Peace Policy Spotlight: Nuclear War and Climate Change
This episode of Peace Policy, focuses on the co-mingling of two existential crises of our time: the threat of nuclear war, and potential planetary destruction through climate change. Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies, served as the faculty editor of Peace Policy. She is joined by George A. Lopez, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies and the guest editor of this Peace Policy issue, for a conversation about essays from our expert contributors, ranging from environmental and nuclear risks in Ukraine, to Pope Francis, to climate change. Contributors to this issue of Peace Policy include Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; Drew Marcantonio (Ph.D. '21), Department of Management & Organization within the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, as well as a faculty fellow with the Kroc Institute, and Kristina Hook (Ph.D. '20), an assistant professor of Conflict Management with Kennesaw State University in Georgia; and Jerry Powers, director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the Kroc Institute and coordinator of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network. Read all articles in this issue at peacepolicy.nd.edu.
Experience the Episode
Presented by Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
This episode of Peace Policy, focuses on the co-mingling of two existential crises of our time: the threat of nuclear war, and potential planetary destruction through climate change.
Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies, served as the faculty editor of Peace Policy. She is joined by George A. Lopez, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies and the guest editor of this Peace Policy issue, for a conversation about essays from our expert contributors, ranging from environmental and nuclear risks in Ukraine, to Pope Francis, to climate change.
Contributors to this issue of Peace Policy include Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; Drew Marcantonio (Ph.D. ’21), Department of Management & Organization within the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, as well as a faculty fellow with the Kroc Institute, and Kristina Hook (Ph.D. ’20), an assistant professor of Conflict Management with Kennesaw State University in Georgia; and Jerry Powers, director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the Kroc Institute and coordinator of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network. Read all articles in this issue at peacepolicy.nd.edu.
This episode was originally published by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies on December 6, 2023. To explore the entire library of Kroc Cast podcast episodes and for more information , please visit kroc.nd.edu.
MoreMeet the Faculty: Atalia Omer Ph.D.
Atalia Omer Ph.D. is professor of religion, conflict, and peace studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. She is a core faculty member of the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. She earned her PhD in religion, ethics, and politics (November 2008) from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. Her research focuses on religion, violence, and peacebuilding as well as theories and methods in the study of religion and Palestine/Israel.
Meet the Faculty: George A. Lopez
George A. Lopez is the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, where he was a founding faculty member. He is a leading expert on economic sanctions, peacebuilding, and various peace-related issues. As a logical extension of his teaching and research with the Kroc Institute, Lopez has engaged in a diverse set of policy and public roles. He served as interim executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1997 and chaired its Board of Directors (1998-2003), presiding over changing the hands of the Doomsday Clock in 2002. As a senior research associate at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in New York City from 2001-2002, he assisted with the Council’s post-9/11 public programming throughout the U.S. From 2013-15, he was the Vice President of the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, D.C.
Since 1992, Lopez has advised the United Nations, various international agencies, and governments on economic sanctions issues, ranging from the design of targeted financial sanctions to redressing their negative humanitarian impacts. He has written more than 40 articles and book chapters and authored or edited six books (often with Kroc Institute faculty member David Cortright) on sanctions. Lopez and Cortright’s research detailing the unlikely presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was published before the 2003 Iraq War as “Disarming Iraq” in Arms Control Today and after the war as “Containing Iraq: the Sanctions Worked” in Foreign Affairs. In 2010-11 and again in 2022-23 Lopez served on the UN Panel of Experts (1874) for monitoring sanctions on North Korea. In 2022 he co-founded https://ahsrproject.org to address the negative impact of economic sanctions on innocent populations.