Irony did not disappear along with ironing boards. Why, just today my brain was wrinkled by the ironical.

It began with the reminder that this is the International Day of Peace, a global observance each September 21st declared by the United Nations to strengthen the ideals of peace.

In marking the anniversary, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, "Peace is needed today more than ever. War and conflict are unleashing devastation, poverty, and hunger, and driving tens of millions of people from their homes. Climate chaos is all around. And even peaceful countries are gripped by gaping inequalities and political polarization.”

I’m oddly en-couraged by such declarations, despite the initial cold water plunge. They remind us that we can yet decide and act for a better future. And equally important, they acknowledge the truth of our world’s existential threats, particularly war and climate change. To move toward a greener, more equitable, just, and secure future for all, we must first move away from denial and deflection.

2023 is a significant year in humanity’s hoped-for maturity. It marks the midpoint in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, to which the General Assembly recently committed renewed effort. And it’s also the 75th anniversary of the UN’s Declaration of Universal Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. These aspirational documents convey some of humanity’s noblest ideals.

But alongside the aspirational declarations, my news feed carried a sobering note from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists—timekeepers the Doomsday Clock, now set at 90 seconds to midnight. Author Ward Wilson notes that while nearly everyone agrees that the indiscriminate destruction of nukes is a moral obscenity, moral arguments alone have failed for 78 years to bring about nuclear disarmament. Instead, all the nine nations in the Nuclear Club are either expanding or upgrading their nuclear arsenal.

So Wilson suggests a different starting point: to question the nearly-unquestioned assumption that nuclear deterrence works, and that having them brings security. “But even a 12-year-old can effectively show that deterrence is fatal over the long run,” Wilson writes. “If human beings are prone to folly—and we are—and if human beings run the deterrence process, then nuclear deterrence is inherently flawed. It will fail. Over the long run it cannot be safe. Eventually, human failure will lead to a catastrophic nuclear war.”

To point out the patent ineffectiveness of nuclear weapons, then, is more likely to bring about change than repeating moral arguments about how obscenely horrific they are.

So here’s my thought on this International Day of Peace. How about taking some baby steps to test whether we need thousands of nukes? Would we feel less safe if we unilaterally reduced the US arsenal 10 percent, and invited the other nuclear nations to follow suit? Could we make a no-first-strike pledge to the world and thereby lessen the vulnerability of other nations that makes them want nuclear weapons? Could we take our nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert so there will be more time to weigh options before launching a counterattack?

Ironic, isn’t it? The very weapon we developed to make us safe now threatens to destroy us all. But the ingenuity and dedication with which The Bomb was built is increasingly evident in global efforts toward nuclear weapons abolition. Hopefully citizen activism will one day overcome political inaction, led by youth seeking a more hopeful future.