In the claustrophobia-inducing basement of University College, an unassuming office smaller than most tutorial rooms houses the headquarters of Science for Peace, one of the most vocal academic organizations in Canada.
Containing only a few chairs, a desk, and several filing cabinets, it’s surprising that this is the headquarters for an organization that is a registered NGO at the United Nations and calls hundreds of Canadian academics, from a diverse range of disciplines, its members.
Science for Peace was founded in 1982 by a small group of mathematics and science professors at the University of Toronto with the common aim of researching issues and educating the general public in order to promote peace. The group now has chapters at post-secondary institutions across Canada. It holds conferences, public forums, and publishes research with the aim of affecting change in government policy not only within Canada, but around the world.
The Responsibility of the Scientist
Chandler Davis, professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Toronto, aptly describes the founding members of Science for Peace who are still living — physics professor (emeritus) Derek Paul, chemistry professor (emeritus) John Valleau, and himself — as the ‘nucleus’ of the group. However, it was Eric Fawcett, a physics professor and the organization’s first president, who Davis considers to be the originator of Science for Peace.
“He was a remarkable man. He has since passed away, but Eric was in it from the beginning and was extremely active for his remaining life,” says Davis.
Science for Peace is now governed by an executive composed of six positions — a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and two members-at-large — as well as a board of directors.
When the organization was officially founded in 1982, the ongoing Cold War meant that the threat of nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union hung ominously over the world.
“We found ourselves in a situation where the danger of nuclear weapons and space-based nuclear weapons was not appreciated by the general public,” Davis reminisces.
“We were inspired by the idea of ‘the responsibility of the scientist’ to educate the public.”
Although he laments that the public is still not as concerned about the issue of nuclear weapons as the group would like, he considers it an important topic to accentuate within the public discourse.
“When nations build and store nuclear weapons, it’s a drain on society. It increases the hazard of nuclear accidents and increases the danger of accidental war. One of our original leading efforts was to explain the extent and nature of the danger to the public and the government. That was a main motivation for starting Science for Peace and it remains a vital issue to the organization today,” says Davis.
Three decades have now passed since the group’s founding and although their stance on nuclear weapons has not changed despite the end of the Cold War, the list of issues that Science for Peace addresses has grown exponentially.
“The moral issue of the responsibility of the scientist remains the same, but the specific policy questions and the specific scientific questions have broadened. We don’t consider ourselves outside our domain when we take up climate change or oil dependency,” says Davis.
They’ve got issues
Last December, the group drafted a letter urging the Harper government to take immediate action to curb Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. The letter was published on the Science for Peace website and was signed by nearly 600 faculty members from a wide range of disciplines and institutions across Canada.
More recently, Science for Peace organized a climate change talk at the Faculty of Music’s MacMillan Theatre. The talk featured the presentation of revered and controversial climate scientist Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, as well as Canadian activist and author Naomi Klein and environmental and aboriginal activist Clayton Thomas Muller.
Science for Peace has also lobbied the Ontario government to act quickly to reduce the province’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“We arranged a meeting with provincial legislators, along with Dr. Hansen, to speak about climate change. Premier McGuinty dropped by. I wouldn’t say he necessarily had a great learning experience, but some of the legislators who were there were very much clued in and aware of the issues,” says Davis.
Like many other organizations that lobby for political action against climate change, Science for Peace’s experience with the government, at both the federal and provincial levels, has frustrated some of its members.
Davis shares a disheartening anecdote about the plight of the climate change scientist attempting to convince the government that something must be done quickly.
“I can’t recall if it was Hansen or one of the other emissions control advocates who said he’d been told by a contact within the government that the trouble with trying to influence politicians is when you tell them that there’s a serious problem with emissions and something must be done or the change will be irreversible in 50 years, the politician’s response is going to be ‘Come back in 49 years.’”
We’ve found out relatively recently that the time scale to do something about climate change is much shorter than we had initially thought, but that’s still not enough to impress some politicians,” says Davis.
Although the scope of Science for Peace has broadened, with climate change research and advocacy taking up a considerable amount of the group’s time and resources, the danger of nuclear weapons is still one of its central issues.
“Last year we organized a conference on nuclear weapons, where we focused on the need for nuclear states and the international community to strengthen the treaties on nuclear disarmament,” says Davis.
“The issue remains extremely alive and complex,” he adds. “The major nuclear powers have not disavowed the objectives of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which states they must gradually disarm, but at the same time they have not set a timetable for disarmament. It’s not as much of an uphill struggle as some of the initiatives we support because we’re just asking most governments to do what they’ve contracted to do.”
While nuclear weapons and climate change are the two principle issues that concern Science for Peace, current president Judith Deutsch asserts that the organization’s relatively small size allows members to easily bring issues to the attention of the group that they have researched and believe to be important.
“Our members are concerned about many different issues, so because it’s small, it calls for a lot of personal initiative and requires members to keep an open mind towards a lot of issues. It offers a very good avenue for working on a range of hugely critical problems,” explains Deutsch.
“I think in many ways this is very advantageous,” she adds. “People have a lot of individual responsibility to investigate and research issues. People enter into this organization and sometimes there will be an issue they feel strongly about, that Science for Peace has not worked on before and inevitably, they can find others to collaborate with. It’s quite possible, as a group, to develop some kind of position.”
Peace and Conflict
The organization has members who are well-known and respected inside the scientific community as well as members who lack formal scientific training, but have been tremendously influential and successful within other disciplines and professions.
Famed Canadian diplomat and former chancellor of the University of Toronto George Ignatieff was president of Science for Peace from 1986 to 1988.
Davis cheerfully recalls Ignatieff’s tenure as president as helpful in bringing much needed public attention to the group.
“George was not a scientist, but his sympathy toward the aims of the organization was so clear. His public statements were so useful and we were really delighted to have him as president,” he says.
Other past presidents have not been notable Canadian public figures but have nevertheless been extremely influential outside of their disciplines.
Another founding member of Science for Peace, mathematical psychologist, Anatol Rapoport also founded the University of Toronto’s prestigious Peace and Conflict Studies program.
“Following his retirement and without a salary, Anatol erected and taught the program in peace studies at University College,” explains Davis.
“It’s now called the Peace and Conflict Studies program,” Davis adds, “and the director Ron Levi has a regular salary, but it was started by Science For Peace and was very successful which is why it has continued to this day.”
Gray Matters
“Science for Peace was founded by a group of people in their forties. A lot of the same people are still around and they’re not in their forties anymore,” Davis jokes.
To ensure that their glory years are not behind them, the Science for Peace executive have been actively recruiting younger faculty members and undergraduate students to combat the noticeable graying of their membership.
“We’ve added new, younger members to the board and we’ve had a number of people interested in new activities, including some at the undergraduate level,” says Davis.
“We have many students who are active so there may eventually be an undergraduate chapter, but that’s a bit premature to announce.”
“We’ve been able to bring in people from many different fields and backgrounds, people from different countries and ethnic groups,” adds Deutsch.
“Over the next little while we’re also going to try and involve students a lot more and hopefully have some open meetings that students can attend and learn about the issues that we focus on.”
Whether Science for Peace will successfully recruit younger faculty members to carry on their tradition of “the responsibility of the scientist” and continue to grow and remain relevant as a research and education organization has yet to be seen. However, as the climate change debates rage and disputes over nuclear weapons treaties continue to intensify — their message seems as relevant today as it did three decades ago.
