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  • Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth

    This Declaration was adopted by the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in Bolivia on April 22, 2010.


    Preamble


    We, the peoples and nations of Earth:


    considering that we are all part of Mother Earth, an indivisible, living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny;


    gratefully acknowledging that Mother Earth is the source of life, nourishment and learning and provides everything we need to live well;


    recognizing that the capitalist system and all forms of depredation, exploitation, abuse and contamination have caused great destruction, degradation and disruption of Mother Earth, putting life as we know it today at risk through phenomena such as climate change;


    convinced that in an interdependent living community it is not possible to recognize the rights of only human beings without causing an imbalance within Mother Earth;


    affirming that to guarantee human rights it is necessary to recognize and defend the rights of Mother Earth and all beings in her and that there are existing cultures, practices and laws that do so;


    conscious of the urgency of taking decisive, collective action to transform structures and systems that cause climate change and other threats to Mother Earth;


    proclaim this Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and call on the General Assembly of the United Nation to adopt it, as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations of the world, and to the end that every individual and institution takes responsibility for promoting through teaching, education, and consciousness raising, respect for the rights recognized in this Declaration and ensure through prompt and progressive measures and mechanisms, national and international, their universal and effective recognition and observance among all peoples and States in the world.


    Article 1. Mother Earth


    (1) Mother Earth is a living being.


    (2) Mother Earth is a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.


    (3) Each being is defined by its relationships as an integral part of Mother Earth.


    (4) The inherent rights of Mother Earth are inalienable in that they arise from the same source as existence.


    (5) Mother Earth and all beings are entitled to all the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as may be made between organic and inorganic beings, species, origin, use to human beings, or any other status.


    (6) Just as human beings have human rights, all other beings also have rights which are specific to their species or kind and appropriate for their role and function within the communities within which they exist.


    (7) The rights of each being are limited by the rights of other beings and any conflict between their rights must be resolved in a way that maintains the integrity, balance and health of Mother Earth.


    Article 2. Inherent Rights of Mother Earth


    (1) Mother Earth and all beings of which she is composed have the following inherent rights:


    (a) the right to life and to exist;


    (b) the right to be respected;


    (c) the right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free from human disruptions;


    (d) the right to maintain its identity and integrity as a distinct, self-regulating and interrelated being;


    (e) the right to water as a source of life;


    (f) the right to clean air;


    (g) the right to integral health;


    (h) the right to be free from contamination, pollution and toxic or radioactive waste;


    (i) the right to not have its genetic structure modified or disrupted in a manner that threatens it integrity or vital and healthy functioning;


    (j) the right to full and prompt restoration the violation of the rights recognized in this Declaration caused by human activities;


    (2) Each being has the right to a place and to play its role in Mother Earth for her harmonious functioning.


    (3) Every being has the right to wellbeing and to live free from torture or cruel treatment by human beings.


    Article 3. Obligations of human beings to Mother Earth


    (1) Every human being is responsible for respecting and living in harmony with Mother Earth.


    (2) Human beings, all States, and all public and private institutions must:


    (a) act in accordance with the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;


    (b) recognize and promote the full implementation and enforcement of the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;


    (c) promote and participate in learning, analysis, interpretation and communication about how to live in harmony with Mother Earth in accordance with this Declaration;


    (d) ensure that the pursuit of human wellbeing contributes to the wellbeing of Mother Earth, now and in the future;


    (e) establish and apply effective norms and laws for the defence, protection and conservation of the rights of Mother Earth;


    (f) respect, protect, conserve and where necessary, restore the integrity, of the vital ecological cycles, processes and balances of Mother Earth;


    (g) guarantee that the damages caused by human violations of the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration are rectified and that those responsible are held accountable for restoring the integrity and health of Mother Earth;


    (h) empower human beings and institutions to defend the rights of Mother Earth and of all beings;


    (i) establish precautionary and restrictive measures to prevent human activities from causing species extinction, the destruction of ecosystems or the disruption of ecological cycles;


    (j) guarantee peace and eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons;


    (k) promote and support practices of respect for Mother Earth and all beings, in accordance with their own cultures, traditions and customs;


    (l) promote economic systems that are in harmony with Mother Earth and in accordance with the rights recognized in this Declaration.


    Article 4. Definitions


    (1) The term “being” includes ecosystems, natural communities, species and all other natural entities which exist as part of Mother Earth.


    (2) Nothing in this Declaration restricts the recognition of other inherent rights of all beings or specified beings.

  • Earth Day

    David KriegerI keep thinking that Earth Day should be about something far more profound than recycling.  Not that recycling isn’t good.  It’s just not good enough.  We humans are destroying our earth: using up its topsoil, devouring its precious resources, polluting its air and water, altering its climate.  And we are bombing and shelling the earth and each other with our wasteful and destructive military technologies.  In short, we are behaving extremely badly and fouling our own nest.  And we are doing this not only to ourselves, but to future generations.

    Earth Day should be a spiritual day, a day of appreciation and thanksgiving for the earth’s abundance and beauty.  We should stand in awe of the miracle of the earth and its myriad forms of life, including ourselves.  We should kneel before the majesty and uniqueness of our planet.  We should be humbled by the gift of this water planet and treat it with the care and love it deserves, not only on Earth Day, but every day.

