Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: climate change

  • UPENN International Affairs Association: Annual Penn Peace Project Conference

    On October 21, UPENN’s International Affairs Association convened its annual conference with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The conference focused on the impact of nuclear weapons and climate change in the South Pacific. Ambassador Dr. Prasad of Fiji, Ambassador Teburoro Tito of Kiribati; H.E. Mr. Ali’ioaiga Feturi Elisaia of Samoa; and Ms. Charlotte Skerten of New Zealand spoke at the event.

    Ambassador Prasad of Fiji provided a moving and holistic overview on how the region suffered from the impact of nuclear testing.  More than 300 nuclear weapons were detonated in the region, which caused widespread suffering amongst the citizens of the region and irradiated significant areas of the South Pacific. He also expressed profound sadness about the victims of nuclear testing. His presentation laid the foundation for the subsequent speakers, who elaborated upon his comments and specified the tragedy of nuclear testing.

    Building upon Ambassador Prasad’s comments, H.E. Mr. Ali’ioaiga Feturi Elisaia of Samoa discussed the physical and emotional scars of the victims of nuclear testing. The Ambassador also mentioned the importance of the entry-into-force of the Treaty of Rarontonga and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Moreover, he lamented about the failure amongst the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) to fulfill their obligations set forth in Article VI of the NPT.

    Due to their refusal to comply with the obligations set forth in Article VI of the NPT, it is necessary for states to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).  He underscored that the TPNW is an essential legal instrument in the nuclear disarmament architecture and will help establish a world free of nuclear weapons.

    The Ambassador also touched upon how climate change is an existential threat to both the Pacific Islands and all citizens. He underscored the importance of the Paris Climate Conference and the agreement about 1.5C increase.

    Ambassador Teburoro Tito of Kiribati discussed the devastating effects of the nuclear testing on Christmas Island by the United Kingdom.  The UK tested a series of four nuclear weapons in 1957 and 1958 at Malden Island and Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in the Pacific Ocean as part of the British hydrogen bomb program. Nine nuclear explosions were initiated.

    The Ambassador further mentioned that the explosions illuminated the night’s sky and it felt that the sun rose during the middle of the night. Eventually, the citizens discovered the dark-side of humanity. As a result of the legacy of nuclear tests, the Ambassador announced that he is in consultations with the President of Kiribati to establish a regional center about the TPNW on Christmas Island.

    As the final speaker, Ms. Charlotte Skerten discussed the Auckland Conference, which New Zealand convened for the Pacific Islands in December of 2018. The conference examined and took stock of the treaty within the context of the Pacific and its legacy of nuclear testing. She further shared that a global youth forum on the TPNW was held in connection to the Auckland Conference. At the forum, young U.S. and Pacific students shared their views about nuclear disarmament. Mr. Christian N. Ciobanu served as a co-chair of the Forum.

    Significantly, in connection to the discussion about the Auckland Conference, Ambassador Prasad proposed that Fiji should host the next conference. This option could be explored further once Fiji ratifies the TPNW.

    During the discussion with the audience, the ambassadors encouraged the students to become activists and take action. Responding to the encouragement, the students expressed interest in the movement and becoming involved. Many of them thought about how they could take action. Additionally, the majority of the participants felt very overwhelmed about the tragedy of nuclear testing in the region.

  • Which Would You Prefer―Nuclear War or Climate Catastrophe?

    Which Would You Prefer―Nuclear War or Climate Catastrophe?

    To:      The people of the world

    From:  The Joint Public Relations Department of the Great Powers

    The world owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, Boris Johnson, and other heroic rulers of our glorious nations.  Not only are they hard at work making their respective countries great again, but they are providing you, the people of the world, with a choice between two opportunities for mass death and destruction.

    Throughout the broad sweep of history, leaders of competing territories and eventually nations labored at fostering human annihilation, but, given the rudimentary state of their technology, were only partially successful.  Yes, they did manage to slaughter vast numbers of people through repeated massacres and constant wars.  The Thirty Years War of 1618-1648, for example, resulted in more than 8 million casualties, a substantial portion of Europe’s population.  And, of course, World Wars I and II, supplemented by a hearty dose of genocide along the way, did a remarkably good job of ravaging populations, crippling tens of millions of survivors, and blasting much of world civilization to rubble.  Even so, despite the best efforts of national rulers and the never-ending glory they derived from these events, large numbers of people somehow survived.

    Therefore, in August 1945, the rulers of the great powers took a great leap forward with their development―and immediate use―of a new, advanced implement for mass destruction:  nuclear weapons.  Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin were all eager to employ atomic bombs against the people of Japan.  Upon receiving the news that the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima had successfully obliterated the population of that city, Truman rejoiced and called the action “the greatest thing in history.”

    Efforts to enhance national grandeur followed during subsequent decades, as the rulers of the great powers (and some pathetic imitators) engaged in an enormous nuclear arms race.  Determined to achieve military supremacy, they spared no expense, employed Nazi scientists and slave labor, and set off vast nuclear explosions on the lands of colonized people and in their own countries.  By the 1980s, about 70,000 nuclear weapons were under their command―more than enough to destroy the world many times over.  Heartened by their national strength, our rulers threw down the gauntlet to their enemies and predicted that their nations would emerge victorious in a nuclear war.

    But, alas, the public, failing to appreciate these valiant efforts, grew restive―indeed, disturbingly unpatriotic.  Accordingly, they began to sabotage these advances by demanding that their governments step back from the brink of nuclear war, forgo nuclear buildups, and adopt nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties.  The popular clamor became so great that even Ronald Reagan―a longtime supporter of nuclear supremacy and “winnable” nuclear wars―crumpled.  Championing nuclear disarmament, he began declaring that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”  National glory had been sacrificed on the altar of a cowardly quest for human survival.

    Fortunately, those days are long past.  In the United States, President Trump is determined to restore America’s greatness by scrapping nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements, spending $1.7 trillion on refurbishing the entire U.S. nuclear weapons complex, and threatening to eradicate other nations through nuclear war.  Meanwhile, the president’s good friends in Moscow, Beijing, London, Paris, New Delhi, and elsewhere are busy spurring on their own national nuclear weapons buildups.  As they rightly insist:  The only way to stop a bad nation with the Bomb is with a good nation with the Bomb.

    Nor is that all!  Recently, our rulers have opened up a second opportunity for a planetary destruction:  climate catastrophe.  Some scientists, never satisfied with leaving the running of public affairs to their wise rulers, have claimed that, thanks to the burning of fossil fuels, rising temperatures are melting the polar icecaps, heightening sea levels, and causing massive hurricanes and floods, desertification, agricultural collapse, and enormous wildfires.  As a result, they say, human and other life forms are on their way to extinction.

    These scientists―and the deluded people who give them any credence―are much like the critics of nuclear weapons:  skeptics, nay-sayers, and traitorously indifferent to national grandeur.  By contrast, our rulers understand that any curbing of the use of fossil fuels—or, for that matter, any cutbacks in the sale of the products that make our countries great―would interfere with corporate profits, undermine business growth and expansion, and represent a retreat from the national glory that is their due.  Consequently, even if by some remote chance we are entering a period of climate disruption, our rulers will refuse to give way before these unpatriotic attacks.  As courageous leaders, they will never retreat before the prospect of your mass death and destruction.

    We are sure that you, as loyal citizens, are as enthusiastic as we are about this staunch defense of national glory.  So, if you notice anyone challenging this approach, please notify your local Homeland Security office.  Meanwhile, rest assured, our governments will also be closely monitoring these malcontents and subversives!

    Naturally, your rulers would love to have your feedback.  Therefore, we are submitting to you this question:  Which would you prefer―destruction by nuclear war or destruction by climate catastrophe?  Nuclear war will end your existence fairly quickly through blast or fire, although your death would be slower and more agonizing if you survived long enough to die of radiation sickness or starvation.  On the other hand, climate catastrophe has appealing variety, for you could die by fire, water, or hunger.  Or you might simply roast slowly thanks to unbearable temperatures.

    We’d appreciate receiving your opinion on this matter.  After all, providing you with this kind of choice is a vital part of making our nations great again!

  • Ten Ways that the Climate Crisis and Militarism Are Intertwined

    Ten Ways that the Climate Crisis and Militarism Are Intertwined

    Medea BenjaminThe environmental justice movement that is surging globally is intentionally intersectional, showing how global warming is connected to issues such as race, poverty, migration and public health. One area intimately linked to the climate crisis that gets little attention, however, is militarism. Here are some of the ways these issues—and their solutions—are intertwined.

    1. The US military protects Big Oil and other extractive industries. The US military has often been used to ensure that US companies have access to extractive industry materials, particularly oil, around the world.The 1991 Gulf War against Iraq was a blatant example of war for oil; today the US military support for Saudi Arabia is connected to the US fossil fuel industry’s determination to control access to the world’s oil. Hundreds of the  US military bases spread around the world are in resource-rich regions and near strategic shipping lanes. We can’t get off the fossil fuel treadmill until we stop our military from acting as the world’s protector of Big Oil.

    2.  The Pentagon is the single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world. If the Pentagon were a country, its fuel use alone would make it the 47th largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, greater than entire nations such as Sweden, Norway or Finland. US military emissions come mainly from fueling weapons and equipment, as well as lighting, heating and cooling more than 560,000 buildings around the world.

    3. The Pentagon monopolizes the funding we need to seriously address the climate crisis. We are now spending over half of the federal government’s annual discretionary budget on the military when the biggest threat to US national security is not Iran or China, but the climate crisis. We could cut the Pentagon’s current budget in half and still be left with a bigger military budget than China, Russia, Iran and North Korea combined. The $350 billion savings could then be funnelled into the Green New Deal. Just one percent of the 2019 military budget of $716 billion would be enough to fund 128,879 green infrastructure jobs instead.

    4. Military operations leave a toxic legacy in their wake. US military bases despoil the landscape, pollute the soil, and contaminate the drinking water. At the Kadena Base in Okinawa, the US Air Force has polluted local land and water with hazardous chemicals, including arsenic, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos and dioxin.Here at home, the EPA has identified over 149 current or former military bases as SuperFund sites because Pentagon pollution has left local soil and groundwater highly dangerous to human, animal, and plant life. According to a 2017 government report, the Pentagon has already spent $11.5 billion on environmental cleanup of closed bases and estimates $3.4 billion more will be needed.

    5. Wars ravage fragile ecosystems that are crucial to sustaining human health and climate resiliency. Direct warfare inherently involves the destruction of the environment, through bombings and boots-on-the-ground invasions that destroy the land and infrastructure. In the Gaza Strip, an area that suffered three major Israeli military assaults between 2008 and 2014. Israel’s bombing campaigns targeted sewage treatment and power facilities, leaving 97% of Gaza’s freshwater contaminated by saline and sewage, and therefore unfit for human consumption. In Yemen, the Saudi-led bombing campaign has created a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe, with more than 2,000 cases of cholera now being reported each day. In Iraq, environmental toxins left behind by the Pentagon’s devastating 2003 invasion include depleted uranium, which has left children living near US bases with an increased risk of congenital heart disease, spinal deformities,  cancer, leukemia, cleft lip and missing or malformed and paralyzed limbs.

    6. Climate change is a “threat multiplier” that makes already dangerous social and political situations even worse. In Syria, the worst drought in 500 years led to crop failures that pushed farmers into cities, exacerbating the unemployment and political unrest that contributed to the uprising in 2011. Similar climate crises have triggered conflicts in other countries across the Middle East, from Yemen to Libya. As global temperatures continue to rise, there will be more ecological disasters, more mass migrations and more wars. There will also be more domestic armed clashes—including civil wars—that can spill beyond borders and destabilize entire regions. The areas most at risk are sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South, Central and Southeast Asia.

    7. US sabotages international agreements addressing climate change and war. The US has deliberately and consistently undermined the world’s collective efforts to address the climate crisis by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and speeding the  transition to renewable energy. The US refused to join the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Climate Accord was the latest example of this flagrant disregard for nature, science, and the future. Similarly, the US refuses to join the International Criminal Court that investigates war crimes, violates international law with unilateral invasions and sanctions, and is withdrawing from nuclear agreements with Russia. By choosing to prioritize our military over diplomacy, the US sends the message that “might makes right” and makes it harder to find solutions to the climate crisis and military conflicts.

    8. Mass migration is fueled by both climate change and conflict, with migrants often facing militarized repression. A 2018 World Bank Group report estimates that the impacts of climate change in three of the world’s most densely populated developing regions—sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America—could result in the displacement and internal migration of more than 140 million people before 2050. Already, millions of migrants from Central America to Africa to the Middle East are fleeing environmental disasters and conflict. At the US border, migrants are locked in cages and stranded in camps. In the Mediterranean, thousands of refugees have  died while attempting dangerous sea voyages. Meanwhile, the arms dealers fuelling the conflicts in these regions are profiting handsomely from selling arms and building detention facilities to secure the borders against the refugees.

    9. Militarized state violence is leveled against communities resisting corporate-led environmental destruction. Communities that fight to protect their lands and villages from oil drills, mining companies, ranchers, agribusiness, etc. are often met with state and paramilitary violence. We see this in the Amazon today, where indigenous people are murdered for trying to stop clear-cutting and incineration of their forests. We see it in Honduras, where activists like Berta Caceres have been gunned down for trying to preserve their rivers. In 2018, there were 164 documented cases of environmentalists murdered around the world. In the US, the indigenous communities protesting plans to build the Keystone oil pipeline in South Dakota were met by police who targeted the unarmed demonstrators with tear gas, bean-bag rounds, and water cannons—intentionally deployed in below-freezing temperatures. Governments around the world are expanding their state-of-emergency laws to encompass climate-related upheavals, perversely facilitating the repression of environmental activists who have been branded as “eco-terrorists” and who are subjected to counterinsurgency operations.

    10. Climate change and nuclear war are both existential threats to the planet. Catastrophic climate change and nuclear war are unique in the existential threat they pose to the very survival of human civilization. The creation of nuclear weapons—and their proliferation—was spurred by global militarism, yet nuclear weapons are rarely recognized as a threat to the future of life on this planet. Even a very “limited” nuclear war, involving less than 0.5% of the world’s nuclear weapons, would be enough to cause catastrophic global climate disruption and a worldwide famine, putting up to 2 billion people at risk. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its iconic Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes to midnight, showing the grave need for the ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The environmental movement and the anti-nuke movement need to work hand-in-hand to stop these threats to planetary survival.

    To free up billions of Pentagon dollars for investing in critical environmental projects and to eliminate the environmental havoc of war, movements for a livable, peaceful planet need to put “ending war” at the top of the “must do” list.

    Medea Benjamin is co-founder of CODEPINK and a member of the NAPF Advisory Council.

    This article was originally published by Common Dreams and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

  • Reviving the Nuclear Disarmament Movement: A Practical Proposal

    Reviving the Nuclear Disarmament Movement: A Practical Proposal

    In late November 2018, Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned public intellectual, remarked that “humanity faces two imminent existential threats:  environmental catastrophe and nuclear war.” 

    Curiously, although a widespread environmental movement has developed to save the planet from accelerating climate change, no counterpart has emerged to take on the rising danger of nuclear disaster.  Indeed, this danger―exemplified by the collapse of arms control and disarmament agreements, vast nuclear “modernization” programs by the United States and other nuclear powers, and reckless threats of nuclear war―has stirred remarkably little public protest within the United States and even less public debate during the recent U.S. midterm elections.

    Of course, there are U.S. peace and disarmament organizations that challenge the nuclear menace.  But they are fairly small and pursue their own, separate antinuclear campaigns.  Such campaigns―ranging from cutting funding for a new nuclear weapon, to opposing the Trump administration’s destruction of yet another disarmament treaty, to condemning its threats of nuclear war―are certainly praiseworthy.  But they have not galvanized a massive public uprising within the United States against the overarching danger of nuclear annihilation. 

    In these circumstances, what is missing is a strategy that will rouse the general public from its torpor and shift the agenda of the nuclear powers from nuclear confrontation to a nuclear weapons-free world.

    The Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, launched decades ago in another time of nuclear crisis, suggests one possible strategy.  Developed at the end of the 1970s by defense analyst Randy Forsberg, the Freeze (as it became known) focused on a simple, straightforward goal:  a Soviet-American agreement to stop the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons.  As Forsberg predicted, this proposal to halt the nuclear arms race had great popular appeal (with polls showing U.S. public support at 72 percent) and sparked an enormous grassroots campaign.  The Reagan administration, horrified by this resistance to its plans for a nuclear buildup and victory in a nuclear war, fought ferociously against it.  But to no avail.  The Freeze triumphed in virtually every state and local referendum on the ballot, captured the official support of the Democratic Party, and sailed through the House of Representatives by an overwhelming majority.  Although the Reaganites managed to derail it in the Senate, the administration was on the defensive and, soon, on the run.  Joined by massive antinuclear campaigns in Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world, the Freeze campaign forced a reversal of administration priorities and policies, leading to previously unthinkable Soviet-American nuclear disarmament treaties and an end to the Cold War.

    How might a comparable strategy be implemented today?

    The campaign goal might be a halt to the nuclear arms race, exemplified by an agreement among the nuclear powers to scrap their ambitious nuclear “modernization” plans.  Although the Trump administration would undoubtedly rail against this policy, the vast majority of Americans would find it thoroughly acceptable.  An alternative, more ambitious goal―one that would probably also elicit widespread public approval―would be the ratification by the nuclear powers of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.  This UN-brokered treaty, signed in July 2017 by the vast majority of the world’s nations and scorned by the governments of the United States and other nuclear-armed countries, prohibits nations from developing, testing, producing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, using, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.

    The second stage of a current campaign strategy, as it was in the strategy of the Freeze, is to get as many peace groups as possible to endorse the campaign and put their human and financial resources behind it.  Working together in a joint effort seems feasible today.  Some of the largest of the current organizations―such as the American Friends Service Committee, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Veterans for Peace―are already thoroughly committed to building a nuclear weapons-free world.

    The third stage of an effective strategy is winning the battle for public opinion.  In the case of the Freeze, this entailed not only distributing crucial information to members of the general public, but introducing Freeze resolutions at local gatherings or national conventions of religious denominations, unions, professional associations, and the vast panoply of voluntary organizations, where they almost invariably passed. 

    A final stage involves turning the objective into government policy.  The Freeze campaign found that many politicians were quite willing to adopt its program.  Similarly, at present, some key Democrats, including the chair of the incoming House Armed Services Committee and likely Democratic presidential candidates, are already attacking the Trump administration’s nuclear “modernization” program, its withdrawal from disarmament treaties, and its eagerness to launch a nuclear war.  Consequently, if a major public campaign gets rolling, substantial changes in public policy are within reach.

    To be fully effective, such a campaign requires international solidarity—not only to bring domestic pressure to bear on diverse nations, but overseas pressure as well.  The Freeze movement worked closely with nuclear disarmament movements around the world, and this international alliance produced striking results in both East and West.  Today, a new international alliance, enhanced by the current strong dissatisfaction of non-nuclear nations with the escalation of the nuclear arms race and the related dangers of nuclear war, could help foster significant changes in public policy.

    Of course, this proposal suggests only one of numerous possible ways to develop a broad nuclear disarmament campaign.  But there should be little doubt about the necessity for organizing that public mobilization.  The alternative is allowing the world to continue its slide toward nuclear catastrophe.

    [This is a revised version of an article published by Foreign Policy in Focus on December 7, 2018.]

    Lawrence Wittner (http://www.lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).

  • 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

  • Making the Connection: The People’s Climate March and the International Day of Peace

    Robert DodgeThis article was originally published by Common Dreams.

    Climate change and world peace will each be highlighted on Sunday September 21, the International Day of Peace. In our nuclear armed, temperature rising, resource depleting world these issues are intricately related and represent the greatest threats to our planet. It is not coincidence that they be highlighted together. We must make the connection between peace on the planet and peace with the environment. Sunday’s Peoples Climate March will empower citizens the world over to demonstrate the will of the people and demand action as global leaders convene in New York on Tuesday for the U.N. Climate Summit.

    As our planet warms causing severe droughts and weather conditions, crop losses at home and around the world, conflict ensues as competition for finite resources develops.  Entire populations and countries are at risk with rising sea levels. Climate change is a catalyst for conflict. This is occurring the world over where 2/3 of global populations live on less than two dollars a day.

    No institution recognizes this connection and threat more than the U.S. military.  In the Pentagon’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, released on March 4, the Department of Defense notes: “The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions—conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.” While Congress is paralyzed in climate deadlock by those who would rather play charades denying climate change for purely short sighted short term economic gains the problem marches critically forward. Climate change is a national and international security threat.

    According to retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni speaking on climate change, “We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives.”

    We have long known of the devastating annihilating potential of all-out nuclear war. Recent medical scientific and climatic reports have shown the humanitarian consequences of even a limited nuclear war using less than half of 1 percent of the global arsenals resulting in significant climatic change that would put 2 billion people at risk of dying from the global famine that would follow.

    Currently U.S. and international cities and governments are rapidly trying to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. While this is understandable it is analogous to someone whose house is flooding trying to mop up without turning off the water first. You can never get ahead of the situation. In climate change we must STOP the process before it is too late.  When medicine deals with public health threats we recognize that we must prevent what we cannot cure. We cannot cure the effects of climate change—we must prevent it!

    So while the military and government makes plans for the effects and conflicts resulting from climate change, the people are stepping up and demanding action to stop the process. There is no more critical time in this effort. We the people demand action. If you are concerned about either issue, you must be concerned about both issues. The future of our planet depends on it.

    Join us on this International Day of Peace in the Peoples Climate March. Make the connection. Demand peace with the planet for peace on the planet.

    To join activities in your area check http://peoplesclimate.org/.

  • For Nuclear Security Beyond Seoul, Eradicate Land-Based ‘Doomsday’ Missiles

    This article was originally published by the Christian Science Monitor.

    David KriegerPresident Obama and other world leaders gathered at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, this week to address threats posed by unsecured nuclear material. If Mr. Obama is truly concerned about nuclear safety, he should seriously consider doing away with the 450 inter-continental ballistic missiles deployed and ready to fire at Russia on a moment’s notice.

    Last month we were among 15 protesters who were arrested in the middle of the night at Vandenberg Air Force Base, some 70 miles north of Santa Barbara, Calif. We were protesting the imminent test flight of a Minuteman III inter-continental ballistic missile.

    The Air Force rationale for doing these tests is to ensure the reliability of the US nuclear deterrent force; but launch-ready land-based nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are the opposite of a deterrent to attack. In fact, their very deployment has the potential to launch World War III and precipitate human extinction – as a result of a false alarm.

    We’re not exaggerating. Here’s why: These nuclear missiles are first-strike weapons – most of them would not survive a nuclear attack. In the event of a warning of a Russian nuclear attack, there would be an incentive to launch all 450 of these Minuteman missiles before the incoming enemy warheads could destroy them in their silos.

    If the warning turned out to be false (there have been many false warnings), and the US missiles were launched before the error was detected, World War III would be underway. The Russians have the same incentive to launch their land-based missiles upon warning of a perceived attack.

    Both US and Russian land-based missiles remain constantly on high-alert status, ready to be launched within minutes. Because of the 30-minute flight times of these missiles, the presidents of both the US and Russia would have only approximately 12 minutes to decide whether to launch their missiles when presented by their military leaders with information indicating an imminent attack (after lower-level threat assessment conferences).

    That’s only 12 minutes or less for the president to decide whether to launch global nuclear war.  While this scenario is unlikely, it is definitely possible: Presidents have repeatedly rehearsed it, and it cannot be ruled out due to the graveness of its potential consequences.

    Russia came close to launching its missiles based on a warning that came Jan. 25, 1995. President Yeltsin was awakened in the middle of the night and told a US missile was headed toward Moscow. Fortunately, Yeltsin was sober and took longer than the time allocated for his decision on whether to launch Russian nuclear-armed missiles in response.

    In the extended time, it became clear that the missile was a weather sounding rocket from Norway and not a US missile headed toward Moscow. Disaster was only narrowly averted.

    Here is the really compelling part of the story: If all 450 US land-based Minuteman III missiles with thermonuclear warheads were ever launched at Russia – with many of the targets in or near cities, as now planned – most Americans would die as a result, along with most of humanity.  Our own weapons would contribute as much or more to these deaths in America and the rest of the globe as any Russian warheads launched.

    This is because smoke from the enormous nuclear firestorms created by even a “successful” US nuclear first-strike would cause catastrophic disruption of global climate and massive destruction of the Earth’s protective ozone layer, leading to global famine.

    Recent peer-reviewed studies, done by atmospheric scientists Alan Robock (Rutgers), Brian Toon (University of Colorado-Boulder), Richard Turco (UCLA) and colleagues, predict that such an attack would create immense firestorms that would quickly surround the planet with a dense stratospheric smoke layer.

    The black smoke would be heated by the sun, lofted like a hot air balloon, and would remain in the stratosphere for at least 10 years. There it would block and prevent a large fraction of sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface. The sharp reduction of warming sunlight would rapidly produce global Ice Age weather conditions. This would eliminate or dramatically reduce growing seasons for a decade and would likely cause the starvation of most or all humans.

    Along with other effects – including prolonged destruction of the ozone layer – most complex life on Earth could be destroyed. Scientists say the process would be similar to when an asteroid hit the Earth some 65 million years ago, raising a global dust cloud that reduced sunlight, lowering temperatures and killing vegetation. That caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and 70 percent of the Earth’s species.

    The cause of extinction in our case would not be an external, celestial event, but rather the launching of thermonuclear weapons we had created by our own cleverness, supposedly for our own security.

    The Minuteman III missile tests from Vandenberg Air Force Base are thus really tests of an American Nuclear Doomsday Machine.

    Nuclear weapons do not make the US or the world more secure. In particular, the Minuteman III missiles – land-based, vulnerable, on high alert, and susceptible to being triggered by a false alarm – make us less secure. Anyone who cares about humankind having a future should protest these tests and call for the elimination of all nuclear-armed inter-continental ballistic missiles as an initial step toward the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

    If the US did away now with its nuclear-armed land-based missile force, it would still have 288 invulnerable submarine-launched ballistic missiles (armed with approximately 1,152 warheads) to act as a retaliatory threat to nuclear attack. But it would no longer have tempting targets for the Russians to strike preemptively in a time of tension or in the event of a false warning of attack.

    It would still be imperative to reduce US (and Russian) total warheads to levels that do not threaten the possibility of causing human extinction.

    And even the smaller existing nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan threaten global disaster. Professor Robock and his colleagues have estimated that in a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan in which each side used 50 Hiroshima-size bombs (each side now has more than that number), the smoke rising into the stratosphere could cause a global reduction of sunlight and destruction of ozone leading to crop failures and global famine.

    By comparison, the launch-ready thermonuclear forces of the US and Russia contain roughly 500 times the explosive power of the 100 atomic bombs of India and Pakistan.

    Now is the time for the people and nations of the world to stand up against the potential extinction of the human species and demand that political leaders pursue the path to zero nuclear weapons, a path mandated by the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Court of Justice. Until then, protest and civil resistance will be necessary.

    We should seek two principal goals: first, a commitment by the existing nuclear weapon states to forego launch-on-warning and first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances; and second, good faith negotiations for a new treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible, and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

    It is our hope that by committing nonviolent civil resistance, being arrested, going to federal court, and explaining our actions to the public, we will help to awaken and engage the American people on this issue of utmost importance to our common future.

  • References on High Alert and Nuclear Famine Dangers

    Bruce Blair, “Keeping Presidents in the Nuclear Dark,” Bruce Blair’s Nuclear Column (Episode #2:  The SIOP Option that Wasn’t), Feb. 16, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.cdi.org/blair/launch-on-warning.cfm

    Bruce G. Blair,”A Rebuttal of the U.S. Statement on the Alert Status of U.S. Nuclear Forces,” October 13, 2007. Retrieved from http://lcnp.org/disarmament/opstatus-blair.htm

    Bruce G. Blair, Harold Feiveson and Frank N. von Hippel, “Who’s Got the Button? Taking Nuclear Weapons off Hair-Trigger Alert,” Scientific American, November 1997. Retrieved from http://www.cdi.org/aboutcdi/SciAmerBB

    False Warnings of Soviet Missile Attacks during 1979-80 Led to Alert Actions for U.S. Strategic Forces; National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 371 Posted – March 1, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb371/index.htm

    Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers, Report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, Co-Chairs. Retrieved from http://icnnd.org/Reference/reports/ent/part-ii-2.html

    Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger, “The Ever-Ready Nuclear Missileer,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 14-21 DOI: 10.2968/064003005. Retrieved from http://www.thebulletin.org/files/064003005.pdf

    ICAN Nuclear Weapons Convention: http://icanw.org/nuclear-weapons-convention

    M.Mills, O. Toon, R. Turco, D. Kinnison and R. Garcia, “Massive Global Ozone Loss Predicted Following Regional Nuclear Conflict,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Apr 8, 2008, Vol 105(14), pp. 5307-12. Retrieved from http://www.pnas.org/content/105/14/5307.abstract

    A. Robock, L. Oman and G. Stenchikov, “Nuclear Winter Revisited with a Modern Climate Model and Current Nuclear Arsenals: Still Catastrophic Consequences,” Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, Vol. 112, No. D13, 2007. Retrieved from http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockNW2006JD008235.pdf

    A. Robock, L. Oman, G. L. Stenchikov, O. B. Toon, C. Bardeen and R. Turco, “Climatic Consequences of Regional Nuclear Conflicts,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 7, 2007, p. 2003-2012. Retrieved from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.org/7/2003/2007/acp-7-2003-2007.pdf

    O.B.Toon, R. Turco, A. Robock, C. Bardeen, L. Oman, and G. Stenchikov, “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism”, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 7, 2007, pp. 1973-2003. Retrieved from http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-1973-2007.pdf

    O.B. Toon and A. Robock, “2010:  Local Nuclear War, Global Suffering,”  Scientific American, 302, 74-81. Retrieved from http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010.pdf

    O. Toon, A. Robock and R. Turco, “The Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War,” Physics Today, vol. 61, No. 12, 2008. Retrieved from http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/ToonRobockTurcoPhysicsToday.pdf

    S. Starr, “Catastrophic Climatic Consequences of Nuclear Conflict,” International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, December 2009. Retrieved from http://icnnd.org/Documents/Starr_Nuclear_Winter_Oct_09.pdf

    S. Starr, “Launch-Ready Nuclear Weapons: A Threat to All Nations and Peoples,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, August 2011. Retrieved from https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2011_06_24_starr.pdf

    http://www.nucleardarkness.org

  • Climate Change, Nuclear Risks and Nuclear Disarmament: From Security Threats to Sustainable Peace

    2011_05_17_scheffran_climate.pdf

  • Changing the Climate of Complacency

    David KriegerRepresentatives of governments and civil society organizations are gathered in Cancun to take action on the climate change that is threatening our beautiful but beleaguered planet.  The changes, which are resulting in global warming, pose extremely dangerous threats to quality of life and even survival for people today and in the future.  We must heed the warnings of scientists who are examining this phenomenon and change our habits with regard to fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions.  We must dramatically lower our fossil fuel consumption and our carbon imprint on the planet and this must be undertaken immediately and seriously by the over-industrialized nations that are the worst energy and resource abusers.


    There is another way in which the term “climate change” may be used.  That is, to refer to “climate” in the sense of “ambiance.”  There is a strong need to change the climate of our thinking, specifically the passive acceptance of the abuse of our planet and its myriad species, including our own.  In this sense, humanity lives far too much in a “climate” of ignorance and indifference.  We have organized ourselves into consumer societies that demonstrate little concern for our responsibilities to the planet, to each other and to the future.


    There are many ongoing problems in the world that deserve our awareness and engagement.  The fact that these problems receive insufficient attention and action speak to the change of climate that is needed.  Many of these problems were identified in the eight Millennium Development Goals: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality; reducing child mortality; reducing maternal mortality; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and establishing a global partnership for development. 


    While these major problems on our planet are not adequately addressed, the world is wasting more than $1.5 trillion annually on its military establishments.  Many states are attempting to create military security at the expense of human security.  The poor people on the planet are being marginalized while countries use their scientific resources and material wealth to produce ever more deadly and destructive armaments.  In a climate of complacency, the military-industrial complexes of the world fulfill their gluttonous appetites while the poor and politically powerless of the Earth are left to suffer and die. 


    At the apex of the global order, the countries that emerged victorious in World War II anointed themselves as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.  They continue to flaunt international law by their reliance upon nuclear weapons and by failing to engage in good-faith negotiations for the elimination of these weapons as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Because these countries behave as though their power and prestige are built upon these weapons of mass annihilation, other countries seek to emulate them.  Nuclear proliferation is thus encouraged by the very states that seek to set themselves apart with these weapons.


    Large corporations that stand to profit from a “renaissance” of nuclear power are promoting large nuclear energy projects as an alternative to using fossil fuels.  They are trying to make nuclear power appear to be green.  But they have not solved the four major problems with nuclear power: the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation; the failure to find any reasonable solution to storing the nuclear wastes, which will threaten the environment and humanity for tens of thousands of years; vulnerability to terrorism; and propensity to dangerous accidents. 


    If the large global corporations have their way, the Earth will become home for thousands of nuclear power plants, nations will seek to protect themselves with nuclear weapons (an impossibility), the threat of nuclear annihilation and global warming will continue to hang over our collective heads, extreme poverty in its many manifestations will persist, and we will follow either a slow path to extinction or a rapid one. 


    This is why we must change the climate of indifference and complacency that currently prevails upon our planet.  We humans have the gifts of consciousness and conscience, but these gifts must be used to be effective.  We must become conscious of what threatens our common future and we must care enough to demand that these threats be eliminated.  The only force powerful enough to challenge the corporate and military power that is leading us to catastrophe is the power of an engaged global citizenry.  This remains the one truly great superpower on Earth, but it can only be activated by compassion and caring. 


    If we do not care enough about the future to engage in the fight to save our species from catastrophe and our planet from omnicide, we need only to continue our complacency and leave the important decisions about protecting the environment and human life to powerful corporations and the world’s militaries.  They have a plan, one based upon dangerous technologies and plunder.  Their plan is shortsighted, designed to further enrich the already overly rich.  To be silent is a vote for their plan. 


    As Albert Camus, the great French writer and existentialist, wrote in the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing: “Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests. Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only battle worth waging.  This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments – a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.” 


    Let us stand with Camus in waging peace.  Let us stand with Camus in choosing reason.  Let us raise our voices and choose peace and a human future.  Let us fulfill the responsibility of each generation to pass the world on intact to the next generation.  We may be the only generation that has faced the choice of silence and annihilation, or engagement and rebuilding the paradise of our exceedingly precious planet, the only one we know of in the universe that supports life.