All right, so I'm going to start with introducing our moderator for today's event. So Dr. Gregory's than men and it is an associate professor in the School of Literature, Media and Communication at it. His research interests include experimental film and media artist film and video, digital aesthetics, the moving image online and early computer phones is riding on film and media has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and October, among other publications, is also the curator of 75 pons, a public program of moving image are projected on the side of an eight story building in Atlanta. Also programmed film and media art at the filmmakers co-op, the Museum of the moving image. It's just society New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. He also recently served as a Technical Consultant for Ad Astra, which is a film. Please go check it out. And he's currently consulting on a documentary about the future of computing for IBM. He is the author of making images move handmade cinema and other, and the other arts. University of California Press 2020 and co editor of we are in open circuits writings by Nam June pack, the MIT Press 2019. Welcome and thank you so much for moderating today's discussion doctors than men. Thanks so much and thanks for that. Very kind and generous introduction. Hi everyone. Delighted that you can be here both in person and on screen. Just to let you know, this is part of the Global Media Festival, which is Georgia Tech's annual film and discussion series which focuses on sustainability across languages and cultures, was founded in 2017. It's organizing group drawn largely from the Modern Languages and from LMC. The festival explores the United Nations sustainable development goals through film screenings, Q&As master classes and roundtable discussions like we're going to have This afternoon. And this year's very relevant theme is the UN Sustainable Development Goal, number 16, which is peace, justice, and strong institutions. And I just want to thank Amanda y's are Festival Director for all of the work that she's done in programming and coordinating, and also to make carver the assistant coordinator, Nasir to Catherine Nazi, public programming and community engagement for our library. So thanks to all of you for making all this happen. And now I'd like to introduce our panelists for our discussion today. We have with us and good morning to Robert Bo Jacobs, who is a professor of history at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Graduate School of Peace Studies at Hiroshima City University. Bows, a historian of nuclear technologies and radiation Techno Politics. His book, nuclear bodies, the Global, have a cushy, published by Yale University Press this year, presents over a decade of field research and more than 20 countries on the effects of exposures individuals and communities to radiation from nuclear weapons, testing, production and accidents globally. He's published multiple books and articles and nuclear history and culture, academia. It's actually the second career fibo with the former life and was a chef and worked in the organic produce industry. So welcome. Thank you for being here. Also with us today. Meg and marts as the Senior Associate Director of Development at the Carter Center. She's responsible for cultivating and maintaining relationships with individuals and foundations across Asia in order to support the central piece in health programs. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Megan spend an average of 90 days out of the country each year visiting donors and cross specs in Asia and participating Carter Center projects in Africa. In 2019, she served as an expert on Chinese aid in Africa at the Yale Africa China conference. And I are probing Kenya. Before joining the Carter Center in 2013, Meghan worked as an International Trade Program Coordinator for the Georgia development of economic development. As a consultant for the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Meghan has a bachelor's degree in international affairs and modern languages in Japanese, and a Master's in International Affairs from Georgia Tech. So welcome back, Meghan. Thank you for being here. Thanks to you both for being here and look forward to a stimulating conversation about peace today. And just to orient ourselves, I was wondering if both of you could reflect upon a question that immediately springs to mind when we have discussion like this. What does the City of Peace, how does the city achieve that designation? What kinds of institutional coordination is required pursue peace to become a city of peace? And is there a relationship between various cities of peace or do they operate independently? These are things or at least help us orient ourselves as we begin this discussion, Meghan, perhaps we could begin with you. Great. Thank you so much Greg. I think that ball will have a different perspective coming from Hiroshima, which I think in terms of being a city of peace, is a little more official and structure. Whereas Atlanta, I know there's been an initiative working towards that, making that part of our city officially. But I don't know where we currently are. I believe that's installed a bit with COVID. But when I think about Atlanta being a city of peace, I think about we often quote from when Ivan Allen, the, you know, the namesake of our school, was mayor. Leanna was called the city, too busy to hate. And I think that's a great step toward the city of peace. Like starting their city of too busy to hate, moving towards peace. But Atlanta as a, I guess, informal city of peace, at least so far, it's a global city where the headquarters of global companies were an international travel HUB. We're welcoming refugees. We have multiple international, major international development organizations that are headquartered here. We're the home of two Nobel Peace Prize winner as Martin Luther King Junior and my boss, President Jimmy Carter. And so I think from the perspective of Atlanta, that is just something that we do. Less being so, like I said, is structured or as a formal accord, perhaps with a Hiroshima, but that is something that so many entities in Atlanta I have taken very seriously as part of their legacy that it becomes a part of the personality of our city. That's great. Thank you. Bo, could you talk a little bit about Hiroshima was a piece, please? Yeah, Hiroshima is somewhat unusual, I think among, among similar cities in the sense that it, it's not necessarily, it, it grew a culture in response to calamity, rather than had a culture in which piece was developing organically out of the community per se. I mean, we all know that what happened here in Hiroshima was the use of a nuclear weapon to destroy me, to kill the significant portion of the city's population and basically destroy the city and irradiate the city in, at the end of World War Two. And so hiroshima has this odd position of being, being thrust into being a city of peace by being chosen. The use of a new weapon during a war, though it be get rebuilt itself. In a sense, out of the ashes, out of the destroyed city. Most of the entire center of the city was gone. And it rebuilt itself as a city of peace. And its mission was really oriented entirely towards the specific weapon system that caused all of the destruction here. And so, while it is a city of peace, the peace culture here is very, very heavily focused on the abolition of nuclear weapons. So it's got a very clear agenda for what it would like to be able to influence and accomplish as a city of peace. And it's also, I think there are many sites of conscience as it are, that are places where genocides happen, places where horrible historical violence happened. And many of them, for example, like Auschwitz or like genocide sites and Cambodia or in Rwanda. They have to do with, with sort of conflict that existed in the community itself. And sort of trying to emerge from that conflict and trying to establish a peaceful orientation towards these past