The human race has come to a key tipping point

WITH reference to the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons.

Can it be, I wonder, that the human race has come to a key tipping point? One in which we are no longer content to be victims of some monstrous military machine?

Such was a question asked by Setsuko Thurlow in her speech in Oslo as co-receiver of the Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday, December 10.

She had been 13 when the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. A pupil in a high school destroyed that day, she lived on; now known as a “hibakusha” or survivor; fortunate not to die then, or later of radiation sickness.

For seven decades Setsuko has worked for the abolition of nuclear weapons. She has allies of course - the human race!

Peace groups - 468 of them - joined in the efforts of ICAN (International campaign to Abolish nuclear Weapons).

Collectively the realisation of our tipping point that such weap- ons and humanity cannot coexist.

At noon on December 10, speeches began to be streamed live from Oslo. A group of Loughborough citizens watched the event which was shown at Frederick Street United Reformed Church.

Due to snowy conditions, the attendance might have been larger. The group, including our MP Nicky Morgan, were privileged to view the speeches. It seemed like a momentous occasion.

Local peace groups such as Loughborough peace group, who organised the above event invite readers to join them now.

Why, you may ask, should you bother?

Because we do not have the luxury of expecting to survive the next nuclear war.

Let us work to make it impossible for there ever to be such a war. It would have no survivors.