Category: Nuclear Waste

  • First They Bombed New Mexico – the Oppenheimer Sequel

    First They Bombed New Mexico – the Oppenheimer Sequel

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    By Anastasia Shakhidzhanova 

    On Feb. 9, 2024 our Government, Development, and Outreach Coordinator, Anastasia Shakhidzhanova, and board member Father Larry Gosselin attended the screening of “First They Bombed New Mexico” at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. The film was followed by a panel and Q&A session led by the central figure of the documentary Tina Cordova and director Lois Lipman. 

     “First They Bombed New Mexico” focuses on the catastrophic aftermath of Trinity, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in history, conducted in New Mexico in 1945, just a month before the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Despite hundreds of thousands of people living in New Mexico at the time, and thousands in less than a 20-mile radius from the test site, the individuals, communities, and lands were not considered in decision-making about the test. The exposure to radiation has led to an epidemic of cancers throughout the region that continues to plague communities to this day.

    Tina Cordova is a lifelong activist and a native New Mexican; the film follows her experience fighting for financial compensation and recognition from the federal government for the horrific damage the Trinity test and the broader nuclear industry has forced upon innocent citizens living in New Mexico. Through door-knocking, public demonstrations, and government lobbying in Washington, Cordova organizes her community to stand up for the help they deserve. Firsthand testimonies from cancer victims and survivors describe the utter lack of accurate information provided by the federal government regarding the radiation exposure brought about by the explosion. Scenes of Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project provide a realistic counterpart and parallel to the blockbuster film released in 2023, which omitted any mention of the impact on the people of New Mexico.

    The film portrays both the strength and the desperation of downwind communities and effectively pulls forth evidence to prove how careless the federal government has been with the health of New Mexicans: a prime example of environmental racism.

    While it is sobering to witness the past histories and present realities depicted on-screen, Cordova and Lipman also take extensive care to show the positive future possibilities for this region of the United States and its inhabitants. The film ends with a firm and direct call to action: contact your members of Congress and urge them to support the RECA amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would add the New Mexican downwinders to the list of eligible communities to apply for compensatory funding for health damages. 

    The deadline is June 2024 and you can learn more about how to take action here: https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/single-post/call-to-action and here: https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/about.

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  • “Oppenheimer’s Legacy” at Columbia University

    “Oppenheimer’s Legacy” at Columbia University

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    On October 25, 2023, Dr. Ivana Hughes, NAPF President and Senior Lecturer at Columbia University, joined other Columbia Professors Carol Gluck (History), Heather Radke (School of the Arts and Radiolab), and Michael Gerrard (Law School), to discuss questions of ethics in science, history, storytelling, and energy policy through the lens of the film Oppenheimer.

    The Moral Compass

    Ivana introduced the profound ethical and moral challenges that surround nuclear weapons, highlighting I.I. Rabi’s pivotal role in Oppenheimer (and in reality!) in opposing them from even before their development. Rabi, a figure sometimes overshadowed in the annals of history, emerged as a steadfast critic of nuclear weapons from the earliest days of the Manhattan Project. During their formative years, Rabi and J. Robert Oppenheimer, as young students students in Europe, developed a deep friendship that would last to the end of Robert’s life. Rabi’s powerful declaration, “I don’t want three hundred years of physics to culminate in the making of a bomb,” encapsulates the moral complexity inherent in nuclear technology. Ivana spoke of three findings that would come long after Rabi called hydrogen bombs “weapons of genocide,” namely disproportionate effects of radiation on women and girls (based on data on survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), long-term radiological contamination in former nuclear testing stites (Marshall Island), and nuclear winter. 

    The Nuclear Winter and the Global Impact

    The ominous concept of a nuclear winter, as examined by many experts, casts a shadow over any discussion of nuclear warfare. Scientists have long warned of the catastrophic global consequences of a nuclear conflict, including large fires and the abundant release of soot, which would engulf the atmosphere, causing dramatic drops in global temperatures and drastic reductions in food availability worldwide. This stark potential underscores the immediate need to address the nuclear threat through international agreements such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

    Interpreting the Nuclear Narrative: Contrasting Perspectives on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Carol Gluck, Professor of History, explained the intricate narratives surrounding the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, shedding light on the disparities in interpretation. In the Japanese narrative, these bombings are not depicted as the conclusive end of the war but as the dawn of an era of peace. In stark contrast, the American narrative often portrays the atomic bombs as causing the end of the war and saving American lives. This disparity underscores the complexity of public attitudes toward nuclear weapons, providing insight into the many historical interpretations of a pivotal event.

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    Ivana Hughes (NAPF and Columbia) explores the relationship between the development of nuclear weapons and ethics in Oppenheimer.

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    Carol Gluck (Columbia) contrasts the American and Japanese narratives of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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    Navigating Complex Narratives: Challenges in Storytelling

    Heather E. Radke, Adjunct Professor in the School of the Arts and Editor at Radiolab, drew attention to the challenges of portraying stories with unsettling endings. She underscored that depicting images of atrocities may not necessarily induce change or render audiences more receptive to complex issues. Radke highlighted the intricate balance between truth and entertainment when conveying stories of challenging subjects. The task of retaining the audience’s attention while respecting the perspectives of activists and those most affected by issues, such as nuclear weapons, is a challenging one.

    Challenges to Nuclear Energy

    Michael Gerrard, Professor of Environmental and Energy Law, explored the ethical and environmental aspects of nuclear energy and its role in addressing another existential threat, that of climate change. He drew attention to the world’s existing nuclear plants, many of which are nearing retirement, and the potential adoption of new nuclear technologies. One significant concern raised by Gerrard is the management of nuclear waste, a critical challenge in the ongoing use of nuclear energy. The establishment of suitable storage facilities for this waste poses notable political hurdles. Furthermore, Gerrard cautioned about the security risks associated with outdoor storage of nuclear waste, as it could become a vulnerable target for potential security breaches and environmental damages. His extensive legal experience, including involvement in nuclear waste cases and work with the Republic of the Marshall Islands, underscores the ongoing concerns associated with nuclear energy and waste management.

    The Role of the Individual and Public Perception

    One of the key questions surrounding nuclear technology is the role of the individual in shaping the narrative. The public’s relationship with nuclear issues has often been characterized by a sense of powerlessness. Nuclear technology has been shrouded in secrecy and government control, making it difficult for individuals to challenge the prevailing narratives. How do we empower the public to understand the magnitude of the nuclear challenge and care about it?

