"Just Do It,"
A paper presented at an international
"Environment and Human Rights in the Russian Federation."
Principle sponsors: The Center for Democracy (USA),
The Center for Russian Environmental Policy (Moscow).
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
Washington, DC, November 6, 2001.
Can the coordinated efforts of non-governmental scientists, activists and
organizations significantly affect governmental policy? Clearly, the
evidence of recent history is that it can. Citizen action in the United
States ended the Viet-Nam War and enacted reforms in civil rights. And in
Russia, citizen resistance thwarted the communist counter-revolution of
However, I would like to relate another case in which the initiative of
scientists in both Russia and the United States, with the support of
non-governmental organizations and foundations, significantly and favorably
affected government policy. While I was not a participant in this
initiative, I was a friend and colleague of some who were, and thus an
It had to do with seismic verification of compliance with nuclear test ban
treaties in the mid-eighties. Among the many heroes of this story are three
American scientists, seismologists Charles Archambeau and Jack Evernden, and
physicist Thomas Cochrane of the Natural Resources Defense Council. In
addition, there were four Russians, Roald Sagdeev, Evgeny Velikhov, and
Boris Gokhberg, all of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and of course Mikhail
Recall the US policy in 1986 – a year after Mikhail Gorbachev became the
General Secretary of the CPSU, and at the onset of glasnost. The official
position of the Reagan Administration at that time was (a) that seismic
verification of compliance with a non-testing agreement was impossible –
"weak science" (sound familiar?), (b) even if verification were possible,
the Soviets would never allow the required seismic stations to be set up on
their territory. Accordingly, (c) the US was obliged to continue its
Notwithstanding all this, in July, 1985, Gorbachev initiated a unilateral
test ban which was to last for nineteen months, during which time the US
would conduct 25 underground tests in Nevada.
From 1984-86, I was a research associate at the University of Colorado,
studying earthquake prediction under a grant from the National Science
Foundation. My office was close to that of Charles Archambeau. In a private
conversation early in 1986, Archambeau told me of his recent trip to Moscow.
During an informal conversation among Russian and American scientists,
Archambeau and other Americans pointed out that with available scientific
methods and technology, detection of nuclear tests was a virtual certainty.
The instruments were sufficiently sensitive to identify yields of one
kiloton at the most, and with extensive monitoring, much smaller than that.
(The difference in the seismographic profiles of earthquakes and explosions
are immediately recognizable, as explained in the note below). However, this
would require placement of seismometers near the test sites, and of course
the Soviet government would never allow this.
"Don't be so sure of that," replied Dr. Velikhov. "Let me ask the Chief,"
meaning Gorbachev. A couple of days later, Velikhov told the Americans,
"Gorbachev says OK. Now how soon could you get those instruments to the test
site at Semipalitinsk?"
What followed is a long and complicated story which I cannot relate with my
limited time, but which in any case was extensively covered at the time by
the press. The gist is this: the NRDC and the Soviet Academy launched a
joint project to set up seismic stations at the test site in Kazakhstan, and
reciprocally in Nevada. (See the "References" at the foot of this paper).
The Reagan Administration was not pleased by this initiative. Assistant
Defense Secretary Richard Perle dismissed the project as "an absurd ...
private excursion," and there were numerous official complications, mostly
from the American side, involving visas and export permits for the
scientific equipment. Federal funding of Archambeau's unrelated research
projects was cut in half.
Conversely, the scientists had little
patience with the politicians. A typical response was that of Jack Everndon
(coincidentally, a US government employee):
"The history of opposition to a treaty
eliminating or severely limiting nuclear tests is a mosaic of
obfuscation, half-truths, and unadulterated lies. Although the voiced
arguments have usually been technical, the driving issues have been
political and emotional." (Everndon, 1988).
Thomas Cochran concurred:
"The Reagan Administration seems to be
afraid of scientific truth. The Administration stands in fear of a
research program designed to demonstrate verification of a comprehensive
test ban: a program which in fact improves its own capabilities to
verify the existing Threshold Test Ban Treaty." (Cochran, 1987).
Despite this mutual hostility, the project
proceeded since the prima facie absurdity of governmental
interference with this well-publicized cooperative scientific research
raised insurmountable public relations problems.
The important lesson here is that the Russian and American scientists did
not complain, or sulk, or launch a public relations campaign – they simply
acted. In response to the administration contention that "the science was
not up to the task," they conducted experiments and published their findings
in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Furthermore, the administration
argument that "the Soviets would never allow it" was demolished by those
standing seismic stations in Kazakhstan.
