Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: cancer

  • 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?

  • Errors Found In Hanford Thyroid Disease Study

    Hanford Study Sees No Harm proclaimed the New York Times headline of January 28, 1999. The headlines in USA TODAY, December 15, 1999 read, Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site.

    I started my day on the January 28, 1999 with the phone ringing off the hook with calls from national, Pacific Northwest, and local media asking me what I thought about this purported “No Harm” finding of the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study (HTDS). The HTDS was a nine-year, $18 million epidemiological study to assess the impact of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation offsite emissions of radioiodine (I-131) onto an unsuspecting public from the mid 1940s to the late 1950s. Hanford released approximately 900,000 curies of I-131 between 1944 and 1957, as a byproduct of plutonium production at the facility.

    Since I was one of those exposed to Hanford’s I-131 as a child, when most vulnerable to uptake of the radioactive substance into my thyroid gland, I had followed the emissions study from its inception years ago. But I was not prepared for this unbelievable “no harm” conclusion of the HTDS researchers. The disturbing Hanford Study Sees No Harm headline appeared the New York Times just hours before the scheduled briefing in which I was to participate as a member of the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee. Somehow, someone had leaked this tidbit from the Congressional briefing on HTDS which had taken place in Washington D.C. on January 27th, a day before the public and press were to know the results of this study.

    As I spoke with NPR, national and local TV stations, and print media reporters — not yet having seen the summary materials on HTDS published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and its contractor, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) — all I could say to this barrage of media seeking me out was “I am shocked by this conclusion. This does not reflect the reality of what has happened to those of us exposed to Hanford’s radioactive emissions.” I went on to describe the fact that my entire family, exposed to Hanford’s radioiodine and other radionuclides, developed thyroid disease and cancer, and that I am the only member of my family who has survived.

    A Downwinder’s Burden – The Reality

    My father, a nuclear engineer at the Hanford facility during years of I-131 (and other radionuclide) releases, had died of aggressive, metastatic thyroid cancer three years ago. He also had hypothyroidism. My mother, who had developed both hypothyroidism and hyperparathyroidism, was to be diagnosed (just two weeks after this pronouncement by the HTDS research team of no health impact from Hanford’s radioiodine) with malignant melanoma, which killed her in less than six weeks’ time. My older brother had died in 1947, during years of Hanford radiation emissions, within the Hanford downwind area, part of an unexplained surge of neonatal deaths within the Hanford downwind area. Exposed to Hanford’s I-131 as a fetus, infant and child, I also have developed severe hypothyroidism and related health problems. Of note is that there is no history of thyroid disease anywhere in our extended family other than those of us who lived in the shadow of the Hanford nuclear facility during years of I-131 emissions. And we are not alone. An entire family devastated by thyroid disease and cancer. This story is repeated over and over amongst those of us who are Hanford “downwinders.”

    The Struggle To Correct An Erroneous Official Study

    So began the struggle by a small group of determined Hanford-exposed citizens and activists to correct this surreal, unfathomable, purported “no harm” conclusion reached by HTDS researchers. This struggle involved confronting defensive HTDS research team members in public meetings, trying to reverse the harm being done by this “conclusion” which truly did not reflect the reality of the Hanford situation.

    The HTDS summary materials given to the public and the media contained the following statement: “[T]hese results provide rather strong evidence that exposures at these levels to I-131 do not increase the risk of thyroid disease or hyperparathyroidism. These results should consequently provide a substantial degree of reassurance to the population exposed to Hanford radiation that the exposures are not likely to have affected their thyroid or parathyroid health [emphasis added].” In these public meetings, I repeatedly requested the FHCRC HTDS researchers to retract this offensive statement publicly. I asked, ‘How could Hanford-exposed people like me possibly be told we should be reassured when our loved ones were dead of thyroid cancer, and when whole families without history of thyroid disorders had developed thyroid disease?” To me, their “no harm” statement insulted the suffering, the reality of those who had been subjected to involuntary radiation exposures.

