This TED Talk features nuclear reformer Erica Gregory, recorded live at TED Women 2016.

Let me ask you all a question.

How much weapons-grade nuclear material do you think it would take to level a city the size of San Francisco? How many of you think it would be an amount about the size

of this suitcase? Okay. And how about this minibus? All right. Well, actually, under the right circumstances,

an amount of highly enriched uranium about the size of your morning latte would be enough to kill

100,000 people instantly. Hundreds of thousands of others would become horribly ill,

and parts of the city would be uninhabitable for years, if not for decades. But you can forget

that nuclear latte because today's nuclear weapons are hundreds of times more powerful, even than those we dropped on Hiroshima

and Nagasaki. And even a limited nuclear war involving, say, tens of nuclear weapons could lead

to the end of all life on the planet. So it's really important that you know that right now we have over 15,000

nuclear weapons in the hands of nine nations. And if you live in a city or near a military facility,

one is likely pointed right at you. In fact, if you live in any of the rural

areas where nuclear weapons are stored globally, one is likely pointed at you. About

1,800 of these weapons are on high alert, which means they can be launched within 15 minutes

of a presidential command.

So, I know this is a bummer of an issue, and maybe you have that, what was it,

psychic fatigue that we heard about a little bit earlier.

So I'm going to switch gears for just a second, and I'm going to talk about my imaginary

friend, who I like to to talk about my imaginary friend,

who I like to think of as Jasmine, just for a moment.

Jasmine, at the age of 25, is part of a generation that is more politically and socially engaged

than anything we've seen in 50 years.

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