As we mark the 74th anniversary of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world is at a dangerous juncture (Editorial, 2 August). Abandonment of the INF treaty alongside President Trump’s reckless withdrawal of the US from the Iran nuclear deal only increases the likelihood of a devastating nuclear arms race. It suggests nothing has been learned from the horror of those attacks 74 years ago, the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and many more blighted.

While nuclear bombs exist in our world there is always the risk of another Hiroshima or another Nagasaki. It is essential that Europe does not become the arena for a build-up of nuclear weapons and that the UK government refuses any requests from the US to host intermediate range missiles. Our goal must be a world free of nuclear weapons, not a dangerous and destructive escalation.

Catherine West MP

Hornsey & Wood Green

• John Vidal offers an answer to the question in your headline (What should we do with radioactive nuclear waste?, theguardian.com, 1 August) that propagates, unchallenged, the myth that indefinite storage of radioactive wastes is justifiable, perchance that better options than geological disposal may materialise. To do so would be to pass on to the next generation the burden and cost of indefinitely securing, monitoring and repackaging these wastes, which is profoundly unethical and unsustainable. Siting a UK geological disposal facility will, rightly, progress at the pace comfortable for potential host communities, which may take decades. Nevertheless, work will continue apace in our universities, industries, regulators and government to develop the evidence and models that will assure the safety of geological disposal. Though a UK disposal facility will remain conceptual for the foreseeable future, it is surely time to bury the Micawber principle that an alternative will simply turn up if we wait long enough.

Professor Neil Hyatt

Department of materials science and engineering, University of Sheffield

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