    The media, overall, was very supportive of our efforts, perhaps because it was clear to all concerned that something was definitely wrong with this “no harm” conclusion. Particularly, in light of the Chernobyl studies that brought forward facts that children exposed to I-131 from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster had statistically significant incidence of thyroid disease and thyroid cancer. This “no harm” conclusion of HTDS was inconsistent with other studies of radioiodine exposure and thyroid health harm. Something was definitely wrong with this picture.

    And so the analysis began, by citizens and scientists alike, trying to determine how this study could come to such a surreal conclusion. Already, articles and letters to the editor were appearing in regional papers from members of the American Nuclear Society and their allies, portraying these conclusions of HTDS as final, irrefutable evidence that Hanford’s I-131 had caused no harm to those exposed.

    One of the true scientific heroes in this effort is Dr. Owen Hoffman of SENES, Oak Ridge, Inc., Center for Risk Analysis. It was through the efforts of Dr. Hoffman that we were able to begin to understand what had gone wrong, and how to discuss the scientific fallacies of this study publicly. Dr. Hoffman was able to translate complex statistical concepts into understandable terms, thus empowering us to raise these issues of import with the HTDS researchers and the media.

    And, thus empowered by Dr Hoffman and others, my colleague Tim Connor, an investigative journalist and Hanford activist for many decades, and I, armed with a letter of protest co-signed by more than 22 representatives of citizen groups from around the country, went to meet with Dr Dick Jackson, director of the National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This letter raised serious concerns with regard to a number of scientific issues within HTDS and as to the communication and interpretation of the findings of this study by FHCRC and CDC to the public, Congress, and the media. These concerns included HTDS researchers’ presentation of this study as if it were conclusive proof of no thyroid or parathyroid impact from Hanford’s I-131 releases, that FHCRC exaggerated the statistical power of the study, and that the uncertainties in dose estimates and confounding NTS and global fallout I-131 doses were not specifically addressed for the HTDS cohort. The letter went on to discuss significant problems created by the information “blackout” which kept even those citizens who had been following the study throughout its history, from learning about the results of the preliminary draft of the study until we read about it in the New York Times on the morning of January 28.

    We asked Dr. Jackson to support a precedent-setting extended review by the National Academies of Science (NAS) of HTDS, a review which would address both the scientific and communications aspects of HTDS. Dr. Jackson, to his credit, understood the importance of this review, and granted our request. This is one of the first such extended reviews to be carried out by NAS, initiated by concerned citizens, reviewing not just the typical scientific components and qualities of a study, but concentrating as well upon the way the study’s preliminary findings were communicated to the public, Congress, and the media. The “normal” NAS review of this type comprises only a review of the science.

    The NAS, which is the entity reviewing HTDS, was chartered in l863. The NAS is one of the world’s most prominent scientific organizations. Its purpose is to advise the US Congress and federal agencies on scientific and technical matters. Its Board on Radiation Effects Research has played a leading role over the years in evaluating radiation health studies.

    NAS Review Conclusions

    The NAS committee released the results of its extended review of HTDS this December 12, l999, in a public meeting in Spokane, Washington, followed the next day by a briefing in Washington D.C. The conclusions reached by the NAS validated all of the arguments made by those of us who had “gone public” to contradict the misinformation portrayed by the HTDS research team. The headlines in USA TODAY, December 15, l999 read: “Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site. ”

    This is truly a victory for Hanford and all downwinders, for people everywhere exposed to I-131 — from US Department of Energy nuclear weapons facilites such as Hanford, Oak Ridge or the Idaho National Engineering Lab, or from nuclear weapons test sites such as the Nevada Test Site or Semipalatalinsk in Kazakhstan, or from nuclear accidents resulting in exposure due to global fallout. No longer can the HTDS be portrayed by US pro-nuclear factions and their allies as conclusive proof that I-131 does not cause thyroid cancer, thyroid disease and parathyroid disease.

    The NAS committee concluded the following:

    1. While the study itself was well designed, the study researchers reported the study’s findings as more conclusive than they really were purported to be.

