Google boss Eric Schmidt has identified what he believes are the world's two biggest challenges. And neither of them are named Microsoft.
In an interview on NPR's "All Things Considered" last week, he said:
"If you assume that the two largest issues in the world are the possibility of death by nuclear bomb -- nuclear proliferation -- and climate change over a 50- to 100-year period in terms of the number of people they're going to affect," Schmidt says, "[for] at least one of the two most important things in the world, we can help."
Google and General Electric launched a new partnership this week designed to promote renewable energy, and to encourage the development of a "smart" national electrical grid which would make it easier for renewable energy sources to be tapped.
They promised to lobby in Washington for this "new and smarter grid.".
I applaud these efforts. Both companies have made significant efforts not only to recognize the climate crisis but to try to create new business models to help renewable energy grow.
But can we afford to work on the second most important issue in the world and ignore the first?
Climate change must be addressed. But let's face it, nuclear war would be climate change on steroids. An exchange of 50 nuclear weapons each between India and Pakistan would trigger a nuclear winter that would immediately create a worldwide crisis of starvation as crops began to fail.
Right now, there are intimations of a new Cold War as our relations with Russia deteriorate. Iran and North Korea continue to remind us that we can't expect other countries to go without nuclear weapons when we hang on to 9,000 of our own.
Eric Schmidt is right to order our world priorities. The nuclear status quo is dangerous. If we do nothing, the chance of a nuclear weapon being detonated only grows higher.
So I would like to invite Mr. Schmidt to join me in supporting concrete steps the United States can take to make the world safer. Here are seven:
• De-alert. Remove all nuclear weapons from high-alert status, separating warheads from delivery vehicles.
• No First Use. Make legally binding commitments to No First Use of nuclear weapons and establish nuclear policies consistent with this commitment.
• No New Nuclear Weapons. Initiate a moratorium on the research and development of new nuclear weapons, such as the Reliable Replacement Warhead.
• Ban Nuclear Testing Forever. Ratify and bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;.
• Control Nuclear Material. Create a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty with provisions to bring all weapons-grade nuclear material and the technologies to create such material under strict and effective international control.
• Nuclear Weapons Convention. Commence good faith negotiations, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons.
• Resources for Peace. Reallocate resources from the tens of billions currently spent on nuclear arms to alleviating poverty, preventing and curing disease, eliminating hunger and expanding educational opportunities throughout the world.
These seven steps are part of a major public education campaign by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The Foundation is gathering signatures on a campaign called: US Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World -- An Appeal to the Next President of the United States. The names will be delivered to the White House on Inauguration Day January 20, 2009.
Are you with us, Mr. Schmidt?