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    Panel at Columbia Unviersity, organized and moderated by Anelise Chen (Columbia School of Arts) and Lynnette Widder (Columbia School of Professional Studies)

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    Heather Radke (Columbia and Radiolab) addresses the relationship between truth and entertainment in storytelling.

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    Michael Gerrard (Columbia) addresses the question of nuclear energy technology.

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    Upcoming Events

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  • The Hidden Legacy of the Runit Dome

    As a third-year college student, I have struggled my way through enough United States history courses to know that our government has not always acted in the most benevolent of ways in the past, particularly when dealing with smaller, vulnerable countries. I have always liked to think that most of these transgressions, though unacceptable, are at the very least acknowledged by following generations of leadership, and reparations are paid or apologies extended to affected groups. Yet a recent episode of Australia’s ABC TV series Foreign Correspondent, titled “The Dome”, exposes the lasting effects of U.S. Cold War nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, and puts a spotlight on our government’s decades of negligence and disregard for human and environmental well-being in the Pacific—all justified by the need for nuclear dominance.

    The Marshall Islands, a scattering of over 1000 islands and islets halfway between Hawaii and Australia, was ground zero of U.S. nuclear testing after WW2— over 67 nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons were detonated there between 1946-1958. The impacts of these tests on the Marshallese people remain tangible to this day: many were forced into permanent exile from their home islands, which remain uninhabitable due to high radiation levels, and elevated rates of cancer resulting from radioactive fallout continue to plague generations. The trauma from these experiences has been seared into the cultural memory of Marshallese society, and a sense of injustice persists through the generations. One of the episode’s poignant scenes shows schoolchildren singing together: “this is our land, gone are the days we live in fear, fear of bombs, guns, and nuclear [weapons]”.

    Yet decades after the end of U.S.-led nuclear tests in its backyard, the Marshall Islands remain threatened by the equally irresponsible and immoral actions of the world’s biggest superpower. The episode brings us to an island called Runit in the Enewetok atoll. On the island, tons upon tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste sit hidden away under a huge concrete dome. As the episode uncovers, in order to quickly and cheaply dispose of the highly radioactive waste material from its years of testing, the U.S. military dumped the toxic material (including hundreds of chunks of Plutonium) into a crater from a test explosion on the island, hastily covered it with a layer of concrete— and simply left. U.S. officials claimed that “the dome” would hold for a century or more.

    Over the years, time and nature have caught up to what was meant to be a temporary solution to a permanent problem. Built at sea-level over the porous atoll floor, the dome cannot stop seawater seeping in from below with the rise and fall of the tide, leaking potentially radioactive material into the surrounding waters. An even greater threat, cracks and wear on the concrete from years of weather and seawater erosion place the dome at risk of being blown open by a bad storm or typhoon, which would result in a widespread dispersion of nuclear waste across the Pacific. This fact has been acknowledged even by the U.S. government in recent years.

    Sadly, the Marshallese locals are not the only group to suffer from this negligence and mismanagement. The crew of U.S. soldiers who built the dome, told that they were finishing their deployments in a “tropical paradise”, were sent to Runit island without foreknowledge of the radioactive toxins on the island, or the nature of their mission. Working for months building the dome and filling it with the radioactive waste, they shockingly were not issued any manner of safety equipment. As a result, a large proportion of the crew have since developed medical complications such as cancers and reproductive issues, and many have died young. Yet the U.S. still refuses to acknowledge their maladies as resulting from radioactive exposure, and has provided no assistance in covering the staggering medical costs associated with treatment.

    It is outrageous enough that generations of Marshallese people and an outfit of our own soldiers stationed there have had to suffer such injustices as forced relocation, medical complications due to radioactive exposure, and overt exploitation and silencing by the U.S. Yet the mess remains unaddressed, and the emerging Marshallese youth face even greater threats to their way of life. To them, the crater full of radioactive material is the least of their worries. Rising sea levels associated with climate change (caused largely by the negligence of the world’s wealthiest and most privileged nations, like the U.S.) may leave 75% of the islands inundated by 2100. This would decimate the local economy and wipe out a huge proportion of the country’s already limited agricultural land. It also greatly heightens the risk of widespread nuclear contamination occurring from leakage in the dome.

    There is a telling lack of public knowledge and discourse around the U.S. legacy of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands in the United States. The American media has had little to say about either the history or future consequences of the Runit Dome. It seems that as long as the dome is not in our own backyard, we don’t care where it is or who it effects. To the Marshallese, it represents the connection between the Nuclear Age and the Climate Change Age, and puts on full display one of the biggest culprits of both: American apathy. Most didn’t know, act, or care enough to stop nuclear testing in the Pacific during the Cold War, just as many of us don’t know, act, or care enough to halt the cascading effects of climate change today. We must heed the lesson of Runit Dome— a lesson of injustice, negligence, and complicity— and prevent our planet’s future from being doomed by the same indifference. We must stay informed about these issues and others like it, and together hold our government accountable for its actions, keeping in mind how they affect our precious planet and all of its people.

    Watch the episode “The Dome” here: http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/the-dome/9198340

  • Testimony of a Hiroshima Survivor

    United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination

    New York, 27 March 2017

    Testimony by Fujimori Toshiki, Assistant Secretary General of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers Organizations)

    President Ambassador Whyte, Distinguished Delegates,

    I would like to thank the President for giving me the opportunity to speak.

    My name is Fujimori Toshiki, and I am the Assistant Secretary General of Nihon Hidankyo, Japan Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers Organizations. I am one of the people who was exposed to the atomic bomb the U.S. forces dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

    Hibakusha established Nihon Hidankyo eleven years after the bombing. Since then, we have called for “No More Hibakusha” within Japan and abroad. The treaty you will be negotiating today must reflect this call of Hibakusha in express terms so that the world makes remarkable progress towards nuclear weapons abolition.

    I was 1 year and 4 months-old when the bomb was dropped. We were a big family of twelve, consisting of my grandfather, father, mother, six elder sisters, two elder brothers, and myself. Two of my elder sisters and my two elder brothers had evacuated out of the city of Hiroshima to avoid air raids. The eight of us who stayed in Hiroshima were exposed to the bomb.

