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Tsawwassen woman presents project to UN

Bridgitte Taylor and classmates take their Ban the Bomb Campaign to Vienna
student
Tsawwassen’s Bridgitte Taylor (centre) along with fellow UBC students Hayley Gendron and Sebastian Cooper are in Vienna this week to present their Ban the Bomb Campaign at the United Nations’ Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s Science and Technology Conference.

A Tsawwassen woman is in Vienna this week to present an anti-nuclear bomb campaign at a United Nations' conference.

Bridgitte Taylor and two of her colleagues flew to Vienna to present their Ban the Bomb Campaign.

Taylor just completed her third year of international relations studies at UBC. She and two colleagues developed the campaign as a class project and were invited to Vienna to present it at the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization's (CTBTO) Science and Technology Conference.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty came into force in 1996 with the aim of banning all nuclear explosion on Earth - whether for military or peaceful purposes. The treaty sets up nuclear monitoring stations to collect data on whether a nuclear test has been conducted.

As of March of this year, 183 of the 196 eligible countries have signed the treaty and 164 of those have ratified the treaty. Canada signed the treaty in 1996 and ratified it two years later. However, according to the campaign, some of the world's most significant nuclear powers - including the U.S., China and North Korea - have signed but not yet ratified the treaty.

The Ban the Bomb Campaign aims to educate the public and inspire people to take what they have learned and demand change from policy makers.

Taylor said the campaign was born out of a one-ofa-kind class at UBC that brought together political science and engineering students.

"You can't understand nuclear politics without understanding the science behind it," Taylor said, adding that as she learned more about the science behind nuclear bombs, she began to see how closely the science was linked with policies and politics.

"The Ban the Bomb Campaign is about change," the group states on its website. "It's about moving forward as a global community, setting a legacy for future generations and demanding an end to nuclear weapons testing in all corners of the globe."

To that end, Taylor and her colleagues have established a website with interactive educational tools and are spreading the message through social media.

For more information on the campaign, visit www.banthebombcampaign.com.