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  • You Are Not One But Many

    Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Your deep voice still hangs in the air,
    Melting the cowardly silence.
    You are the one standing solidly there
    Looking straight in the face of violence.

    You are the one who dreams
    That this nation will honor its creed.
    You are the one who steps forward.
    You are the one to bleed.

    You are not one but many
    Unwilling to cower or crawl.
    You are the one who will take no less
    Than a world that is just for all.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a councilor of the World Future Council.

  • North Korea: How Many Wake-Up Calls Will It Take?

    North Korea has been sounding alarms since it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003.  Its latest wake-up call in early 2016 was its fourth nuclear test.  This time it claimed to have tested a far more powerful thermonuclear weapon, although seismic reports do not seem to bear this out.

    North Korea has been roundly condemned for its nuclear tests, including this one.  To put this in perspective, however, the U.S. has conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, continues to conduct subcritical nuclear tests, has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, is in breach of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, regularly tests nuclear-capable missiles, and plans to spend $1 trillion modernizing its nuclear arsenal.  The U.S. and the other nuclear-armed countries are quick to point fingers at North Korea, but slow to recognize their own role in fanning the flames of nuclear catastrophe.

    What does an awakened world actually mean?

    As the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have repeatedly warned, “We must abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us.”  This will require good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race and achieve nuclear zero.  And these negotiations must be convened and led by the US and Russia, the two most powerful nuclear-armed countries in the world.

    If we are not awakened by North Korea’s latest test, what will it take?  What other, louder alarm is necessary for the world to come together and work toward achieving nuclear zero before nuclear weapons are used again and we all become victims of a war from which humanity will never awaken?

  • Responding to North Korea’s Fourth Nuclear Test

    This article was originally published on Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

    Tonight’s PBS Newshour covered North Korea’s fourth nuclear test that occurred earlier today. Wendy Sherman, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and advisor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, called for further sanctions “to ensure that we not allow North Korea to blackmail the international community, but that we take resolute action to tell them, this is not acceptable.” The only problem with her call to action is that it is more of the same that has gotten us nowhere good over the last thirteen years.

    The other guest on the show, former Director of Los Alamos, Siegfried Hecker (now my colleague at Stanford) pointed out that problem in his response to the host’s question: “Everyone, as Wendy Sherman has pointed out, is calling for resolute action … What difference does that make for a rogue state like North Korea?” Here’s his answer (emphasis added):

    Quite frankly, I think none – because we’ve been through this at least since 2003, or so, when North Korea pulled out of the Nonproliferation Treaty, and the attempts, not only by the United States, but by the international community, has been in essence to threaten North Korea, to sanction North Korea, to isolate North Korea, and it simply hasn’t worked. I think we failed to engage North Korea appropriately when we had opportunities in these last twelve or thirteen years – whatever engagement was there didn’t work. The bottom line is, over this time, from 2003, when they most likely built their first primitive device, which they tested in 2006, until today, they have gone from building a device in 2003, testing one that didn’t work so well in 2006, to just now, where they have the fourth test – a successful test – and in the meantime, at the same time, they have scaled up their ability to make more bombs. And so, where we used to have the problem of having this country that could perhaps build a simple nuclear device, today they appear to have a nuclear arsenal. That’s a great concern and to me that means that we have to do something different than was done over the last twelve years.

    Hecker, who has been to North Korea seven times on “track two” diplomatic missions has been saying similar things for years. For example, in a 2010 paper: “Pyongyang was willing to slow its drive for nuclear weapons only when it believed the fundamental relationship with the United States was improving, but not when the regime was threatened.”

    Our use of economic sanctions against North Korea is usually portrayed in terms of our efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation. But, if we were to be honest with ourselves, we’d admit that underneath that socially acceptable veneer we hope that government will implode and produce regime change. A page 1 story in Thursday’s (7 January) New York Times brings  that into clearer focus when it said (emphasis added):

    The United Nations Security Council condemned North Korea for its nuclear test on Wednesday, but there was no evidence yet that the North’s most powerful backer, China, was willing to stiffen sanctions in a way that could push the unpredictable country to the point of collapse or slow its nuclear progress.

    We need to deal with reality, not how we’d like things to be. And the reality is, so long as North Korea feels threatened by us, not only will it not give up its nuclear weapons program (as Gaddafi did to his great harm), but it will build an ever larger arsenal. As distasteful as the Kim Jong-un regime is, we need to learn how to live with it, rather than continue vainly trying to make it collapse. As Dr. Hecker points out, that latter approach has given us an unstable nation with a nuclear arsenal.

    Insanity has been defined as repeating the same mistake over and over again, but expecting a different outcome. Isn’t it time we tried a new experiment?

  • More Madness in a Mad World, North Korea with the H-Bomb

    ruben_arvizuVaya aquí para la versión española.

    Like a ghastly nightmare, North Korea has announced:  “The republic’s first hydrogen bomb test has been successfully performed at 10:00 am on January 6, 2016.” Experts, however, doubt that the test was any more powerful than previous North Korean nuclear tests.