    How did we become destroyers of our planetary home, rather than its guardians?  How did we become the spoilers of the future, rather than its trustees?  We did it in part with our arbitrary lines that we call borders.  We did it with our greed and selfishness, and with our lack of wonder and our lost hope.  We did it by our unquenchable thirst for more and more, and by losing sight of fairness and decency.  We did it by taking and not giving back.  What is destroying the earth?  It is us, and only us, collectively.

    We seem to care more for material things than we do for each other.  We associate richness with an abundance of things, and poverty with a scarcity of things.  We are losing the arts of contemplation, communication, and care.  We are failing in courage, compassion and commitment.  Earth Day could be a beginning point in time for becoming who we could be: vibrant and creative citizens of earth, living in joy and harmony with the earth and each other.  What can save the earth?  It is us, and only us, collectively.

    We live in the Nuclear Age, and nuclear weapons are the ultimate symbol of our lost connection to the earth, ourselves and each other.  We have reached the point in our evolution, or devolution, at which we are willing to destroy the planet to provide ourselves with the illusion of security.  Why don’t we commit this Earth Day to ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life?  Why don’t we bring the Nuclear Age to an end and begin a new age of dignity, decency, responsibility and respect for life?

    *To read the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, click here.

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.

  • Nuclear Disarmament Education

    What is nuclear disarmament education?


    David KriegerThe short answer to this question is that it is education that either reports on or promotes nuclear disarmament.  Reporting on nuclear disarmament is journalistic.  It tells what has happened, is happening or is expected to happen in the nuclear disarmament field.  Reporting on nuclear disarmament is the way the subject might be handled in a college classroom or in a news article.  It provides historical perspective, but often a nationalistic one. 


    The promotion of nuclear disarmament is far more difficult and also far more important.  It involves attempting to shift mindsets and cultural frameworks.  There are many myths about nuclear weapons that must be overcome before one can effectively promote nuclear disarmament. 


    Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons
     
    1. The use of nuclear weapons ended World War II. (Their use coincided with the end of World War II, but did not cause it.  The Japanese surrendered because the Soviet Union entered the war against them.)


    2. Nuclear weapons have prevented war since their creation. (Again, causality is an issue.  Despite nuclear weapons, there have been many wars since their creation.)


    3. No country will actually use nuclear weapons. (Countries have come very close to using nuclear weapons, by accident or design, on many occasions.)


    4. Nuclear weapons make a country more secure. (Arguably, nuclear weapons make a country far less secure.  All countries with nuclear weapons are targeted by the nuclear weapons of other countries.)


    5. Nuclear weapons are effective for deterrence. (Nuclear deterrence is only a theory.  It is not proven, and it may fail catastrophically.)


    Before people will support nuclear disarmament, they must be educated to believe that nuclear disarmament is in their interest.  Some people must be moved from their support for nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence to support for nuclear disarmament. Other people, probably a far larger category, must be moved from complacency to support nuclear disarmament.  Education must be aimed at overcoming ignorance and apathy to awaken and engage people in action for nuclear disarmament.  In this sense, education must also be advocacy. 


    Much nuclear disarmament education comes from governments and political leaders, and it is quite limited in its vision.  It seeks incremental steps in arms control rather than disarmament or abolition.  Arms control can be viewed as a way to maintain nuclear arms at somewhat lower levels.  I prefer to talk and write about reasons to oppose or abolish nuclear weapons. 


    Ten Reasons to Oppose Nuclear Weapons


    1. They are long-distance killing machines incapable of discriminating between soldiers and civilians, the aged and the newly born, or between men, women and children.   As such, they are instruments of dehumanization as well as annihilation.


    2. They threaten the destruction of cities, countries and civilization; of all that is sacred, of all that is human, of all that exists.  Nuclear war could cause deadly climate change, putting human existence at risk. 


    3. They threaten to foreclose the future, negating our common responsibility to future generations.


    4. They make cowards of their possessors, and in their use there can be no decency or honor.  This was recognized by most of the leading US military leaders of World War II, including General Dwight Eisenhower, General Hap Arnold, and Admiral William Leahy. 


    5. They divide the world’s nations into nuclear “haves” and “have-nots,” bestowing false and unwarranted prestige and privilege on those that possess them. 


    6. They are a distortion of science and technology, siphoning off our scientific and technological resources and twisting our knowledge of nature to destructive purposes.  


    7. They mock international law, displacing it with an allegiance to raw power.  The International Court of Justice has ruled that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal and any use that violated international humanitarian law would be illegal.  It is virtually impossible to imagine a threat or use of nuclear weapons that would not violate international humanitarian law (fail to discriminate between soldiers and civilians, cause unnecessary suffering or be disproportionate to a preceding attack). 


    8. They waste our resources on the development of instruments of annihilation.  The United States alone has spent over $7.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems since the onset of the Nuclear Age.


    9. They concentrate power in the hands of a small group of individuals and, in doing so, undermine democracy.


    10. They are morally abhorrent, as recognized by virtually every religious organization, and their mere existence corrupts our humanity. 


