COAA News college of the atlantic association june 1986 Printed below are responses to our previous Forum books, or even books that broach the subject, but topic. In the last issue of COAA News we posed the literature. Poetry and fiction that try to plumb question "How doesthe threat of nuclear war creep humanity (perhaps even human ecology) on a small into your day-to-day life?" Our thanks to the people scale, SO that each person who reads them might be below who responded with their thoughtful essays. just enough changed to effect change on a larger scale. Small comfort this, but comfort. When I was growing up with a father in the Pentagon I had one false comfort. I did not then have the sense George Benington there was something I could be doing to improve the situation but was not. I am now acutely aware of my "The Promise of World Peace" is a document mortality. I am informed enough of the world around recently released to the peoples of the world. It is the me to better sort out right from wrong (or at least better Baha'i statement on Peace. The treatise defines the from worse). And I am publishing books--not politcal nature of man, identifies the major issues surrounding the attainment of world peace, suggests a long-overdue' meeting between all the world's leaders addressing the peace issue, and enjoins upon all humankind to take heart. For the first time in history it is possible for everyone to view the entire planet, with all its myriad diversified people, in one perspective. World peace is not only possible but inevitable. It is the next stage in the evolution of this planet--in the words of one great thinker, 'the planetization of mankind.' The authors state, "Banning nuclear weapons will not remove the root causes of war." And further, 11 the abolition of war is not simply a matter of signing treaties and protocols, it is a complex task requiring a new level of commitment to resolving issues not customarily associated with the pursuit of peace." We do well to study this statement , for in SO doing our understanding of the meaning of world peace broadens, hence our efforts in one vein or another gain relevancy to the entire task before us. TTTTY Frances Pollitt Langford TTTT Cassandra, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo. However, he subsequently made the gift worthless by causing COAA NEWS 1 everyone to disbelieve her. The name is thus applied COAA News to those whose forecasts of doom are generally College of the Atlantic Association disbelieved. Since much of Human Ecology involves Bar Harbor, Maine bad news about paths of society, and since most of Arlington, Massachusetts society isn't interested in bad news, much of the "environmental movement" suffers from the Cassandra syndrome. The problem of nuclear annihilation is Staff: persistently the worst news of all, and thus suffers the Jean McHugh, Editor syndrome most. Andrew Bennett, Graphics and Pasteup Bruce Friedman, Computer Operations What does the scientific point of view suggest? Jill Kolva, Asst. Editor Unfortunately, science seems to have an infinite Janey Winchell, Class Notes Coordinator capacity for diffusing issues with an erudite verbal haze. Massive armies of experts, each proceeding down a slightly divergent path (the crucial rule of With help at COA: "original contributions") have a hard time agreeing on anything that, distilled to its essence, doesn't sound Sally Crock like a restatement of the problem. We must give science credit, however, for honest intent and proceeding as far as good definitions of the problem. The COAA News is a production of the COAA Communications Committee. And what have I been doing? What gives me the right to take such a categorical, pessimistic swipe? Not a lot, I must admit, not a lot. A few years ago, a group of young "name scientists," i.e. Stephen Jay Gould and Carl Sagan, first proposed and then carefully defined the nuclear winter problem. This was not accepted at all by some of the more senior scientists congenial to the Reagan administration. There were other senior scientists, however, who could accept the nuclear winter idea immediately for the simple, drastic calamity it represents. One of these, fortunately, was my father-in-law, Herbert Simon. We sat beside the Christmas tree as he wrote a guest editorial for Science, pointing out that the nuclear gun was impossible to aim, and was likely to destroy the 16. 15.1 16.1 2 COAA NEWS 6 .02 civilization that launched it just as surely as the one it was aimed at. I was a bit more in touch with what the younger scientists had been up to, and SO was able to modify a few things and then edit the piece, which was subsequently published in Science and noted by the New York Times. Perhaps I helped a little, but it's a mighty, mighty thin straw to be clutching. Bruce Bender The Nuclear Question is as impossible to discuss as the God Question. Most of us see the solution as 8.01 obvious, but that does not mean that in a crowded room our solutions would not themselves become engaged in battle. While the Nuclear Question may be that I keep at it, the more powerful are my efforts at complex, it is fairly clear at this point that the result of communication. The more powerful my efforts, the a Nuclear Event of any kind, intentional or accidental, more far-reaching. The more far-reaching, the more will result in the absence of life. effective, the more dangerous. It is all that I can do. Nothing and everything There are those who might say that life as we would encounter it following a Nuclear Event would be Enclosed please find a series of photographs from a superior to life under any flag other than our own. larger series titled: "Shooting at Strangers". These Better dead, than red. I, for one, disagree. I am images represent street photography as a predatory presently working with nearly 100 artists living in experience, one extreme to which people who have "red" nations. I know that they are not free. Some of lost the ability to communicate might go. The "X" them are definitely not safe. But all of them would represents, among other things, the power of denial rather be red than dead. Most of them have found and destruction in the hands of the one who pushes the subtle methods for avoiding both. trigger. It presents the viewer with the negation of life. It will take subtle methods for devising life without the nuclear threat. In fact, despite all the talk, I'm not sure The rarely exhibited prints of these images measure that life without the nuclear threat is even possible approximately three by five feet, printed on a machine now. Thus: What can be done? called the "Giant Xerox". To stand alone in a large room full of them is to experience them as familiar In my work as an artist dealing primarily with channels scenes from life as we know it which, following a of communication, I believe that the only solution is to Nuclear Event, might never be repeated. transform every possible breath with the strength of my beliefs. This is exhausting. However, the longer J.P. Jacob COAA NEWS 3