10 countries to be observers at U.N. nuclear ban treaty meeting in March

Japan that know, the power of nuclear war, should fall in line by joining the ban, those drop were only a pretext of the devastation the the US would un load on Japan

Abe, and Suga both refused to even meet with ICAN. Kishida who is from Hiroshima and is a master of using buzz words has recently stated that he wants to start an international group to address nuclear weapons. If he were serious he'd start by at least meeting with ICAN. It's a shame that the clowns in office are not serious about abolishing nukes; Japan of all countries...

Nuclear weapons need to be abolished. Read anything by Daniel Ellsberg on the matter and Chomsky's remarks on the threat to humanity and the living planet by nuclear weapons. Jonathan Schell wrote an excellent account

Such will not be done by fiat, but thru negotiation and protest enlightened by awareness of the imminent danger. Such advocacies arise and fall with the generations. This neglected conference, small as it may be and devoid of the major powers armed with nuclear weaponry is incredibly important.

To simply acquiesce to some imagined inevitability is to deny participatory responsibility, which includes one's taxes that pay for all the dangerous weapons possessed by the military.

As to being killed by a rock or a bullet he comparison is lacking - thermonuclear devices would incinerate entire cities and regions - killing by the millions, if not billions and essentially would end civilization - there would be no survivors.

A January 2018 World Economic Forum survey of 1,000 leaders from government, business, and other industries identified nuclear war as a top threat.

The USA and Russia possess over 90% of all nuclear weapons. Neither will attend or observe he conference.

The USA has instituted a first strike strategy and Obama ordered a trillion dollar upgrade of the U.S. arsenal.

Russia has a retaliatory policy aka second strike.

Few experts discount the idea that the US and Russia could yet engage in a nuclear war despite a decades-long standoff. After all, they’ve come close a few times.

Here are just two examples: In September 1983, a missile attack system made it seem like the US had launched weapons at the Soviet Union. One man, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, decided it was a false alarm and didn’t report the alert. Had he done so, Moscow likely would’ve responded with an actual nuclear strike.

Two months later, a too-real NATO war game — Able Archer 83 — made the Soviets believe Western forces were preparing for an actual attack. Moscow put its nuclear arsenal on high alert, but ultimately, neither side came to nuclear blows.

It’s possible you have an idea of what a post-nuclear hellscape looks like. After all, disaster movies are obsessed with that kind of world. But scientists and other nuclear experts care deeply about this issue too — and their research shows the movies may be too optimistic.

Alan Robock, an environmental sciences professor at Rutgers University, has spent decades trying to understand what a nuclear war would do to the planet. The sum of his work, along with other colleagues’, is based on economic, scientific, and agricultural models.

Here’s what he found: The most devastating long-term effects of a nuclear war actually come down to the black smoke, along with the dust and particulates in the air, that attacks produce. In a nuclear war, cities and industrial areas would be targeted, thereby producing tons of smoke as they burn. Some of that smoke would make it into the stratosphere — above the weather — where it would stay for years because there’s no rain to wash it out. That smoke would expand around the world as it heats up, blocking out sunlight over much of Earth.

As a result, the world would experience colder temperatures and less precipitation, depleting much of the globe’s agricultural output. That, potentially, would lead to widespread famine in a matter of years. Almost everyone would die.

Pius hope, not that any sane person wouldn’t applaud the total eradication of nuclear weapons but until you persuade all the rogue nuclear states like North Korea and Iran to give up all nuclear weapons and production facilities, and the other nuclear countries like India and Pakistan, the other 5 will not relinquish their weapons. Even then there would need to be effective means of enforcing the ban, by force if necessary, and no major country will acquiesce to such a negation of their sovereignty.

The simple fact is that the nuclear genie is out of the bottle and can’t be put back in.

To be honest if you are killed by a thermonuclear blast, a bullet or a rock, you are just as dead.