A Conversation with Joan Rohlfing
Who Is?
iHeartRadio + NowThis
4.1 • 803 Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2021
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Does the nuclear command authority of the United States protect the world from an ill-considered strike by the Commander in Chief? Short answer: No. Before 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, many people may have thought that existential risk was the stuff of science fiction. Not anymore. Joan Rohlfing has been working on managing existential risk for decades. From arms control to disarmament, she has had a hand in almost every conceivable aspect of the nuclear portfolio. And while an intentional or inadvertent use of nuclear weapons could conceivably end the human story at any moment, Rohlfing is optimistic. Nuclear is a solvable problem, and the solutions we might imagine and enact--from international cooperation to technology innovation--offer models for mitigating existential risk elsewhere. On “Who Is?” this week, it’s the end of the world, and what we can do to prevent it.
- Joan Rohlfing, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 1945 was a game changer in the history of humanity. |
| 0:04.3 | It's the point at which we crossed the threshold where we could destroy the species for the first time. |
| 0:11.5 | How often do you think about nuclear weapons? |
| 0:14.9 | Is it about as often as you thought about pandemics in 2019? |
| 0:20.1 | I'm Sean Morrow, and this is Who Is? |
| 0:23.0 | The podcast from Now This and IHeart Radio, where we examine power through the stories |
| 0:27.7 | of people who have it. |
| 0:29.8 | One weird power that a few people on Earth hold. |
| 0:33.4 | The internationally legal ability to vaporize millions of people in an instant. |
| 0:39.3 | I really wanted to know. |
| 0:41.3 | How worried should I or anyone else be about the possibility of nuclear war, right now, |
| 0:47.3 | as we're starting year two of another apocalyptic scenario? |
| 0:51.3 | Today, for another special, uncut interview edition of Who Is, I got |
| 0:56.2 | in touch with Joan Rolfing, president and chief operating officer of the Nuclear Threat |
| 1:01.3 | Initiative. I'm Joan Rolthing. I'm an expert in national security issues who has focused |
| 1:07.9 | most of my professional life on understanding threats from nuclear weapons |
| 1:11.6 | and on working to mitigate and eliminate those threats. |
| 1:15.6 | I'm currently the president of an organization called the Nuclear Threat Initiative. |
| 1:21.6 | What is non-croliferation and why did you choose to devote your life to this field? |
| 1:25.6 | Well, I'm so glad you ask that because I'll start by saying, I really don't like the word nonproliferation, |
| 1:33.3 | don't like to use that word to describe my work. |
| 1:36.3 | Nonproliferation is one of those words, you know, starting with the word non. |
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