    In 2006, North Korea joined the ranks of the exclusive club of nuclear-armed nations.  What a great achievement, now they can alsothreaten with the use of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. They are the only country currently testing nuclear weapons.

    On a planet under siege and suffering the gravest ecological destruction since the dawn of man, instead of looking for the urgent needed solutions, we bring the Doomsday scenario.

    It is ironic that a mere 89 years separated the publication of Darwin’s “The Origin of the Species” in November 24, 1859 to the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945.  We have come from searching for where and how we came to this world, to the capability of annihilating all life on the planet.  The present international situation is more than daunting. We face an undeniable climate change with all its related impacts; sectarian wars; terrorism; waves of refugees as never seen since WWII; and the list goes on and on.

    The consequences of the expansion of nuclear nations project a dark shadow in the goals to have a Zero Nuclear world.  Our voices at NAPF have for more than two decades focused on the awareness and empowerment of the people demanding to stop more nuclear armaments and to comply with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003.

    More than ever it is necessary to try the best diplomacy while including economic sanctions on North Korea.  The international community must support these actions unanimously.  We still have a long road ahead to achieve a world free of the menace of a nuclear catastrophe.   We do not need to add more madness to an already troubled humanity.

    Ruben Arvizu is Director for Latin America of NAPF,  Ambassador of the Global Covenant of Cities on Climate and Director General for Latin America of Jean-Michel Cousteau’s  Ocean Futures Society.

  • Más locura en un mundo ya loco, Corea del Norte con la Bomba H

    ruben_arvizuClick here for the English version.

    Como una pesadilla espantosa, Corea del Norte ha anunciado: “La primera prueba de la bomba de hidrógeno de nuestra república se ha realizado con éxito a las 10:00 de la mañana del 6 de enero de 2016.” Sin embargo, varios expertos dudan que la explosión haya sido más poderosa que las anteriores pruebas nucleares norcoreanas.

    En 2006, Corea del Norte se unió a las filas del “exclusivo” club de naciones con armas nucleares. ¡Qué gran logro!, ya también puede amenazar con el uso de la última arma de destrucción masiva. Es el único país que actualmente efectúa pruebas nucleares.

    En un planeta en estado de sitio y sufriendo la destrucción ecológica más grave desde los albores del hombre, en lugar de buscar las soluciones necesarias urgentes, traemos el escenario del Día del Juicio.

    Es irónico que tan sólo 89 años separan la publicación de “El Origen de las Especies” de Charles Darwin, el 24 de noviembre de 1859,  a la primera detonación de un arma nuclear el 16 de julio de 1945.  Hemos pasado de buscar de dónde y cómo llegamos a este mundo, a la capacidad de aniquilar toda vida en el planeta. La actual situación internacional es muy desalentadora. Nos enfrentamos a un cambio climático innegable con todos sus impactos relacionados; guerras sectarias, el terrorismo, oleadas de refugiados como nunca se había visto desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la larga lista continúa.

    Las consecuencias de la expansión de las naciones nucleares proyecta una tenebrosa sombra en las metas para tener un mundo Nuclear Cero. Nuestras voces en NAPF desde hace más de dos décadas se han centrado en la sensibilización y el empoderamiento de las personas que demandan detener más armamentos nucleares y cumplir con el Tratado de no Proliferación de Armas Nucleares, Corea del Norte se retiró del tratado en 2003.

    Más que nunca es necesario probar la mejor diplomacia, incluyendo sanciones económicas contra Corea del Norte si el reclamo de una exitosa prueba de bomba H resulta ser verdad. La comunidad internacional debe apoyar estas acciones por unanimidad. Todavía tenemos un largo camino por recorrer para lograr un mundo libre de la amenaza de una catástrofe nuclear. No necesitamos añadir más locura a una humanidad ya más que perturbada.

    Rubén Arvizu es Director para América Latina de NAPF, Embajador del Pacto Global de Ciudades sobre el Clima y Director general para América Latina de Ocean Futures Society de Jean-Michel Cousteau.

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Ambition and the US Presidential Campaign

    Robert DodgeWith the news of North Korea testing another nuclear weapon its leadership continues the fallacy of nuclear deterrence promoted by the nuclear powers of the world. This action by North Korea must be condemned just as the continued possession of nuclear weapons by all of the nuclear states. This action is against the growing international consensus for a universal treaty banning all nuclear weapons and making their possession illegal just as chemical and biological weapons have been prohibited.

    In a year of U.S. presidential elections, where is the voice of reason? Who among the candidates or media has spoken to the legal obligations of the United States and all nuclear powers to work in good faith for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Particularly in view of the current climate science confirming that a small regional limited nuclear war using only ½ of 1 percent of the global nuclear arsenals has the potential to cause the deaths of more than 2 billion people from the ensuing climate change following such a war. Who has the courage to speak the truth and put forth a plan to eliminate these weapons?

    Where is the media in it’s investigative obligation and engagement of dialogue on this issue in the campaign. Outlets like PBS continue to cover the arms race and modernization of our Trident submarines, each with the potential for the above scenario many times over, as though it is an acceptable outcome of global doomsday if they are activated. This is accepted without question as a fait accompli. We must ask the candidates if they are actually aware of this science and if so under what circumstance they are ready to end life as we know it becoming defacto suicide bombers. For it would be only a matter of time before the global climatic effects of such a use would result in our own deaths. There can be no doublespeak in this response. You are either in favor of the status quo with existing arsenals that drive the arms race and promote nations like North Korea to develop their own capabilities or you work in earnest to eliminate these weapons.