divisions and towards the future. Hiroshima became city of peace because of an attack by an enemy during wartime. And then immediately after that event, that enemy became the occupying governing power. And so the city of peace developed in the post-war era with complicated relationship both with local government, national government and national born policy. So the Hiroshima as a city of peace is driven very much by both civil society but also by local government. I work at the Hiroshima Peace Institute. I'm a city employee. I'm paid by the city government. The city, the peace museum. Most of the peace culture institutions here in Hiroshima are all funded by the city and by the taxpayer. So it's a governmental city of peace. And that there's still a tremendous amount of community action in this, in Hiroshima as well. But it just has created a dynamic that's a little bit specific for among cities, similar cities that orient themselves towards peace. That's fascinating. Well, can you tell us done this intersection of the academic with local government? You are in the Department of Peace Studies. How does that operate? How does that intersect with things like policymaking or diplomacy? How how does that happen in your department? Well, that's an interesting question in terms of origins, are our institute really came out of memory anxiety. It was as we were heading towards the 50th anniversary of the nuclear attack here, that there was this anxiety which has been ongoing in which is similar, for example, in Holocaust survivor communities that once this generation who experienced the historical disaster passes, how can we maintain the consciousness and the awareness of what happened? Here in Hiroshima, part of the idea was to establish API Study Center. So that, let's say a 100 years from now, the word Hiroshima will be linked to the word peace because of important academic piece studies work that comes from Hiroshima. And it was consciously modeled on the piece. It's similar piece institutes that originated in Scandinavia where peace studies originated as an academic field. So our, our institute is sort of broadly defined, but there are definitely a lot of people working on policy issues and working on nuclear abolition issues. And so some of them are consulting to UN processes. Some of them are consulting to Japanese government processes. So it's, it's, it's, it's not, it's, it's sort of broad, it's a broad spectrum approach, but there's definitely a particular focus on policy and analyzing and influencing policy. Again, specifically towards abolition of nuclear weapons. That's really interesting. Thanks for, thanks for that vote. And Megan, similarly, you're in a position where you're part of the Carter Center, which many of us in Atlanta are familiar with in one way or another. But we might not all be familiar with it's sort of overall mission and how your work plays a part in it. I'm thinking particularly Amanda was kind enough to tell me that you were working on a gift from this crucial piece. Could you tell us a little bit about though? Yes. So so I'll I'll start with the Carter Center. I'll move on to the piece fell off. So we were founded in Atlanta in 1981 after President Mrs. Carter left the White House. And our mission is to arm, our mission is waging peace, fighting disease and building hope. And while waging peace and fighting disease may seem like very different areas of work. They're actually quite intertwined. And so our piece programs, they include democracy, human rights, conflict resolution, rule of law, and then regional programs as well. And in health we focus on preventable neglected tropical diseases. And we fight these diseases with health education and delivery of medications. We also work to support maternal health and what we consider a neglected global disease, mental health around the world. And so those are, all seem very different. But when I say the programs are interconnected, I mean that it's very difficult to maintain peace and an area where there is a great lack of health care or a great lack of economic development. And it's also very difficult to provide health care and economic development in areas where there is no peace. So oftentimes our programs have to work together, waging peace and fighting disease in the same locations at the same time. Which is something we're doing right now in Sudan, trying to mediate conflicts so that our health care workers can get into areas that are currently unreachable. So I've been with the center since 2013 and as you mentioned, I'm responsible for our donors and partners across East Asia. Primarily, that means fundraising, but it also means that I have opportunities to work with programmatic partners around the region and represent the Carter Center at conferences and events. It also means that when someone is considering a gift to the Carter Center, that isn't typical, like fundraising support. I am the representative to help with that. And so that's how I got involved with this piece spell initiative that is very X I'm very excited about. And it's a wonderful connection between the Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Carter Center in terms of this conversation we're having today. If you if you've ever visited the Carter Center, There's this beautiful, very large, very heavy temple bell, Japanese temple bell right when you come inside our entrance, was gifted to the Carter Center by the Japanese consul general. And I believe 1985 as a gift to be a symbol of peace. And that was right after the, Surely I for the Carter Center opened. And two years later, there was a visitor from the Japanese diet, the Japanese government, that came and visited the center and discovered a small inscription on the bell saying that it was from a small village called coded show in Hiroshima Prefecture. So immediately the Carter Center and this members of the diet reach out to kinda show and say, we have your temple bell. And what we learn is that the bell had been removed from this temple during the war in order to be used by the Japanese military to be melted down and turned into ammunition. And it was one of only a few bells that survived the war that had been taken for that purpose. So there are some murky details on how it left Japan after the war. But I think we know oftentimes at the end of a conflict, antiquities end up in other locations. It made it to England, to a collector there and then was somehow sold to the Consulate General of Japan who gifted it to the Carter Center. But when the community of Kearney realized that their bell, which was supposed to be a weapon of war, was now a symbol of peace at an organization that was founded to promote peace around the world. They were thrilled and they've allowed us to keep it as a symbol of peace and as a symbol of friendship between Japan and America and Japan and Georgia at the center. Since then, a replica Bell was made in Show, show that is now housed in the original temple bell tower. President Carter has visited there multiple times. And now the Japan american Society of Georgia, along with multiple other local groups, are fundraising to create a replica bell tower on the Carter Center grounds. So we'll have the replica tower and the original Bell, Tonu, which is in Herschel prefix sure, as I mentioned, has the original tower and the replica bell. And we now that bell is no longer coin will no longer just sits in our lobby. It will be able to be wrong by any visitors as a symbol for peace and friendship between our communities as well. There's some real swords into plow share type of symbolism there. Tell us a little bit about what are the negotiations for something like that. I mean, when you you're you're speaking with representatives from a number of different, with another different interests. How do you end up saying, okay, this is going to end up at the Carter Center? Well, that was a concern at the beginning, which is far before long before I was at the Carter Center. But knowing that you have a, an important part