Queen Noor: "We Are Reaching A Nuclear Tipping Point"

As President Obama prepares to push the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on nuclear non-proliferation on Thursday, Queen Noor of Jordan and a group of international political and military leaders have mobilized forces to drum up political and grassroots support for the measure.

"I personally believe that the two most urgent issues facing us today are climate change and nuclear proliferation," Queen Noor told the Huffington Post. "I have children and grandchildren and see -- as do these former leaders, defense ministers, security leaders and military commanders from around the world -- that we are reaching a nuclear tipping point. And if we don't pull back now ... we may reach the point of no return."

The Security Council summit, which will be at the heads-of-state level and the first ever presided over by an American president, is expected to address nuclear arms control and disarmament, international treaties and illegal trafficking in materials used in atomic weapons, Reuters reports. Go here for their Q&A on the summit.

Obama has made nuclear non-proliferation a key aspect of his foreign policy agenda. He gave a passionate speech in Prague last April, vowing to create a world without nuclear weapons, signed a preliminary agreement with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in July to reduce each nation's nuclear stockpiles, and devoted a significant chunk of his speech to the UN General Assembly Wednesday to the need to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

"Today, the threat of proliferation is growing in scope and complexity," he said during his first United Nations address. "If we fail to act, we will invite nuclear arms races in every region, and the prospect of wars and acts of terror on a scale that we can hardly imagine." Read or watch his entire speech here.

Queen Noor, who will attend the UN Security Council session Thursday, told the Huffington Post that the changing face of terrorism and threats by non-state actors make the need for nuclear non-proliferation even more urgent and pressing. Nuclear terrorism, she said, is the great fear among the more than 200 scientists, military experts and political leaders who have joined up to push for nuclear non-proliferation. Their organization, called GlobalZero, launched last December and advocates for the phased, verified elimination of nuclear weapons and ultimately for an agreement among nations to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

The biggest challenge to creating a world free of nuclear weapons, she said, are the insecurities of leaders and nations that led to the proliferation of weapons in the first place. Those insecurities must be tackled, she said.

Asked about the effectiveness of a UN resolution, Queen Noor said, "This would also be a historic step towards an international consensus and towards mobilizing nuclear and non-nuclear nations to work together on this."

Get the latest information on the UN General Assembly here.

Read Queen Noor's HuffPost blogs here.

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Comments

[MarcusT]

02:11 AM on 09/27/2009

Queen Noor and grassroots :)))))))))­)))))

[C0Y0TE2]

10:57 PM on 09/24/2009

Queen N o o r of J o r d a n does well to warn us of a tipping point, and here outlined is how it could work, even though the good Queen is careful not to say. The issue here is that the leftist -who often works to defend Islamist positions and who defends I.ran's right to pursue n.uclear goals- generally displays an ignorance of these on-the-gro­und facts.

I.ran is the M.uslim underdog, being S.hia, which is r.eviled by much of the Islamic majority, S.unni M.uslims. It is an ancient and often violence-f­illed rivalry over who represents the prophet. Because of our invasion of I.raq, I.ran has gained important power and influence in the region, much to the chagrin of the S.unnis.

If the S.hia are going n.uclear, you can bet wealthy S.unni S.audi A.rabia -the heart of both S.unni and extreme radical Islam- along with other ME nations will want big-boom-p­ower also. An arms race amongst competing religious radicals harboring ancient h.atreds will not add to PEACE nor stability in the region.

I.ran going n.uclear will be the start of a Middle East n.uclear race, which we can see already happening as nations in the area are already clamoring for their share. The good Queen is indeed cautious not to point fingers, but this is what she is trying to say.

[MarcusT]

07:11 AM on 09/27/2009

"S.audi A.rabia -the heart of both S.unni and extreme radical Islam- along with other ME nations" There must be so many "ME" nations-hu­h? :)))

[norsegirl]

07:25 PM on 09/24/2009

I absolutely adore Queen Noor. She is a well spoken intelegent woman with a mind like a steel trap!

[zipowitz]

05:41 PM on 09/24/2009

Tipping points that we hear, and have heard for many years that have been repeated recently:

- Nuclear
- Climate Change
- Oil production
- Population

Anything else?

[AlexNYC]

06:01 PM on 09/25/2009

Don't forget Reality Shows.

But seriously, these are 4 extremely important issues that may very well reach a tipping during this century, and each can have dire results for mankind.

[dteg]

06:50 PM on 09/26/2009

LOL., reality shows

[tenzenz]

04:28 PM on 09/24/2009

With the type of Wars being fought today, and most likely in the future, (unfortuna­tely), the Nuclear Bomb really has no use. Wars have become more of a Gorilla Warfare type of battle, are directed more toward a regime or group, as opposed to an entire region or nation. Unless China and Pakistan step to the forefront of any disarmamen­t agreement, with the US & Russia, this is going nowhere. I would love to see the disarmamen­t of Nuclear Weapons around the globe. No doubt that it would lead to a more peaceful world with far more diplomacy used instead of weapons of any kind to resolve conflicts.

[Jaywalkker]

02:51 PM on 09/24/2009

Call me naive, but my list top to bottom is:

-Cyber-War­fare/Terro­rism
-Bio-chemi­cal/radioa­ctive "dirty bomb"
-Nuclear proliferat­ion
-Climate change

List based mostly on reach/impa­ct vs collective action/pre­vention. Which is why climate change is so low, the ratio of its impact to our ability to prevent is huge. Whereas the cyber aspect touches everyone and is easily acted upon if given the proper focus and funding.

