By Kristin Scheer
PeaceWorks-KC is displaying billboards around the city with the help of a grant from ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. ICAN aims to stigmatize, prohibit, and eliminate nuclear weapons.
You will see these messages along your travels in Kansas City, Mo., until mid-February:
Billions for nuclear bombs? Peanuts for people? Repurpose KC’s Honeywell Plant. This billboard shows the large entry sign of the National Security Campus in KC, operated by Honeywell.
Nuclear weapons are ILLEGAL.—The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This billboard, complete with a mushroom cloud, is on Main south of 37th Street.
Imagine … a world free of nuclear weapons. This one, with a picture of the globe, you’ll see in two spots: in Westport on Broadway, south of 39th Street, facing south, and downtown on Main, south of Truman Road,
The residents of Kansas City and neighboring areas should know that the new National Security Campus on Botts Road makes or procures 85 percent of the nonradioactive parts of US nuclear weapons. “These are the guns that shoot the radioactive bullets of nuclear weapons,” says Ann Suellentrop.
The billboard images are easily downloadable. All you have to do is right-click, hit “copy image,” and save the art.
Most people don’t know that 85 percent of that part of the nuclear weapons industry happens here. This new plant continues the work of the old contaminated plant that was at Bannister and Troost. And THE WORLD NOW CONSIDERS THAT WORK ILLEGAL! Some 86 countries have signed onto the treaty, and among those, 51 countries have ratified it—they have incorporated it into their laws and regulations.
You will see PeaceWorks-KC and ICAN websites on the billboards. Check us out, and get involved.
—Kristin Scheer, a member of the PeaceWorks-KC Board, is a native Kansas Citian and both an environmental and peace activist.