In this contest between political doctrine and scientific evidence and
methodology, science prevailed. Thus the US opposition to seismic
verification of test-ban compliance was swept away (though other official
objections survived). And while as recently as October, 1999, the US Senate
failed (by the narrowest of margins) to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, the practical result is that both Russia and the United States have
effectively ended nuclear testing.
All this was accomplished through the initiative of a few Russian and
American scientists, combined with the sponsorship of the NGO Natural
Resources Defense Council and the financial support of the Carnegie, Ford
and MacArthur Foundations, in the political context of glasnost and
This inspiring success story prompts the question: what additional joint
Russian and American initiatives in behalf of environmental protection,
human rights and civil society might be possible in these difficult times?
I would like to suggest a few.
Recent history offers numerous examples of how political biases and economic
interests have been overturned by scientific discovery. We were told that
the abolition of DDT would cause crop failures, and that auto pollution
controls were technologically unfeasible. Not so, as it turned out. Now we
are hearing similar warnings about a unacceptable consequences of curtailing
fossil fuel consumption and of the transition to a solar and hydrogen based
As with DDT and pollution control, it is time for the scientists to show
otherwise. Like the seismologists at Semipalitinsk, the better course of
action is not endless debate, but rather simple accomplishment. When the US
auto industry said that low-pollution and energy efficient vehicles were
"unfeasible," the Japanese proceeded to build such vehicles, and the US had
no choice but to follow. So when the automobile-petroleum industrial complex
tells us that hydrogen power is unfeasible and uneconomical, the appropriate
response is to build a hydrogen vehicle. "Just do it!"
What is one to do with an Administration which claims that warnings of
global climate change are based on "weak science," in the face of almost
unanimous scientific opinion to the contrary? Apparently, Bush-Cheney, Inc.
will be unmoved by further argument. So political pressure and public
opinion must alter their policies as scientific evidence apparently can not.
The scientific case must be brought to the media and to the people.
Scientists must leave the laboratories and classrooms and engage with the
public, demanding access to the popular media, and reviving the "teach-ins"
that were manifestly effective during the Viet Nam war. Furthermore, those
157 nations that signed on to Kyoto must insist that international
cooperation entails reciprocity. If the US government expects support on the
"war against terrorism," it must join the world-wide response to climate
change. Finally, the world scientific community must enlist the support of
that large segment of the American population that shares their concern
about global warming.
The struggle to wean industrial civilization from fossil fuel addiction, and
the associated dependence upon Middle-East oil, bears important implications
for the Russian Federation. In the transitional short-term, the Western
nations can break free of their accommodation with despotic petroleum
dynasties by assisting in the development of petroleum resources in Russia –
now the second largest producer of oil. The influx of foreign capital (if it
is not hoarded by the elites) can greatly benefit the Russian economy.
Meanwhile, with the long-term in mind, Russian and Western scientists and
technologists should work cooperatively to ease the inevitable transition to
the solar and hydrogen technologies of the post-petroleum era....
Technical Note: Nuclear tests
yield a "seismographic signature" that is unequivocally distinct from that
of an earthquake. (Seismologists call this the "focal mechanism"). Because
of the different velocity of "P-waves" (pressure waves) and "S-waves" (shear
waves), a seismograph can detect the distance, and thus the magnitude, of an
earthquake. Accordingly, three seismological stations are required to locate
the event (at the intersection of the distances separately calculated by the
stations). The initial pulse of a natural earthquake will move the station
either toward or away from the epicenter, depending upon the station's
location relative to the ruptured fault. That movement is indicated by
either an upward or downward initial movement of the recording stylus in the
seismogram. In a natural earthquake, one or two to the three stations will
record that downward pulse. With a nuclear test, all initial pulses will be
positive -- there will be no initial downward movement of the stylus.
Archambeau, Charles B., Verifying a Test Ban: "A New Approach to Monitoring
Underground Nuclear Tests," Issues in Science and Technology, Winter,
1986, p. 18.
Broad, William J., "Westerners Reach
Soviet to Check Atom Site," The New York Times, July 6, 1986.
Cochran, Thomas B (187)., "The NRDC/Soviet
Academy of Sciences Joint Nuclear Test Ban Verification Project," Physics
and Society, 16:3, July, 1987. P. 5.
Evernden, Jack F. (1988), "Lies that
Stopped a Test Ban," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October,
1988. p. 20.
Garelik, Glenn, "The Grounds for a Test
Ban Treaty," Discover, June, 1987. p.50.
Morrison, David C., "Test Ban Compliance:
Is Seismology Enough," Science, v. 236, April 24, 1987, p. 383.
Office of Technology Assessment,
Seismic Verification of Nuclear Testing Treaties, Congress of the United
States, Government Printing Office, May, 1988.