    My fourth-eldest sister was 13 years old and was in her first year of an all-girls junior high school. She was around 400m from the hypocenter when the bomb was dropped. Together with her teachers and other students, my sister was there to demolish houses to create firesafe areas against air raids. All of 676 of them including my sister were killed instantly through direct exposure to radiation, the heat, and the blast from the bomb. It is said that all together in the city of Hiroshima, 8400 students in the first and second year of junior high schools were being mobilized for similar purposes that day. The lives of 6300 of them were lost.

    I was sick that day, so my mother was heading to the hospital with me on her back when the bomb was dropped. We were 2.3 km from the hypocentre. Fortunately, a two-story house between the hypocentre and us prevented us from directly being exposed to the heat. Yet, we were thrown all the way to the edge of the river bank. My mother, with me in her arms, managed to get to the nearby mountain called Ushitayama. Our family members were in different locations at the time of the bombing, but everyone escaped to the same mountain of Ushitayama, except for my fourth-elder sister. For many days that followed, my parents and my sisters kept going back to the area near the hypocentre to look for my fourth-eldest sister, who was missing. We never found her. We never found her body either. In the meantime, I had my entire body covered with bandages, with only eyes, nose, and mouth uncovered. Everybody thought I would die over time. Yet, I survived. It is a miracle. I am here at the UN, asking for an abolition of nuclear weapons. I am convinced that this is a mission I am given as a survivor of the atomic-bomb.

    Two hundred and ten thousand people died by the end of 1945 due to the atomic bombs the U.S. forces dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hibakusha experienced hell on earth beneath the mushroom clouds. In fact, Hibakusha have continued to suffer for the twenty six thousand one hundred sixty six days until today, March 27th , 2017.

    Nobody, in any country, deserves seeing the same hell on earth again.

    Every year, on August 6th, my mother would gather all of us children and would talk to us about her experience in tears. I once asked my mother why she would speak about it if recalling the experience makes her suffer.

    “I can’t make you go through the same experience.” That was her answer.

    Her tears were her heartfelt appeal. She called, as a mother, for a world with no more hell on earth.

    Three International Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons hosted by Norway, Mexico, and Austria, as well as the Joint Statements on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons at the Preparatory Committee meetings for the NPT Review Conference and the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, repeatedly and strongly reaffirmed the following conclusions:

    That whether intended or not intended, the effects of a nuclear weapon detonation are not constrained by national borders;

    That no state or international body could address its immediate humanitarian emergency or long-term consequences;

    That in the interest of the very survival of humanity nuclear weapons must never be used again; and

    That the only assurance against the risk of a nuclear weapon detonation is the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Many Hibakusha received these messages with thousands of thoughts about the long journey that they had come.

    Nuclear weapon states and their allied nuclear-dependent states are against concluding a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. Despite being the only country in the world that experienced the wartime use of nuclear weapons, the Japanese government voted against the UN resolution 71/258, which established this negotiating conference.

    As a Hibakusha, and as a Japanese, I am here today heartbroken.

    Yet, I am not discouraged.

    Government representatives who are present at this conference, international organizations, and representatives of civil society organizations are making efforts to conclude a legally binding instrument to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.

    In April of last year, Hibakusha initiated the International Signature Campaign, which calls on all state governments to conclude a treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons. We reached out to countries across the world, and last October, we delivered our first batch of five hundred sixty thousand signatures to the Chair of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly. Today, we have over one million seven hundred twenty thousand signatures. We will continue the campaign until 2020, and we aim to collect hundreds of millions of signatures.

    Let us work together to achieve the nuclear ban treaty.

    Thank you very much for listening.

  • The Caretaker and the Plague: British Nuclear Weapons Testing in Australia

    Ursula Gelis, Executive director of the ‘Global Women’s Association against Nuclear Testing’ works for the rights and needs of victims of nuclear weapons explosions and nuclear testing. Her partners are in Kazakhstan and other states, affected by the long-term effects of nuclear weapons testing. At the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in December 2014[1], she interviewed an anti-nuclear activist and nuclear test victim from Australia.

    Sue Haseldine
    Sue Haseldine in front of the Black Death column in Vienna in December 2014. Photo: Ursula Gelis

    The Plague column in Vienna convincingly depicts human suffering; in this case – the tragedy of the Black Death epidemic from 1679 in Austria which killed about 30 000 to 75 000 souls. A Black Death does not distinguish between a noble and a beggar, and a nuclear weapon explosion does not either.

    In today’s Australia, Aboriginal communities are still suffering from European racism that came in the aftermath of Captain Cook (1770) who looked at the Aborigines as lucky people, even if they did not own many material goods!

    The first inhabitants of Australia, the people who were there ab origine, from the beginning, were food-gathering and hunting people. They arrived about 50,000 years ago.[2]

    From region to region, Aboriginal tribes have clear cultural distinctions and their ability to co-exist with nature in a sustainable way could serve as a paradigm for human survival.

    Western cultures, still proud of their technological achievements, and apparently committed to poison and to destroy the whole Earth, should listen to indigenous civilizations in order to prevent human extinction.

    Aborigines survived best by avoiding contact with ‘White people’. The invaders brought diseases indigenous people had no immunity to resist. Children were taken away by missionaries, claiming that the parents were infidels.[3] Interestingly enough, the church and social Darwinism partnered in suppressing Aborigines. Evolution theory served to justify any brutality: massacres, plundering of goods, rape, etc. The ‘savage’ had to be domesticated and was defined as a race doomed to be extinct.[4]

    In 1947 the British government decided to develop their own nuclear weapons program. “In August 1954, the Australian Cabinet agreed to the establishment of a permanent testing ground at a site that became named Maralinga, […] in southwestern South Australia.”[5]

    The United Kingdom conducted 12 atmospheric tests between 1952 and 1957 on Australian territories at Maralinga, Emu Fields and Monte Bello Islands. […] During the testing period, roughly 16,000 Australian civilians and servicemen involved in the tests and 22,000 British servicemen were exposed to nuclear fallout.[6]

    “Aboriginal people living downwind of the tests and other Australians more distant […] came into contact with airborne radioactivity.”[7]

    “Plutonium and uranium fallout […] contaminated Aboriginal lands. Although the British government declared the Maralinga site safe following a 1967 cleanup, surveys in the 1980s proved otherwise, prompting a new cleanup project. Conflicts of interest, cost-cutting measures, shallow burials of radioactive waste, and other management “compromises” have left hundreds of square kilometers of Aboriginal lands contaminated and unfit for rehabilitation.”[8]

    Civil disobedience

    Sue Coleman-Haseldine (64) from the Kokatha-Mula nation is a survivor of British nuclear weapon testing and spoke at the Vienna conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons in December 2014[9].

