Gerald E. Marsh

This is a Convocation Lecture given at Monmouth College on 18 November 2003. It was given in the context of Technology and the Human Condition and is still relevant today.

MONMOUTH COLLEGE LECTURE

If the number of nuclear weapons is to be further reduced in the future, it is important that they be deployed in a survivable mode if their reduction is not to lead to an increased probability of use. Reducing nuclear force levels can lead to instability in a time of crisis.

The following letter was published in the June 5/June 6 2010 UK edition of the Financial Times:

“UK must keep to sea-based deterrent

The possibility was recently reported by James Blitz (‘Nuclear warhead total revealed’, May 27) – with regard to the Strategic Defence and Security Review – that according to ‘Whitehall insiders’ the SDSR ‘will contain an examination of whether Britain should move to a land or air-launched deterrent’. Such a move should be rejected.

The reason is simple: a British air or land-based deterrent is not survivable. This means there is an enormous incentive to move to a launch-on-warning policy. Nuclear forces must be survivable if the probability of nuclear use is not to be increased with decreasing arsenals. For countries without strategic depth like Britain and France this means a sea-based deterrent. That is why France has already eliminated its land-based nuclear component.

If Britain is to maintain a survivable deterrent it will have to anti-up the cost for new Tridents as the existing force ages. A minimum of three is needed to maintain one in its operational area – ie, one on alert, one in transit (where it could be vulnerable), and one in dry dock.

If we are to move to a world where the number of nuclear weapons is much reduced, careful attention must be paid to force-structure.”

Slides from a talk given at the Faculty Club of the University of California, Berkeley on 29 May 2010 for A Celebration of Hugh DeWitt’s Contributions on His Eightieth Birthday .

Climate Change: The Sun’s Role-DeWitt Symposium 29 May 2010-Viewgraphs

A talk given on 18 May 2010 at the 4th International Conference on Climate Change.

2010 International Conference on Climate Change

An exchange in Nature on the reliability of of U.S. nuclear weapons and the need for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).

Nature 12Nov09-Warheads

USA Today Magazine (November 2009)

“The real tipping point for civilization is the beginning of another Ice Age–not a world a few degrees warmer.”

USA Today Mag-Nov09

Physics & Society Vol. 38, No.3 (July 2009). Coauthored with George S. Stanford.

Three initiatives that the Obama Administration can undertake that would greatly increase nuclear stability and enhance the non-proliferation regime for many years to come.

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USA Today Magazine (May 2009)

The U.S. is bogged down in tactical responses to Taliban initiatives. Little by little, the Soviet experience is becoming more and more relevant.

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Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism Vol. 17 (1), Spring-Summer 2009
Creationism and Science

As fundamentalist religious thought strengthens its hold on U.S. politics, and increases its role in politics around the world, enlightened values that form the very foundation of modern society are coming under attack. In the United States the wedge issue being used by fundamentalists is a pseudo-debate over creationism and Darwin’s theory of the descent of man.

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To appear in Climate Change, Ed: Siddhartha P. Saikia (September 2009).

In 2005, the Royal Society published a report titled Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.  The report’s principal conclusion—that average ocean pH could decrease by 0.5 units by 2100—is demonstrated here to be consistent with a linear extrapolation of very limited data.  It is also shown that current understanding of ocean mixing, and of the relationship between pH and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, cannot justify such an extrapolation.

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