The Pentagon estimates that 600 Russian missiles have been fired at Ukrainian targets in the first 10 days of war alone. Additionally, the infamous abandoned Chernobyl nuclear plant has been seized by Russian forces and, most recently, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar has been attacked and occupied by armed Russian soldiers. Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and Russian projectiles started a localized fire in an auxiliary building on the site on March 3, 2020.

Russian forces have also cut off the power supply to the Chernobyl reactor and containment site. This means that spent nuclear fuel is not being cooled at the site in accordance to internationally recognized standards. The head of the Chernobyl nuclear plant has said that the back-up generators have enough fuel to power the site for 48 hours. We can only guess what might happen after that. If this were not enough, there is still ongoing shelling at a nuclear research facility in Kharkiv. The current conditions there are unknown.

Despite these chaotic circumstances, the SaveEcoBot team, in coordination with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, has put a lot of effort into radiation monitoring and informing the public about changes in background radiation. We’ve been set back in this critical work by the damages done to our monitoring equipment by Russians, but Ukrainian technicians are restoring the systems as fast as they can.

The assaults on the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia power plants have already had implications for the environment. The radioactive dust raised by the wheels and trucks of the Russian combat vehicles in the Chernobyl zone has raised the background radiation levels to a hundredfold excess of the normal threshold. Just imagine what chaotic attacks, with Russians shooting, firing missiles, and bombing other parts of Ukrainian territory might lead to. In Ukraine, we have a saying, “мавпа з гранатою,” which means, “Like a monkey with a grenade." Russia is playing the monkey to all of Europe.

Russia continues to assert that its forces are in Ukraine for reasons of safety and security. The takeover of Chernobyl disturbed large amounts of radioactive soil, propelling it into the air. The attack on Zaporizhzhia resulted in a fire on the site of an active nuclear plant. This is not what safety looks like. To pretend that these actions are anything but a dangerous disregard for life is an insult to all sane, rational people. We are all very lucky that none of Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors were hit by the tank shell that started that fire.

Russia, the U.S. and the UK committed 20 years ago to ensure Ukraine’s peaceful sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons program. This agreement was built on the idea that Ukraine without nuclear weapons would never have cause to be the target of any attack. This assurance was guaranteed by the signers of the memorandum.

But Russia’s violent attacks have proven that a nuclear threat still exists in Ukraine. It is not a threat of Ukraine’s making, but one engineered by Russia’s own reckless assault on our civilian nuclear facilities. The consequences of this diabolical action go well beyond a potential environmental catastrophe for Ukraine; our neighbors, including Russia itself, and even countries outside of Europe could all be affected by nuclear fallout carried on high-atmosphere winds across continent and over oceans.

One way to mitigate this threat and to realize security assurances to Ukraine is to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine. The hesitance of the EU and U.S.  to implement a no-fly zone is understandable. But at the same time, it is critically important to develop options and generate models for other types of no-fly zones beyond the proposals being discussed today. Such alternative options could be the key to helping prevent a Ukrainian tragedy not only in terms of nuclear security, but also in averting a similar tragedy to what the world witnessed in Aleppo.

To do this, Ukraine needs more military support. We have gratefully received strong military support from our allies, but even this bounty is not enough to defend our country. Stinger missiles can shoot down small, low-flying aircraft from a fairly short distance, but are useless against ballistic missiles and high-altitude bombers. We need weapons that can shoot down planes at considerable distances and altitudes, systems to detect and shoot down cruise missiles, and planes to protect our airspace. Early Russian attacks targeted our airports to deplete our air defense capabilities and frustrate our ability to get planes in the air. But we still stand. But if we want to avert a second Chernobyl or another Aleppo, we need to strengthen our air defenses.

We learned in 1939 that making concessions to tyrants is no plan for peace. Putin is a bully. Like all bullies, he will take as much as he can get while treating all harm — including environmental harm — as merely incidental. Like all bullies, he will stop only when he meets strong resistance. Putin and the Russia propaganda machine frame all attempts to stymie Russian aggression as not only a provocation, but a provocation that could trigger a nuclear response. Such veiled threats of nuclear attacks are a form of prior restraint meant to constrain Ukraine’s allies from even suggesting that the Russian invasion is improper. But we must not accept this starkly irrational framework. Nuclear weapons are weapons of deterrence, not tools to chill diplomatic criticism.

American analysts say that they expect the Russian attacks to become increasingly more brutal. Any increased risks to civilian and military targets commensurately increases risks to nuclear sites as well. And any compromised nuclear facility in Ukraine inherently becomes an international problem, not just a local one. Like Putin, radioactive fallout does not respect borders.