of this community, a potent symbol of the community, their temple bell, and that it was taken during the war. The immediate concern was, do you want this back? I mean, that is the responsible ethical thing to do in that situation. So it was very exciting for everyone involved when they wanted us to keep that in, for it to be a connection. In fact sense then there is a small but active Institute that has been built in Conan show that also works as a smaller, much smaller than the Hiroshima, but a smaller Institute of Peace Studies. And we had a wonderful relationship with them. Since then. As this replica bell tower idea started just over a year ago. That has involved working with the city of Atlanta. It's interesting, the Carter Center is on city of Atlanta property, so we have the building, but the building is part non-profit, part Carter Center or National Archives, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, and then part city of Atlanta, Freedom Park. So there were a lot of different entities involved with getting permits and approval. I'm getting everyone on board to construct this. And when I say bell tower for those who may not be familiar, you might be thinking more of a western bell tower, but it has more of a pagoda shape. And that's going to hold the bell. We will be bringing in traditional construction artisans from Japan to complete this project so that it is as authentic, inaccurate as possible. And we'll be bringing in the materials from Japan as well. So it's pedal, really wonderful gift that we have the porters for the Carter Center who not just support our health and peace programs, but also want to support this symbol of peace for the city of Atlanta. I mean, this will be something that when people come on field trips are to come visit the Carter Center or even go to Freedom farmers market on Saturday. They can see this symbol of peace and they can ring the bell. That's great. Thank you. That's going to be wonderful. I know our students are always interested in origin stories and i'm, I'm, I'm someone who's interested in process, how how things get made, how things came to be. Wondering if you could both tell us a little bit about how you ended up doing, what you're doing. Now. Bo, I know you were a chef. How did Peace become a central aspect of your work? What, what drew you to the research that you're doing. And maybe you could tell us a little bit about your work. And you could explain to us all what the global HVAC who shot is. Certainly, yeah. Just in terms of origins, there were really kind of two critical pieces for me. One was being a young child during the 1960s. In the 1960s, the Vietnam War in the United States was almost like a TV show that was on every night because news crews had complete freedom to move around in the country. And therefore, there was unbelievably graphic footage on TV every night. And so I was a young boy and I was watching this and of course, horrified by the violence of warfare. And then I began to see coverage of people with signs that said stop the war. And as an eight year old I was like, that's just a great idea. And it just really oriented me towards the idea that we have to work to stop with that working to stop war was something we could do. But the, on the other side, if that was a separate experience at the same time really, which was being trained to survive nuclear war in school. It was the period of the Cold War, and I don't know that it was the duck and cover program that has kind of notorious for the Cold War. But it was a similar program when I was growing up where we would have a siren that meant there was a nuclear attack. And we would all go into the hallway and get down away from the windows in the hallway of the school and get down on the ground. And we were told that we had to be vigilant at all times when we were at school and away from school to be ready for a nuclear attack. And that the first sign of a nuclear attack would be this flash, this bright flash. We saw the flash. We had to get down to the ground. And I remember going home to my to my home that day after school and sitting on the steps in front of my house and just waiting for that flash, just being really vigilant in anticipating that flash. And I just had this vision of my house and all the houses around me like dissolving. And it terrified me. And and so part of the way that I coped with my distress was by studying, instead of being afraid of this monster, I tried to learn about this monster and I began reading books about the Manhattan Project and about nuclear weapons. And really I'm still doing that. I'm still managing that distress over the risk of the end of the world. And so, you know, so this is a show at a young age, I got an orientation and antiwar orientation from the reality of the Vietnam War being so vivid. And I got focus particularly on nuclear issues because of my own fear of my own mortality and a nuclear attack. And so, you know, these things, these things really dovetail together and, and oriented a lot of how I do my work. So here in Hiroshima, where there's a lot of memory culture around what happened. Now, the word hip OK Shah, in the title of my book, my book is called global nuclear bodies. The global hip OK shall have oxide is the Japanese word for survivors here in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the people who survived the nuclear attacks and global hip. Ok, she is taking that word. This isn't my idea. This is, people have been doing this for a little while and extending it to the community of people who have been exposed to radiation since 945. Because here in Hiroshima, we like, we like to think that nuclear weapons should never be used again. But they've actually been 2000 nuclear detonation since 945, all as tests. But especially because of the size of the weapons and the nature of things like radioactive fallout, people, millions of people have been exposed to radiation as a result of these tests. Also as a result of production. For example, at the Savannah River plant not far from Atlanta, where plutonium is manufactured. There's a lot of plutonium in the ecosystem around it from the production, workers are exposed. There's also been nuclear accidents like at Chernobyl or Fukushima. And part of, part of the, the focus that, that part of the focus of this work, of this global hip OK, shall work that I write about is that we, we tend to, for example, when we, when we say how many people were affected by Chernobyl, what we do is we count cancers. We say X number of people died, X number of people got cancer. But you had a million people evacuated from their homes. So you have a million people or more who lose their home, who lose their fields that they're farming in, who lose their connection to their graves of their ancestors. The disruptions of, of these events are, are massive, but we reduce them down to unknowable epidemiology. Who got sick, who got a cancer that we can say was related to this. Though we began to study my colleague and I from Australia, who has done the global kebab shop project. We began to study impacts on communities, the impacts on families and the impacts on people's stress and anxiety. And also I would just add that our medical model of how people are harmed by radiation was built here in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it's a very, very narrow model. It's a very useful statistical medical model, but it looks only at one kind of exposure to radiation, which is a single giant burst of external radiation, which is what happens when you're near a nuclear explosion. But what, what all of these people had been exposed to as radioactive fallout. Radioactive fallout that comes and falls out of the mushroom cloud afterwards. We have no health models, know from no effective health models for gauging the risks that people experience from that. It's just this last year in Hiroshima that the people who experienced that here, we're finally recognized as being effected by radiation and their illness as being related