Peace and environmental issues are now firmly on the radar of many people who have never thought of themselves as members of a peace or environmental movement.

Vladimir Putin’s conduct towards Ukraine has heightened awareness of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

If the war has distracted attention from the other existential threat – human-induced climate change and mass extinctions – regular bleak news from environmental scientists and the recent drenching from Storm Babet causes a refocus.

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Tragic events in Israel and Gaza raise new fears of war, reminding us that ‘violence begets violence’ even when innocent civilians are in the firing line.

It's clear that the triple threats of war, nuclear war, and climate change are inextricably linked. Action to defuse this unholy trinity can most effectively be shaped through an understanding of the way in which they interplay.

Beyond the obvious common threat of our extinction, the three threats can share similar causes and chronic injustices.

The legacy of colonial exploitative thinking is written on both nuclear and climate issues. It is expressed in the stated willingness of the UK government to press the nuclear destruct button and to open another oil field ‘because somebody else is already doing it and we’ll surely do it better’.

The science is unequivocal – fossil fuel consumption drives climate change. As one of the first nations to become rich on industrialisation and extraction from poorer nations, Scotland and the UK played a part in creating the problem of climate change.

Meanwhile, the peoples who were impoverished by colonial activities and contributed very little to climate change, disproportionately suffer the deadly consequences.

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Oil fields like Rosebank are suicidal in the long run and, when presented as in our interest in the here and now, ignore the future of our grandchildren or the current plight of people elsewhere already struggling because of climate change.

I’m grateful to live in a Scotland where the First Minister said the Rosebank exploitation was the wrong choice. Lack of care for others is not ‘human nature’ but requires specific social conditions that our civil society and government can and should work against.

Unfortunately, this is not how UK governments typically act and our history as a nuclear state is a lesson in the continuity of colonial dominion over others.

In the 1950s and 60s the UK tested its nuclear bombs on the lands of indigenous peoples with no regard for the legacy of harm. Those peoples were never warned, never mind asked.

As citizens of today we need to keep pushing for a Scotland in which MSPs seek to decarbonise our economy, plan a just transition from fossil-fuel, from the nuclear and weapons industries, and, as most MSPs now do, pledge support for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as the only real route away from the nuclear threat.

The problem of a statehood mentality that does disservice to the global future is not UK-specific. Complicity in the colonial arrogance of ‘might is my right’ (to do whatever I please) is shared among nuclear states and the inhumane consequences are demonstrated currently in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

The doctrine of ‘nuclear deterrence’ starts from a presumption that ‘our defence’ involves the suicidal right to end the world for half the planet. That would be the consequence of a UK nuclear-armed submarine launching its weapons.

If enabling the nuclear states to divest from that arrogance seems like an unattainable mirage, remember that a network of civil society organisations, ICAN, working with key governments like our neighbour Ireland, nevertheless managed to deliver the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

This treaty is slowly but surely undermining the legitimacy of nuclear weapons and making it harder for financial institutions to invest in anything connected with them.

By 2024 it is expected that more than half of all sovereign states will be openly declaring the unacceptability of the world being held on the trigger point of nuclear death.

Resources that could be spent on nuclear weapons are surely better channelled toward measures for mitigating climate change.

Meanwhile, the Festival for Survival in Glasgow this Saturday, puts a sharp focus on the twin existential threats of nuclear war and the environmental catastrophe of climate change and loss of biodiversity. The many themed workshops include a session on the current situation in the Middle East. The gathering, hosted by the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in cooperation with several organisations aligned with the environmental movement, is open to all citizens of the planet who care about our continued peaceful and sustainable existence.

Proceedings kick off with the music of Karine Polwart, one of Scotland’s most celebrated and loved singer-songwriters. Her music will be paired with a recitation of Makar Kathleen Jamie’s, ‘What the Clyde said after COP26’ and the poem’s warning against failing the young folk who were chanting on her banks. There will be a choice of films, banner making and music as well as discussions.

Festival highlights will include words from Aamer Anwar, renowned human rights lawyer, and Melissa Parke, a former Australian government minister and newly-appointed chief executive of ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons). Other international guests include Timmon M. Wallis, author of ‘Disarming the nuclear argument’ and Linda Pentz-Gunter, founder of ‘Beyond Nuclear’ which supports efforts to phase out nuclear power in favour of safer energy choices.

Scotland’s leading environmental campaigning organisation, Friends of the Earth Scotland, bring their history of activism and multiple successes since their founding in 1978. Mark Ballard, current Chair of FoES, and young ‘Just Transitions’ campaigner, Rosie Hampton, are both on the bill.

Also centre stage will be organisations working across peace and environmental issues, such as the International Network of Scientists for Global Responsibility, which has provided expert reviews to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the Scottish-based think tank, Common Weal, along with its campaigning former director and renowned author, Robin MacAlpine.

David Hayman, Scottish film, television and stage actor and director, will round off proceedings with a sprinkling of his beneficent style.

Lynn Jamieson is Chair of Scottish CND

Festival for Survival, November 4, 10.30-16.45 at the Renfield Centre & Adelaide Baptist Church, 260 Bath Street Glasgow G2 4JP. See festivalforsurvival.com.