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The New Anti-Nuclear Movement
It's good that nuclear weapons reductions and security are in the news. When they are asked about it, Americans are concerned. According to a Pew Research survey last fall, a little more than a half of the American public believes that "an attack on the United States with a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon is a greater danger now than it was 10 years ago."
That is an alarming statistic. And a quick look at the nuclear landscape reinforces this anxiety. There are four more nuclear powers — Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea — than when the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty entered into force in 1970.
And here in the United States, despite the White House's pledge to seek a world without nuclear weapons and recent agreements for arms reductions with Russia, the 2011 federal budget for nuclear weapons research and development is likely to be more than $7 billion. If the Obama administration has its way, it could reach $8 billion per year by the end of this decade. This steady and growing investment contradicts the White House's promising rhetoric of disarmament.
In addition, the administration recently unveiled its Nuclear Posture Review, which affirms a more limited but "essential" role for nuclear weapons in U.S. national security and does not rule out "first use" of nuclear weapons. This "right" allows the United States to drop the first bomb in an atomic war, thus leaving U.S. global dominance through military power unchallenged and unchecked. Another key Pentagon document, the Quadrennial Defense Review, suggests that as nuclear reductions are completed, more powerful conventional (i.e. non-nuclear) weapons capabilities — called "Prompt Global Strike" — will be necessary.
Existential Threat, Daily Impact
It isn't just the existential threat of global annihilation by accidental or deliberate nuclear strike that is of pressing concern. Whole communities throughout the world are affected daily by nuclear weapons, their land forcibly subjected to decades of nuclear testing, mining, and dumping of toxic radioactive waste.
In the United States, these practices disproportionately affect indigenous communities throughout the Southwest, permanently damaging land that was legally granted to them through treaties. This targeting underscores the racism, colonialism, and illegality at the heart of the nuclear project, one that continues to envision, build, and retain the ability to destroy the world many times over.
Today, nuclear mining and nuclear waste dumping on Native lands is back with a vengeance, as the Obama administration pushes for a renaissance of nuclear power production in the United States. In January, the White House approved a $54 billion dollar taxpayer loan in a guarantee program for new nuclear reactor construction, three times what Bush previously promised in 2005. Right now, there are 104 nuclear reactors in the United States that supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity.
Since 2007, 17 companies have sought government approval to build 26 new reactors, at an estimated cost of more than $12 billion each. These new nuclear reactors need uranium and the mining industry has applied to open (or reopen) 22 mines in New Mexico, many of which are on Diné (Navajo) and other tribal land. In terms of waste, nuclear reactors today produce about 2,000 metric tons of nuclear waste every year, which gets added to the 75,000 metric tons of waste stored in temporary containment around the country (122 temporary storage sites in 39 states).
NPT Focus
At the end of April, people will be coming to New York City from all over the world to participate in and monitor the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. They will gather at the "For a Nuclear Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World" conference at Riverside Church in Manhattan on April 30 and May 1.
The 2010 NPT Review Conference represents a vital opportunity to put needed pressure on the U.S. government and kickstart the antinuclear movement. It's also the anti-nuclear movement's opportunity to excite the American people with a vision of what a world free of nuclear weapons looks like and how to get from here to there.
In 1982, the War Resisters League initiated a "Blockade the Bombmakers" series of mass actions in New York City at the UN Missions of the five nuclear powers of the time. It was day one of the UN Special Session on Disarmament, and nearly 1,700 people were arrested in the blockades. The day before, one million people crowded into Manhattan to press for nuclear disarmament.
This year, we'll have another opportunity to take to the streets. On May 2, the "Disarm Now: For Peace and Human Needs" march across 42nd St. will bring the world's message of disarmament to the UN. The War Resisters League, a secular pacifist organization founded in 1923, invites everyone to Grand Central Station to declare NYC a "nuclear weapons free zone," and imagine what our city would look like without the billions spent on nuclear weapons and the terrorism of the nuclear threat.
Three Concepts
To cut through the verbiage of treaties and agreements and summits, and move people from fear to action, we need to focus on three concepts. The United States is the biggest problem when it comes to nuclear weapons. We need a new treaty to replace the NPT. And no nukes means no nuclear power.
