nuclear-news

Tempo caught up with Stevens and asked her a few questions about her current passion, a series of events in Taos to raise awareness about the development and use of atomic weapons.

Why should there be an event to bring attention to the July 16, 1945 Trinity Site detonation of a nuclear bomb beyond the notion of not forgetting it occurred?

New Mexico residents have a unique opportunity to show the world the destruction caused by the development and use of atomic weapons. On July 16, 1945, the Trinity Site was the first place to explode a weapon of mass destruction on planet earth. The residents of the Tularosa Basin are still dealing with the fallout from that nuclear explosion.

The ICAN website describes it this way: “Immediate effects: A single nuclear weapon can destroy a city and kill most of its people. Several nuclear explosions over modern cities would kill tens of millions of people. Casualties from a major nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia would reach hundreds of millions. It takes around 10 seconds for the fireball from a nuclear explosion to reach its maximum size. A nuclear explosion releases vast amounts of energy in the form of blast, heat and radiation. A shock wave that reaches speeds of many hundreds of kilometers an hour. The blast kills people close to ground zero and causes lung injuries, ear damage and internal bleeding further away. People sustain injuries from collapsing buildings and flying objects.

“‘Long-term effects: Nuclear weapons produce ionizing radiation, which kills or sickens those exposed, contaminates the environment and has long-term health consequences, including cancer and genetic damage. Their widespread use in atmospheric testing has caused grave long-term consequences. Physicians project that some 2.4 million people worldwide will die from cancers because of atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1980.

“Physicians and first responders could not work in devastated, contaminated areas. Even a single nuclear detonation in a modern city would strain existing disaster relief resources to the breaking point; a nuclear war would overwhelm any relief system we could build in advance. Displaced populations from a nuclear war will produce a refugee crisis that is orders of magnitude larger than any we have ever experienced.”

Vice.com reported on Aug. 12, 2019: “5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1979, the dam failed, releasing 1,100 tons of uranium waste and 94 million gallons of radioactive water into the Río Puerco and through Navajo lands, a toxic flood that had devastating consequences on the surrounding area.”

Scientists have been warning citizens of the world that there would be a global pandemic. They have also warned about the dangers that humanity faces with climate change. Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers – nuclear war and climate change – that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.