Quote

I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

Individual scientists like myself - and many more conspicuous - pointed to the dangers of radioactive fallout over Canada if we were to launch nuclear weapons to intercept incoming bombers.

I remember some of the limited debate I did back in high school in the late '70s, early '80s: nuclear proliferation was always the big topic, and it's bad. We don't want to see it.

When I was 10 years old, that nuclear spark hit me. Whatever it may be, I really don't know what it was about nuclear science, but whatever it was that triggered that interest, it stuck. I went after that one with a passion.

We have to realize that science is a double-edged sword. One edge of the sword can cut against poverty, illness, disease and give us more democracies, and democracies never war with other democracies, but the other side of the sword could give us nuclear proliferation, biogerms and even forces of darkness.

I've always thought of nuclear as something that's good for the environment. I worry about my polar bears.

Nuclear war is such an emotional subject that many people see the weapons themselves as the common enemy of humanity.

I find the science behind major natural events almost more interesting than the way in which those same events wreak their effects on human society.

But scientists on both sides of the iron curtain played a very significant role in maintaining the momentum of the nuclear arms race throughout the four decades of the Cold War.

The issues and challenges surrounding nuclear non-proliferation are continuously evolving. They've changed dramatically at several junctures in recent memory.