    These ten reasons to abolish nuclear weapons attempt to change a person’s mindset to become receptive to seeking the abolition of these weapons.


    How can we engage in nuclear disarmament education?


    Disarmament education generally takes place in the public arena, and thus is often dominated by the narrow and self-interested views of political leaders.  In a world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots,” it is often the nuclear “haves” that dominate the debate.  But it is the nuclear “have-nots,” along with civil society that see the dangers of nuclear weapons most clearly and who promote nuclear disarmament. 


    Let me describe some of disarmament education activities of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, an organization that I helped to found 28 years ago and where I have served as president since its founding.  Here are some of the educational activities we engage in to make the case for nuclear disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons:


    1. Appeals, Declarations and Petitions (our latest Declaration is the Santa Barbara Declaration – Reject Nuclear Deterrence: An Urgent Call to Action)
    2. Newspaper opinion pieces and magazine articles
    3. Books, book chapters and briefing booklets
    4. Websites (WagingPeace.org and NuclearFiles.org)
    5. A monthly e-newsletter, The Sunflower
    6. Public lectures and other events
    7. Essay and video contests
    8. Poetry contests
    9. Peace leadership awards
    10. An Action Alert Network
    11. Peace leadership trainings


    You can find out more about these educational activities and sign up for them at www.wagingpeace.org.  


    The task of nuclear disarmament education is clearly not an easy one, but it is a necessary one.  Nuclear disarmament will require an informed public, and an informed public will require education to stir them from their ignorance and apathy.  To accomplish this will continue to require a great deal of creativity, as well as insistence and persistence to move both the public and political leaders to action.  Civil society organizations are in the vanguard in this critical educational effort.

  • Turning the Dream of a Nuclear-Free World Into a Reality

    This article was originally published by The Hill.


    Max KampelmanTwo years ago, President Obama spoke out for universal nuclear disarmament in Prague, saying that America would seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons “clearly and with conviction.” Similar statements came from Russian President Medvedev and other world leaders, culminating in September 2009 in an unprecedented UN Security Council meeting attended by the 15 members’ heads-of-state that resolved to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.


    There has been some progress since this meeting; however, gains do not measure up to the goals set by the world’s leaders. There is the dream … and then there is the reality. 


    Russia and the US each retain thousands of nuclear warheads – more than 20,000 overall. 


    Then there are the smaller nuclear weapon states: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the UK – all of whom, with the exception of the Europeans, appear to be increasing their nuclear forces. And then there are the nuclear wannabees: Iran first in line, Syria next, perhaps Burma third, all being helped by North Korea.


    While we can argue whether the world has moved forward or backward since the Prague declaration, it clearly remains a long way from realizing the dream. What should we do?


    It is past time to ditch the piecemeal, open-ended arms control approach that the nuclear weapon states have pursued for decades. Here’s a straight-forward proposal to get things moving. 


    What if Presidents Obama and Medvedev appeared jointly before the UN General Assembly at its session this September and introduced a resolution determining that the possession of nuclear weapons is a crime against humanity, and calling all nuclear weapon states to commit themselves unequivocally to their elimination by a date certain?


    This would go beyond establishing the Ought: nuclear weapons should be abolished. It would criminalize the possession of such weapons – immediately for most nations, somewhat later for the states currently possessing them. Such a resolution should also take the critical new step of directing the Security Council to figure out the How. The Council would be directed to establish a committee to negotiate within the coming year the detailed terms of the agreement.


    A special committee is necessary as key states, such as Brazil, India, and Japan, which either have nuclear weapons or advanced nuclear technologies, but are not permanent members of the Security Council, would have to take part in the negotiations if the results are to be considered legitimate.  The committee should not be so large that it is incapable of serious discussions, however, and, importantly, no member state should have a veto over its actions and decisions. 


    There already exists a UN agency charged with such matters, the Committee on Disarmament (CD), but as any member-state has the right to veto any of the CD’s decisions, even a decision to take up an agenda item, it has been unable to hold substantive discussion for the past 14 years. The new committee should operate by majority, or reasonable super-majority, vote.  In the end, all states will retain a veto in that they will each choose whether or not to sign and ratify the disarmament treaty that results from the committee’s deliberations, but they should not be permitted to stand in the way of its completion.


    No doubt some of the nuclear weapon states will refuse to take part in the negotiation; the drafting should go ahead anyway. No doubt, once completed, some, perhaps many, states will refuse to sign or ratify the treaty. The US and Russia could begin to implement it anyway.


    The point is to begin to disarm on a clear timetable, showing people and officials in all nations that the leading nuclear powers are serious about their commitment, thereby strengthening efforts to secure nuclear materials and to stem proliferation, and creating strong pressures for others to follow suit.


    Many will say this path is too risky. We say to stay on the current path is suicidal.


     

  • HR1334: Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2011

    To write to your Representative about co-sponsoring HR1334, click here.


    112th CONGRESS
    1st Session
    H. R. 1334


    To provide for nuclear weapons abolition and economic conversion in accordance with District of Columbia Initiative Measure Number 37 of 1992, while ensuring environmental restoration and clean-energy conversion.