    Time is not on our side. The chance of accidental or intentional nuclear war is placed by probability theorists at 1% per year or more. A child born today is not likely to reach their 30th birthday without some nuclear event occurring in their world. Is this the world we want for our children and grandchildren?

    The candidates and the media must overcome their cowardice in addressing this issue at this critical time.

    We must demand answers to these questions about the greatest imminent existential threat to our world. We cannot rely on the hope that someone else will take care of this or the notion that I cannot make a difference. In our democracy each of us has a duty and responsibility to be informed and to take action.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

    Robert Dodge is a family physician practicing full time in Ventura, California. He serves on the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles serving as a Peace and Security Ambassador and at the national level where he sits on the security committee. He also serves on the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions. He writes for PeaceVoice.

  • American Casualties of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Program

    When Americans think about nuclear weapons, they comfort themselves with the thought that these weapons’ vast destruction of human life has not taken place since 1945—at least not yet. But, in reality, it has taken place, with shocking levels of U.S. casualties.

    This point is borne out by a recently-published study by a team of investigative journalists at McClatchy News. Drawing upon millions of government records and large numbers of interviews, they concluded that employment in the nation’s nuclear weapons plants since 1945 led to 107,394 American workers contracting cancer and other serious diseases. Of these people, some 53,000 judged by government officials to have experienced excessive radiation on the job received $12 billion in compensation under the federal government’s Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. And 33,480 of these workers have died.

    How could this happen? Let’s examine the case of Byron Vaigneur. In October 1975, he saw a brownish sludge containing plutonium break through the wall of his office and start pooling near his desk at the Savannah River, South Carolina nuclear weapons plant. Subsequently, he contracted breast cancer, as well as chronic beryllium disease, a debilitating respiratory condition. Vaigneur, who had a mastectomy to cut out the cancer, is today on oxygen, often unable to walk more than a hundred feet. Declaring he’s ready to die, he has promised to donate his body to science in the hope that it will help save the lives of other people exposed to deadly radiation.

    Actually, workers in nuclear weapons plants constitute only a fraction of Americans whose lives have been ravaged by preparations for nuclear war. A 2002 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services maintained that, between 1951 and 1963 alone, the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons—more than half of it done by the United States—killed 11,000 Americans through cancer. As this estimate does not include internal radiation exposure caused by inhaling or swallowing radioactive particles, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research has maintained that the actual number of fatal cancers caused by nuclear testing could be 17,000. Of course, a larger number of people contracted cancer from nuclear testing than actually died of it. The government study estimated that those who contracted cancer numbered at least 80,000 Americans.

    Who were these Americans? Many of them were “downwinders”—people whose towns and cities were located near U.S. nuclear testing sites and, thus, were contaminated by deadly clouds of nuclear fallout carried along by the wind. During the 1950s, the U.S. government conducted close to a hundred atmospheric nuclear explosions at its Nevada test site. Nearly 30 percent of the radioactive debris drifted over the towns to the east, which housed a population of roughly 100,000 people. The residents of St. George, Utah recalled that a “pink cloud” would hang over them while they worked amid the fallout, walked in it, breathed it, washed their clothes in it, and ate it. “Even the little children ate the snow,” recalled one resident. “They didn’t know it was going to kill them later on.”

    During subsequent decades, leukemia and other cancer rates soared in the counties adjoining the Nevada test site, as they did among the 250,000 U.S. soldiers exposed to U.S. nuclear weapons tests. From the standpoint of U.S. military commanders, it was vital to place American soldiers close to U.S. nuclear explosions to get them ready to fight in a nuclear war. Subsequently, as many of these soldiers developed cancer, had children with birth defects, or died, they and their family members organized atomic veterans’ groups to demand that the federal government provide medical care and financial compensation for their suffering. Today, atomic veterans receive both from the federal government.

    Uranium miners comprise yet another group of Americans who have suffered and died from the U.S. nuclear weapons program. To obtain the uranium ore necessary to build nuclear weapons, the U.S. government operated thousands of uranium mines, often on the lands of Native Americans, many of whom worked as miners and died premature deaths. The U.S. Public Health Service and the National Institute for Public Safety and Health conducted studies of uranium miners that discovered alarmingly high rates of deaths from lung cancer, other lung diseases, tuberculosis, emphysema, blood disease, and injuries. In addition, when the uranium mines were played out or abandoned for other reasons, they were often left as open pits, thereby polluting the air, land, and water of the surrounding communities with radiation and heavy metals.

    This American nuclear catastrophe is not only a matter of the past, but seems likely to continue well into the future. The U.S. government is now beginning a $1 trillion program to “modernize” its nuclear weapons complex. This involves building new nuclear weapons factories and labs, as well as churning out new nuclear weapons and warheads for firing from the air, land, and sea. Of course, if these weapons and their overseas counterparts are used, they will destroy the world. But, as we have seen, even when they are not used in war, they exact a dreadful toll—in the United States and, it should be noted, in other nations around the world.