to it. So we look at these communities to see the impact of fall out and to try to expand out our understanding of what, what kind of harm was done to people globally around the world. But it really did begin very much when I was eight years old. That's remarkable. And I think one thing that lets you just draw it into relief by talking about it is that cheeses hard work and requires all kinds of interventions, not militaristic interventions, but other kinds of entities, humanitarian interventions. I mean, I think there is perhaps a cliched idea about peace as just backing off and letting things be when in fact, it requires getting one's hands dirty in a variety of ways. And so I really appreciate that. That made us think about that. For you. You've, you've traveled extensively, studied International Relations. Was peace always part of a conception of what you might do? Or did you come to that through the work or how did it happen? I think my journey has been both. What I think is my in my career path as well. A bit typical of a Georgia Tech student that is in liberal arts. But then also, I was I grew up in very rural Georgia. And so when I was trying to decide what I wanted to do and what I wanted to study. The idea of doing international affairs and going abroad was exactly what I wanted to do. I want it to go far away from where I started. And I knew at the time, maybe one person that had been to Japan in Japan also felt like As far away you get from rural Georgia, visit me. And so when I was looking at degrees, It's Georgia. And when I was looking at degrees and general international goals and Japanese like the perfect fit for what I was looking for. I, you know, if you asked on this, I think I've had so many interests within international fairs. That's been a really good thing because it has enabled me to enjoy multiple different projects that I've worked on and to get very excited about it, I never thought I'd be working in for a Public Health Organization and getting excited about that. But, you know, being a liberal arts student at an engineering school, my first couple of jobs out of college were as a data analyst related to international affairs work of so not the person that was really working on supporting these programs and getting heavily involved with them, but the person that was managing databases on. So I was really lucky when I came in at the Carter Center, I came in and that sort of role stayed behind my computer, just doing database work. And luckily, my interests, my strong interest and my background with my degrees from the Ivan Allen College and the SAM non-school and modern languages made it obvious to those around me that I had more to offer than just data analysis. And that has that's how I got into the position that I am today. When I talk to interns, when I talk to students that are talking to me about their career path, mine was one of having a lot of different interests and that working out for me. Because like I said, I've enjoyed every possible opportunity that has come out of this job and how it relates to international fairs. And the more things I can learn about peace and the diplomacy really is a big part of that, that I participate in often in my job. But the other thing is that I never set out to work in fundraising and partnerships. I did not know that this career existed. And I was I've been surprised to find out that a job I never knew existed is my absolute dream job. And so that's something that I like to, to talk about with students, is that there are a lot of options out there. If you're interested in pursuing, if you're interested in pursuing peace and diplomacy, there are a lot of different ways to participate in that. That's, that's great to hear. I mean, I think that's it's always it's always a comfort. Now that you know your, your career development doesn't have to be a straight line. That there are many paths that they may tank. You've run up something at the end of your comments about when you're talking to students about diplomacy, about kidneys. Don't think there's a question of what can individuals do to contribute to peace. It sometimes feels certainly in light of current events and in light of the sort of vast historical forces that bow is mentioned, that it can be daunting to say, okay, well what, what can I, as a single person do to contribute to the landscape of peace? Do you have any advice for us though? Perhaps you could speak to this first. Absolutely. I think about that all the time because nuclear weapons are one of those things that people think, what can I do too, have any effect on something like that? And there's a couple of things that I would say, one of which is that we all choose to make peace or not every day in our interactions with all kinds of people around us. And so by recognizing the dignity of other people, by showing respect for people, by showing empathy for the experiences of others. And an understanding that, you know, small harm does need to be addressed. That this is how piece gets made, is that we, we all do it between, between ourselves all the time in mundane ways. But that, that's really how, how peace or violence gets supported and legitimated. But one of the things that I would say for sort of big picture to look at, that's really very much always been inspiring to me is my own, my favorite author. My favorite novelist is a British novelist, Doris Lessing, who actually was the oldest Nobel literature winner ever. She wanted in her 90s. She's someone who was a child of the British Empire. She was born in what was Persia, grew up and what was Rhodesia now Zimbabwe. And she talks about how, when she was an older woman, all of the things that terrified her when she was a young woman, she was very politically active when she was young, partly because she grew up in Rhodesia and she was, so, she was so horrified by apartheid. And so the things that she thought were unchangeable, the big violent things in the world that she thought were unchangeable. Which to Hermann, the British Empire, and also Stalin's Soviet Union. That she as a young woman, felt like there's nothing that she can do about these thing. She's just some young woman in Rhodesia. You know, how can she have anything to do with them? But as an older person, these things that seem so unmovable to her are gone. And that this is one of the things we have to bear in mind is that in history, everything will go, everything will disappear. And so we should all remember that all of the little things that we do to work towards peace, to work against things like nuclear weapons. All of the little things that everybody does, as well as the big things like treaties. That's how that happens. That's how that disappears, is that people continue to move in the direction of abolition of nuclear weapons or, of, again, or opposition of war or opposition of colonial violence. And so we should take heart in those little things because those little things are apart of how history changes and movement happens. So I find that really inspiring because it's hard, it's hard to be the person in a position where you feel like you're changing history. And so we all just have to change our daily world. That's really the main thing we can do. Yeah. So it's a really it's a bottom-up yeah. Philosophy. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. I got the top. That's how the top stuff can happen too, is because the bottom-up has given it that, that heft, right? And hopefully, you know, the, the, the, the bottom-up pressure for peace would change the lives of those at the top or sway those at the top even though we see be quite, quite difficult. Megan, when you when you're working on these diplomatic initiatives, did you ever stop and think like, yeah, how can one person intervene? I mean, what, what can one person do in terms of what's the, what's the leap from a person, this bottom up idea to, to actually getting to help shape policy around peace. I love Bo's answer. I mean, that was a wonderful example of what I have dealt with most recently, is looking at how I've been very involved with the Carter Center's China program in particular. And, you know, it's no, it's no secret that the US China relationship has been very fraught over the past few years. And so a lot of our work that I support and have the honor to participate in sometimes is trying to increase people-to-people engagement. So that when there are. When there are disagreements or conflict at the highest levels of government. So between the heads of states of nations, there is a strong base of understanding among the people. And so that is, you know, education exchange between countries. And as Beau mentioned, learning about the humanity of other people. I mean, when you are focused on that and about understanding others, that is the, the perfect baseline to get started. And then you have, like I said, Education Exchange, non-profit organizations working together, understanding each other, partnering on other projects, and even businesses. Business exchange is another form of people-to-people exchange. And so really understanding each other. And those are things that you can participate in as an everyday citizen is learning about other groups, other people, and what you have in common, and seeing the world and seeing situations through their eyes. I mean, if you think about as we're talking about Atlanta as a city of peace, I mean, Martin Luther King Junior's quote about, I won't get it perfectly right off the top of my head. Peace not being just the absence of tension, but the presence of justice. I mean, that is something that, as we've seen in our country for a while now has been a focus of everyday people around the world and in our city. And how we can get involved in those efforts. Those show our leadership that we've elected. So also vote. That's a, that's a big part of this. That shows our leadership what our priorities are and what we as citizens expect in terms of higher level political decision-making and non negotiations. Thank you. Yeah, maybe we can use that as a segue to talk about current events a little bit. And moving from the individual to these, these telescoping out to these larger considerations of nation-states were obviously in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Emory have all had these roundtables about these, these international prices. Today Presidents Alinsky called for what he called the humanitarian no fly zone of the Ukraine and asked President Biden to be a leader, a piece. And I'm just wondering, you know, justice in it. Obviously, people feel very deeply for the plight of the Ukrainian people. And yet there's a question about what to do and how to do it. I'm wondering if you both could bring your experience to bear on what is a peaceful perspective on something as delicate, as fraud as the Ukrainian crisis right now, I mean bow, you were talking about that specter of nuclear war, you know, sort of hanging over you as a child. And I remember the same thing. And I remember when I no longer felt that way. And so it's been an unpleasant return to, to be worried about that. And so like your studies, that's probably more worried about this on a regular basis, the rest of us. But is there a school perspective on something like the Ukraine crisis? Well, I would say that, you know, that they're, there are violent forces and there are people who pursue violence for political and powerful reasons, which is what we're seeing and warfare. Warfare doesn't just happen when people make war. So in terms of resolving the conflict itself, That's difficult to talk about because we don't really, I don't think that I understand what this war is about. I, I mean, I have some ideas but I don't really know. And I, I support the people who really can do that kind of analysis. Especially the people in Ukraine and in Russia who understand the dynamics and the history behind it. Far more than, than those of us who, who haven't lived with that history. But what, so I think about what it is we can do and what it is we can do is to extend as much comfort and kindness to all of the people who are suffering as possible. And I think that there's a, there's a fairly good response that we see to the millions of people now who are suffering and who have left their homes and their belongings. And and I think clearly we need to take our compassion that we feel for people like this. And we need to extend it to others who also are suffering from warfare. For example, from Syria or from the various wars back I'm an American. So back by my government in the, in the mid-90s, there's, there, we need to, we need to understand that all of these people who are being impacted and who are fleeing and have great loss and have suffered violence. That first and foremost, we need to tend to them and care for them. Try to get them to safety, tried to help them to find a way to live within our societies until they're able to return to their own society if they choose to. So obviously there has to be some mediation at the level of, of government to government attempts to, to stop the warfare. But what we can do, what we can all do is try to take care of the people. And part of that is not just providing aid, but part of that is to deconstruct the sense of other, to deconstruct this sense of who gets to belong to our society and who doesn't. And to understand that all people escaping violence deserve comfort and deserve shelter, and that we can make peace. We can make a tremendous amount of peace in millions of people's lives in spite of the fact that governments are engaging in violence and warfare. So this is what I would say is the most direct thing. We have now one or 2 million people as refugees out of Ukraine. But given the style of warfare that is, that Russia has practiced in the last decade or two, this maybe 10 million people in a few months. And so we need to prepare for that by opening our hearts first and foremost. Thank you. Megan. I wonder there are discussions of the Carter center around this. I mean, obviously, nato and the United States have levied economic sanctions on Russia. And many people would say, Oh, well that's, that's good because it's not a military intervention. And yet, the outcomes of those economic sanctions do create public health crises. Food scarcity issues. These issues of migration that bot just mentioned, people of refugee populations. Is, it, is there when you think about this diplomatically and you've, you've seen these humanitarian crises in Asia, in Africa, in your own work. How, how does the Carter Center approach something like the Ukraine? Great question? And also from my my background with international affairs from the Ivan Allen College. I mean, the first thing I think of is that none of these are ideal options. The best possible option is a cease-fire needed immediately. And then we go from there. Now the question the $1 billion question is, how do we get that? And as I said, none of these options are great. So the best options we have at the moment are these negotiations at very high levels that are going on and currently not getting very far. The second best option is also not ideal and that's the sanctions that are attempting to force an eventual cease-fire by causing this economic disruptions. But of course, that is extremely difficult for the people on the ground. And you know, the difficulties that, that's causing and Russia to those who have no role in this whatsoever, it's still less difficult than what's going on for the citizens in Ukraine. It's not ideal, but until we can get a cease fire through diplomacy, That's, that's their next best way to force it. In terms of the Carter Center, we have long been seen as a convener of bringing groups together, bringing both sides of any situation together in order to negotiate for peace. So while we haven't previously been very involved in this region, we have a lot of connections and channels. I mean, our founder is a former president of United States. So the Carter Center is currently engaged through