[CPEO-MEF] Scientists' & Engineers' Work to End Nuclear Weapons

[marylia@earthlink.net]

Los Alamos Study Group * Natural Resources Defense Council
* Tri-Valley CAREs * Western States Legal Foundation

for further information:
Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, (925) 443-7148
Greg Mello, Los Alamos Study Group, (505) 577-7333
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, (510) 839-5877

PLEDGE DRIVE ASKS SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS TO RENOUNCE WORK ON NUCLEAR, 
OTHER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION; INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO BE LAUNCHED 
THIS WEEK AT THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE
MEETING IN SAN FRANCISCO

************
Press Conference With Nuclear "Watchdog" Organizations and Scientists
to be Held Saturday, February 17, 10 AM at the San Francisco Press Club,
312 Sutter Street, S.F., (note new location)

************

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Leaders of organizations that monitor the U.S. 
nuclear weapons complex are asking academics, students and technical 
professionals attending this week's meeting of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to sign a Scientists' and Engineers' 
Pledge vowing "never to participate in the design, development, testing,
production targeting or use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons..."

"The time has come for scientists to pledge themselves to renounce work on 
weapons of mass destruction," declared Dr. Joseph Rotblat, the Nobel
Laureate and physicist who left the Manhattan Project for reasons of
conscience. Rotblat is one of the initial signers of the Scientists' and
Engineers' Pledge.

"I fully endorse your campaign... At a time when science plays such a
powerful role in the life of society, when the whole destiny of mankind may
hinge on the results of scientific research, it is incumbent on all
scientists to be fully conscious of that role and conduct themselves
accordingly. I appeal to my fellow scientists to remember their
responsibility to humanity," Rotblat wrote to the four organizations
launching the pledge campaign, echoing his 1995 acceptance speech for the 
Nobel Peace Prize.

The Pledge sponsors will be staffing a booth at the AAAS meeting in San
Francisco.

The organizations originating the Pledge campaign are: Natural Resources
Defense Council (Washington, DC), Los Alamos Study Group (Santa Fe, NM), 
Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, CA) and Western States Legal Foundation 
(Oakland, CA). "This is part of a multi-faceted, international campaign to 
discourage people from working on nuclear weapons," explained Greg Mello, 
director of the Los Alamos Study Group, which monitors the Department of 
Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons design labs in New Mexico. "The so-called 
'Stockpile Stewardship' program at the labs is nuclear weapons work, no 
matter how it's disguised," Mello added.


"Scientist and engineers today need to know that the U.S. nuclear weapons
laboratories are busy developing new, destabilizing nuclear weapons,
including earth penetrating 'mini-nukes' and re-designed, more accurate
long-range warheads," said Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley
CAREs, a Livermore, CA-based "watchdog" group that monitors activities at
the DOE's nearby Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

"The effort of these labs to recast their work on nuclear weapons as
'nuclear weapons science' does not change the essential fact that these
institutions are continuing to develop nuclear weapons," declared
Christopher Paine, senior researcher for NRDC's nuclear program.

The groups originating this Pledge campaign will combine educational
activities to raise awareness of the guises under which nuclear weapons
work hides, including in the U.S. through its "Stockpile Stewardship"
program, with a clarion call to spark the consciences of scientists and
engineers. In addition to the Pledge, the campaign will utilize giant
billboards and direct outreach to University and laboratory researchers.

Dr. Julian Borrill, an astrophysicist at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National
Lab and board member of the Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, 
CA, summed up the moral responsibility of today's technical professionals: 
"As scientists and engineers, we are in a unique position to bring about the
demise of weapons of mass destruction. These weapons cannot exist without 
us -- we design them, we manufacture them, we test them, we maintain them 
and we deploy them. We make them possible, and, if we choose to, we can 
make them impossible." Dr. Borrill will be speaking at the press 
conference Saturday.

Other scientists joining the public interest groups in person at the press
conference Saturday morning include Dr. Charles Schwartz, Professor of
Physics Emeritus at U.C. Berkeley and Dr. Andreas Toupadakis, a nuclear
chemist who left the DOE labs last year upon the discovery that his
research was being used for weapons. Dr. Zia Mian, a prominent research
scientist at Princeton University, will join by phone.

Initial signers of the Pledge include, Dr. Joseph Rotblat, Nobel Laureate;
Dr. Michio Kaku, Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics, City
University of New York; Dr. Charles Schwartz, Professor of Physics
Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley;  Dr. Andreas Toupadakis,
former Staff Research Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Dr. Pervez Hodbhoy, Visiting
Professor, Theory Group for Quarks, Hadrons and Nuclei, University of
Maryland;  and, Dr. Zia Mian, Research Scientist, Princeton University.

                                                                 -- 30 --

A copy of the Scientist' and Engineers' Pledge to Renounce Weapons of Mass 
Destruction will be posted on the sponsoring groups' web sites. I believe 
it is already up on www.lasg.org and www.wslfweb.org. It will be on our 
web site very soon! --Marylia




Marylia Kelley
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94550

<http://www.igc.org/tvc/> - is our web site, please visit us there!

(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax

Working for peace, justice and a healthy environment since 1983, Tri-Valley
CAREs has been a member of the nation-wide Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability in the U.S. since 1989, and is a co-founding member of the
Abolition 2000 global network for the elimination of nuclear weapons, the
U.S. Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the Back From the Brink
campaign to get nuclear weapons taken off hair-trigger alert.



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