    How long are people going to tolerate this nuclear tragedy?

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany.  His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at UAardvark?

  • Sunflower Newsletter: January 2016

    Issue #222 – January 2016

    Follow David Krieger on twitter

    Click here or on the image above to follow NAPF President David Krieger on Twitter.
    • Perspectives
      • We Are Living at the Edge of a Nuclear Precipice by David Krieger
      • Date from Hell: Can Nuclear War Be Fun and Games? by Robert Kazel
      • The New Nuclear Arms Race by Katrina van den Heuvel
      • How Our Naive Understanding of Violence Helps ISIS by Paul K. Chappell
    • Nuclear Proliferation
      • IAEA Closes Iran Nuclear Bomb Probe
      • Experts Say India Is Building New City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons
    • Nuclear Insanity
      • U.S. Declassifies Nuclear Target List from 1950s
    • War and Peace
      • India and Pakistan Restart Peace Talks
    • Nuclear Modernization
      • U.S. Senators Urge President Obama to Cancel New Nuclear Cruise Missile
      • U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production Has Sickened and Killed Thousands
    • Nuclear Zero Lawsuits
      • Marshall Islands Fights Back in Nuclear Lawsuit
    • Resources
      • January’s Featured Blog
      • This Month in Nuclear Threat History
      • Vote for the Arms Control Person of the Year
      • World Nuclear Victims Forum
    • Foundation Activities
      • Robert Scheer to Deliver the 15th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future
      • NAPF is Hiring a Director of Development
      • Join Us in Working for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons
      • Peace Leadership: A Year in Review
    • Quotes

     

    Perspectives

    We Are Living at the Edge of a Nuclear Precipice

    by David Krieger

    With nuclear weapons, what could possibly go wrong? The short answer is: Everything.

    We must recognize that we are living at the edge of a nuclear precipice with the ever-present dangers of nuclear proliferation, nuclear accidents and miscalculations, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war. Instead of relying on nuclear deterrence and pursuing the modernization of nuclear arsenals, we need to press our political leaders to fulfill our moral and legal obligations to negotiate in good faith for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. That is, we need to break free of our acidic complacency and commit ourselves to achieving a nuclear zero world.

    To read more, click here.

    Date from Hell: Can Nuclear War Be Fun and Games?

    by Robert Kazel

    A scenario: You’re nearing the end of a blind date, waiting for the waiter to bring out the ice cream. Both of you are still trying to come up with fodder for conversation.

    Just then, your date declares with a smile, “So how about nuclear weapons? Wouldn’t using them be…well, sort of fun?  The collapse of modern society, or at least the end of the comforts we know? Imagine the thousands of immediate deaths, the damage to the Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystem. The famines. Oh, and I forgot the years of skyrocketing cancer cases!”

    After you’ve finished staring, and blinking, after you’ve caught the waiter’s eye for the check, you might still be waiting for the punchline. No one could actually be so flip, so grotesquely cavalier about a grave danger to civilization — indeed, the gravest possible danger. Could they? Particularly with a new acquaintance they’re purportedly trying to woo? But I recently discovered this very discussion happening in reality, in the singularly strange world of “cyberdating.”

    To read more, click here.

    The New Nuclear Arms Race

    by Katrina van den Heuvel

    The United States and Russia are acting with increasing belligerence toward each other while actively pursuing monstrous weapons. As Joe Cirincione described in the Huffington Post, the Pentagon plans to spend $1 trillion over 30 years on “an entire new generation of nuclear bombs, bombers, missiles and submarines,” including a dozen submarines carrying more than 1,000 warheads, capable of decimating any country anywhere. In the meantime, President Obama has ordered 200 new nuclear bombs deployed in Europe.

    Russia has been at least as aggressive. As Cirincione described, Russian state media recently revealed plans for a new kind of a weapon — a hydrogen bomb torpedo — that can traverse 6,000 miles of ocean just as a missile would in the sky. On impact, the bomb would create a “radioactive tsunami,” designed to kill millions along a country’s coast.

    This escalation has been a long time coming, and the U.S. owns much of the blame for the way it has accelerated.

    To read this full op-ed in the Washington Post, click here.

    How Our Naive Understanding of Violence Helps ISIS

    by Paul K. Chappell

    At West Point I learned that technology forces warfare to evolve. The reason soldiers today no longer ride horses into battle, use bows and arrows, and wield spears, is because of the gun. The reason people no longer fight in trenches, as they did during World War I, is because the tank and airplane were greatly improved and mass-produced. But there is a technological innovation that has changed warfare more than the gun, tank, or airplane. That technological innovation is mass media.

    Today most people’s understanding of violence is naive, because they do not realize how much the Internet and social media, the newest incarnations of mass media, have changed warfare. The most powerful weapon that ISIS has is the Internet with social media, which has allowed ISIS to recruit people from all over the world.

    To read more, click here.

