Bolstering the teetering nuclear nonproliferation regime is no easy task. Perhaps the most glaring challenge is reconciling opposing views on nations' rights to the full range of nuclear fuel cycle activities. In “Agreeing to disagree on nuclear rights,” Rose Gottemoeller, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, and Raymond Arnaudo, a State Department official, (right) propose an innovative solution to address this impasse that draws on the success of the Antarctic Treaty, the first multilateral, verifiable arms control agreement. The two, who are married, have talked about the Antarctic Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) over many a dinner. “At some point, perhaps after the requisite amount of wine had been consumed, the answers that had been found for the problems of the Antarctic Treaty began to look attractive as solutions for the NPT,” says Gottemoeller. “At least, in our view, they are worth exploring. Parallel universes, such as those that exist in a marriage, can yield interesting results.” The authors first formalized the ideas for their proposals in early 2008 as Gottemoeller was preparing to address a seminar on nuclear disarmament in Oslo, Norway.
In order to contend with climate change, we must significantly reduce per-capita carbon emissions. But by how much? That depends on population growth, notes Robert Engelman, vice president for programs at the Worldwatch Institute. Engelman, who specializes in population-related issues, reproductive health, and climate change, says their overlap has interesting and little-known implications. For instance, providing women with greater access to birth control and to education steeply reduces birth rates, so that each completed year of secondary school lowers a woman's average fertility rate by 0.3-0.5 children. “Population growth is critically important in human affairs, and best addressed by allowing women to make choices–especially reproductive choices–in their own lives,” he explains. In this issue's Turn Back the Clock, Engelman argues that empowering women (“a humanitarian obligation in its own right”) would control population growth and also help address environmental challenges beyond climate change, including disrupted ecosystems, limited potable water, and overcrowding.
COVER ARTIST
Raquel Aparicio
Who says you can't mix doomsday and a little fun? Raquel Aparicio, a Barcelona-based illustrator, did just that for this issue's cover. Reminiscent of The Little Prince, the cover image merges an oblique reference to the Doomsday Clock, with the more specific idea that the human species is quickly driving its car off a cliff (or perhaps has already done so?). “We all know what we are losing if we keep acting in a destructive way, so I wanted the cover to look a little bit dramatic, but with a tender touch,” the 24-year-old says. A fan of creepy animation movies, Aparacio's illustration also alludes to the creative work of film director Tim Burton.
Aparacio studied illustration in Scotland, Spain, and the United States for several years, during which she also taught collage workshops for the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. She currently moonlights as a freelance illustrator, while she works days as a motion graphics art director for Benecé Productions. Her illustrations have appeared in European publications, such as Quo and Regazza, as well as U.S. publications, such as Elle, Prevention, and the New York Times Magazine.
For the past 20 years, David Culp has been a lobbyist for nuclear arms control and disarmament in Congress. So he knows better than most how these issues have slipped from legislators' agendas, and that the few remaining proponents are dwindling by the year. Culp's essay “The Domenici legacy,” on outgoing Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, makes clear the importance of politicians who can make educated decisions about nuclear weapons policy. Culp is currently a legislative representative at the Friends Committee on National Legislation and has worked to pass the 1992 moratorium on nuclear testing, the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, and defeat recent U.S. proposals to build new nuclear weapons.
Despair and panic figure prominently in climate change rhetoric. Environmentalists are often demoralized by the public's apathy, ignorance, and reluctance to sacrifice to turn things around. The way climate change is discussed needs to be rethought, according to John M. Meyer, the chair of Humboldt State University's Department of Politics. He thinks that sacrifice is too often used as a scare tactic “to shut down ambitious strategies or visions for change.” Yet sacrifice is an essential part of life, even if few are conscious of the sacrifices they make. In “Rethinking personal sacrifice,” Meyer meditates on the role sacrifice plays in families, societies, and religions. “Rather than call for sacrifice, we might begin by calling out sacrifice and the myriad ways in which it is already present in our everyday lives,” he writes.
The transition from fossil fuels to renewable ones will be “the most important challenge mankind will face in the 21st century,” says Tom Whipple, the author of this month's In Review. Whipple, who spent 31 years as an analyst in the CIA, now writes a peak oil column for the Falls Church News-Press and is editor of Peak Oil Review a publication of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas-USA. “In a couple of years world oil production is going to start declining, perhaps rapidly, and we are in for decades of very hard times,” he says.
