Technical difficulties put a damper on last night’s inaugural event of Penn’s chapter of Global Zero, a campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr. — a leading authority on arms control — addressed students via a live internet stream from Georgetown University, but sound problems prevented him from being heard.
Fourteen other colleges and universities joined Penn in launching their chapters of Global Zero last night, and many of them had trouble with the audio as well.
“Everybody’s bombarding [the organizers at Georgetown] saying they can’t hear,” said College senior Elyssa Emsellem, who founded the Penn chapter. “But isn’t [Graham] a good-looking man?” she joked.
Before Graham’s live stream, Emsellem and other event organizers played a YouTube video address by Queen Noor of Jordan, an advocate for Global Zero.
“We need you to be engaged,” she said in the video. “We need your chapters to develop the momentum that really will help President [Barack] Obama and the other world leaders who are working to end the scourge of nuclear weapons.”
Yesterday, the United Nations’ 15-member Security Council unanimously adopted a nuclear resolution drafted by Obama that resolved “to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.”
The resolution urged nations to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — which the U.S. has not signed — negotiate a ban on the production of fissile material used for nuclear weapons and strengthen the nonproliferation treaty, among other measures.
Penn’s chapter of Global Zero is joining the effort and hopes to spread awareness on campus.
“It becomes our duty and obligation as educated youth,” Emsellem said. “Global Zero is the only solution for a safe and peaceful world.”
Nine nations currently possess more than 23,000 nuclear weapons. Forty other countries have the technology to build their own nuclear arsenals.
Approximately 100 world leaders founded Global Zero last December with the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.
Its signatories include dignitaries such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev.
Emsellem said she got involved with the campaign after completing a summer internship at the World Security Institute, a global-affairs think tank.
“This is an international issue gaining lots of support,” she said.
The meeting of the Penn chapter was held in the Ben Franklin Room of Houston Hall with about 20 students in attendance.