    Nuclear Proliferation

    IAEA Closes Iran Nuclear Bomb Probe

    The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has ended its decade-long investigation of allegations that Iran worked to develop nuclear weapons. The IAEA resolution stated that the investigation was “implemented in accordance with the agreed schedule” and that this “closes the board’s consideration of the matter.”

    The IAEA investigation concluded that although Iran conducted “a range of activities relevant to the development” of nuclear weapons before the end of 2003, the activities “did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies.”

    This move by the IAEA clears the way for the deal reached in July between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China and Germany) to move forward toward full implementation.

    “IAEA ‘Closes’ Iran Nuclear Bomb Probe,” Agence France-Presse, December 15, 2015.

    Experts Say India Is Building a New City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons

    Local farmers and council members in the southern Indian state of Karnataka were alarmed in 2012 when changes began happening to limit their access to land, roads and trails. The secretive project began construction later that year. It now seems clear to some experts that India is building a massive military-run complex of nuclear centrifuges, nuclear research laboratories and weapons testing facilities. As a military facility, it would not be open to international inspection.

    Such a development would likely spur proliferation among India’s chief nuclear-armed rivals, Pakistan and China.

    Adrian Levy, “India Is Building a Top-Secret Nuclear City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons, Experts Say,” Foreign Policy, December 16, 2015.

    Nuclear Insanity

    U.S. Declassifies Nuclear Target List from 1950s

    The National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University, has obtained a list of U.S. nuclear targets through the Mandatory Declassification Review process.

    The list makes clear that Soviet airfields were the highest-priority target, followed by Soviet industrial infrastructure. However, many airfields and industrial areas were located around population centers, which would have led to massive civilian casualties. In addition, one entry in the target list is called “Population.”

    Scott Shane, “1950s U.S. Nuclear Target List Offers Chilling Insight,” The New York Times, December 22, 2015.

    War and Peace

    India and Pakistan Restart Peace Talks

    In December, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise visit to Pakistan to meet with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This was the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian Prime Minister since 2004. The two leaders pledged to accelerate peace talks and decided to have their foreign secretaries meet soon in Islamabad.

    Tensions between India and Pakistan, both of which are nuclear-armed countries, remain high over issues including the disputed territory of Kashmir.

    Anindya Upadhyay and Faseeh Mangi, “India, Pakistan to Speed Up Talks After Modi’s Surprise Visit,” Bloomberg, December 25, 2015.

    Nuclear Modernization

    U.S. Senators Urge President Obama to Cancel New Nuclear Cruise Missile

    Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) led a group of eight Senators in a letter urging President Obama to cancel the new nuclear air-launched cruise missile. Recent reports indicate that the administration plans to develop 1,000 to 1,100 new nuclear cruise missiles, which are projected to cost between $20 to $30 billion to build. In the letter, the Senators noted that this new nuclear weapon does not reflect our current national security needs, is redundant with existing nuclear and conventional options, and could lead to dramatic escalation and potential devastating miscalculations with other nuclear-armed states.

    “Outdated and unnecessary nuclear weapons are relics of the past,” wrote the Senators in the letter to President Obama. “Your administration should instead focus on capabilities that keep our economy and defense strong while reducing the role of nuclear weapons.”

    The other Senators who signed the letter are Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernard Sanders (I-VT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Al Franken (D-MN), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

    “Sen. Markey Leads Call to Cut Wasteful Nuclear Expenditures, Cancel New Nuclear Air-Launched Missile,” Office of Senator Edward Markey, December 15, 2015.

    U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production Has Sickened and Killed Thousands

    Over the past year, journalists from McClatchy conducted over 100 interviews and examined 70 million records in a federal database relating to American workers who were exposed to radiation and other toxic substances while producing nuclear weapons. At least 107,394 Americans have been diagnosed with cancers and other diseases after building the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile over the last 70 years.

    The massive number of illnesses and deaths revealed in this study has increased concerns that the United States’ current plan to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize its nuclear arsenal will lead to yet another generation of workers being exposed.

    Rob Hotakainen, Lindsay Wise, Frank Matt and Samantha Ehlinger, “Irradiated: The Hidden Legacy of 70 Years of Atomic Weaponry,” McClatchy DC, December 11, 2015.

    Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

    Marshall Islands Fights Back in Nuclear Lawsuit

    On December 15, 2015, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) filed a Reply Brief in the Nuclear Zero Lawsuit now pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In the Brief, the RMI says that U.S. government lawyers have broadly misstated the law surrounding treaty disputes. The RMI argues that U.S. courts do have the power to oversee disputes over international treaties, and that no law elevates the President’s authority above the judiciary’s power to decide disputes.

    The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to appoint a three-judge panel to consider the briefs. All court documents are available at www.nuclearzero.org/in-the-courts.

    “Marshall Islands Fights Back in Nuclear Lawsuit,” Radio New Zealand, December 21, 2015.

     Resources

    January’s Featured Blog

    This month’s featured blog is Nukes of Hazard, a project of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Recent titles on the blog include “The 2016 Presidential Candidates on Nuclear Issues,” “Pentagon Profligacy: Five Egregious Examples of Wasteful Pentagon Programs,” and “GOP Candidates on the Pentagon Budget.”

