Youth Group member Brenna Gautam wrote a letter to The Baltimore Sun in response to William Lambers' article on resetting the Doomsday Clock.

As a student living in the United States, I support William Lambers’ call for diplomacy in “Rewinding the Doomsday Clock” (Jan. 29). As Mr. Lambers points out, 2018 is the closest we have come to nuclear midnight since 1953. For me and other millennials, it is the first time we have felt the very real fear of nuclear disaster.

I am a student at Georgetown University Law Center. My first week back at law school this semester ended with classmates from Hawaii texting and calling their families in tears and distress. The recent false alarm in Hawaii and the Doomsday Clock announcement are wake-up calls for people my age. They should also be wake-up calls for legislators.

Mr. Lambers argues that ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would help jump start disarmament negotiations among all the nuclear states. It would be a long overdue first step toward diplomacy and away from nuclear brinkmanship. To help achieve this goal, I am an active member of a group of students from around the globe advocating for the treaty's passage. The voices of young people are backing treaties like the test ban because they offer stability and security. But we need support from elected officials to create lasting change for nonproliferation.

Brenna Gautam, Washington, D.

Photo: Hawaii emergency officials now say the worker who broadcast a false alarm misheard what was said during a routine drill and thought the ballistic nuclear missile threat was real. (Tor Johnson / Hawaii Tourism Authority)