QUOTES

“Since the height of the Cold War, the United States and Russia have dismantled more than 50,000 nuclear warheads, but 15,000 of these weapons still exist and pose an intolerable risk to human survival.”

Monique Limón
California Assemblymember
Back from the Brink resolution adopted August 2018

“We need to invest more of our resources in ourselves and in our children, striving for a future in which our efforts towards building a stronger society are no longer diminished by our efforts to mutually assure our own destruction.”

Bill Henry
Baltimore City Councilmember

“Nuclear weapons are not a force of nature, they are not an act of God. We have made them with our own hands and we know how to take them apart. We’ve already dismantled more than 50,000 of them. The only thing that’s missing is the political will and commitment to do this. And that’s where all of us come in.”

Dr. Ira Helfand
Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Board Member Physicians for Social Responsibility

“Each of the Back from the Brink’s five policy solutions are achievable and grounded in common sense, and when enacted will lead to a much safer world and future for our children.”

Danny Hall
Soka Gakkai International-USA

“People might say, why are you wading into this policy? This is a federal issue. But we all know that if there is a nuclear strike, it’s going to be against a city, and therefore it is absolutely of great concern to us as the city of Portland. And we want to be in solidarity and on record with cities all over the country and all over the world to make sure our voices are heard.”

Amanda Fritz
Portland City Commissioner

“We know that the use of a fraction of the global nuclear weapons arsenal would have devastatingly, irrevocable consequences to our planet and that a national defense strategy based on nuclear armament decreases, rather than increases, our national security.”

Robyn Gabel
Illinois State Representative

“Do any of us really think that the idea of using nuclear weapons first makes sense? Such a step would likely lead to global nuclear war. The present nuclear arsenals, if unleashed would cause massive death and destruction immediately. Most of humanity that survived the blasts would perish slowly of starvation because the ash from the devastation would lead to prolonged nuclear winter and failure of crops throughout the world.”

Joseph McCabe, M.D.
May 6, 2019 at Needham, MA Townhall

“The threat of nuclear disaster is real. And a culture of violence as a means of problem-solving is also very real.”

Leslie Castellano
Eureka City Councilmember
Back from the Brink resolution adopted April 2019

“Over the next 30 years, our country plans to spend an estimated 1.7 trillion dollars to replace its entire nuclear arsenal. This is madness. You know it. I know it. The whole world knows it.”

Reverend Robert Oldershaw 
Evanston, IL
Back from the Brink resolution adopted Jan. 2020

“August 6, 1945. The sky was covered with the blue light. The atomic bomb exploded over the city of Hiroshima. 130,000 people disappeared. One scene I cannot forget is the little black bundle of a baby and the mother was still hanging on to this little thing. Many people suffered radiation sickness. Today, 73 years later some of the atomic bomb survivors are still suffering with cancer, leukemia, and the radiation sickness. We must abolish the atomic and nuclear weapon so no one will ever use it again on human beings. We must pursue the peace of the world.”

Junji Sarashina 
President, American Society of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors
Los Angeles, CA
Back from the Brink resolution adopted Aug. 2020

“Nuclear weapons activities, which range from mining, milling, production, testing, storage, and use disproportionately affect communities of color and women.”

Alissa Keny-Guyer
State Representative, Oregon
Back from the Brink resolution adopted June 2019

“Nuclear weapons threaten all of humanity, which is something that the youth worldwide have recognized. Kids from around the world have acted to get influential cities to act and get political leaders to listen. And this can be that time.”

Edgar Lopez
Nuclear Free Schools

U.S. Representative Barbara Lee

“We have a federal administration that has openly discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons in a first strike, we have a government that is rapidly funding the modernization of our arsenal and basically taken the steps to put us in an extremely dangerous position and so I think its incumbent upon every body including this, in government and in private sector, to speak up and say no, enough is enough we need to take a step back.”

Ted Winterer
City Councilmember, Santa Monica, CA
Back from the Brink resolution adopted June 2019

“We cannot afford to leave nuclear-weapons policy to the “experts” in Washington or the few dedicated activists who have been keeping track of these fearsome developments over the years. We have entered a new era—one in which the use of nuclear weapons has become far more likely—and it is crucial that we all become more familiar with these matters and their deadly implications.”

Michael Klare

“As a member of the Hanford Clean Up Board, the intergovernmental body overseeing the clean up of the most toxic contamination site in the Western Hemisphere, I have witnessed first-hand the difficulty and extreme cost that nuclear storage and decontamination efforts incur. We are still attempting to deal with today, the lingering residue of the nuclear decisions of our past, and it is literally costing us billions of dollars.”

Tawna Sanchez
State Representative, Oregon
Co-Sponsor Back from the Brink resolution
adopted June 2019

“I have walked the dusty beach of Rongelap and listened to the deafening silence where life used to be abundant. Their stories echo and burn visions in my head. I have seen atomic veterans wither and pass away. I’ve stood next to the death beds of too many family members; dying from radiation, dying from genetic disorders, dying from inherited complications.”

Kianna Juda Angelo
Living Islands, Marshall Islanders support organization

“I think there is something about power in numbers and I think more importantly, [the Back from the Brink resolution is] really a statement to convey to our children, and our next generation, that this is a really important issue for us to consider and to support.”

Dr. Hal Colsten
City Councilor, Winooski, VT
Back from the Brink resolution adopted September 2018