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Nobel Peace Prize recipient speaks in Bloomington on preventing nuclear war

By Sophie Kaelble

Posted March 27, 2025

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ira Helfand discusses preventing nuclear war at First United Church.

Ira Helfand called current policies about nuclear arms “insane” and encouraged Bloomington residents to join an effort to push disarmament. (George Hale/WTIU News)

A Nobel Peace Prize recipient said Wednesday the threat of nuclear war is growing and only luck is protecting the world from massive death and devastation.

In a presentation at Bloomington’s First United Church, Ira Helfand called current policies about nuclear arms “insane” and encouraged Bloomington residents to join an effort to push disarmament.

Helfand worked with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which received the 1985 and 2017 prizes respectively. He said nuclear war has become more likely since the 1990s.

“The most important thing was that the danger hadn't gone away,” Helfand said. “The weapons were still there. There were tens of thousands of them left just sort of waiting for things to get bad again. And they have gotten bad again.”

Helfand said worsening relations between nations with nuclear weapons could escalate into nuclear war, which would kill billions of people and possibly cause extinction. Humanity has avoided this despite multiple close calls, but Helfand said that’s only because of luck.

“The policy of all nine of the nuclear weapons states at this time is, at heart, nothing more than a hope for continued, perpetual, perfect, good luck,” he said. “This is an insane basis for policy. We all know that no one's luck lasts forever and ours won't either.”

Helfand said the only way to prevent this is to disarm all nuclear weapons and emphasized that goal’s feasibility. His organization, Back from the Brink, aims to pressure the US government to start disarmament negotiations, and he said a US House resolution supporting this will be introduced within a week or two.

More than 70 cities and towns have endorsed Back from the Brink, and Helfand hopes Bloomington will follow.

“Those of us living today have been given the opportunity to literally save the world,” he said. “There's nothing better than anyone can ever do with his or her life.”