    The committee found that “shortcomings in the analytical and statistical methods used by the study’s investigators overestimated the ability to detect radiation effects, which means the study results are less definitive than had been reported.” [NAS review report, 12/14/99, at page l] The failure by HTDS researchers to find a statistically significant relationship between increasing dose and frequency of thyroid disease was interpreted by the authors of HTDS as evidence of no effect (that is, that the negative findings were conclusive). Because there could be a true underlying effect that couldn’t be detected by this study, the results of the study were, at best inconclusive, rather than conclusive of no health impact from Hanford’s I-131 exposures, as portrayed by HTDS’ authors.

    There are several important reasons why HTDS may have not picked up this underlying effect, and these are discussed within the other findings of the NAS review, discussed below.

    2. Unlike conventional epidemiological studies, the HTDS researchers released their findings without sufficiently explaining the uncertainties involved in reconstructing radiation exposures from decades ago.

    While the NAS committee emphasized that the HTDS appears to have been well designed, the weakest link is the dosimetry (which is the method of estimating individual exposure and radiation dose). The dose estimates which were assigned to members of the group (cohort) of exposed people studied were recreated using mathematical models involving input from study participants (and their mothers, if available) with regard to their recollections of approximately how much milk study participants drank some 50+ years ago. The milk pathway is one of the primary means by which radioiodine is ingested, and is a particular concern with infants and children. The radioiodine deposits on pasture grass, the cows or goats eat the contaminated grass, and then, the radioiodine is ingested by humans as the milk is consumed. Children uptake far more radioiodine than adults in this manner, because they often consume a greater quantity of milk than adults, because their thyroids are smaller and more vulnerable than those of adults, and because of a faster metabolism than that of adults.

    Therefore, the estimated doses which were being correlated to incidence of thyroid and parathyroid disease within the HTDS study group were reconstructed from memories of milk intake years ago, and then based upon mathematical modeling of wind patterns, fallout of the radioiodine from rain, and deposition of radioiodine. These estimated Hanford doses were further confounded by the additional exposures of people within the HTDS cohort to Nevada Test Site radioiodine (from atomic bomb tests in the l950s and l960s) which was often a very substantial contributor to dose, and by fallout from global sources and the Marshall Islands Test of l954 (Test Bravo) in which fallout travelled west to east, depositing upon the Hanford exposure area as well. These confounding doses were not given detailed consideration by HTDS. An example of just how such an issue should be addressed is shown by the exemplary study performed by SENES Oak Ridge, Inc. Center for Risk Analysis, which was the first of its kind to estimate the cumulative I-131 dose received from Oak Ridge and Nevada Test Site I-131 exposures, within “uncertainty ranges” (that is, within a range of possible doses one may have received once age, diet and location are taken into account), and providing exposed populations with their estimated risk of health outcomes from these exposures. The HTDS did not deal in this way with specificity with these confounding exposures received by member of the HTDS study group.

    The amount of I-131 Hanford released after mid-l951 also were more than likely underestimated, raising the total curies released from about 750,000 to more than 900,000. Revision of the amount released would have a significant effect on the dose estimates for those who were considered within HTDS to have received low doses as compared to the higher peak releases of l945-46.

    3. The NAS committee found that the statistical power of the HTDS was not as high as claimed by the HTDS researchers.

    The NAS committee found that the statistical power calculations made by the HTDS researchers made inadequate allowance for imprecision in the dose estimates. Due to this factor, the committee concluded that HTDS did not have as much statistical power to detect radiation effects as the investigators claimed.

    4. The committee found that in media and public briefings on HTDS, the investigators failed to pay sufficient attention to the health concerns of the audience, and that HTDS investigators and CDC officials should have offered more balanced, and possibly alternative, interpretations of the findings and discussed their implications for individuals.

    This last conclusion of the NAS committee is so well reflected in the actions of one Hanford-exposed person in attendance at the public briefing held in the Hanford area, on the evening of January 28, l999. Throughout the entire several-hour briefing, this woman held up a hand painted sign, reading “I DONT BELIEVE YOU.”

    Victory Comes After Tireless Efforts

    The battle to expose the truth of the Hanford situation began on the morning of January 28, l999, and ended in the afternoon of December 12, l999, with the public briefing on the results of the NAS review of HTDS. The battle ended with the headline in USA TODAY, December 15, l999, Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site. The tireless efforts of a small group of activists succeeded and the HTDS study can no longer be portrayed as conclusive proof of no health impact from Hanford I-131.