    To read these, and many other, articles, click here.

    This Month in Nuclear Threat History

    History chronicles many instances when humans have been threatened by nuclear weapons. In this article, Jeffrey Mason outlines some of the most serious threats that have taken place in the month of January, including the January 17, 1966, incident in Palomares, Spain, in which a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber carrying four Mark-28 hydrogen bombs collided in mid-air with a KC-135 tanker aircraft. Plutonium was spread over a large area.

    To read Mason’s full article, click here.

    For more information on the history of the Nuclear Age, visit NAPF’s Nuclear Files website.

    Vote for the Arms Control Person of the Year

    The Arms Control Association is holding an online voting process for the Arms Control Person of the Year. Voting closes on January 5, 2016, at 11:59 pm. One nominee is Setsuko Thurlow and the Hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nominated “for their unyielding dedication to sharing first hand accounts of the catastrophic and inhumane effects of nuclear weapons, which serves to reinforce the taboo against the further use of nuclear weapons and spur action toward a world without nuclear weapons.”

    Setsuko Thurlow recently received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, and is a committed and effective campaigner for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    To vote for the Arms Control Person of the Year, click here. When you vote, please enter the password ACPOY2015.

    World Nuclear Victims Forum

    The World Nuclear Victims Forum was held in Hiroshima on November 21-23, 2015, along with several related events in Osaka and Tokyo.

    Participants from around the world gathered to understand the reality of the damages caused in all stages of the nuclear chain, the situations of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima, and the lessons to be learned from such situations. It was also an opportunity for people from affected communities in various countries to strengthen their cooperation and network, to work together to prevent such suffering from happening again.

    The final declaration maps out draft elements for a charter of world nuclear victims’ rights and calls for the abolition of the entire nuclear chain and the urgent conclusion of a legally binding international instrument which prohibits and provides for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Foundation Activities

    Robert Scheer to Deliver the 15th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is pleased to welcome Robert Scheer, one of the nation’s most outspoken and progressive journalists, Professor of Communications at the University of Southern California, and Editor-In-Chief of Truthdig.com, to deliver the 15th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future.

    Scheer’s lecture, entitled “War, Peace, Truth and the Media,” will take place on Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. at the Faulkner Gallery, 40 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara, California. The event is free and open to the public.

    For more information, click here.

    NAPF is Hiring a Director of Development

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is hiring a Director of Development at its Santa Barbara, California, headquarters. As a non-profit organization, successful fundraising is vital to the ability of NAPF to plan and implement its programs to abolish nuclear weapons and empower peace leaders.

    Click here to view the job description. Please share with your networks.

    Join Us in Working for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    2015 has been a strong and eventful year for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. We have:

    • Supported the Marshall Islands (and their legal team) in their courageous lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries;
    • Supported the nuclear agreement with Iran;
    • Encouraged President Obama to fulfill the Prague Promise for a world free of nuclear weapons that he initiated in 2009;
    • Opposed the planned $1 trillion expenditure on the “modernization” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal;
    • Reached more than 5,000 people through our Peace Leadership Program;
    • Expanded our membership to 75,000 people;
    • Reached more than 1,000,000 people through our social media outreach (find us on Facebook and Twitter);
    • And much more (read the whole list here).

    With your help we can make 2016 an even stronger and more eventful year. We have a great team in place for 2016. Please be a part of that team, working for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons. Stand up! Speak out! Join in!

    Together we can build a more peaceful world and end the nuclear weapons threat to all humanity.

    Peace Leadership: A Year in Review

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Peace Leadership Program had a very successful year in 2015. Led by Paul K. Chappell, the program reached nearly 6,000 people in 11 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Mexico, Germany and the Netherlands. Over the year, Paul delivered 53 lectures and 13 workshops, introducing people to the concept of peace leadership and giving them the skills to implement these ideas in their daily lives.

    To read more about the NAPF Peace Leadership Program’s accomplishments in 2015 and a preview of 2016 activities, click here.

    Paul’s fifth book, The Cosmic Ocean, was also published in 2015. Click here to read more about the book and purchase a copy.

    Quotes

     

    “We must encourage all people of good will to join the work of abolishing war and weapons — not out of fear of dying, but out of the joy of living.”

    — Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate and member of the NAPF Advisory Council. This quote is featured in the book Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action, available for purchase in the NAPF Peace Store.

     

    “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

    — Nelson Mandela

     

    “I want to believe that there is no madman on Earth who would decide to use nuclear weapons.”

    — Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Editorial Team

     

    David Krieger
    Carol Warner
    Rick Wayman

  • The Upcoming Virtual Reality Revolution

    New technology makes new forms of waging peace possible. New technology in the form of mass-printed pamphlets, books, and newspapers made the early women’s rights movement possible. New technology in the form of the telegraph and international newspapers made Gandhi’s anti-colonial movement possible.

    In the 1950s, new technology in the form of television made the civil rights movement possible. The civil rights movement could not have achieved the victories it did in the amount of time it did without the power of television. In the twenty-first century, new technology in the form of the Internet and social media made the Arab Spring possible.