    Sue was born in Ceduna, a city about 1000 kilometers straight west from Adelaide, South Australia. Her community, including the local farmers, consists of approximately 4000 people. She grew up nearby, lived in the region all her life and can trace back the family’s history up to her great grand-mother.

    “Our knowledge about colonialism started with Captain Cook. My grand grand-father was an Irish man who eventually went back to the white people. Our old people told us not to hate him. They were singing Irish songs to us around the camp fire. My first language was Kokatha, which is also my tribe’s name. Later at school, we had to learn English.”

    Sue’s mother’s generation had to follow the colonizer’s order of only speaking English, so Sue was educated to speak her native tongue by her grand-parents as the cultural tradition-keeper. She went to an English school and grew up at a German mission.[10]

    Sue always tried to combine traditional life-style with the governmental request of following the ‘British way’. She went out in the bush, kept Aboriginal traditions and educated herself and others. “This was maybe already an act of resistance, I guess”, she said smiling. Sue won the South Australian premier’s award for excellence in indigenous leadership in 2007 for her work as an activist, cultural teacher and environmental defender.[11]

    “The elderly people had talked about the Nullarbor[12] dust storm, not knowing that they had seen the fall-out from Maralinga. I knew about Maralinga and started questioning the amount of cancer deaths. This was at the time when I started my own family.

    More and more people were dying of leukemia and thyroid cancer. I had doctors remove my thyroids. My grand-daughter got it as well. The official city doctors offered us a radioactive drink to kill the cancer cells but we refused. My husband has heart problems and his family members died from leukemia too. Sometimes people die from ‘unknown causes’.

    We learned that the effects of radiation can pass from one generation to the other and can also ‘jump further’ to the third one. When I taught about bush food I felt terribly guilty because I knew about the contamination of the soil. When I spoke to our doctor he simply said that I should carry on teaching about traditional food because we could not do anything about the contamination.”

    Entertaining workers of the nuclear program

    British servicemen could feel at home among friendly people from the Kokatha-Mula nation. Soldiers were accompanied to the beach during their holidays and Sue vividly remembers those encounters. “They were just ordinary soldiers, away from home and lonely. We became simply friendly with them. Also they had been misused as guinea-pigs. We had no clue that dying might have been already begun.

    We were just innocent. We were not allowed to go to Maralinga. I know that the area was poisoned yet we did not know a lot. The old people could feel it, I guess.” –

    Recently, “a […] case-control study examined miscarriage in wives and congenital conditions in offspring of the 2007 membership of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, a group of ex-servicemen who were stationed at atmospheric nuclear weapon test sites between 1952-67 [was conducted]…”[13]

    Sue talks about the ‘Seven Sisters’, the Pleiades star constellation which plays also a role in Aboriginal traditions. The stars are girls who were travelling through Australia being chased by a man. One was caught and killed. Eventually she went up to the skies, followed by her free sisters.

    “When we see them from September to March in the Australian skies, we think of them as strong. We are saying that what the sisters bury, man should never dig up because everything buried was poisoned.

    My people are still living on contaminated land, because clean-up operations were not sufficient. Before testing, we had to leave our territories. Officials told us that our displacement is for governmental purposes. We had no idea what really was going on in terms of nuclear explosions.

    After testing people were sent back, for instance to a place called ‘Old Valley’ on Maralinga lands but Maralinga village was closed off. The government is now thinking to open it as a tourist site.

    In terms of measuring radioactivity we are totally cut off from acquiring information because it is illegal to have a Geiger counter! We are particular concerned of the uranium mining industry, exploiting sands found near the former testing site. Plutonium testing took place at the Woomera rocket range site. The place is military territory and we do not know what actually is going on there.”

    Overturning the doctrine of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one)

    “There was a fellow called Eddie Koiki Mabo fighting for that the native Australians had a prior title to land” ‘taken by the Crown since Cook’s declaration of possession in 1770’.[14]

    “Normally rules are not very nice for Aboriginal people. Property rights are splitting communities and devastate families. The government wanted us to prove that we had lived on our land for the last two hundred years. I said no, because this land was given to me by birth and not by the British government. So finally we could seek recognition but the minerals belong to the Crown.”

    The Australian Nuclear Free Alliance. ANFA (http://anfa.org.au).

    “Our alliance is well connected and once a month the community leaders link up by phone and we talk about what to do next. During meetings, governmental people are absent. We have international visitors from France, Japan and so on. People from all over the world should know that we do exist, that we are humans (laughter).

    We want to stop uranium mining, let us start with banning it for a year first. Then we could probably breathe better…and of course, I do not want any nuclear weapon testing. Nuclear weapons should not exist.

    In order to understand our complex societies, it is best to be with us for a while. Our strong connection to the land might be valuable for you to experience. We do not own the land, the land owns us. Come over, a week is plenty of time to convert you into one of us.”

    Endnotes

    [1]http://www.bmeia.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/Zentrale/Aussenpolitik/Abruestung/HINW14/HINW14_Austrian_Pledge.pdf.

    [2] (http://www.visitmungo.com.au/aboriginal-remains).

    [3] Gerhard Leitner. Die Aborigines Australiens. München 2006, p. 8.

    [4] Leitner, p. 21/22.

    [5] Chapter 16: A toxic legacy: British nuclear weapons testing in Australia. Published in:
    Wayward governance : illegality and its control in the public sector / P N Grabosky
    Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1989 (Australian studies in law, crime and justice series); pp. 235-253. http://aic.gov.au/publications/previous%20series/lcj/1-20/wayward/ch16.html.

    [6] From 1957 to 1958, nine atmospheric tests followed over Christmas Island (Kiritimati) and Malden Island in the central Pacific Ocean, some of which were considerably more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The remaining 24 UK nuclear tests were conducted jointly with the United States at the Nevada Test Site.

    [7] http://aic.gov.au/publications/previous%20series/lcj/1-20/wayward/ch16.html.

    [8] M&GS 2002;7:77-81. http://www.ippnw.org/pdf/mgs/7-2-parkinson.pdf.

    [9] http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/vienna-2014/8Dec_Coleman.pdf.

