N.Z. won’t escape effects of N-war

Press, 2 May 1985, Page 9

N.Z. won’t escape effects of N-war

By

LIZ ROWE

New Zealanders must face up to the realities of a nuclear war, says the president of the Royal Society, Dr Ted Bollard.

Any ideas that we would escape the effects of a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere had to be forgotten, he said in Christchurch yesterday. Dr Bollard was the convener of a group of scientists who prepared a report, “The Threat of Nuclear War — A New Zealand Perspective,” for the Royal Society. The 80-page report was released on Monday. It paints a grim picture of life in New Zealand after a nuclear war, with the economic clock turned back to pioneering days. “Some people still think we would survive and would happily live an existence as our ancestors did 200 years ago,” said Dr Bollard. “That is all very well, but

we have all grown used to things like medicines, living in cities, communications and the like.” No-one could ever be 100 per cent sure of the facts when talking about nuclear war, but one of the aims of the report was to describe life after one and bring

people down to earth, he said.

Scientists had a responsibility to put the facts on paper as they saw them, said Dr Bollard. “Scientists are not going to sit dumb when there is something of concern that should be spoken about. We are putting our point of view and we have a right and a responsibility to speak up if we perceive a problem to be an important one for New Zealand. “People can make up their own minds, but we have a responsibility to offer ideas to help them do that.” Politicians here and overseas had criticised scientists for speaking on the nuclear arms race. In 1983 the American Physical Society passed a resolution calling on the President and Congress of the United States and their counterparts in the Soviet Union to limit nuclear arms.

stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and to reduce the chance of nuclear accidents. This drew an immediate and angry response from the United States Administration, which accused the society of playing politics. Most members of the Royal Society supported the resolution and the right to say what they thought, said Dr Bollard. “Scientists are citizens with all the rights and privileges of citizens to hold views on all issues and to give expression as they choose to these views,” said the report by New Zealand scientists. Many scientists deplored the diversion of research money into military things, when there were so many problems in the world, said Dr Bollard. “Money is being taken away from scientific effort into other problems such as famine, droughts and other disasters. “Scientists around the world have done a great deal to try and work towards a reduction in nuclear arms.” Dr Bollard said the Royal Society had wanted to send every school in the country a copy of the report for discussion, but had not been able to because of the cost. “We tried to make the report as informative as possible. A lot of the issues need to be taken further, but we hope it will start people thinking about things,” he said.