W2W News – March 2026

The Warheads to Windmills Coalition is are hard at work around the country pushing for nuclear disarmament and environmental justice.  Follow along with updates and spotlights from members around the country.

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PeaceWorks Kansas City’s New Billboard: Nuclear Weapons are Illegal

This article by Henry Stoever for PeaceWorks Kansas City first appeared on February 3, 2026.

Our PeaceWorks Kansas City billboard is up and shining, up north, posted on Feb. 2. It will run for six weeks.

Our billboard can be found on I-29, for southbound traffic, between exits 72 and 64 (between 72nd Street and 64th Street). Thank you to Rachel MacNair, who gave $5,000 to the Missouri Peace Foundation (our tax-deductible, educational, organization) for the billboard. She wanted the billboard to catch the eye of those traveling south from the Kansas City International (KCI) Airport. Persons in that area will also see it, for close by is a Hy-Vee grocery store.

The billboard has the message “Nuclear Weapons are ILLEGAL,” which is the point of the Treaty on the Prevention of Nuclear War. The billboard depicts a fierce atomic explosion. The number of nations that have ratified the treaty is 74, more than half of the world’s countries.

This is a digital billboard, with each shared message running on a 10-second loop, and the complete loop is 80 seconds in length. Among our fellow electronic message senders are: UMKC higher education, twice in the loop; Sprouts farmers market groceries; KCI flights to various cities (New York, Denver, Portland, etc.); Draft Kings–sports betting; KC Hospice care; World Oddities Expo, at Crown Center, Hilton Hotel. Then interspersed at long lengths between are: Stand Up to Jewish Hate; Hamilton, the play; and NSC Campus is hiring (that is the bomb plant, National Security Campus, and how serendipitous it is to see that show up, with our counter messaging).

About the placement of the billboard for drivers en route from KCI Airport to the heart of downtown Kansas City, Mo., Rachel says, “My idea is that we really need to get this most basic education, that nuclear weapons are illegal according to the UN Treaty, to the targeted audience of businesspeople, along with everyone else.  Placing it for anyone coming from the airport would be the best spot to reach that specific group. This means outreach to people who tend to have political impact but are a different group from those we reach with our normal methods.”

Rachel adds, “Of course, I didn’t know that it would end up being a revolving sign which would include employment ads for the local nuclear weapons plant in its rotation. This is delightful; it means that in addition to public education, we’ve put a proper protest into just the right place.”

In closing: Thank you to our donor, Rachel, and also to all PeaceWorks members for your love and support of this way to reach the greater public on this vital message.

—Henry Stoever, a retired lawyer, serves on the PeaceWorks KC Board and is a former chair of the Board. (c) 2026, Henry Stoever, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License

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72 years ago on March 1st, 1954, the United States tested Castle Bravo, an explosion equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, in Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Castle Bravo was the first and most powerful detonation of the Castle series conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Detonated on March 1, 1954, it remains one of the most significant and controversial atmospheric nuclear tests due to its unexpected yield and severe environmental and health impacts.

Castle Bravo highlighted the dangers of atmospheric nuclear testing and contributed to the growing international movement towards nuclear test bans. It played a role in the establishment of the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which prohibited atmospheric, outer space, and underwater nuclear tests.

The explosion created a fireball that vaporized everything within a mile of the blast and generated a mushroom cloud reaching 130,000 feet into the atmosphere. The cloud of radioactive fallout contaminated a vast area of over 7,000 square miles downwind of the test site. Radioactive fallout settled over Bikini Atoll and neighboring atolls, contaminating the land and surrounding ocean.A Japanese fishing ship, the “Lucky Dragon” was also caught unawares in the fallout, resulting in severe radiation sickness among the crew.

The fallout reached several inhabited atolls, including Rongelap and Utirik, exposing residents to high levels of radiation which caused acute radiation sickness, increased cancer rates, and long-term health issues. Military and civilian personnel involved in the test were also exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, resulting in various health problems over time. Residents of the neighboring atolls were not evacuated until 3 days after the detonation. 

Not only have the Marshallese experienced devastating health consequences, but significant radiological contamination remains on the islands, including in the locally grown foods, rendering parts of the Marshall Islands uninhabitable. This contamination robs displaced Marshallese people of the opportunity to safely inhabit their native lands and live according to their culture and tradition. Many were displaced for decades if not permanently. Efforts to decontaminate and rehabilitate the land have been ongoing, but significant areas remain unsafe for habitation.

72 years after the nuclear detonation, the environmental and humanitarian effects still continue.

Learn more about Nuclear Testing and the lasting humanitarian and environmental damage with NAPF’s Learning Hub.

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W2W editors note: Since this article was published New START has expired, two nuclear armed states, Israel and the U.S., have launched acts of war against non nuclear armed Iran, and France has announced it will increase it’s nuclear stockpile for the first time since 1992.  We have entered an era of unprecedented nuclear risk with limited guardrails.  The message of this letter is even more important than when it was published only a month ago.

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On Feb. 5, 2026, New START — the last remaining arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia — will expire.

“The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was signed April 8, 2010, in Prague by the United States and Russia and entered into force on Feb. 5, 2011. New START continues the bipartisan process of verifiably reducing U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals begun by former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. New START is the first verifiable U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty to take effect since START I in 1994.The United States and Russia agreed on Feb. 3, 2021, to extend New START by five years, as allowed by the treaty text, until Feb. 5, 2026.”(arms control.org)

Without the limits provided by New START, there will be nothing to impede a new arms race, increasing the risk of nuclear weapons use. This is an issue that impacts each and every one of us directly. Collectively, as a planet, we have survived 80 years without the use of nuclear weapons. Today’s nuclear weapons are up to 83 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons are already more than capable of destroying civilization as we know it. Together, the U.S. and Russia hold almost 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenals. Every nuclear weapon, and every new weapons system, increases the possibility of a mistake, a rash decision, or a moment of insanity with unthinkable consequences. If we allow this treaty to expire, it’s possible that our countries could expand an arms race held in check by New START.

No amount of strategic thinking can get around the fact that nuclear weapons remain pointed at America’s towns and cities right now, and at towns and cities around the world. This will be so as long as they are allowed to exist.

Nuclear weapons do not keep us safe. Rather, they keep us only the push of a button away from global catastrophe and annihilation. A button our president has the sole authority to push. The path to peace is made up of concrete steps toward making conflict less likely, by agreeing to begin the process of dismantling nuclear weapons for good, not endlessly pursuing global military dominance.

Jan. 22nd marked the 5th anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW was developed by the 2017 Nobel Prize winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). 122 countries voted to adopt the Treaty at the UN in July 2017. It entered into force after the 50th nation ratified the Treaty in January 2021. The TPNW is now supported by fully half of the world’s 193 nations, having been signed by 95 nations and ratified by 74 nations. The majority of Americans support nuclear disarmament. The ICAN pledge has been signed by numerous cities, towns, counties and states as well as members of Congress and other elected officials in the US.

Back from the Brink focuses on five policy shifts in the U.S.: 1) adopt a No First Use policy, 2) End Hair-Trigger alert, 3) End Sole Authority of the President, 4) Cancel Enhanced Weapons development, 5) Pursue Global Elimination.

91% of Americans want limits on nuclear weapons. Genesee Valley Citizens for Peace encourages people to become actively engaged in ending nuclear weapons before nuclear weapons end us.

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Other Announcements:

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