Full Speeches of Our Eminent National Security Panelists, on Nuclear and Climate Threats

Peter Kuznick and Joseph Romm Speak as Nuclear and Climate Scientists and Activists

As Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the United States, meteorologists received an unprecedented deluge of accusations and even death threats over the conspiracy theory that they created and steered the weather disasters.  A Michigan-based meteorologist said, “it’s taken a turn to more violent rhetoric, especially with people saying those who created Milton should be killed.”  “It’s mindblowing, I’ve never seen anything like this in any disaster,” said another.

These results are unsurprising.  Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, shared a video that claimed: “Hurricane Helene was an ATTACK caused by Weather Manipulation.”  Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conspiracy theorist who entered Congress under Trump, wrote: “Yes they can control the weather….  It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

They are pandering to Donald Trump’s psychopathology, either to curry favors from him (through “the rules of the game” he laid down) or through Trump Contagion (making his desires their desires).  Factually, he contributed to greater climate destruction than any other president, especially by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

Psychologically, it is not very different from his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement, when critics said this would prompt Iran to accelerate its nuclear program—and it has.  The U.S. betrayal emboldened Iranian hard-liners to criticize past compliance and to rush progress, which alarmed Israel into arguing that its military had to strike and hobble the country’s nuclear facilities.  Iran could be within weeks of possessing enough nuclear material for a bomb.

Donald Trump, who had the compulsion to undo every successful achievement by President Barack Obama, be it the Paris Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, or the pandemic playbook, one should have pointed out that the overriding drive in this case is not policy, politics, or even self-interest but the death drive of mental pathology.

Dr. Peter Kuznick is a leading scientist-activist in antiwar and nuclear abolition efforts.  He ran innovative teaching programs that included taking students on a study-abroad class to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, every summer since 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombings.  He and Oliver Stone coauthored the ten-part Showtime documentary film series and book, both titled, The Untold History of the United States.

Dr. Joseph Romm is a leading expert on climate solutions and clean energy—and on communicating about these issues to the public.  He is now senior research fellow of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media.  He worked on climate solutions as acting assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy.  In 2009 Rolling Stone named him one of 100 “people who are reinventing America,” and Time named him “Hero of the Environment.”

Here are the full speeches of Kuznick and Romm:

The videos of full speeches from the Conference are here. The Conference summary video is here.  The book that was released with the Conference is here.  The Conference website will have regular updates.  Please continue to support our getting out our critical message from the Conference, for, as our gathering revealed, we may not survive another dangerously unfit presidency in this very dangerous world!