    The HTDS study may actually turn out, upon follow-up, to be looked upon as a study portraying a slightly positive association between exposure and health. The purported “no impact” message had been echoed by conservative forces to rebut exposed communities concerns. Uncorrected, this “no impact” message was beginning to be used to nullify the public’s concerns about Nevada Test Site radioiodine exposures, exposures of radioiodine from local sites such as the Idaho National Engineering Lab (INEEL), in Oak Ridge, and exposures at other sites where I-131 was emitted as a byproduct nuclear weapons production.

    This is a truly welcomed victory for everyone. It is an especially important victory for “downwinders” including all who have been exposed anywhere in the US from the Nevada Test Site to the Department of Energy nuclear weapons research and production facilities. Downwinders face hurdles trying to get even the most minimal medical screening or medical care; even to get relief through the justice system; and all the while we bury our loved ones and hope that we are not, indeed, the sacrificial minority we have sometimes been deemed.

  • Betrayal

    It’s as safe as mother’s milk, they’ll say When wanting to assure you that it’s all O.K. But mother’s milk can be a deadly dish If mom, a downwinder, eats Columbia River’s fish, Or consumes white snow – garden salads on the spot Then mother’s milk can become a deadly lot.

    So I fed poison to my nursing son With radioactive iodine-131. Just because we lived in the wrong place I maimed my babe for that nuclear race.

    This was written by a woman who has lived all of her life in Eastern Washington and remembers consuming local milk and produce around the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Her husband loved to fish the Columbia River downstream from Hanford. Her name withheld by request. She says, “When [my youngest son] was seven – and again when he was eight years old – I had two surgeries for thyroid cancers. I didn’t tell people because it would be hard on our children….

    “In 1985 my husband died quite suddenly. Early in 1986 word got out that radioactive iodine-131 and other pollutants had been released in large amounts by the government just to see what would happen to us downwinders from the nuclear plant at Hanford, Washington.

    With the injuries from my thyroid cancers and the worry over my husband’s bladder and bone cancers, I was very angry and felt betrayed by my government. They used us as guinea pigs but we weren’t even that good because the government never followed up to see what did happen to us downwinders. I write poems, but they are all too mild for my anger at my government.” [Reprinted from the Hanford Health Information Network.]

    This atrocity against all people is once again in the news.

    In an extraordinary but not surprising statement, the Department of Energy has admitted that an explosion of a toxic radioactive waste container at the plant on May 14, 1997 exposed workers and released toxic materials into the atmosphere, including plutonium. This from the supposedly “closed” plant, the former flagship of the Department of War’s nuclear bomb plants (that’s what the Defense Department used to be called until the name was changed after World War II – it makes easier to get money from the taxpayers when you are asking for a “defense” budget rather than a “war” budget). Hanford may now rival Chernobyl as the most toxic site on planet Earth, with cleanup costs (if cleanup is even possible for such a site) estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The site promises to be toxic for tens of thousands of years.

    The May 14th explosion and series of errors is just part of the legacy of this nightmarish place. We as human beings must be angry about that place and what it represents. We must learn what is going on there and use our power to get something done about it.

    Since 1943 when 600 square miles of land in Washington State was legally condemned and 1,500 residents of the towns of Richland, Hanford, and White Bluffs were ordered to leave their homes within 30 days, Hanford has released hundreds of thousands of curies of radioactive iodine-131 and other radioactive by-products into the atmosphere. Between 1944 and 1972, Hanford released as much as 740,000 curies of iodine-131 into the air!

    For comparison, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant partial core meltdown in 1979 released 15 curies of radioactive iodine-131 into the air; the Chernobyl accident released 35 million to 49 million curies of iodine-131 in 1986.

    Thousands of lives have been adversely affected by this subtle, insidious, and mostly intentional radiation poisoning. Only today are some of these victims realizing what has given them cancer, killed their mates and children, and so horribly affected their lives. This information was kept secret until February 1986, when public pressure resulted in the release of 19,000 pages of U.S. Department of Energy documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

    During the 30 years of Hanford’s operation, a staggering 440 billion gallons of radioactive toxic wastes were dumped into the ground! Underground nuclear waste tanks have leaked hundreds of thousands of gallons of waste. No complete records of the exact contents of these waste containers were kept, so the clean-up teams don’t even know what they are dealing with most of the time.