    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
    April 1, 2011


    Ms. NORTON introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned


    A BILL


    To provide for nuclear weapons abolition and economic conversion in accordance with District of Columbia Initiative Measure Number 37 of 1992, while ensuring environmental restoration and clean-energy conversion.


    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,


    SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.


    This Act may be cited as the ‘Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2011’.


    SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION AND ECONOMIC AND ENERGY CONVERSION.


    (a) In General- The United States Government shall–



    (1) by the date that is three years after the date of the enactment of this Act, provide leadership to negotiate a multilateral treaty or other international agreement that provides for–



    (A) the dismantlement and elimination of all nuclear weapons in every country by not later than 2020; and


    (B) strict and effective international control of such dismantlement and elimination;


    (2) redirect resources that are being used for nuclear weapons programs to use–



    (A) in converting all nuclear weapons industry employees, processes, plants, and programs smoothly to constructive, ecologically beneficial peacetime activities, including strict control of all fissile material and radioactive waste, during the period in which nuclear weapons must be dismantled and eliminated pursuant to the treaty or other international agreement described in paragraph (1); and


    (B) in addressing human and infrastructure needs, including development and deployment of sustainable carbon-free and nuclear-free energy sources, health care, housing, education, agriculture, and environmental restoration, including long-term radioactive waste monitoring;


    (3) undertake vigorous, good-faith efforts to eliminate war, armed conflict, and all military operations; and


    (4) actively promote policies to induce all other countries to join in the commitments described in this subsection to create a more peaceful and secure world.


    (b) Effective Date- Subsection (a)(2) shall take effect on the date on which the President certifies to Congress that all countries possessing nuclear weapons have–



    (1) eliminated such weapons; or


    (2) begun such elimination under established legal requirements comparable to those described in subsection (a).

  • Radiation, Japan and the Marshall Islands

    This article was originally published by CounterPunch.


    When the dangerous dust and gases settle and we discover just how much radiation escaped the damaged Fukushima reactors and spent fuel rods, we may never know how many people are being exposed to radiation from the burning fuel rods and reactor cores, and how much exposure they will receive over time. Minute and above-background traces of Iodine-131 are already showing up in Tokyo’s water supply – 150 miles southwest of the leaking reactors – and in milk and spinach [with a dash of Cesium-137] from 75 miles away. The Japanese government has recently warned pregnant women and children to avoid drinking Tokyo tap water, and I-131 levels 1,200 times above background levels were recorded in seawater near the reactors.


    Aside from sharing the dubious distinction of both nations having been at the receiving end of America’s nuclear weapons, Japan and the Marshall Islands now share another dubious distinction. The unleashed isotopes of concern from the damaged Japanese reactors – Iodine-131, Cesium-137, Strontium-90 and Plutonium-239 – are well known to the Marshall Islanders living downwind of the testing sites at Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the central Pacific, following sixty-seven A- and H-bombs exploded between 1946-58. In fact, it is precisely these isotopes that continue to haunt the 80,000 Marshallese fifty-three years after the last thermonuclear test in the megaton range shook their pristine coral atolls and contaminated their fragile marine ecosystems.


    In fact, it was the irradiated downwind Marshallese on Rongelap and Utrik in 1954 caught in the Bravo fallout – and I-131 – that taught the world about the thyroid effect from the uptake of radioactive iodine.


    The U.S.’ largest [fusion] hydrogen bomb – Bravo – was 1,000 times the Hiroshima atomic [fission] bomb, and deposited a liberal sprinkling of these and a potent potpourri of 300 other radionuclides over a wide swath of the Central Pacific and the inhabited atolls in the Marshalls archipelago in March 1954 during “Operation Castle.”


    The Rongelap islanders 120 miles downwind from Bikini received 190 rems [1.9 Sv] of whole-body gamma dose before being evacuated. The Utrik people 320 miles downwind received 15 rems [150 mSv] before their evacuation. Many of the on-site nuclear workers at Fukushima have already exceeded the Utrik dose in multiples.


    Also entrapped within the thermonuclear maelstrom from Bravo was the not-so-Lucky Dragon [Fukuryu Maru] Japanese fishing trawler with its crew of twenty-three fishing for tuna near Bikini [see The Voyage of the Lucky Dragon by Ralph Lapp]. As the heavily exposed fishermen’s health quickly deteriorated after Bravo, the radio operator Aikichi Kuboyama died of a liver illness six months after his exposure; his is now a household name in Japan and is associated with the “Bikini bomb.”


    Meanwhile, the Japanese fishing industry was rocked when Geiger counters registered “talking fish” [what the Japanese called the clicking sound of the contaminated fish being monitored] from the 800 pounds of tuna catch of the Lucky Dragon in Yaizu and in local fish markets. Much of the Japanese tuna at the time was caught by a fleet of 1,000 fishing boats operating in the fertile tuna waters near the U.S.’ Pacific Proving Ground in the Marshalls.


    In response to the plight and symbolism of the Lucky Dragon, Japanese women collected 34 million signatures on petitions advocating the immediate abolition of both atomic and hydrogen bombs in 1955. Pugwash, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning anti-nuclear organization was founded in 1955 by Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in response to Bravo. The dangers of radioactive fallout from Bravo inspired Nevil Shute’s classic nuclear dystopia On the Beach, as well as Godzilla.