    [10] Occasional Paper 3: The struggle for souls and science, constructing the fifth continent: German missionaries and scientists in Australia. The 16 papers in this volume, edited by Professor Walter Veit, explore the contribution of late nineteenth and early twentieth century German scientists and missionaries in the emerging fields of Australian ethnography and linguistics.

    Themes within the papers include the study of Aboriginal religion, language, and art, and the conflict between missionaries and the emerging discipline of academic anthropology in Australia and Britain.

    Occasional Papers Number 3 also addresses the academic influences, research agendas and methodologies of the German scholars who worked in Australia, as well as the extent to which those scholars dominated the creation of an image of Australia in Europe in both theory and practice. http://artsandmuseums.nt.gov.au/museums/strehlow/manuscripts/publications.

    [11] Black Mist. The Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Australia. http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/BlackMist-FINAL-Web.pdf.

    [12] http://www.exploringaustralia.com.au/showplace.php?p=176.

    [13] http://omicsonline.org/epidemiology-open-access-abstract.php?abstract_id=30829.

    [14] The Mabo decision altered the foundation of land law in Australia by overturning the doctrine of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one) on which British claims to possession of Australia were based. This recognition inserted the legal doctrine of native title into Australian law. The judgments of the High Court in the Mabo case recognized the traditional rights of the Meriam people to their islands in the eastern Torres Strait. The Court also held that native title existed for all Indigenous people in Australia prior to the establishment of the British Colony of New South Wales in 1788. In recognizing that Indigenous people in Australia had a prior title to land taken by the Crown since Cook’s declaration of possession in 1770, the Court held that this title exists today in any portion of land where it has not legally been extinguished. The decision of the High Court was swiftly followed by the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) which attempted to codify the implications of the decision and set out a legislative regime under which Australia’s Indigenous people could seek recognition of their native title rights.

    http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/_files/ntru/resources/resourceissues/mabo.pdf.

  • Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

    Below is a link to the full text of the working draft of the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.

    http://fissilematerials.org/library/fmct-ipfm-sep2009.pdf

  • The Fallout from Nuclear Secrecy

    More than a half century after U.S. nuclear tests shattered the tranquility of Pacific Ocean atolls — rendering parts of them uninhabitable – the U.S. government has quietly released secret fallout results from 49 Pacific hydrogen-bomb blasts with an explosive force equal to 3,200 Hiroshima-size bombs.

    The U.S. government turned over to the Republic of the Marshall Islands 650-plus pages of newly declassified documents that include four reports detailing fallout results of 49 tests it conducted in Operation Redwing in 1956 and Operation Hardtack in 1958 at Bikini and Enewetak atolls, according to a three-paragraph press release posted on the web site of the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Majuro on June 12.

    U.S. Ambassador Thomas Armbruster presented the previously classified nuclear documents detailing fallout results to the President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), Christopher  Loeak, and his Cabinet, The Marshall Islands Journal reported. The Journal also indicated that RMI officials are now reviewing these documents, which they had requested. Several documents listed in the press release had been extracted and declassified in the 1980s though they received little public notice.

    Before the nuclear tests, the U.S. government removed all atoll inhabitants; some are still exiled from their radioactive ancestral homelands. All 49 hydrogen-bomb tests were laced with plutonium, one of the deadliest elements known to humankind with a radioactive existence of half a million years.

    From 1946 to 1958, the U.S. government conducted 66 nuclear weapons tests from and near the two atolls of Bikini and Enewetak, when the U.S. administered the Marshall Islands under a U.N.-sanctioned trust arrangement. The reports provide technical and scientific data on results of these second and third most destructive nuclear-weapons operations the U.S. ever conducted and the last ones it exploded in the Marshall Islands and the surrounding waters.

    The reports detail instruments and procedures used to capture and measure fallout from experiments conducted on the atolls, underwater or in the atmosphere. Included are diagrams of flight patterns flown to capture fallout in the clouds, tables listing each detonation, maps showing blast locations plus graphs and charts detailing measurements of old and new radioactive products that were collected by using technical instruments such as spectrometers, aerial radiation detectors or telemeters.

    Not until 1993 did the U.S. declassify information on the explosive force or magnitude of 44 of the 66 nuclear weapons tests conducted at Bikini and Enewetak atolls so as to inform Marshallese and U.S. test personnel. Now, the newly declassified U.S reports give Marshallese and others more fallout results of those explosions.

    The fallout from the 49 explosions in Redwing and Hardtack is hard to comprehend. In 1994, when the U.S. government released details about its 1,054 nuclear tests worldwide from 1945 to its last one in 1992, the data showed the yield – the explosive force – of Operations Redwing and Hardtack at more than 48,846 kilotons, or the equivalent of about 3,200 Hiroshima-size bombs.

    Operation Redwing included tests to assess military effects. Hardtack centered on developing missile warheads and high-yield strategic hydrogen bombs. The next-to-last test in the Redwing series, codenamed Tewa, was launched from a reef at Bikini and packed a yield of 5,000 kilotons — which equates to 333 Hiroshima-size bombs.

    “Tewa was so powerful it lit up the sky in Hawaii,” a U.S. serviceman identified as Carl Duncan is quoted as saying in  describing that blast 2,500 miles from Honolulu. Tewa’s fallout was about 30 percent of its total yield of 5,000 kilotons and contaminated 43,500 nautical miles of ocean, according to “Operation Redwing: Fallout Location and Delineation by Aerial Surveys,” as first declassified in 1988. The U.S. gave a newly declassified version of this report to RMI officials.

    “Eniwetak was hit by very heavy fallout that lasted for days,” Michael Harris, a 22-year-old Army draftee who experienced 12 of the 17 Redwing blasts, wrote, in adding italics on days. “And Carl and Berko (and the rest of the men) were exposed to seven and a half times more radiation than they received from all the other” blasts. (The spelling of Eniwetak has since been changed.)

    The Tewa fallout on the Enewetak base camp did lead to dusting servicemen there with fallout exceeding the maximum permissible exposure, according to a 454-page report titled “Operation Redwing,” dated 1956 and declassified in 1982. However, that report indicated, “The highest exposures were recorded by Air Force flight officers whose aircraft penetrated the nuclear clouds.” The U.S. gave to RMI officials a report focusing on U.S. Air Force operations to collect fallout data titled “Final Report of the Commander Task Group 7.4 Operation Redwing.”

