It’s not the bullet in a gun aimed an enemy. It’s not even the sticks of dynamite a suicide bomber has strapped on. It’s one nuclear weapon. Just one is all that is necessary for death on an unfathomably large scale. Sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers vaporized into nothing more than ash. The next generation will have to grow up in small bomb shelters and never know what sun or snow is. That’s the total extinction of life on Earth at the touch of the button. Welcome to the proliferation future. With the Cold War over, the threat of a full scale nuclear attack still remains higher than ever. There are over 23,000 nuclear weapons in the world, 92 of them have been reported either lost or stolen, and all of them belong solely to nine countries. The United States and Russia already own a staggering 97 percent of them while terrorist groups are trying to synthesize nuclear weapons of their own. If they succeed or if a single stolen nuclear weapon falls into their hands, the consequences will be fatal.  Not only will hundreds of thousands of people in the vicinity of the blast die in a heartbeat, the deadly radiation from the blast will contaminate the land and people for thousands of square kilometers leaving them marred for many years to come. Consider the aftereffects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki —which are still being felt today — just a small taste of what is to come. Currently, nations use these weapons as bargaining chips because they are perceived to be destructive on such a large scale that other nations are obligated to agree to the former’s terms or risk getting bombed into oblivion. Such a tactic is useless because it only sparks futile arms races between nations in order to gain the upper hand, which ultimately increases the likelihood of a global catastrophe. More importantly, if push came to shove and a country were to be bombed, international treaties and partnerships would only pull the world into a nuclear World War Three, and ensuring mutual destruction of the planet, in which case there is no victor. Other nations claim that nuclear weapons are forms of protection, but if they are aimed and ready to be fired at other countries in a moment’s notice, it is no longer considered a form of protection but rather open signs of aggression. If nuclear proliferation continues on and more countries including failed states and states prone to ethnic violence gain nuclear weapons, tensions will continue to mount until a nation feels compelled to use such a destructive force against their enemies. We as a society cannot wait for that to happen. We cannot let millions of innocent people that never wronged anyone in their lives to be vaporized into seven-mile-high mushroom clouds or die slow and agonizing deaths from radiation poisoning while their vulnerable children watch from bedsides scared and alone. We cannot let our future generation be filled with potential presidents, Nobel winning scientists, artists, musicians, and engineers greet a cold, cruel world tainted with nuclear fallout helplessly watching their talents atrophy. Stop nuclear proliferation. We are only making ourselves more susceptible to attacks if we continue. We will only be safe when the number of nuclear weapons in the world drops to zero. Please help support Global Zero. www.globalzero.org . . . . . .