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None of this is born of surliness. She simply has assigned herself a civic duty (remember those?): to make the rest of us look unimaginably destructive nuclear weapons in the eye. Or, failing that, at least glance at them over our shoulders, where surprising numbers of nukes have long lurked, right on Puget Sound.

Lauw thus leaves herself open to the charge of being Not Much Fun at Parties, one of which she recently dampened by asking celebrants whether they knew about the still-lingering radiation effects of U.S. weapons-testing in Micronesia, nearly seven decades ago.

“People were like, ‘Are you drunk?’ ” she recalls.

Sober as a judge. And frustrated. Her university peers, she points out, are far from alone in paying as little attention as is humanly possible to the unpleasant subject of nukes, which, since the Cold War that gave birth to them, have become broadly accepted as a safe/sane part of America’s military deterrence. Even many Americans old enough to remember the big bomb’s coming-out party tend to think of them as a relic of their own dusty, duck-and-cover past.

THE BACKSTORY: The story behind “Peace activists are aging — but all those nuclear weapons RIGHT OVER THERE are just as threatening as ever”………

All is fair on the road to nuclear awareness. Sugiyama says she does see progress among her generation, but much of that has been fueled by fear induced by Trump’s open talk of nuking U.S. foes.

At age 20, the University of Washington senior already has enough experience in anti-nuclear activism to accept the reality: Most local people, natives or newbies, are willfully ignorant about the massive stockpile of nukes — a number sufficient to wipe out a good portion of the planet — sleeping in their midst every day.

Lauw thus leaves herself open to the charge of being Not Much Fun at Parties, one of which she recently dampened by asking celebrants whether they knew about the still-lingering radiation effects of U.S. weapons-testing in Micronesia, nearly seven decades ago.

“People were like, ‘Are you drunk?’ ” she recalls.

Sober as a judge. And frustrated. Her university peers, she points out, are far from alone in paying as little attention as is humanly possible to the unpleasant subject of nukes, which, since the Cold War that gave birth to them, have become broadly accepted as a safe/sane part of America’s military deterrence. Even many Americans old enough to remember the big bomb’s coming-out party tend to think of them as a relic of their own dusty, duck-and-cover past.

Human nature being what it is, it’s easy to look away. And most of us do.

The average Puget Sound resident probably spends more time worrying about proper accounting procedures in the occasional Seattle’s Best Burger poll than freaking out about the massive concentration of nuclear warheads sitting 20 miles from downtown Seattle, as the radiation flies.

THAT’S THE FRUSTRATION — and motivation — lurking within a shrunken-but-persistent local peace movement, which blossomed in the late 1970s and early 1980s with large-scale Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Actionprotests of the arrival of the first Ohio-class nuclear-missile submarines at the Naval Base Kitsap ….

THE BIGGEST WEAPON in the quiver of local anti-nuke evangelists, ironically, might be Donald J. Trump. Most local peace activists agree that the president’s bellicose threat of the use of nuclear weapons against foes such as North Korea and Iran has been a shot of cold water to the face of a slumbering public.

But the presence of Trump’s finger on the button, in an “outdated and dangerous” Cold War missile-launch system, also pushes the world closer to a nuclear confrontation, Adams says.

Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review earlier this year was a “dangerous departure” from the recent bipartisan tradition of pushing disarmament, and advocates the development of more “low-yield” devices that critics say enhance the chances of a nuclear exchange, Adams adds………….Ron Judd is a Pacific NW magazine staff writer. Reach him at rjudd@seattletimes.com or 206-464-8280. On Twitter: @roncjudd.   https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/peace-activists-are-aging-but-all-those-nuclear-weapons-right-over-there-are-just-as-threatening-as-ever/