“That’s the sound of a chemical weapon dying,” said Kingston Reif, who spent years pushing for disarmament outside government and is now the deputy assistant secretary of defense for threat reduction and arms control. He smiled as another shell clanked into the dumpster.

We are the only species that can both create something so destructive and also choose not to use it. We are the species that almost made the condors go extinct, and the species that chose to protect; the species that eradicated smallpox and the species that used smallpox blankets. 

I reached out to some of the people working to make this day happen to say a few things: one, thank you for being part of making the world a safer place; two, thank you for following through after it lost all attention from the public; three, thank you for inspiring me to work in the same way. Let's keep up the good work on this one, humans