    “Eniwetak was still receiving heavy fallout from the Tewa cloud,” when the next blast, codenamed Huron (each blast was named after a Native American tribe), was detonated the following day, Harris recounted. The Huron blast of 250 kilotons equates to 16 Hiroshima-size bombs. In contrast, the Eisenhower administration at the time disclosed that the Redwing series had powdered Enewetak with only “light” radioactive fallout.

    When a Soviet diplomat delegated to the U.N. Trusteeship Council asked whether these islands must be “lost forever,” the U.S. official in 1956 replied that Bikini and Enewetak might be uninhabitable for at least two generations. Today Bikini and parts of Enewetak are still too radioactive to be safely inhabited.

    As the Redwing tests continued, radiation badges were handed out, which Harris described as “small rectangular plastic discs three inches by an inch and a half.” Even with these, Harris wondered about the future impact of the radiation: “Had our genetic code been compromised? Would we get leukemia or some other form of cancer?”

    His answer came decades later. Those present at Operations Redwing or Hardtack or for six months afterward who succumb to one of 19 primary cancers are eligible for $75,000 compensation made available by Congress.

    At the time of Operation Redwing in 1956, the U.S. government under President Dwight Eisenhower released very little information. This secrecy was politically significant because it kept voters in the dark during the presidential election campaign in which Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson advocated stopping the H-bomb tests being conducted by the Eisenhower administration.

    During the election year, U.S. officials announced only two of the 17 blasts in the Redwing series. This virtual blackout hid from U.S. voters over 77 summertime days during the presidential election campaign Redwing’s 20,820 kilotons of explosive force — or the equivalent of 1,388 Hiroshima-size bombs. That tonnage is the equivalent of 18 Hiroshima-size bombs per day over 77 days.

    Seven Redwing tests received no public notice and the remaining eight blasts were disclosed by Japanese scientists in news articles datelined Tokyo. Thus the fastest and most accurate information about U.S. Redwing testing was disclosed from Tokyo by Japanese, an immense irony given that only a decade earlier, U.S. atomic bombs had contributed to Japan’s surrender by destroying two of its cities. Eisenhower handily won re-election.

    The more powerful 32 detonations in Operation Hardtack were launched in 1958 as the U.S. and the Soviets raced toward declaring a moratorium on such experiments and the U.S. accelerated testing missile warheads. Washington disclosed only nine of the 32 blasts that produced a total yield of 28,026 kilotons, or the equivalent of 1,868 Hiroshima-size bombs – an average of 35 per week in 1958 or five per day. That was the lowest disclosure rate of any U.S. Pacific testing operation.

    Even more ironic than the Japanese disclosures in 1956 were the Soviet ones about the 1958 Hardtack detonations. The Soviets charged that the U.S. had concealed most of the tests being conducted, which even U.S. officials deemed accurate.

    In doing so, the Soviets made huge propaganda gains as they announced their initiative of stopping their nuclear testing that year. Surprisingly, New York Times columnist James Reston wrote that “the United States, which pamphleteered its way to independence and elevated advertising and other arts of persuasion into a national cult, should be unable to hold its own in the battle for the headlines of the world.”

    Samples made during several Hardtack tests showed that fractions of the radioactive elements of strontium and cesium were dispersed over distances of more than 4,000 miles, according to a report titled “Operation Hardtack: Fallout Measurements by Aircraft and Rocket Sampling” dated 1961 and declassified in 1985. The U.S. gave a newly declassified version of this report to RMI officials.

    That 4,000-miles range means the radioactive elements could have descended on San Francisco and other West Coast areas.  Both radioactive elements pose serious health problems.

    The decades-long delay in receiving a full accounting of these fallout results helps to substantiate the contention of the RMI that its negotiators were denied vital information when they agreed in 1986 with President Ronald Reagan to form an independent nation, thus ending the American administration of the U.N.-sanctioned trust territory established in 1947.

    Kept in the dark about the fallout results, the Marshallese agreed to terms so insufficient that a U.S.-financed $150 million nuclear-claims trust fund is now penniless, unable to compensate fully Marshallese for health and property damages presumed to have resulted from the tests. RMI’s appeals to Congress, the U.S. courts and the Bush administration have been turned back and the Obama administration has yet to help them.

    Last September, Special Rapporteur Calin Georgescu of the United Nations reported to its Human Rights Council that the U.S. government should:

    –Remedy and compensate Marshall Islanders for its nuclear weapons testing that has caused “immediate and lasting effects” on their human rights,

    –Open up still-secret information and records regarding the environmental and human health effects of past and current U.S. military use of the islands,

    –Grant Marshallese full access to their  medical and other records, and

    –Consider issuing a presidential acknowledgment and apology to victims adversely affected by the 66 weapons tests it conducted when it administered the Marshall Islands as a U.N. strategic trust territory.

    Over the decades, the Marshallese have not been alone in wanting more information about the nuclear tests. In 1954, the Association of State Health Officials voted to ask the federal government to give health officials with security clearances access to classified atomic energy information so as to prevent health hazards.

    From 1945 to 1992, the United States carried out 1,054 nuclear tests worldwide.

    Beverly Deepe Keever is the author of News Zero: The New York Times and The Bomb and the newly released Death Zones and Darling Spies: Seven Years of Vietnam War Reporting.
  • What Obama Did and Did Not Say

    This article was published on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s blog Waging Peace Today

    President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday was all about the economy. Even when he was talking about education, national security or energy, he was talking about the economy.
    There were two things that really struck me in his speech: one thing that he said, and one thing that he didn’t say.
    The president recognizes that we need to slash the bloated Pentagon budget, though whether he’ll adopt Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) plan to cut the Pentagon budget by 25% or more is unlikely. But, on Tuesday, Obama said, “We’ll…reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use.”
    This statement was sufficiently vague to keep all but the most rabid militarists from immediately criticizing his position. I think that some proof of what exactly Obama was referring to came today in the draft 2010 Department of Energy budget: ZERO dollars for new nuclear weapons (currently called the Reliable Replacement Warhead program).
    The other thing that really struck me in his speech was the very noticeable omission of nuclear power as a critical part of our energy future. Solar? Check. Wind? Check. Efficiency? Check. “Clean” coal? Um…check. Nuclear power? No thanks.
    Let’s ignore for a moment that “clean coal” is about as asinine as calling nuclear power “clean, safe and reliable.” Barack Obama comes from the state of Illinois, the state with the most nuclear power plants and arguably the strongest base of the nuclear power lobby. Obama accepted campaign money from nuclear power pushers. He campaigned on an energy platform that included nuclear power as part of the energy mix.
    What has he discovered in his first 40 days in office? Hopefully all of the following:

    • There is still no “permanent” solution to the nuclear waste problem, and there is no solution in sight;
    • The nuclear power industry cannot survive without massive government subsidies;
    • New nuclear power plants take so many years to approve and construct that they cannot help us to meet our immediate carbon reduction requirements;
    • Once you take into account the lifecycle carbon footprint of nuclear power (uranium mining, construction, operation, waste storage, decommissioning), it doesn’t look so carbon-free;
    • Investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency are more economically sensible and will eliminate CO2 emissions more effectively.