    But the Cold War is over, you may say, right? Is it really. Is there anything behind the talk we hear of peace from our leaders? Has much of anything changed? It doesn’t appear so. In fact, it could be argued that things are much worse. Things are different, but the building of our nuclear arsenal has not stopped.

    Did you know that in 1990, the amount of plutonium in the civilian sector of the world was 654 metric tons and in the military was 257 metric tons? By the year 2010, the amount of military plutonium is expected to remain the same while the civilian plutonium will grow to 2,100 metric tons! Civilian plutonium is plutonium produced in power generating nuclear reactors. Plutonium is a by-product of these reactors and many countries are planning to use this deadly material to power other reactors. This plutonium could conceivably be used to make a nuclear bomb.

    We still spend over a trillion dollars world-wide on the military. Countries all over the world are building nuclear weapons stockpiles. The U.S continues to test nuclear weapons – they call them “sub-critical tests” to get around the current moratorium on testing – because the military wants to build a new generation of smaller, more powerful nuclear bombs. Scotland, of all places, is estimated to have as many as 266 Trident submarine warheads, many purchased from the U.S., each one a powerful nuclear weapon. It is estimated that Britain builds a new nuclear bomb every 8 days!

    Five countries have nuclear-powered naval vessels: Russia, the United States, Great Britain, France and China. Even India is currently building a nuclear sub! The submarines of the Western countries typically have only one reactor on board, whereas two reactors power most Russian submarines. Excluding Russia, these nations have 132 nuclear submarines. Russia has 109 nuclear subs in its fleet. Britain has 13 nuclear subs, France has 11, and China has 6. The United States, the country of “peace,” has a staggering 101 nuclear submarines. Two hundred and forty one nuclear subs in the world!

    At least 20 nuclear bomb-carrying U.S. subs are at sea 24 hours a day, each ready to fire on virtually any target in 15 minutes. One U.S. Trident submarine carries the explosive power of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. The locations of these subs is the most closely guarded of secrets.

    And we are still building more! Nine nuclear submarines are under construction in the U.S. alone. So much for the end of wartime.

    “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing,” said Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Forces Europe and later President of the United States, referring to the atomic bomb dropped on Japan.

    And we must remember the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cities murdered by the U.S. But we had to do this to end the war, didn’t we? Well, diaries and documents released since then tell a different story. It seems that President Truman and his senior staff did not believe that we needed to drop the bomb on Japan to end the war. They believed that Japan would surrender without an invasion. In fact, diplomatic contacts and decoded Japanese wireless transmissions proved that surrender was imminent. So why was the bomb used?

    Records suggest that Truman and his advisors believed that if they showed the world that they were willing to use the bomb, it would aid them in negotiating with Stalin over the future of Eastern and Central Europe. There was also a pervasive, racist disregard for Japanese life. The bomb was used to literally burn a memory into the minds of communist and non-European nations of an image of scientific and technological superiority for the Allied countries.

    So, for the sake of image and to test the effects of our new weapons, 200 000 human lives were horribly ended and since 1945, more than 680,000 people have died or have been affected by the radiation released in those blasts.

    These are sobering revelations. I wonder personally what to do with all this awareness. During an Environmental Science class I taught yesterday, I was trying to share environmental awareness with people who had never considered these issues before. Three of my students were police officers who, in the course of their duties, have witnessed the aftermath of illegal toxic spills and see the effects of a disconnected world daily. They fight each day for personal survival, let alone have the time for global thinking. I sometimes feel deflated at the daunting task of opening my fellow travelers’ eyes. But we must go on. We must love the beauty of this world and work towards stopping the folly.

    Nuclear madness must stop. We can stop it. Everyday, we should do these things:

    1. E-mail or write our elected representatives (the Resources section below will tell you how) and tell them to stop this nuclear madness.
    2. Not support nuclear power in any form. Governments and corporations cannot be trusted with that power. There is no way that the relatively small amount of electrical power that is produced can justify the nuclear waste, the excess plutonium, or the temptations to make bombs.
    3. Insist that our elected representatives do something NOW about those who are suffering from the effects of Hanford and all the other bomb-making plants in the country. Insist that they stop all the studies and simply use the abundant money available in the world to help these people. We must stop letting them whine about who should be responsible and simply make them take responsibility. (Still think that money is an issue? See the Resources section below.)
    4. All nuclear testing must stop. Now. The U.S. must show the world that it is willing to take the first step.
    5. The U.S. must get out of the arms business. We sell our weapons of destruction to other nations. This is nuts and it must stop.
    6. All nuclear submarines should come home NOW. Set them up in ports around the country, build impenetrable “caskets” around them (NASA has the technology to build these cases – they do for their deep space probes) as museums so that people can learn of how insane we can be.
    7. Refuse to trade with any country with nuclear war technology.

    But there are so many other horrors in our world? How can we invite this awareness into our lives and survive? I think we can, every day.

    • We must surround ourselves with this knowledge and awareness and get very very angry. Feel the obscenity of these numbers, feel the horror of these events.
    • Then, feel your feet firmly on the ground and take a deep breath. Center yourself. You have work to do.
    • Look at your own personal priorities. What does your day look like? Do you take the time to nurture yourself – take a bath, do something creative, take a nap, exercise? Do you take the time to spend meaningful moments with those in your life that you love? Or do you feel hopelessly driven from one activity to another, not really in control of your own time?
    • Change your priorities. Make the time for nurturing activities and communication with loved ones. Don’t wait for someone or something to come into your life that will allow this to happen. Do it now.
    • Decide what is important to you. What values do you want to have? What values do you want the world to have? What do you want to be remembered for when you are gone? What do you want children to think of you?
    • Make “mindfulness moments” part of your every day, time when you will fully allow the awareness horrors in the world to come in. Visualize the starving child, the suffering and frustrated person poisoned by Hanford, the homeless, the nuclear stockpiles, the Trident submarines traveling at sea, waiting to strike, and whatever else you have chosen to care about.
    • Take an action of some kind every day. Teach someone about what you know. Send e-mail messages to your elected representatives making your demands clear. Choose to not buy something from a socially irresponsible company and write them a note telling them about it. Use your power every day.
    • Allow yourself an occasional “day-off.” Bring your vision for change to mind in some quiet moments, pray for peace, and then go do something for yourself or your loved ones. After a while, you won’t need a day-off.
    • Look at each day as a precious, vital collection of moments that must be savored, for they will never occur again.

    Awareness does not have to be feared. Your day can include walking around the block in the morning, loving your partner, going to work, taking time to see the trees at lunch or wishing there were some, writing an e-mail message to your senator, and having dinner. We can make the desire for change a daily part of our life rather than a feared, unfulfilled dream.

    We must take our power now. Hanford will always be there to remind us of what can happen when people believe the unbelievable – that those in Washington have anything other than a personal agenda of terror and greed. And those nuclear subs will continue to sail – until we say STOP!

    Please, dear mother Earth, Help me to stand firm on my own two feet Drawing on the solid earth below me Help me to know the constancy of your strength the power that is you, oh dear mother earth Help me to walk with the blood of rivers in my veins and the dark crumbling soil of earth in my flesh let my muscles be strong as tree trunks that rise up out of your belly To dance in the sky and sing praises to the life all around Beating, pulsing, rich and full with your sweet energy. Oh dear mother earth live in this body today. Sing loudly in every breath I take Stretch wildly and flow freely with all the directions I move and come home with me, come home to my belly live deep in my soul oh mother earth, SING!

    — Stephanie Kaza

    Ah, not be cut off, not through the slightest partition shut out from the law of the stars. The inner – what is it? if not intensified sky, hurled through with birds and deep with the winds of homecoming.

    — Ranier Maria Rilke

    * Jackie Giuliano is a Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los Angeles, the University of Phoenix, and the Union Institute College of Undergraduate Studies. He is also the Educational Outreach Manager for the Ice and Fire Preprojects, a NASA program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to send space probes to Jupiter’s moon Europa, the planet Pluto, and the Sun.