    The Internet has also democratized information, strengthening grassroots causes and allowing people to educate themselves. And the Internet has changed my views toward humanity’s treatment of animals by empowering me to watch Internet videos showing animals being treated horrifically.

    Virtual reality for a mass consumer market will arrive soon, and most people have no idea what is coming. When we look at history we think of everything before electricity, and everything after electricity. We think of everything before television, and everything after television. We think of everything before the Internet, and everything after the Internet. When people in the future look at history, they will see everything before virtual reality, and everything after virtual reality. I have tried the HTC Vive virtual reality headset, and words cannot describe what it is like. You feel like you are physically somewhere else. Virtual reality is mind-blowing, and arguably one of the most powerful technologies humanity has ever created. It is a godlike power, the power to create worlds, and then to put our bodies in those worlds, to lose ourselves in those worlds.

    New technology makes new forms of waging peace possible, and virtual reality offers this same potential. But all human inventions also have a dark side. A hammer can be used to build a house, or to murder. Writing can be used to spread love and truth, or hatred and lies. Electricity can be used to provide heat in winter, or to torture someone. An airplane can deliver food, or drop bombs. We can use tools to educate and protect us, or enslave and destroy us. People already get addicted to violent video games and Internet porn. Just wait until they play violent video games and watch porn while wearing a virtual reality headset.

    Technology has given humanity many gifts. But technology’s greatest gift to humanity is that it will force us to evolve ethically or we will go extinct. If we do not develop the ethics to handle our technology responsibly, we will destroy ourselves and our fragile biosphere, and we will be too lulled to sleep by our technology to stop the forces of injustice from destroying our world.

  • January: This Month in Nuclear Threat History

    January 4, 2007 – In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, one of five similarly themed pieces written by these four distinguished leaders, titled “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” two Republicans – former Secretary of State (1973-77) Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Schultz (who also served as Secretary of State from 1982-89) joined two Democrats – former Secretary of Defense (1994-97) William J. Perry and retired U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (who served as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee before stepping down in 1997) – in promoting a growing political consensus that the “world is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era.”  The authors wrote that, “…long-standing notions of nuclear deterrence are obsolete.”  They also called for removing U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles from their hair-trigger alert status.  Comments:  Unfortunately, even this powerful bipartisan message did not result in concrete steps taken toward substantial nuclear reductions by presidents Bush and Obama and the Congress.  Follow-on START and Moscow treaty reductions that were implemented seem insignificant especially after recent actions by the Nuclear Club members to modernize and expand their nuclear arsenals.  For example, the Obama Administration recently committed to spending a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to expand U.S. nuclear capabilities.   Unfortunately, a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and other arms control and reduction scenarios seem less likely since the Crimea-Ukraine crisis of 2014-2015.  With about a year left in office, President Barack Obama could act unilaterally to help reverse this state of affairs by announcing that the U.S. will de-alert one squadron of land-based ICBMs while challenging Russia to do the same or better.  Largely symbolic, such a move, standing down a small portion of our nuclear forces for just 72 hours, could help trigger further reductions and rejuvenate public interest in the global zero imperative. (Source:  “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.”  Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116787515251566636 accessed December 15, 2015.)

    January 9, 1987 – Dean Rusk (1909-1994), a former Secretary of State (1961-69) under presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson who received many awards during his career including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, spoke out against nuclear weapons with a statement that, “Nuclear war not only eliminates all the answers, but eliminates all the questions.”  Comments:  Rusk’s antinuclear comments were not unusual as a plethora of celebrities (Martin Sheen, Stacy Keach), government leaders (George Kennan), whistleblowers (Daniel Ellsberg), scientists (Margaret Mead, Albert Einstein), military leaders (Lord Mountbatten, Air Force General George Lee Butler), and countless others spoke publicly about the dangers of nuclear conflict during the Cold War (1945-1991).  However, with the risk of nuclear war perceived (incorrectly) as dramatically reduced since the Cold War ended, it seemed that less mainstream voices were continuing to speak out.  In fact, it is much more likely that corporate media has tuned out a growing chorus of proponents of nuclear weapons reduction.   Meanwhile, some long-time advocates of global zero continue to make their voices heard.  For example, U.K. Labour Party opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, a decades-long advocate of antinuclear causes, has publicly reiterated recently that if he was elected prime minister, there would be no possibility of him ever pushing the nuclear button.  (Sources:  Mainstream and alternative media sources including CNN, PBS, RT.com, and Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now.”)

    January 10, 1984 – In one of the many known incidences of near accidental nuclear war, U.S. Air Force officers hurriedly parked an armored vehicle atop a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silo at Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming when a computer malfunction resulted in one of the nuclear-tipped missiles being readied for launch.   Comments:  Although U.S. and Russian politicians and strategic military leaders maintain that such incidents are increasingly unlikely with today’s more sophisticated fail safes and software protections, most observers however remained concerned that serious and growing cyber threats still pose an appreciable risk of triggering an accidental or unintentional nuclear war.  This state of affairs represents probably the most powerful rationale for eliminating all global nuclear weapons.  (Source:  Eric Schlosser.  “Command and Control:  Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Incident, and the Illusion of Safety.”  New York:  Penguin Press, 2013.)