    With continued public pressure, it is possible for the evil twins of the 20th century, nuclear power and nuclear weapons, to be eliminated for good.

     

    Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

  • US Energy Policy Creating a New Generation of Dr. Strangeloves

    This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.

    President Eisenhower is well-remembered for warning the public in his final address to the nation to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence . . . by the military-industrial complex.” But it is little known that Eisenhower, in that same speech further cautioned that “we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

    In May, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steve Chu announced that 42 university-led nuclear research and development projects would receive $38 million through the Department of Energy’s “Nuclear Energy University Program” designed to help advance nuclear education and develop the next generations of nuclear technologies. “We are taking action to restart the nuclear industry as part of a broad approach to cut carbon pollution and create new clean energy jobs,” said Secretary Chu. “These projects will help us develop the nuclear technologies of the future and move our domestic nuclear industry forward.”

    At a time when the United States should be creating a new Manhattan Project for safe, clean, green energy from the sun, wind, and tides, the Obama administration is trying to recreate the old Manhattan project, training our best and brightest to continue to wreak havoc on the planet with nuclear know-how. Instead of letting the old nuclear complex rust in peace, the government is proactively taking the initiative to create a whole new generation of Dr. Strangeloves, enticing young people to study these dark arts by putting up millions of precious dollars for nuclear programs and scholarships.

    What a disappointment that Dr. Chu, a Nobel laureate scientist, appointed by Obama for “change we can believe in”, represents the old paradigm of top-down, hierarchical, secret nuclear science. It’s just so 20th century! Chu has apparently ignored the myriad studies that show that dollar-for-dollar, nuclear power is one of the most expensive ways to meet energy needs, when lifecycle costs are compared to solar, wind, geothermal, appropriate hydropower and biomass, as well as efficiency measures. This is also true for reducing carbon emissions, as expensive nuclear power would actually exacerbate catastrophic climate change since less carbon emission is prevented per dollar spent on costly nuclear technology compared to applying those funds to clean energy sources and efficiency.

    Further, countless studies, including recent reports from three communities in Germany with nuclear reactors, indicate that there are higher incidences of cancer, leukemia and birth defects in communities with toxic nuclear power plants that pollute the air, water, and soil in the course of routine operations. And a recent report from the New York Academy of Sciences, by distinguished Russian scientists, finds that deaths from the disastrous accident at Chernobyl now number over 900,000. Dr. Chu, a nuclear physicist, is well aware that the radioactive byproducts of nuclear power will remain toxic for 250,000 years and that there is no known solution to safely store this lethal brew for the eons it will threaten human health and the environment.

    Americans should oppose any further funding for this failed, dangerous technology as well as the inordinate subsidies presently planned for the nuclear industry. It’s time to invest in a clean energy future that will create millions of jobs and enable the US to earn an honest dollar by developing desirable new technology to offer to the world. Instead we will be providing a growing number of countries the wherewithal and technical know-how with which to make a nuclear bomb, while subjecting their communities to the consequences of toxic radiation.

  • Time to Ban the Bomb and the Reactor

    This speech was delivered to delegates at the 2009 Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee at the United Nations

    With the world’s hopes newly raised by inspiring statements from prominent leaders urging the elimination of nuclear weapons, including pledges by Presidents Obama and Medvedev, to work for “a nuclear free world,” the recent establishment of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) could actually enable us to realistically fulfill the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s mission for nuclear disarmament. In January, Germany, together with Denmark and Spain, launched IRENA in Bonn with 75 nations who signed its founding statute. Since IRENA is the Greek word for peace, this auspicious initiative is particularly well-named as the Agency is designed to spread the fruits of clean, safe sustainable energy, enabling the planet to avoid nuclear proliferation and catastrophic climate change and assist developing countries to access the abundant free energy resources provided by our Mother Earth.

    IRENA precludes reliance on fossil, nuclear and inefficient traditional biomass energy. With an International Atomic Energy Agency, promoting dangerous and toxic nuclear power technology, and an International Energy Agency, founded during the 1970s oil crisis to manage the fossil fuel supply, IRENA’s launch could not have been timelier as the world wrestles with the twin crises of nuclear proliferation and global warming. We urge every nation to join IRENA by signing its founding statute and to forego or phase out deadly nuclear technology, whether for war or for peace.

    Throughout the years of this NPT process, we NGOs have warned states parties that the spread of nuclear energy spells disaster for efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons or to mitigate the impacts of climate change, threatening the very future of humanity’s existence. Distinguished physicians at these meetings have described for you the awful physical effects of carcinogenic pollution from nuclear power with increased cancer, leukemia, and birth defects in every community where nuclear reactors spew their lethal poisons into the air, water and soil. Since we last spoke to you, new German studies show a 60% increase in solid cancers and a 117% increase in leukemia among young children living near German nuclear facilities between 1980 and 2003.

    Indigenous leaders from around the planet have stood here and told you about the awful horrors wreaked on their communities from uranium mining. We reminded you of the creation story of the Rainbow Serpent, asleep in the earth, guarding over those elemental powers which lie outside of humankind’s control and how any attempt to seize those underworld elements will disturb the sleep of the serpent, provoking its vengeance: a terrible deluge of destruction and death. At the World Uranium Hearing, the world was warned that:

    The Rainbow Serpent has been wakened. Men turned into shadows, cancer, women giving birth to jellyfish babies, leukemia – since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, since the Bravo test in the Bikini Islands, and since the Chernobyl catastrophe in April of 1986, we know that the Rainbow Serpent doesn’t differentiate between uranium’s military and peaceful uses. Death is everywhere it touches. But what we perhaps don’t realize is that the destructive properties of uranium are unleashed the moment it’s mined from the ground.