our connections and reaching out, encouraging conversation, cooperation. But it's still very early into this conflict and it's very fluid. So I think from what I understand, our role right now in our connections are changing as we're trying to adapt what we can do and which connections we can use. So I'm not in a position at the moment to speak too much on the Carter Center's approach. However, President Carter and the center have released statements condemning Putin's actions. President Carter has long been respected by the government of China based on his work with Deng Xiaoping to normalize US China relations in the seventies. And so he will be using those relationships as well to try to influence and encouraged China to take a more active role in influencing Russia toward a cease fire. So that's, that's where we are now and I'm sure our involvement will continue to grow. Thank you. Before we turn to questions from our audience and folks, feel free to drop questions in the chat and I can relay them to our panelists or you could raise your hand. But one thing that I was thinking about. We're approaching this discussion was conflict and war drive both politics and media in a number of ways and become part of our continual new cycle, our social media, et cetera. Are there any ways to address, are mediated, public in terms of Ps, to get the message out. How do you get a message about peace out there when we know conflict and war cell, both are alleged or yeah, I mean, that needless to say, we're all grappling with and especially the ways that social media and, and the new era of meal, what they call cheap speech, which is, you know, that, that anybody can be an authority on things. And, and so there's a motivation to be a shocking and outrageous as possible, because there's a reward for that. We're all grappling with exactly this new moment that we're in. Not that there wasn't, not the media wasn't an issue throughout the earlier wars. I mean, media was play has played a role In, in, in most organized genocides conducted by governments. Media was a critical factor in Cambodia, in Rwanda, in Nazi Germany. And so then as media has shifted, so has the ways we need to try to grapple with its use in stoking animosity and feelings of outrage or hatred. And so these are, these are definitely things that, that we need to try to address. And certainly in the US, you know, the, the, uh, you know, when President Carter was president, there was a Fairness Doctrine on television which Kept television news shows from advocating distorted or violent outcomes. And so that, that has been removed. This is the kind of mechanism. But that of course, was in a period of time when most Americans got their news from major news networks, major television networks. So I think that it's, it's, it's a really, it's an increasingly challenging time because we have seen with social media that there's a monetization to creating outrage and, and feelings of hatred. And there, there's got to be some means of, of regulating this. I think that I might, I would be an advocate of looking at certain aspects of Internet as utilities rather than as private, private companies. Because of the fact that they do control huge segments of the public space, of the commons and monetize it for, in ways that produce outcomes that are inherently by design negative. So the, but of course, how we get from here to there, I don't know. So, you know, there's an old saying among people who advocate for peace that more speeches better than repressing speech. But, but we definitely need to find ourselves being responsive to the moment that we live in because the conditions were living with are really different than the ones in which some of our truisms or ethics around how we build, the more, how we build a more kind society have really changed. So I, I think this is a huge issue for us. And and so this is a place where people can make a difference is to try to work on these problems and strategies of how to, how to alleviate the, the the violence that comes from this kind of mediated discourse. Thank you. Megan, any thoughts on this about how we, how we beat the drum for peace on social media and elsewhere. Well, I wish I had an easy answer to that. But what I've noticed though, I'll give you what I've observed lately, especially in connection with Russia and Ukraine. When we think about peace versus conflict in the media, what I think about is that piece might seem like calm. But it takes a lot of work. And I've been encouraged by, I mean, there's a lot of news about violence. It's been a lot of news about destruction. But there has been a strong focus on the negotiations. I've been seeing people that are not international policy wonks sharing a lot of updates and details on the negotiations, wanting to see where things are going, and trying to share information that I don't know. It's like the, the good news or the encouraging or here's what we can do. Here's how you can help. And there's battle. I feel like there's been a lot, there have been a lot of people that are grasping towards that. How can I individually the beacon of peace or in some way encouragement in this time? And that I have seen getting a lot of shares on social media and other media outlets. And I think maybe, maybe after multiple years now of negative news, people are starting again to grasp towards the good. And I hope that's going to be a trend that can continue is that we can, can consume more of the good news or the peaceful, the piece or efforts toward peace. So that, that becomes more of a demand for our media sources. It's very well said. Thank you. Thank you both for all of your insights you've given us a lot to think about. I wonder if there are any questions, either from our in-person audience or online. You can either raise your hand virtually or in person, or you can drop a question in the chat. Bot and Meghan. Go ahead, please. I can so on. Okay. Sorry. Go Go ahead, I think. Thank you so much. Can you can you hear me? Great. Thank you for the really outstanding panel. It was a real joy to listen to you too. You speak and bow your motivations for studying what you study really resonated with me. I'm sorry. I think you for, for those comments, I had a question. I wanted to connect nuclear weapons to nuclear energy. And you mention Fukushima briefly, and Chernobyl as well. And we spoke a lot about Ukraine just now. I I'd like to talk I just have a question about if you have any comments about the weaponization of infrastructures of nuclear energy. This is something that we've seen a lot recently. I think the case of Ukraine is interesting. Ukraine as a non-nuclear states, it was two nuclei rised in the nineties, however, relies very heavily on nuclear energy. Into those really interesting, it's an interesting positionality of nuclear arsenals versus nuclear energy. And so I'm wondering if you have any comments about about, about the energy aspect arm and how that might be weaponized right now. Oh, thank you very much. That's actually that's very much on point, especially given this last week or two, I would say that there is, there is a, an illusion of a separation between nuclear weapons and nuclear power. It's important always to remember that nuclear reactors, the center of nuclear power. These were invented before nuclear weapons. They were invented by the Manhattan Project and their purpose was to manufacture plutonium. So I was about ten years later that the, that this technology was adapted to produce electricity. But it's the same exact, it's essentially the same exact technology. So therefore, nuclear and Ukraine, Ukraine, in a sense, can be considered as a nuclear power because it has a massive amount of nuclear fuel, a massive amount of plutonium and uranium. And as one scholar, I forget the name of the scholar right now as written, these nuclear power plants are, in a sense, pre-positioned weapons of mass destruction when war zones enter an area where there are power plants. Though, at the beginning of this war, I