Professor of Physics, Princeton University
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Franklin Stahl
Professor Emeritus of Biology, University of Oregon
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Howard A. Stone
Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University
Member, National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Foreign member, Royal Society of the United Kingdom
Sylvester Gates
Clark Leadership Chair in Science
Department of Physics & School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Joseph H Taylor, Jr
James S McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Emeritus
Princeton University
1993 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Kip S. Thorne
Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus
California Institute of Technology
2017 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Member, US National Academy of Sciences
Foreign Member, Russian Academy of Sciences
Scott Tremaine
Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Anthony Tyson
Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy
University of California, Davis
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Peter H. von Hippel
Professor, University of Oregon
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Klaus von Klitzing
Director Emeritus, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research
1985 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Member, National Academy of Sciences
David Wineland
Philip H. Knight Distinguished Research Chair
Research Professor, Department of Physics, University of Oregon
2012 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Carl Wunsch
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Member, National Aca