    We have told you there is no known solution to the storage of nuclear waste which lasts for hundreds of thousands of years, spewing its silent poisons into our air, earth and soil, injuring not only the living, but unborn generations to come—our very genetic heritage. The United States, in 2009, cancelled 30 year-old plans to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain Nevada because it cannot safely contain the long-lived poisons that the nuclear industry lobbied to bury there for eons. After more than 60 years of ignorantly and mindlessly amassing huge quantities of toxic radioactive poisons, heedless of the consequences to earth’s biosphere, yet another Commission is to be appointed to yet again “study the issue”. We don’t have a clue! Rational behavior would demand we should stop making any more nuclear waste until, and if ever, we can figure it out!!

    In France, held up as the exemplar of a country enjoying the “benefits” of nuclear power, its nationally owned Areva, the largest nuclear corporation in the world, is plunged into debt. Its reprocessing center at La Hague has produced massive discharges of radiation into the English Channel and has over nine thousand containers of radioactive wastes with no safe place to go. In Japan, the costs from the earthquake last year that crippled seven reactors at Kashwazaki are still rising. In the UK, the Sellafield nuclear recycling plant is mired in debt and costly breakdowns.

    We have explained to you how the nuclear industry promotes false information about nuclear power’s ability to mitigate the effects of catastrophic climate disasters. Millions of dollars are spent in marketing campaigns to convince the public that nuclear power will prevent global warming. But the evidence is incontrovertible that nuclear power is the slowest and costliest way to reduce CO2 emissions. Financing nuclear power diverts scarce resources from investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Enormous sums spent for nuclear power would worsen the effects of global warming by buying less carbon-free energy per dollar, compared to investing those sums in sun, wind or efficiency. Nor is nuclear power carbon free. It uses fossil fuels for the mining, milling and processing of uranium, as well as for reactor decommissioning and waste disposition and depends on a grid usually powered by coal. It is unreliable in extreme weather conditions and needs back up power to prevent meltdown. In the summer of 2004, France had to shut down a number of reactors during an extreme heat wave.

    We have spoken to you of the folly of lusting for mastery of nuclear technology as a matter of “national pride”. This is holdover thinking from the 1960s when nuclear power developed in industrialized nations. Many scientists in developing countries were trained in nuclear technology as part of the Atoms for Peace programs in the US, Russia and Europe during the late 1950s and in the 1960s. Nuclear power growth stalled in the industrialized countries by the late 1980s, especially after the tragedies of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and as its economic burdens became clear. But by then the former young scientists were entrenched in running the industry and like their nuclear reactors were now middle aged and unwilling to let go of their positions of power.

    The nuclear renaissance was to be a passing on of the inheritance to the next generation but real world constraints are making this generation of new reactors even more problematic than the last and the nuclear baton is not likely to pass out of the existing “club”. The enormous cost and safety problems are still here. In the industrialized nations, the nuclear industry has great difficulty in recruiting nuclear engineers. Due to global shortages in nuclear reactor components it’s not possible for the world nuclear industry to build more that 10 reactors a year at most for the next decade. Because all of the operating reactors will have to be retired in that time, 1070 reactors would have to be built in 42 years, or about 25 reactors per year, in order for nuclear technology to lower carbon emissions of even one billion tons per year.

    In a “wedge” model which assumes that nuclear power could replace a portion of the energy used by coal fired plants, the effort expended would be insufficient to have even the smallest impact on climate change. And because the limited supply of production capacity to produce new reactors creates a seller’s market, the industry is much more likely to sell to countries with nuclear experience. This is due to the risks associated with inordinately long lead times for new construction, security and liability issues, and already existing infrastructure. Thus developing countries or countries with no nuclear industry will probably be rebuffed and are well advised to put their energy investments into much more reliable renewable sources

    Nevertheless, proposals to try to control civilian nuclear fuel production have sparked new interest in acquiring nuclear technology by countries that never wanted such technology before. A top-down, hierarchical, centrally controlled nuclear apartheid fuel cycle is being planned, creating a whole new class of nuclear “have nots” who can’t be trusted not to turn their “peaceful” nuclear reactors into bomb factories. It’s just so 20th century! These discriminatory proposals are doomed to fail. With the growing chorus of promising new calls for a nuclear free world, there is no need for any nation to have a virtual bomb in the basement. Far better to leap frog over this antiquated, poisonous 20th century technology and expend your financial and intellectual treasure on clean, safe renewable energy, averting the twin catastrophes of nuclear proliferation and radical climate change, while adding your nation’s voice to the growing numbers of world leaders demanding that negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition move forward.

    Critical energy investment choices must be made now if we are to prevent the looming climate calamity. Every thirty minutes, enough of the sun’s energy reaches the earth’s surface to meet global energy demand for an entire year. Wind has the potential to satisfy the world’s electricity needs 40 times over and could meet all global energy demand five times over. The geothermal energy stored in the top six miles of the earth’s crust contains an estimated 50,000 times the energy of the world’s known oil and gas resources. Global wave power, tidal and river power are vast untapped stores of clean energy. IRENA is dedicated to supporting nations to develop and share the research and technology that will enable us to harness that abundant, free energy to secure the future of our planet.

    While the NPT guarantees to States which agree to abide by its terms an inalienable right to so-called peaceful nuclear technology, it is highly questionable whether such a right can ever be appropriately conferred on a State. During the Age of Enlightenment natural law theory challenged the divine right of kings. The United States’ Declaration of Independence spoke of “self-evident truth” that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights …to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Where does “peaceful nuclear technology” fit in this picture?!? Just as the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban abrogated the right to peaceful nuclear explosions in Article V of the NPT, we urge you to adopt a protocol to the NPT mandating participation in the newly launched International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) which would supersede the Article IV right to “peaceful” nuclear technology.

    Civil Society’s Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, now an official UN document, includes an Optional Protocol Concerning Energy Assistance which would phase out nuclear power and provide funding and assist nations to shift to non-nuclear sustainable energy sources. Universal enrollment in IRENA, coupled with a moratorium on new reactors and fuel production, while phasing out nuclear power by relying on safe, renewable energy, must become an integral part of the good faith negotiations required to eliminate nuclear weapons. We urge your enrollment and participation with IRENA. Since IRENA was launched in January with 75 countries, two new countries, Belarus and India have signed its Statute. NGOs will campaign for 100% universal participation in IRENA by the 2010 Review Conference. Please join us!! Add your nation to the list!! It’s time to give peace a chance!

    Alice Slater is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s New York representative.