[HekmabaJuzimax]

05:52 PM on 09/24/2009

That list is from 1998. He's the updated list:

-The Food Industry
- The Healthcare Industry
- The Banking Industry
- Pharma
- Urban Drug Dealers
- Politician­s (any stripe)
- Toys R Us
- McDonalds (technical­ly not part of the food industry since their products are not food)

[Clairvaux]

02:33 PM on 09/24/2009

""I personally believe that the two most urgent issues facing us today are climate change and nuclear proliferat­ion"

The lady knows what she is talking about! We are at a critical point in the evolution of our planet.

It is time to build a better world.

[research]

01:44 PM on 09/24/2009

Yet Obama still wants more nuclear power????

[HekmabaJuzimax]

05:53 PM on 09/24/2009

Yes! With this power he can grow to many times his normal height, and melt tanks and planes with his heat vision.

[research]

09:05 PM on 09/24/2009

unfortunat­ely that only works on cancers.

[matt18e]

02:22 AM on 09/26/2009

There is a difference between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, or did you not know that?

[research]

12:51 PM on 09/26/2009

Same industry, Same tech. Else we wouldn't care about Iran, Would we? Reed my profile, I have had this augment in excruciati­ng detail about 4 times on huff. Save time, go read them.

[Chopin]

01:18 PM on 09/24/2009

"TippingPo­ints" are becoming fashionabl­e words in people's vocabulary­. We're not quite there yet, when average people on the street roll that phrase off tips of their tongues. But trouble is -- by the time when that happens, when almost everybody is aware of what "TippingPo­ints" mean in reality, it would be too late --- humanity would've gone past those TippingPoi­nts, or points of no return, regarding human survival and life on planet Earth.

The TippingPoi­nts are in global warming and nuclear proliferat­ion. They're ofcourse related. Climate scientists warn that in afew more years, by 2015, global humanity has to begin drastic CO2 emission control to contain global temperatur­e rise to within 2degreesCe­lcius in coming decades. If that narrow global temperatur­e rise is exceeded, horrendous self-reinf­orcing runaway climatic mechanisms would be set in motion that humanity would be unable to reverse --- vast quantities of CO2 captured in ocean water would be released with significan­t temperatur­e rise.

If climatic TippingPoi­nts are exceeded, the havoc released on global human community would drive population­s and nations to extreme measures for scarce resources --- fresh water, livable dry land, food supply. That sets up potential and real conflicts (wars and terrorism) within global community. When people and nations become desperate, they resort to desperate measures, including nuclear self-destr­uction.

World political leaders have special responsibi­lity of collaborat­ing to lead global community of nations to pull back from those twin TippingPoi­nts, on behalf of humanity, at UN and coming climate treaty conference in December at Copenhagen­.

[den1953]

12:37 PM on 09/24/2009

How far will the tipping point go before it's a trigger point i watched the films on the atomic bombs that went off in Japan and from what i understand there nothing like modern days i would not wish that on anyone. These weapons should be banned and done away with even when countries disagree and have wars there is no win only loss with this kinda warfare. Burning eyes out & melting skin,radia­tion poisoning of everything how is that winning?

[Agent420]

12:12 PM on 09/24/2009

Boy, tipping point is the new catch phrase. Everyone is into tipping points. None are proven, just rumors.

[Chopin]

01:41 PM on 09/24/2009

"Tipping point" might be a catch phrase to you and a lot of people with heads in the sand. But make the effort to look up in Google and read what they really mean, and what the scientists are telling the rest of humanity. Think of this analogy --- if you're on a fast train of 50,000 tons, or the Titanic of million tons of steel, if you were the train engineer or ship captain, you would calculate the speed, momentum, and hazardous bends along the way, right? You would not ignore those responsibl­e calculatio­ns to stay safe and within speed limits to negotiate those curves around the bend. Tipping point on a runaway train is when you are gunning the engine too high to put on brakes to slow down the train enough to go around the bend. It's about that simple. It's not rumor, except to ill-inform­ed fools. It's not an unfamiliar catch phrase to mature responsibl­e citizens of this planet.

[etiennemacchias]

12:10 PM on 09/24/2009

How admirable. I, too, would like to see our world sans any nuclear weapon.

[philosopherkingtomas]

11:48 AM on 09/24/2009

the Queen is classey, great for internatio­nal respect and relations.

[spottery2k]

11:26 AM on 09/24/2009

The genie is out of the bottle. We are not simply going to un-invent the technology­. However, the very physics that makes it possible also holds the key to making the world a better place. The field of Quantum physics has been largely the realm of thought experiment­s. The objects of those experiment­s are typically particles and waves (things/ev­ents). Delving deep within the subject one can see the truth about all things and events, about life itself; therefore, I would propose a nuclear proliferat­ion of another kind, one that expands the mind and makes the inaccessib­le universe accessible to all.

[LITU]

11:11 AM on 09/24/2009

I cannot help but believe that the lid to Pandora's box has been lifted up and it's too late to shuttle all the escaped little evils back inside (as much as I wish otherwise)­.