    To quell the diplomatic furor – whereby the Japanese representative to the U.N. accused the U.S. in March 1954 of “once again using nuclear weapons against the Japanese people” – the U.S. paid two million dollars to the fishing company which owned the Lucky Dragon; each of the 23 fishermen ended up with the princely sum of $5,000 in 1956 and the tuna company kept the rest.


    AEC chair Lewis Strauss (who originally proposed nuclear energy “too cheap to meter” in the post-War Atoms for Peace program) told President Eisenhower’s press secretary James Hagerty in April 1954 that the Lucky Dragon was not a fishing boat at all – it was a “Red spy outfit” snooping on the American nuclear tests.


    The legacy of latent radiogenic diseases from hydrogen bomb testing in the Marshall Islands provides some clues about what ill-health mysteries await the affected Japanese in the decades ahead. Also, the Marshall Islands provide insight about ecosystem contamination of these dangerous radioactive isotopes, and what this means for the affected Japanese.


    Profiles of the four isotopes


    o Iodine-131 [radioactive iodine] has a half life of eight days, and concentrates in the thyroid gland about 5,000 times more efficiently than other parts of the body. Traces of I-131 have been discovered in Tokyo drinking water and in seawater offshore from the reactors. It took nine years for the first thyroid tumor to appear among the exposed Marshallese and hypothyroidism and cancer continued to appear decades later.


    o Cesium-137 has a half life of thirty years and is a chemical analog of potassium; Cs-137 concentrates in muscle and other parts of the body. Rongelap Island has a new layer of topsoil containing potassium to help neutralize the Cs-137 left over from the H-bomb tests, but the Marshallese residents remain unconvinced and suspicious about the habitability of their long abandoned home atoll. Meanwhile, the U.S. is pressuring hard for their repatriation despite the fact that most islands at Rongelap will remain off limits for many decades with strict dietary restrictions of local foods.


    o Strontium-90 has a half life of twenty-eight years, is a chemical analog of calcium and is known as a “bone seeker.” Rongelap and the other downwind atolls have residual Sr-90 in their soils, groundwater and marine ecosystems.


    o Plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,000 years, is considered one of the most toxic substances on Earth, and if absorbed is a potent alpha emitter that can induce cancer. This isotope too is found in the soils and groundwater of the downwind atolls from the Bikini and Enewetak H-bomb tests.


    Lessons from the Marshall Islands


    * It took nine years after exposure to the 1954 Bravo fallout for the first thyroid tumor and hypothyroidism to occur in an exposed Utrik woman from the I-131. Several more tumors [and other radiogenic disorders] among the exposed people appeared the following year and every year thereafter. The latency period for thyroid abnormalities and other radiogenic disorders [see below] endures for several decades.


    * Because a child’s thyroid gland is much smaller than an adult’s thyroid, it receives a higher concentration of I-131 than an adult dose. Also, because a child’s thyroid gland is growing more quickly than an adult’s, it requires and absorbs more iodine [and I-131] than an adult thyroid gland. That is, the thyroid effect is age-related.


    * Radioactive Iodine-129 with a half-life of 15 million years and a well-documented capacity to bioaccumulate in the foodchain, will also remain as a persistent problem for the affected Japanese.


    * The Majuro-based Nuclear Claims Tribunal was established in 1988 to settle all past and future claims against the U.S. for health injury and property loss damages from the nuclear tests. As of 2006, the NCT had paid out $73 million [of the $91 million awarded] for 1,999 Marshallese claimants. There are thirty-six medical conditions that are presumed to be caused by the nuclear tests [http://www.nuclearclaimstribunal.com]. Eligibility for Marshallese citizens consists of having been in the Marshall Islands during the testing period [1946-58] and having at least one of the presumptive medical disorders.


    * The sociocultural and psychological effects [e.g., PTSD] of the Fukushima nuclear disaster will be long-lasting, given the uncertainty surrounding the contamination of their prefecture and beyond. Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton eloquently detailed this uncertain future and fears about “invisible contamination” concerning the Hiroshima and Nagasaki “hibakusha” [“A-bomb survivors”] in his award-winning 1968 magnum opus Death in Life.


    * Noted radiation experts John Gofman [co-discoverer of U-232 and U-233 and author of Radiation and Human Health], Karl Z. Morgan [a founder of health physics] and Edward Radford [Chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ BEIR III committee and advisor to the Nuclear Claims Tribunal] stated that there is no threshold dose for low level ionizing radiation:


        Any amount of ionizing radiation – which is cumulative – can pose a health threat for certain individuals, and especially those with compromised immune systems.

  • Somehow

    “Somehow this madness must cease.”
    –Martin Luther King, Jr.

    David KriegerSomehow, like a small stunned bird
    cupped in your hands with its heart racing,
    is a word of hope or desperation,

    carrying a moral burden, a Sisyphean burden,
    to do whatever is possible, before
    it is too late.