Between them, the United States and Russia control about 90 percent of the 27,000 nuclear weapons that exist in the world today, and the United States is the only state to have ever dropped nuclear weapons in war. The August 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed or wounded over 350,000 people, and left many more wounded survivors of the devastation. During a speech in Prague on April 5, 2009, Obama acknowledged that in light of what we wrought 65 years ago, "the United States has a moral responsibility to act." We can take that one step further and assert that nuclear abolition begins at home, with unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Next, we need a simple and fair treaty. The NPT entered into force in 1970 and set up a bargain between nuclear haves and have-nots. The five acknowledged nuclear powers at the time — the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China — committed to disarmament. They also agreed not to transfer nuclear weapons material or know-how to any other country. The rest of the signing nations committed not to build nuclear weapons or accept delivery of that material or know-how.
Nuclear weapons states have not disarmed, and more than one has transferred nuclear know-how and materials to other nations. The treaty is broken. But there is an opportunity to channel the will toward disarmament into a new treaty framework that is free from the old constructs of haves and have-nots.
The Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy and other groups established a framework for real action towards disarmament. The "Nuclear Weapons Convention," which Costa Rica submitted to the 2007 UN meeting in preparation for the NPT Review Conference this spring, would simply and universally "prohibit development, testing, production, stockpiling, transfer, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons" [and] calls for "states possessing nuclear weapons [to] destroy their arsenals according to a series of phases." There is much more to the treaty that these few sentences, but in essence it says: "Let's build a safer world and start dismantling nuclear weapons."
Finally, no nukes means no nuclear power. The NPT enshrined nuclear power as the ultimate carrot to be exchanged for nonproliferation. It didn't work. And, just as importantly, nuclear power is not clean, green, or cheap. As uranium mining begins again under Obama, one need only visit Grand Canyon, Arizona (where uranium mining is once again under way) or Cane Valley, Arizona (the site of a uranium reprocessing plant) to be immediately disabused of that nuclear power industry propaganda.
These aren't slogans to shout from the ramparts. They're building blocks for a new anti-nuclear movement. We can't wait for the president or the leaders gathering at the next nuclear summit. They will have to be moved further in the right direction — by us.
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29 Comments so far
Show AllA nuclear arsenal is a mass human extermination machine. The concept of holding the lives of everyone's kids accountable for some rich oligarch crook's actions is abhorrent. It's a war crime too.
The concept of bouncing the rubble 10 times is financially senseless. If we only bounce the rubble 5 times, does the rubble win?
Nuclear power needs to pass the thyroid cancer test. Radiation for power can only be accomplished cheaply when life is cheap. The only question is, is it your own life that's cheap, or is it someone else's life that's cheap?
All of these questions are related to a fundamental issue: are we one country? Is an injury to one an injury to all? If not, utter foreigners live among us.
Obama, the media and the nuclear industry have convinced way more than half of the US electorate that nuclear power is carbon free, safe and indispensable (all lies)...a silver bullet...and you know how much Americans love silver bullets.
Sioux Rose
PAUL K: Thank you for the deep humanism expressed in your post, especially the 3rd paragraph.
Nuclear weaponry is indeed an existential menace for the world's populations, especially in view of U.S. nuclear weapons activities and foreign policies, but nuclear power from nuclear reactors is not a menace especially when compared to other current main power sources (think coal), and this article promulgates alarmist myths. Nuclear power has been proven to be safe and economical, and if advanced nuclear reactors can be put into play, they will even be a more safe and reliable source of electrical power. This is not at all to say that other forms of green power---wind, hydro, photovoltaic, geothermal, biomass---should not be developed and utilized, but most will not fulfill the future energy needs that fossil fuels now mainly supplies economically.
I am a physicist who has worked with nuclear material, but have no connection with the nuclear industry, governmental or otherwise. I've been observing nuclear issues from the beginning, and there have been safety concerns and lack of transparency in the past, but today these have largely been overcome. What I notice today, and in the recent past, is a frantically alarmist and ignorant campaign against nuclear energy. This is true of Berrigan's article as it concerns nuclear power and also to the reference be found under "Grand Canyon" in that article. There is no reliable health data, for example, cited in that article. We have mainly only ignorant assertions and distortions.
I suggest that interested parties consult the book by Tom Blees, entitled "Prescription for the planet" to get a more serious view of our energy predicament and nuclear power.
Sioux Rose
MKB: If you are indeed a physicist, it's interesting how your safetly claims ENTIRELY leave out the rather pressing, massive problem of what to do with the radioactive detritus. As you know, the citizens near Yucca Valley are not especially interested in having this time-bomb buried in their back yard. The earth has gone through geological changes since She began... and lately, given the 4 recent major earthquakes, as well as the volcanic action in Iceland, there appears to be an upsurge in "activity." Therefore the promise to find a safe place to store this dangerous material presupposes no future earth movements. It also is rather cavalier in its dismissal of the dangers of exposure to future generations. You know the half-life of these substances, and there's plenty of documentation on the health impacts incurred from exposure to radiation. Claims of safety are ludicrous given these factors. AND... there is also the question of price/costs. No firms want to insure these behemoths so citizens are expected to foot the bills, surprisingly just like the banksters get to gamble with our savings, but WE citizens are expected to pay for their bad bets... and debts to society. In this morally bankrupt cultural nexus, giving a pass to nuclear qualifies as another awful idea, sold to the public as green... like so many other deceptions engineered by the Disaster Capitalism experts.
Reign In The Rogue ePie
Time to reign in the rogue
Guantanamo stress and stripes just ain’t in vogue
Don’t tramp on me or tread on us
Democracy just means corporate us
The market gets to drive the bus
Freedom missiles spread chaos cures
the chaos of profit, for profit, by profit
while prophets call for more of the same
the treadmill of empire
a juggernaut of market might
primed by tanks of think so proud and right
proud to be....To be or not
The US just ain’t us
Just US
ain’t justice
Just Ice ain’t just fire.
Infinite justice devil or divine;
prophetic or dusty spin
the rogue can never win
Time to reign in the rogue
Stress stars and stripes just ain’t in vogue
It is tiresome to see that you dogmatically continue to equate nuclear weapons with nuclear power. This is as mindless as equating commercial jets with missiles. We badly need to build and expand nuclear power to overcome pending energy shortages when the oil fields will be depleted by 2050. With green nuclear energy we can safely and affordably manufacture hydrogen-bearing fuels for long-haul transports and provide electricity for future vast fleets of short-haul plug-in automobiles. Contrary to all the hype about solar and wind energy, they can not replace the future energy shortfall; only nuclear fission power can. Wind and solar are fine for remote regions and small-quantity power needs. But in reality, power from such sources is three times more expensive than nuclear if one accounts for very expensive energy storage and power grid electricity gathering systems.
I am all for nuclear weapon reductions and a strong NPT. But this does not mean we should cut out nuclear power. If one were to follow your reasoning, we should stop building and flying airplanes because terrorists can use them as a weapon to kill thousands in a skyscraper (9/11).Without greatly expanded nuclear power development soon, the US will become increasingly impoverished and experience economic collapse which is exactly what terrorist adversaries want to happen. Read "The Nuclear Imperative - A Crtical Look at the Impending Energy Crisis (more physics for presidents)", published by Springer-Dordrecht.
RE: ...that you dogmatically continue to equate nuclear weapons with nuclear power.
It would indeed be dogmatic if it were untrue, it is however, the propaganda that there is no connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power that remains untrue.
----------------------------------
“In a document from the Los Alamos National Laboratory dated August, 1981, one finds this statement:
‘There is no technical demarcation between the military and civilian reactor and there never was one. What has persisted over the decades is just the misconception that such a linkage does not exist.’"
“’As Dr. Amory Lovins, director of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado points out, "Every known route to bombs involves either nuclear power or materials and technology which are available, which exist in commerce, as a direct and essential consequence of nuclear power.’ In order to get plutonium for weapons, one needs a reactor, whether it is a "research" reactor (such as the one which provided India with the fissile material for its first atomic bomb). or a commercial reactor.”
Source:
http://www.neis.org/literature/Brochures/weapcon.htm
Thanks for providing the info. I quoted Lovins because he is well known, but the question is not whether he is a nuclear physicist, but rather is he WRONG? You don't address the more damning insider quote from Los Alamos at all.
Below is from the source you provided (and we are ASSUMING it is correct, which in the highly secretive field of nuclear weapons, we should NOT make that assumption). This quotation addresses whether a nuclear power plant could make weapons grade plutonium:
"...but could the reactor’s fuel cycle be modified to produce higher grade plutonium? Perhaps, but it wouldn’t be easy. PWR and BWR reactors are complex to refuel and normally are only refueled on relatively rare occasions, every year or so at the most. Refueling requires shutting down the reactor, allowing it to cool and depressurize, opening the lid of the reactor, replacing the fuel and finally replacing the lid. It takes more than a week to do this, during which time the reactor is shut down. Producing weapons grade plutonium would mean irradiation cycles as short as a month. This would mean the reactor would be shut down almost as much as it was running, dramatically compromising its power producing capabilities."
From the quote above it seems that the difficulty in producing weapons grade plutonium in a commercial nuclear power plant is the loss of power generation for a relatively short period. BIG DEAL! If you wanted a weapon you could easily substitute energy from another source like a coal-fired power plant for a period of time. Your info does not refute anything.
RE: If you have a light water reactor and run it one month out of two, somebody might notice.
I'm not talking about terrorism! The nuclear power industry is highly centralized and hierarchical in structure (not to mention highly subsidized by the government) just like military nuclear weapons production. All it would take is a phone call from from someone with the authority (say the POTUS) and that power plant would be switched over to weapons grade material production.
Incidentally, as indicated by the Los Alamos quote, this provides an explanation why the US is so hysterical about Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons (who according to the IAEA doesn't have weapons capability). If at some time in the future they do have weapons capability, they will already have the infrastructure in place to produce weapons grade plutonium. Then, like North Korea, Iran will have a deterrent, and will be treated more respectfully by the US and Israel. I'm not in favor of that, but it might prevent Iran from being wiped off the face of the earth. I favor TOTAL global nuclear disarmament.
Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are both terrible for the environment so they MUST be equated. And equating commercial jets with missiles isn't mindless, airplanes have been responsible for infinite destruction in human history (wars, crashes, 9/11 etc). Not to mention the enormous amounts of pollution into the atmosphere.
But nice propaganda job for the nuclear industry, hack, congratulations!
I'm one who believes in safe reliable nuclear power. Fortunately India & France (I think) carried on with research with 4th generation nuke power plants in the works, where we've stopped at 2nd gen nukes. I think that's true. The physicists below can verify that. The ONLY alternative that might be better would be serious research into the "free energy movement",a.k.a. zero-point energy, energy from the vacuum,ether-technology etc...Men like Viktor Schauberg, T. Townsend Brown, John R.R. Searl, T. Henry Moray, Moray B. King, Thomas E. Bearden & many others haved worked in THIS alternative energy field that rivals the power & promise of nuclear power, minus the obvious safety issues. Anything else besides these 2 possibilities are steps backwards. This alternative deserves a Manhattan Project of its' own to explore/develop it. I wouldn't automatically trust the judgement of conventional physicists on this. It would be like asking them to render a decision on parapsychology. I wouldn't take it as the final word. In any case, we need a crash program on SERIOUS energy/power replacement for coal/oil/natgas, and windmills & moonshine (biofuel) ain't gonna cut it. We might use the off-the-shelf availability of nukes for the next 50-100 years while researching "free-energy". It also suggests an ability to transmute toxic wastes into harmless matter (& btw, nuke waste is recycleable nuke fuel, a.k.a. breeder reactors). The Green Party should champion serious research into the "free-energy movement" as a POWERFUL green alternative to nukes (which,also btw, nukes can eliminate the carbon footprint by de-salting ocean water & converting some of it to hydrogen fuel for cars, thus entirely leaving coal/oil behind).
What crap--Obama's doubebind: he just used a Nuclear Disarmament Treaty to threaten North Korea and Iran with a US first strike nuclear attack.
And Iran is both a member in good standing of the non-proliferation agreement and has no nuclear weapons.
He must have learned the doublebind tactic from his Kansas mother and his jingo soldier boy white grandpa.
Is Gates his new "Father Figure"?
"This steady and growing investment contradicts the White House's promising rhetoric of disarmament"
If honesty isn't the attribute of the whitey house that attracts public attention, then what is it?
'does not rule out "first use" of nuclear weapons. This "right" allows the United States to drop the first bomb in an atomic war'
You could call it a pile of kaka, but calling it a "right" only helps Big Brother build his props of public delusion. If I had a public soapbox, I'd call the kaka oozing from the whitey house just what it smells like.
In 1951, the CIA told President Harry S. Truman that the United States faced an enemy with “no scruples about employing any weapon or tactic" and that nuclear weapons smuggled across porous borders threatened to devastate US cities and sleeper cells might already be inside the country.
Not much has changed in 2010 and if THAT DAY, we call 9/11 taught us anything, it should be that America's nuclear arsenal cannot defeat 'terrorism' or provide security from the actions of a few violent mad men who target and murder innocent ones.
America has a nuclear arsenal of over 10,000 weapons and nearly 2,000 remain on hair-trigger alert ever since the end of the Cold War.
An estimated 150 – 240 tactical nuclear weapons remain based in 5 NATO countries and the United States is the only country with nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil.
American taxpayers provide over $54 billion annually to maintain WMD's, which is but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. military spending. The U.S. is also a co-conspirator in international nuclear apartheid and major collaborator in Israel's INEFFECTIVE policy of nuclear ambiguity.
"Words must mean something [and] violence and injustice must be confronted by standing together as free nations, as free people…Human destiny will be what we make of it."-President Obama
"You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life."- Lewis Mumford, 1946
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends...I believe that as soon as people want peace in the world they can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware they can get it."-John Lennon
"If you are not apart of the solution; you are apart of the problem."-Eldridge Cleaver
"Commies to Al Qaeda and back to US!" @
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1704&Itemid=232
"These aren't slogans to shout from the ramparts."
Actually Frida, you have some damn good slogans for the ramparts here. As long as our tools for peace include our voices, I hope we pacifists have ramparts to shout from.
Thank you Frida for this frightening hopeful call to action.
Peace
Love
No Nukes
As the article points out, we cannot ignore the huge problems with nuclear power and weapons at the front end of the process - mining, milling, and concentrating the ore. Please check out http://www.downtheyellowcakeroad.org/ for a home-grown video produced by the residents of Canon City, Colorado, who live with the Cotter Corp. mill in their backyard and who have continued to suffer grievously for this 'clean' energy source. I'd like to see Obama go to Canon City to make his pitch for huge new taxpayer subsidies for nuclear, so the poisoning can continue.
In fact. Colorado's 'liberal, environmentalist' Senator Mark Udall should join him there, since he's now another proponent of the nuclear renaissance:
http://markudall.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=304
http://coloradoindependent.com/47861/udall-supports-proposed-xcel-nuclear-plant-for-colorado
Disgusting.
Thanks for the great article.
It is really time for us all to start talking about the nuclear industry as a whole. With the industry gearing up and trying to re-invent itself, we all need to be out there speaking the truth.
Uranium mining is the beginning of the cycle and it has devastating effect on the land, water & Indigenous communities all around the world.
Nuclear power is not our solution to climate change, when you look at the whole cycle from mining to waste, it is another form of cultural genocide and a legacy of radioactive waste that will be left for future generations to deal with for the next 100,000 years...
We are walking to the NPT at the moment and trying to get this message across to people..
Please come and join us..
More info at www.footprintsforpeace.net
Sioux Rose
MARCUS: Thank you for a most excellent post!
Conservation, combined with more development of and financial incentives for alternative, renewable energy sources, is not in the best interests of the ruling elites. Those who do not understand the inextricable link between government (i.e. taxpayer) subsidies for nuclear power and the controlling capitalists are, indeed, nothing but useful idiots for the rich and powerful. Unfortunately, those unable/unwilling to recognize this vicious cycle will continue to suck down energy as if it was unlimited, and, hence, maintain the dominance of those that benefit from reliance on finite energy sources and working class subsidized nuclear power. Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants contaminates the Earth wherever it is "disposed" of. For the most part, humans, and their arrogant, fuck nature, lifestyles, are a blight upon this Earth.
Marcus: thanks a lot for the link to footprintsforpeace. CommonDreams is a great resource for direct action to challenge the capitalist machine because of good folks like you. See you there.
Thank you, dear Frida, for your good work and words to ENcourage us to keep on keeping on.
The levels of self-destructive tendencies are very disturbing - no matter how one chooses to
look at the issue of nuclear/weapons/power - why is it that we are so prone to this concept
of self (and therefore 'other') destruction?? Maybe one day you will share your insights into
this issue which must be at the bottom and top of the whole nuclear argument!!! Bright
blessings upon you! Love/peace/struggle( as Lynne Stewart reminds us!) Elizabeth/ny