While the current COVID-19 pandemic has us focused on our vulnerability to communicable disease, it should also serve as a wake-up call to the cataclysmic impact that would befall the world if nuclear weapons were ever to be used again. Prof Richard Lilford, ARC WM Director, along with colleagues from ARC WM, and Prof Andrew Futter (Professor of International Politics at University of Leicester), have recently published an article arguing that there is an urgent need for renewal of public education, interest, and activism in reducing nuclear dangers. The article covers the consequences of nuclear attacks; how a nuclear incident may arise; quantifying the risk of nuclear events; public perceptions and social concern; and lessons to be learnt.

It is available online in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. 2020; 76(5).