Just ten days ago, my life changed dramatically. I used to be a successful civil leader and entrepreneur with an innovative business. Now I sleep on the floor of an abandoned building with my gun in hand. My daughter knows exactly how the air raid siren sounds. But we are still Ukrainians. We are still Europeans. We still count on our allies. So to our allies, I say: close the Ukrainian sky. Provide us with enough weapons. We will do the rest.

Were you surprised by the results you saw?

Fishkin: I was gratified to see so many significant changes of opinion, mostly in the direction of people arriving at shared solutions once they discussed the issues and became more informed.

Diamond: I was surprised at the extent of movement among Republicans in two directions: toward greater recognition that climate change is an urgent and transcendent problem, and toward support for policies to accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources. I was also intrigued to find so much support, and then increased support, for a new generation of nuclear power plants. I don’t think we can get off our addiction to fossil fuels rapidly enough without nuclear power in the mix, and I was surprised that so many Democrats and in the end Republicans, too, understood that.

Siu: Indeed, there were some quite dramatic shifts in opinions. On top of the changes in survey results, the small group discussions themselves were extremely rich, with many people learning from those very different from themselves. Many participants came out of the event understanding that listening to each other is necessary to make any changes happen.

What is the path forward? How can this information be used at a policymaking level to create actionable change?

Fishkin: As in other Deliberative Polls around the world, these results need to be shared in detail with policy makers and with the media. They provide a route to responsible advocacy. They represent the considered judgments of the public once they really discuss and get their questions answered. In a democracy that helps contribute to the “will of the people.”

Diamond: Yes, I agree with Jim. It is vital that the results get publicized and considered in the policy debate. This is the only indication we have of what the American public as a whole would favor doing to combat climate change and transform our energy mix if everyone had access to objective and balanced information and the chance to weigh it together with one another.

Siu: In a webinar last week, Senators Lindsey Graham and Jeanne Shaheen spoke about the importance of this Deliberative Polling event and shared some ideas for paths forward to have actionable change. With everyone’s help, we can further amplify the results from this event and make it known that Americans believe that change can happen.

The COP26 climate change summit is currently underway in Glasgow, Scotland. Are policymakers and the public reaching a tipping point where we might see more substantive support for actions on climate change at the international level?

Diamond: Unfortunately, I don’t see signs of the necessary resolve to act with the urgency that is imperative.  We are moving in the right direction, toward publics around the world understanding that climate change is a threat to the well-being of all societies, and to the survival of some countries, and toward understanding that we must transition away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, while also ending other practices that contribute to the problem, such as deforestation.  But we aren’t moving nearly fast enough. I am not a climate scientist, but I feel like we are at least ten years behind where we need to be, and a decade of difference in meeting goals could well be the difference between effective adaptation and calamity.  The one truly hopeful sign is that a growing number of conservatives in the U.S. are beginning to publicly acknowledge the magnitude of the danger and the urgent need for an energy transition. I hope they can mobilize their Congressional colleagues around an ambitious policy agenda, because we are running out of time to avert a global catastrophe, and the U.S. won’t get to where we need to be without a bipartisan approach.

Can the model of deliberative polling exercises be scaled to enable similar conversations with broader audiences?

Fishkin: These deliberations were conducted with the Stanford Online Deliberation Platform—a joint effort of the Crowdsourced Democracy Team here at Stanford (led by Professor Ashish Goel in Management Science and Engineering) and the Center for Deliberative Democracy (CDD). In theory, any number of these small groups can be convened, and we hope to use it for deliberative scaling to much larger numbers just as we have used it for Deliberative Polling with scientific samples. So, the answer is yes, and that is a direction we want to move in.

Diamond: I agree with Jim.  There are very exciting frontiers ahead for this. I also think there is room to implement deliberation in person in the schools and between schools in different neighborhoods. The lesson we are finding over and over is that there is great value for democracy, societal health, and policy effectiveness when people of diverse backgrounds engage one another in thoughtful, moderated, mutually respectful conversations. And we have growing evidence that the automated moderator—developed through this amazing partnership of engineers and social scientists at Stanford—can effectively moderate a small group discussion, even on very polarized issues.

Siu: Yes, absolutely. Our platform is designed with this in mind. We want to scale deliberation to the masses, so that anyone who wants to can experience deliberation for themselves. When people engage in deliberations with diverse others, they understand in a firsthand way that being in a democracy means listening to each other.