myself was not particularly worried about the use of nuclear weapons, but the presence of 15 operating nuclear power plants in the Ukraine seemed cat is potentially catastrophic to me. And you have now the way we have lived through an actual military attack on the largest nuclear power complex in Europe, adds up our Asia. And during that attack, tank fire was aimed at buildings in the reactor complex. Buildings were set on fire in the reactor complex. And people at, at, at first people were, were happy to see that the fire was aimed not at the reactors, but rather at administrative buildings. But it's, it's an infrastructure. It's not just the reactors. So for example, if the power grid had gone down on this plant or if the plumbing had been ruptured on this plant than those plants would meltdown because operating nuclear power plants need constant flow of cold water in order to keep the fuel, cool, the fuel inside the reactor and also the spent fuel rods. So if there is any damage to the electrical system, if there's any damage to the plumbing system, then there is a loss of ability to cool fuel. What happened at Fukushima? So this resulted in meltdowns and explosions. So having warfare with this kind of technology operating is incredibly dangerous for everybody concerned. Even outside of the main complex itself where the reactor and this kinda infrastructure is, there's a gigantic, there's a big cement pad with all of the spent fuel that's in dry casks. If this had been hit by a shell from a tank, then this would be unbelievably catastrophic. It would, it would release an incredible amount of radiation and make the place on approachable for years and years and years. So when you have, when you have warfare happening in such a location, you have battle commanders making split second decisions. And in warfare on the ground, people make mistakes all the time. I, I think that maybe you might have had battle commanders of this group at the power plant aware that they shouldn't be firing at the reactors themselves. But the degree to which they might have been trained us to all of the infrastructure that supports the operation of the plant. It's pretty unlikely that they really understood because you would not be firing a tank within a complex of nuclear power plants if you had any understanding of the fragile complexity that it takes to maintain all these safety systems. So I would also add, even, even, even if you get beyond beyond this, this current kind of risk, that spent nuclear fuel is spent nuclear fuel rods from nuclear power plants, which will remain toxic and dangerous to living creatures for hundreds of thousands of years. We now have hundreds of thousands of metric tons of this material on earth. And a 100 thousand years from now when our cities are gone, when our languages are forgotten, when nobody knows the name of this war or any of the wars we fought, this waste will be there. It's the most substantial thing human civilization has ever created. And, and we do it and we do it unconsciously. We do it because it gives us a very short amount of convenience, either electricity or security, depending on if it was made using, used to make weapons or to make electricity. So we need to understand that outside of these risks in a war zone, outside of these risks currently, we are essentially exerting violence against future generations by creating toxins that will be a part of their ecosystem even if they're buried underground, which is our plan, they are still in their world and in their ecosystem and can cause risk to them. Though, I think that the, the, the notion of separating these things has always been an illusion. It's always been, it's always been a public relations stunt. They are completely intertwined. And so I thank you for bringing that up because we should all be extremely concerned. All it takes is a straight missile to hit, to hit infrastructure in one of these nuclear power plants. And this becomes a catastrophic ecological problem as well as warfare. You so much. Thanks for that great question and for that response. Well all we have a question on the chat from Joshua Barton. A growing concern for many is the increase in water scarcity around the world with a potential for wars being fought in order to secure water supplies. What are your thoughts on what steps should be taken to prevent these types of things? Perhaps you could, you can speak syllabus. Joshua, I love this question of there are there are people at the center with far more conflict resolution and diplomacy background than me. But here's what I think on this topic. You said prevent and that is the keyword there. We know this is coming, right? We know that we're going to have water scarcity. We know that climate change is a problem. We can also tell where we're going to have this as our biggest problems. Which countries, which communities are going to suffer the most from water scarcity. And so there is no need. There's a lot going on in the world and there's always some larger fire to feel like we have to put out. There is no need to wait until its crisis to start coming up with a solution. And by solution, I mean source, scientific solutions. I mean negotiations and cooperations. Countries that know that they're going to be in this position can start working on preventative piece measures. In order to prevent that. It's a very short answer. But I just think there's no need to wait until the crisis is here. We are trying to, There's a lot of focus on the environmental mitigation that we can do. I think we need to start also focusing on the political medication that we could do for this. Thanks, Mike, I'm Amanda. Other questions in the room that's a little bit hard for me to see. Can you hear me so we don't have any questions quite yet formulating. Okay. That's fine. If anybody has another question I'd like to ask, please feel free to either speak up or type in the chat. I see. Amanda has a question. Okay. I have a question. This is a question for Megan actually and actually bot, if you have any ideas, you want to jump five, please let me know. Make it. How do you envision what I'm based on what you know about Atlanta, Georgia like what could Atlanta potentially due to form a kind of stronger identity as a city of peace. Do you see certain areas where certain groups, my UNI and work to forward that initiative. And then though I don't know how familiar you are with it, feel free to bring your knowledge of Hiroshima. And yes, I'd love to hear any tips from Bo, something that's near and dear to my heart. And I think so many people don't know about is that the metro area around it land on specifically Clark's Clarkston community, is very heavily involved in refugee, welcoming refugees into our community. And I think that is something that we can really be a wonderful example about. I mean, it has been beneficial to our community. We can. And this is so relevant with, as we're speaking of refugees leaving the Ukraine. But there's always a conflict going on where people are seeking refuge from where they live. And I think the city of Atlanta could also do more to show how welcoming refugees to our city has not been a burden. It has been a blessing and a extremely beneficial. I think that's that's something that can be done on a government level, can be done on a medium level and can really serve as an example for the rest of our country and other cities around the world. I don't know traditionally also. Yeah. I don't know. Atlanta particularly I've been there but just for academic conferences. So it's not it's not a city I've spent time and but, but I think absolutely. I think that, you know, for example, especially in the United States, which is an affluent country, even though there's really wealth and equities and the United States, accepting and welcoming and refugees is really a critical step. But along with it, I think that ongoing commitment to reducing inequalities and helping those in need in the United States be an essential part of how refugees would be functionally welcomed. Because we were taking care of ourselves as well and not neglecting our own communities. So these things are intertwined, but I think the United States has and Japan where I am, which is not very good at accepting refugees in countries with affluence. With general affluence really are the countries that need to reach out and help those that are in need at times like this for sure. Excellent. Thank you. Amanda, is there is another line from the anion. Thank you. I thank you so much for your discussion. That's been very interesting and enlightening. