STARS ISSUE WARNING ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Global Zero

President Obama will meet with President Putin on the side of the June 17-18 G-8 Summit in Northern Ireland, with nuclear weapons on the agenda. In the lead-up to this critical decision point, an eminent group of artists – including Alec Baldwin, John Cusack, Matt Damon, Robert De Niro, Danny DeVito, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, Zoe Kravitz, Martin Sheen, Christoph Waltz and Naomi Watts – issued a stirring call for a world without nuclear weapons in a powerful new video released by Global Zero.

The video is part of an international campaign urging President Obama to set the world’s course to zero nuclear weapons by negotiating further cuts in the massive U.S.-Russian Cold War stockpiles and bringing other leading nuclear powers into international nuclear arms negotiations for the first time in history.

As part of these efforts, Global Zero delivered to the White House a letter to President Obama from approximately 75 former prime ministers, foreign and defense ministers and military commanders, an official declaration recently adopted by the European Parliament endorsing Global Zero’s plan to eliminate nuclear weapons, and a global grassroots petition – all urging Obama to set the world’s course to zero nuclear weapons. Over the last several weeks, a host of artists, musicians and bands have promoted the campaign on social media, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul McCartney, Tom Morello, Yoko Ono, Serj Tankian, Pearl Jam and R.E.M., among many others. 

“The message from national security experts and citizens around the world is clear: the only way to eliminate the global nuclear danger is to eliminate all nuclear weapons,” said Michael Douglas. “It's time to set the world's course to zero.”

“Nuclear weapons are obsolete relics of the Cold War, they do not address today’s security threats, and they cost $1 trillion per decade globally,” said Morgan Freeman. “It’s time we get rid of them.”

“To set the world’s course to zero nuclear weapons, President Obama will have to go beyond the bilateral process President Reagan started of U.S.-Soviet/Russian arms reductions and bring the other leading nuclear powers into international arms negotiations for the first time in history,” said Global Zero Co-Founder Matt Brown.

Starting with President Reagan, whose aim was “the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth” and who began the process of arms reductions, the Global Zero position has become mainstream – and those who oppose it increasingly outside the mainstream. The Global Zero movement is now supported by hundreds of respected national security and military leaders, more than 150 university campus chapters and half a million citizens from around the world who understand that nuclear weapons have no place in the 21st century.