    January 17, 1966 – Several hours after leaving its air base near Goldsboro, North Carolina, a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber carrying four Mark-28 hydrogen bombs collided in mid-air with a KC-135 tanker aircraft near Palomares, on the southern coast of Spain.  The bomber crashed causing the high explosives jacketing at least one of the thermonuclear warheads to detonate spreading highly radioactive plutonium over a very large area.  A long and expensive search and clean-up operation by U.S. military and civilian authorities was undertaken.  Comments:  Hundreds of nuclear incidents including Broken Arrow accidents have occurred over the decades despite some innovative safety measures pushed on the Pentagon by U.S nuclear weapons laboratories and nongovernmental experts.  Nevertheless, the resulting leakage of nuclear toxins, due to accidents (many still underreported or even completely undisclosed for “national security” reasons) by members of the Nuclear Club have threatened the health and safety of large numbers of world citizenry.  (Source:  Tony Long.  “January 17, 1966:  H-Bombs Rain Down on a Spanish Fishing Village.”  Wired.com, January 17, 2012.  http://www.wired.com/2012/jan-17-1966-h-bombs-rain-down/ accessed December 15, 2015.)

    January 22, 2015 – The prestigious Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an independent, nonpartisan organization established by Manhattan Project scientists in 1945, moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock, founded in 1947, from its 2012 level of Five Minutes to Midnight to the frightening time of Three Minutes to Midnight.  The Bulletin’s press release explained the change with these words, “Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe.”  Comments:  Despite a vast proliferation of major and alternative (including social) media sources of information on the nuclear threat over the last few decades, most Americans are either unaware or unconcerned about a threat they believe virtually ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the termination of the Cold War in 1991.  In reality, seventy-plus years after Hiroshima, the nuclear risks to global civilization and the human species are as frighteningly dangerous as ever.  The time for action is now.  Drastic reductions and a time-urgent elimination of all nuclear weapons and nuclear power is a firm, unalterable requirement for human survival. (Source:  http://thebulletin.org/clock/2015 accessed December 15, 2015.

    January 28, 1982 – During the height of the Cold War, at a Congressional hearing on defense expenditures held in the Joint Economic Committee on Capitol Hill on this date, Admiral Hyman Rickover (1900-1986), the founder of the U.S. nuclear navy who was involved in the design and production of the first nuclear-powered submarine engines, the launching of the first U.S. Navy nuclear submarine – the U.S.S. Nautilus in 1955, and the development of the first large-scale civilian power reactor in Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1957, surprised the audience with strong antinuclear testimony.  Admiral Rickover stated that, “Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on Earth…there was so much radiation…Now when we use nuclear weapons or nuclear power, we are creating something which nature has been eliminating…it’s important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.”  After a shocked silence in the hearing room, Rickover added, “Then you might ask me, why do I have nuclear-powered ships?  I’m not proud of the part I played in it…That’s why I’m such a great proponent of stopping this whole nonsense of war.  I think from a long-range standpoint – I’m talking about humanity – The most important thing we could do is…first outlaw nuclear weapons to start with, then we outlaw nuclear reactors, too.”  Comments:  Admiral Rickover was just one of many U.S. and international military leaders during the seventy year nuclear arms race who have spoken out against nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.  As concerns about global warming grow stronger daily, those environmentalists who see nuclear power as one solution to the climate crisis should revisit Rickover’s comments at this hearing:  “I believe that nuclear power for commercial purposes shows itself to be more economical, but that’s a fake line of reasoning because we do not take into account the potential damage the release of radiation may do to future generations.”  (Source:  Robert Del Tredici.  “At Work in the Fields of the Bomb.”  New York:  Harper & Row Publishers, 1987, pp. 164-165.)

    January 31, 1950 – President Harry Truman agreed with calls by atomic scientists like Edward Teller and particularly military leaders serving on the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff that a super bomb (H-bomb) was “necessary to have within the arsenal of the U.S.  Such a weapon would improve our defense in its broadest sense, as a potential offensive weapon, a possible deterrent to war, but (also) a potentially retaliatory weapon as well as a defense against enemy forces.”  Accordingly, on this date, President Truman “directed the Atomic Energy Commission to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super bombs.”  However, privately, the President later told his assistant press secretary Eben Ayers that, “We had to do it, but no wants to use it.”  Almost three years later on November 1, 1952, the U.S. detonated its first thermonuclear device, a 10 megaton bomb code-named “Mike” at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands.  The Soviets followed on August 12, 1953 with a 400-kiloton device exploded at the Semipalatinsk site in Kazakhstan.  Comments:  Those were just two of the over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted above or below ground during the last seventy years by members of the Nuclear Club.   The resulting short- and long-term radioactive fallout from these tests have negatively impacted generations of people, worldwide.   And, with the advent of thermonuclear weapons, thousands of times as powerful as the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the possibility of the destruction of human civilization and the human species itself became a real possibility. (Sources:  Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahme, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.”  Washington, DC:  Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 5-6 and Richard Rhodes.  “Arsenals of Folly:  The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race.”  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, pp. 76-77.)