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit. I know today as the one-year anniversary on the Atlanta as shooting spot shootings of and we've been talking a lot about international and international peace and welcoming refugees and sort of this cross-cultural. Um, but I'm, I'm thinking more about if you can talk a little bit about peace sort of for those who were born and raised here. But where there are tensions between communities. I'm thinking about here in Atlanta because of today, but is that something the Carter Center is involved with? And if you could talk a little bit about just like feet on the ground here and those cooperations here in Atlanta. Megan, thank you. Thank you for that question. And thank you for reminding many of us about the anniversary of that horrible event. The Carter Center's piecework is pretty much internationally. We work in countries and cities where we are invited to work. So we're not doing peace and reconciliation work in Atlanta, Georgia or we've done very little work, but we've done some domestically. And that's been more along the lines of democracy. So less in terms of conflict, negotiation or mediation. I think that piece in this in that setting, in this setting is an ongoing process. I don't think that it is something that is going to have a simple solution. I think it is something that is going to require every single one of us to work toward. As part of our daily calling. And I think as we've seen over the past few years, that's going to be not just working on ourselves, but sharing those convictions with others. And getting the word out about what sort of misperceptions about other groups are wrong and that we hear It's not enough to be not racist, one has to be anti racist. And these are these are things that I'm not an expert by any means, but I I think that this is going to be this is personal work that we're all going to have to do at a large scale. If that makes sense. It's going to have to be a lot of people doing the hard work and convincing those around us that we know and that we love that they have to do the hard work as well. And I'm sorry that that's not a clean or easy answer for you. I wish I had a great answer on that. And I also I'm sorry that just with our our work at the Carter Center, it's it's like I said, more international. I'm peacekeeping then kind of domestic negotiations. But our work has over the years evolved and there are constant discussions on, on where to head next and what, what, where we're needed to focus on peace and human rights would not be surprised if things change in the future. Thanks Mike, and thanks to that question too. I see in our chat there's a question from Alexander and this is a bit of a basic question. He writes, but what is your personal definition of peace? And how do you know when you've achieved it? Either at a local or at a global level. Perhaps it could feel this 1 first. Yeah, I would say that from the academic study of discipline and peace studies, there's an idea sort of first really formalized by Johan Galtung, one of the founders of the field that echoes that earlier quote about Martin Luther King Junior that we previously had defined. We used to define peace as the absence of war. That wars, we need to stop wars, we need to stop violence. And when that stops, then we have peace. And now, and now we have a much more nuanced sense of the way this works that you, that you have what's called negative peace and positive piece in peace studies. So negative piece means stopping violence. It means halting violence, halting brutality, halting cruelty. Positive piece, on the other hand, is an E. You cannot be really, you cannot really sustain peace without working on positive piece. And that means building equity in communities, building inclusion, Building Safety, Building access to social systems and services. And so these things, for example, with like say the spa, the spot shootings. You have to create a society in which people have inclusion and dignity no matter what their origins are, you have to try to build equity for women in all societies. And you have to try to build access to health care, access to minimum comfort in terms of security and shelter and access to food and things like that. So these positive P steps are essential and if you simply eliminate war, you have not created peace, have a burden on you to continue to work on a society so that it is generating piece for more people. And that this will help societies avoid falling into violence and avoid falling into war. So I think that it's incredibly important to define peace foundationally as the absence of violence, certainly. But that piece really, we have to understand it as a, as a sustainably created cultural dynamic that has to be continually refined and improve in order to make the each society more safe and more accessible for everybody, no matter their particular origins or or, or place and status within that society. Thank you. I mean, it sounds like pieces something that requires 10 do that. There's not going to be an end to the pursuit of peace, right? We're not going to have just woken up at some point. You're like we did it. There's there's peace that requires the kind of work that you're talking about, an agonist, then you wonder, I'm sorry, go ahead, go. In a sense, pieces in someplace we get to maintaining peace is the place we get to. That. That's awesome. Thank you. Excellent. Megan is I think you'd like to add was about to say that it is the it is a continued process. And I don't know if we'll we'll know it. I don't think that's the basic question. I think it's a great question. It's a continued process at all levels, governments, international organizations, and individuals that we're going to have to work on every day. Wonderful. Thank you. If there aren't other questions, would you please all join me in thanking them for their expertise and their time today. It was really great. Thank you. Really appreciate it. And I don't know if you want to plug so you global media first, we have an event 30 and 10 minutes over, and I never pronounce it correctly cleft. So we have a French screening that's coming up in 10 minutes about called. And I'm so sorry, I don't speak French regard no AF or melanin, which is directed by ice the Micah who's here. So if anyone is interested, it's over in the club. And actually, Catherine, could you input a link to the website? If possible? If not, I'll run over and do that really quickly. They Cambridge it there too. But I just wanted to say as always, dr. Jim and Greg, you are the greatest moderator. Bad thinking so much. I will invite you every single year, so I'm warning you ahead of time. So thank you so much for joining us. I know you joined us at 550 am and I know it's very early for you, so thank you for joining us and Megan. Thank you. And it's also always a pleasure to see if alum and to see how, how far and how amazing your career has come and wish you the best in the future. So thank you everyone. I'm going to the French event. If anybody wants to join, I will see you there as well. So thank you so much. A wonderful round table. Thanks, everyone. All right. Thank you all. And Greg, thank you so much. Well, thank you. Both really had a great time. Learned a lot. Thank you. Thank you for having me and if any students ever have questions about the work that I or the Carter Center do? I'm available. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.