    Might we not somehow awaken,
    open our eyes, stand up in the face of madness
    and, even with trembling legs

    and a fluttering heart, comfort
    the small bird until it can spread its wings
    and fly away?

    It is a delicate task to set aside
    the blanket of complacency, to somehow,
    as he did, clutch courage to your breast.

    David Krieger
    March 2011

  • Nuclear Energy and Weapons: Uncontrollable in Time and Space

    This article was originally published on the Huffington Post.


    Alyn WareThe earthquake and tsunami in Japan devastated a whole region. Radioactive emissions from the damaged nuclear reactors are very serious, and have already contaminated food and water, prompting a ban on food exports from four prefectures and a government warning not to give Tokyo tap water to babies. The crisis could impact human health and the environment on an even wider scale — across Japan and around the globe.


    Whether or not the brave technicians in Fukushima are successful in containing the bulk of the radiation in the six reactors, the message is clear: natural disasters and accidents will happen. If it can go wrong sooner or later it will go wrong, and Murphy’s law and nuclear energy do not mix.


    In Japan, the fear of radiation spreading is connected to the memory of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki over 65 years ago. Over 100,000 people died from radiation exposure — nearly as many as from the blast. The genetic effects continue down through the generations.


    Japan’s nuclear crisis has brought back to public consciousness the basic truth that the effects of nuclear disasters — whether from nuclear energy or nuclear weapons — are uncontrollable in time and space.


    Current events at Fukushima remind us of the negligence of nuclear power companies in building nuclear power plants on earthquake fault lines or vulnerable coastlines. But they should also remind us of the even greater negligence of the nuclear weapon states in maintaining their arsenals of 20,000 nuclear weapons — most with yields over 100 times greater than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and many on hair trigger alert, ready to launch within minutes. Any accidental, unauthorized, inadvertent or intentional use today (or tomorrow) would have a catastrophic, widespread, unprecedented and unimaginable impact on humanity and the environment.


    A recent statement released by international law experts from around the world, including former judges from the International Court of Justice, affirms that maintaining nuclear weapons and a readiness to use them is not only negligent, but given the dire consequences of any use, also against the law. The Vancouver Declaration on “Law’s Imperative for the Urgent Achievement of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World,” notes that the use of nuclear weapons would be “contrary to the fundamental rules of international humanitarian law (laws governing use of force in wartime) forbidding the infliction of indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering.”


    In other words, during war one can attack military targets and personnel, but not civilians. One can inflict harm on military personnel, but not such harm that would last long after the conflict is over. In addition, it is illegal even in wartime to inflict long-term and severe damage on the environment. Nuclear weapons, with their uncontrollable blast, heat and radiation effects, could not be used without violating these laws. And if such an act is illegal, the threat to commit such an act is also illegal.


    Thus, in 1996 the International Court of Justice (a. k. a. the World Court) determined that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal, and that there is an unconditional obligation to achieve the complete prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons through good-faith negotiations.


    Since then, failure of the nuclear weapon states to comply has had predictably disastrous results for global proliferation and nuclear danger, convincing India, Pakistan and North Korea that if they can’t cajole the nuclear weapon states to give up nuclear weapons, then they might as well join their nuclear club. Others are bound to follow suit.


    Until recently, states that wanted to hang onto their nuclear arsenals and their policies to use them argued that such policies were legal by misrepresenting a clause in the Court’s opinion. That clause stated that the ICJ could not reach a conclusion on the legality of threat or use in the extreme circumstance of self-defense when the very survival of a state is at stake. So by stating that they would only use nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances,” the nuclear weapon states avoided applying the general ruling of illegality to their nuclear weapons policies.


    But they can no longer avoid this. In May 2010, the parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which includes the major nuclear weapon states, affirmed that any use of nuclear weapons would cause catastrophic humanitarian consequences, and that states must comply with international humanitarian law “at all times.” They also agreed that all states must make special efforts to build the framework for a nuclear weapons-free world, citing the United Nations Secretary-General’s proposal for negotiations on a global nuclear abolition treaty.


    Now governments have to choose: hang onto their nuclear arsenals, or uphold the rule of law to which they have agreed. They can’t do both. We all know which will make us safer. Nuclear possession is a recipe for proliferation and corrosive to international humanitarian law, which, as the Vancouver Declaration says, “is essential to limiting the effects of armed conflicts, large and small, around the world.”


    The nuclear crisis in Japan has debunked the claims of authorities that their nuclear power stations, built with inferior containment on fault-lines, are safe and fully under control. Before something goes horribly wrong on the weapons front, we must also debunk the claims of the nuclear weapon states that nuclear weapons are safe as long as they are in the ‘right hands.’


    States including the US take the position that we should just trust them to take small steps towards nuclear disarmament sometime in an indefinite future. That’s like trusting the nuclear power industry to police itself and voluntarily phase itself out in deference to public safety. It simply won’t happen without a global prohibition enforced by the rest of the world, like the one outlined in the draft treaty circulated by the UN Secretary-General.


    In 1996, the President of the International Court of Justice called nuclear weapons an “absolute evil.” We have already applied international humanitarian law to other inhumane and indiscriminate (read “evil”) weapons such as landmines and cluster munitions in order to achieve global treaties for banning them. Now it’s time for absolute prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons.

  • Daisaku Ikeda’s Perseverance and Passion for Peace

    David KriegerDaisaku Ikeda is a man with a great heart and a great vision for humanity’s future.  I admire not only his passion for peace, as expressed in his annual Peace Proposals, but also his perseverance.  He does not give up.  He has a deep well of creativity.  His words have power because he is a man of conviction and action.


    This year’s Peace Proposal is titled, “Toward a World of Dignity for All: the Triumph of the Creative Life.”  I share a passion for the world Daisaku Ikeda envisions, a world of dignity for all.  I once rewrote the US Pledge of Allegiance as a World Citizens’ Pledge.  It said, “I pledge allegiance to the Earth and to its varied life forms; one world, indivisible, with liberty, justice and dignity for all.”  We should not be satisfied until the least among us is able to live a life of dignity.


    Daisaku Ikeda has correctly highlighted the importance of the eight Millennium Development Goals.  These goals are not sufficient, but they are necessary steps on the path to “dignity for all.”  If they are to be fulfilled, we must stop spending so lavishly on the world’s military forces and transfer a reasonable percentage of these resources toward ending poverty and disease while promoting education, environmental protection and the rights of women.


    I agree strongly with Daisaku Ikeda about leadership: in the “absence of international political leadership, civil society should step in to fill the gap, providing the energy and vision needed to move the world in a new and better direction.” 


    In recent weeks, we have seen wonderful examples of tens of thousands of people in Middle East countries taking to the streets and providing the leadership to oust dictators and demand new governments capable of assuring dignity for all citizens.  These citizen leaders have inspired each other and people throughout the world with their courage, compassion and commitment.


    The goal of abolishing nuclear weapons should be high on the agenda for achieving human dignity.  These weapons, with their implicit threat of indiscriminate mass murder, devalue the human species by their very existence.  They have also taken precious financial and human resources from human development goals. 


    I agree with Daisaku Ikeda’s perspective that “it is necessary to thoroughly challenge the theory of deterrence upon which nuclear weapons possession is predicated.”  Nuclear deterrence is a theory of human behavior, and it has many flaws that could result in the catastrophic use of nuclear weapons.


    Recently, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held a conference on “The Dangers of Nuclear Deterrence.”  Out of that conference, we created a “Santa Barbara Declaration,” a call to action to reject nuclear deterrence.  The Declaration lists eight major problems with nuclear deterrence and states, “Nuclear deterrence is discriminatory, anti-democratic and unsustainable.  This doctrine must be discredited and replaced with an urgent commitment to achieve global nuclear disarmament.  We must change the discourse by speaking truth to power and speaking truth to each other.”


    Nuclear weapons have no place in a world that values human dignity.  My great goal in life is to see these weapons totally abolished.  This would represent a change of heart and orientation for humanity.  It would mean that we had come together in common cause to assure that these weapons could not destroy the civilizations we have so painstakingly built and maintained over many millennia. 


    I concur with Daisaku Ikeda and his mentor, Josei Toda, that nuclear weapons represent an “absolute evil,” one that cannot be tolerated if we are to fulfill our responsibility to ourselves and to future generations.  Ikeda points out that standing between our existing world and a world free of nuclear weapons are “walls of apathy.” 


    Our great challenge today is to break down these walls of apathy and replace them with gardens of creativity.  Upon such creativity can be built a shining world of “dignity for all,” one in which nuclear weapons exist only as a historical memory and powerful lesson about humanity’s capacity to overcome great threats by joining hands in common purpose.

  • From Hiroshima to Fukushima

    This article was originally published by The New York Times.


    Jonathan SchellThe horrible and heartbreaking events in Japan present a strange concatenation of disasters.


    First, the planet unleashed one of its primordial shocks, an earthquake, of a magnitude greater than any previously recorded in Japan. The earthquake, in turn, created the colossal tsunami, which, when it struck the country’s northeastern shores, pulverized everything in its path, forming a filthy wave made of mud, cars, buildings, houses, airplanes and other debris.


    In part because the earthquake had just lowered the level of the land by two feet, the wave rolled as far as six miles inland, killing thousands of people. In a stupefying demonstration of its power, as The New York Times has reported, the earthquake moved parts of Japan 13 feet eastward, slightly shifted the earth’s axis and actually shortened each day that passes on earth, if only infinitesimally (by 1.8 milliseconds).


    But this was not all. Another shock soon followed. Succumbing to the one-two punch of the earthquake and the tsunami, eleven of Japan’s 54 nuclear power reactors were shut down. At this writing, three of them have lost coolant to their cores and have experienced partial meltdowns. The same three have also suffered large explosions.


    The spent fuel in a fourth caught fire. Now a second filthy wave is beginning to roll — this one composed of radioactive elements in the atmosphere. They include unknown amounts of cesium-137 and iodine-131, which can only have originated in the melting cores or in nearby spent fuel rod pools. Both are dangerous to human health.


    The Japanese government has evacuated some 200,000 people in the vicinity of the plants and issued potassium iodide pills, which prevent the uptake of radioactive iodine. The U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan had to change course when it sailed into a radioactive cloud.


    The second shock was, of course, different from the first in at least one fundamental respect. The first was dealt by Mother Nature, who has thus reminded us of her sovereign power to nourish or punish our delicate planet, its axis now tipping ever so slightly in a new direction. No finger of blame can be pointed at any perpetrator.


    The second shock, on the other hand, is the product of humankind, and involves human responsibility. Until the human species stepped in, there was no appreciable release of atomic energy from nuclear fission or fusion on earth. It took human hands to introduce it into the midst of terrestrial affairs.


    That happened 66 years ago, also in Japan, when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the time, President Harry Truman used language that is worth pondering today.


    “It is an atomic bomb,” he said. “It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.”


    Japan’s prime minister, Naoto Kan, referred to the atomic bombings by implication when he stated that the current crisis was the worst for Japan “since the Second World War.”


    For some years afterward, atomic energy was understood mainly to be an inconceivably malign force — as the potential source of a sort of man-made equivalent of earthquakes, and worse.


    In the 1950s, however, when nuclear power plants were first built, an attempt began to find a bright side to the atom. (In 1956 Walt Disney even made a cartoon called “Our Friend the Atom.”)


    A key turning point was President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace proposal in 1953, which required nuclear-armed nations to sell nuclear power technology to other nations in exchange for following certain nonproliferation rules. This bargain is now enshrined in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which promotes nuclear power even as it discourages nuclear weapons.


    As Ira Chernus has chronicled in his book “Atoms for Peace,” the proposal paradoxically grew out of Eisenhower’s distaste for arms control. He had launched a nuclear buildup that would increase the U.S. arsenal from 1,436 warheads at the beginning of his two terms to 20,464 by the end. His strategic nuclear policy was one of “massive retaliation,” which relied more heavily on nuclear threats than Truman’s policy had. Arms control would have obstructed these policies.


    Yet Eisenhower needed some proposal to temper his growing reputation as a reckless nuclear hawk. Atoms for Peace met this need. The solution to nuclear danger, he said, was “to take this weapon out of the hands of the soldiers” and put it “into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace” — chiefly, those who would use it to build nuclear power plants.


    Of course, the weapon never was taken out of the hands of soldiers, but the basic power of the universe was indeed handed over to nuclear power engineers — including Japanese engineers.


    The long, checkered career of nuclear power began. The promise at first seemed great, but the problems cropped up immediately. The distinction between Disney’s smiling, friendly atom and the frowning, hostile one kept breaking down.


    In the first place, the technology of nuclear power proved to be an open spigot for the spread of technology that also served the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the second place, the requirement of burying nuclear waste for the tens of thousands of years it takes for its radioactive materials to decline to levels deemed safe mocked the meager ingenuity and constancy of a species whose entire recorded history amounts only to some 6,000 years.


    Finally, the technology of nuclear power itself kept breaking down and bringing or threatening disaster, as is now occurring in Japan.


    The chain of events at the reactors now running out of control provides a case history of the underlying mismatch between human nature and the force we imagine we can control.


    Nuclear power is a complex, high technology. But the things that endemically malfunction are of a humble kind. The art of nuclear power is to boil water with the incredible heat generated by a nuclear chain reaction. But such temperatures necessitate continuous cooling. Cooling requires pumps. Pumps require conventional power. These are the things that habitually go wrong — and have gone wrong in Japan. A backup generator shuts down. A battery runs out. The pump grinds to a halt.


    You might suppose that it is easy to pump water into a big container, and that is usually true, but the best-laid plans go awry from time to time. Sometimes the problem is a tsunami, and sometimes it is an operator asleep at the switch.


    These predictable and unpredictable failings affect every stage of the operation. For instance, in Japan, the nuclear power industry has a record of garden-variety cover-ups, ducking safety regulations, hiding safety violations and other problems. But which large bureaucratic organization does not?


    And if these happen in Japan, as orderly and efficient a country as exists on earth, in which country will they not? When the bureaucracy is the parking violations bureau or the sanitation department, ordinary mistakes lead to ordinary mishaps. But when the basic power of the universe is involved, they court catastrophe.


    The problem is not that another backup generator is needed, or that the safety rules aren’t tight enough, or that the pit for the nuclear waste is in the wrong geological location, or that controls on proliferation are lax.


    It is that a stumbling, imperfect, probably imperfectable creature like ourselves is unfit to wield the stellar fire released by the split or fused atom.


    When nature strikes, why should humankind compound the trouble? The earth is provided with enough primordial forces of destruction without our help in introducing more. We should leave those to Mother Nature.


    Some have suggested that in light of the new developments we should abandon nuclear power. I have a different proposal, perhaps more in keeping with the peculiar nature of the peril. Let us pause and study the matter. For how long?


    Plutonium, a component of nuclear waste, has a half-life of 24,000 years, meaning that half of it is transformed into other elements through radioactive decay. This suggests a time-scale. We will not be precipitous if we study the matter for only half of that half-life, 12,000 years.


    In the interval, we can make a search for safe new energy sources, among other useful endeavors. Then perhaps we’ll be wise enough to make good use of the split atom.