At our 2025 Annual Lecture on Wednesday 14 May, Dr David Ellwood spoke on: ‘Is even a minimal nuclear deterrent MAD?’
You can watch the video here:
Outline
The five recognized nuclear weapons states have a legal obligation to pursue disarmament under Article VI of the NPT, but as the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists ticks ever closer to midnight, these same states are pursuing a costly modernization program that enshrines a nuclear oligarchy over our indefinite future.
As we approach the 70th anniversary of the announcement of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto the scientific case to abandon nuclear deterrence has never been stronger. Modern climate models show that the global cooling induced by even a limited nuclear war would be devastating to the world community. This talk will provide an introduction to recent work on nuclear winter and make the case that nuclear weapons are not an instrument of national security, but rather a spectre of our own annihilation.
Biography
Dr David Alexandre Ellwood is a theoretical physicist and mathematician who served for more than a decade as Research Director of the Clay Mathematics Institute. He is a member of the Pugwash Council and the executive committees of International Pugwash and the British Pugwash group. David has held academic appointments at Harvard University, Boston University, Université de Strasbourg (IRMA), ETH Zürich, Université de Paris VI (UPMC) and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques.