nuclear-news

World’s nuclear arsenals even more risky than nuclear power plants

Current events at Fukushima remind us of the negligence of nuclear power companies in building nuclear power plants on earthquake fault lines or vulnerable coastlines. But they should also remind us of the even greater negligence of the nuclear weapon states in maintaining their arsenals of 20,000 nuclear weapons — most with yields over 100 times greater than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and many on hair trigger alert, ready to launch within minutes.

Nuclear Energy and Weapons: Uncontrollable in Time and Space, Alyn Ware, 23 March 11, “……natural disasters and accidents will happen. If it can go wrong sooner or later it will go wrong, and Murphy’s law and nuclear energy do not mix. …..
Japan’s nuclear crisis has brought back to public consciousness the basic truth that the effects of nuclear disasters — whether from nuclear energy or nuclear weapons — are uncontrollable in time and space.

Current events at Fukushima remind us of the negligence of nuclear power companies in building nuclear power plants on earthquake fault lines or vulnerable coastlines. But they should also remind us of the even greater negligence of the nuclear weapon states in maintaining their arsenals of 20,000 nuclear weapons — most with yields over 100 times greater than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and many on hair trigger alert, ready to launch within minutes. Any accidental, unauthorized, inadvertent or intentional use today (or tomorrow) would have a catastrophic, widespread, unprecedented and unimaginable impact on humanity and the environment.

A recent statement released by international law experts from around the world, including former judges from the International Court of Justice, affirms that maintaining nuclear weapons and a readiness to use them is not only negligent, but given the dire consequences of any use, also against the law. The Vancouver Declaration on “Law’s Imperative for the Urgent Achievement of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World,” notes that the use of nuclear weapons would be “contrary to the fundamental rules of international humanitarian law (laws governing use of force in wartime) forbidding the infliction of indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering.”

In other words, during war one can attack military targets and personnel, but not civilians…

Alyn Ware: Nuclear Energy and Weapons: Uncontrollable in Time and Space

March 24, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general