It’s time to be fearful of nuclear war again
Nuclear War Makes a Comeback https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/nuclear-war-makes-comeback It’s time to revisit the old fear that kept your parents up at night, BY CAROL POLSGROVE | AUG 31 2020 On websites where policymakers, scholars, and military leaders gather, concern about the possibility of nuclear war has been rising sharply in recent months as China, the United States, and Russia develop new weapons and new ways of using old ones.
On War on the Rocks, an online platform for national security articles and podcasts, Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, reported August 11 on public calls in China “to quickly and massively build up its nuclear forces” on the theory that only a “more robust nuclear posture” would prevent war with the United States.
The biggest nuclear arms budget ever is nearing approval in the US Congress, and the Trump administration has raised the possibility of resuming nuclear tests. President Trump has pulled the United States out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, while the New Start Treaty capping Russian and US nuclear warheads and delivery systems is set to expire next February if the two countries don’t agree to extend it.
For its part, Russia appears poised to equip its navy with hypersonic nuclear strike weapons, and according to the British newspaper The Independent, “The Russian premier has repeatedly spoken of his wish to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons that can be targeted anywhere on the planet.”
Meanwhile, momentum to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons has faltered. Nine nations now hold nuclear arms in an increasingly unsettled international scene. Recent research has shown that a nuclear exchange between just two of those with lesser arsenals—India and Pakistan—“could directly kill about 2.5 times as many as died worldwide in WWII, and in this nuclear war, the fatalities could occur in a single week.” Burning cities would throw so much soot into the upper atmosphere that temperatures and precipitation levels would fall across much of the earth—bringing widespread drought, famine, and death.
Clashes between India, Pakistan, and other nuclear-armed states have become frequent enough that the International Red Cross marked the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a warning: “[T]he risk of use of nuclear weapons has risen to levels not seen since the end of the Cold War.”
For 75 years, the nuclear Sword of Damocles has dangled over the earth. There is widespread agreement among analysts that the long lull may soon be over—owing, in part, to the end of the Cold War. During those decades, the United States and the USSR cooperated not only to avoid bombing each other into oblivion but also to discourage other nations from gaining their own nuclear arms, in part by spreading their nuclear umbrellas over their allies.
That international system has dissolved. In addition to the United States, Russia, and China, other nations have nuclear weapons and more are likely to soon acquire them. And a new possibility has appeared on the horizon: the increased likelihood that nuclear weapons could be introduced into conventional warfare in regional wars.
In a monograph published by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, US defense policy and strategy analyst John K. Warden writes that “in the capitals of potential adversary countries,” the idea is taking hold “that nuclear wars can be won because they can be kept limited, and thus can be fought—even against the United States.”
What can the United States do to convince adversaries not to introduce nuclear weapons into a conventional war—to make clear, in advance, that taking such a step would lead to fatal consequences for the country that took it?
The answer from the US national security establishment, as the fiscal 2021 defense budget suggests, is a readiness to fight fire with fire: If the “adversaries” of the United States hold out the threat of introducing nuclear weapons in a conventional war, then (the argument goes) they should expect that the United States will respond in kind.
How many weapons and delivery systems would that require? A lot, according to the nuclear budget for the Departments of Defense and Energy now going through Congress. At a time when COVID-19 has shaken the foundations of the federal budget, Congress is close to approving $44.5 billion for fiscal 2021 to modernize nuclear warheads, delivery systems, and the infrastructure that supports them.
Sierra Club nuclear policy director John Coequyt has called on Congress “to resist the current renewal of the nuclear arms race and to ban the use of nuclear weapons,” and Sierra Club members have mobilized to try to stop funding for nuclear war projects in their neighborhoods.
In South Carolina, for instance, Tom Clements, Sierra Club member and director of Savannah River Site Watch, has joined other groups in challenging plans for expanded plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site. And the Ohio Sierra Club’s Nuclear Free Committee has opposed production at the Portsmouth Nuclear Site in Piketon of “high-assay low-enriched uranium” that could be upgraded for weapons use, in the United States or elsewhere.
While such efforts often focus on local effects of nuclear weapons production, they also manifest a larger concern. Says the Club’s Nuclear Free Core Team’s Mark Muhich, the renewed nuclear arms race is “an existential threat both to human civilization and to the earth.”
Join the conversation in the Nuclear Free Campaign room of the Sierra Club Grassroots Network.
Read the Sierra Club’s policy statements on nuclear weapons here.
Increasing climate risks threaten nuclear reactors
Analysis: Nuclear operators face growing climate risks, https://www.michiganradio.org/post/analysis-nuclear-operators-face-growing-climate-risks
In the report, analysts found the Cook, Fermi, and Palisades nuclear power plants in Michigan and the nearby Davis-Besse plant in Ohio fall into the High Risk category (although Palisades is scheduled to close in 2022).
The analysis says that means the nuclear power plants will face relatively high changes in temperature extremes compared to the global average, according to the report.
“If the temperature goes up a little bit too high, the plan would either have to lower its output for a given period or maybe shut down if things are extreme,” said David Kamran one of Moody’s analysts.
The trickiest part for the nuclear power plant operators is reacting to how quickly changes in the climate happen. Recently, some models show the planet is getting warmer faster than previously thought.
“As these entities, the plants, want to have their licenses extended over many years, they may need to make additional investments to keep up with new information regarding climate and temperature and water, that sort of thing,” Kamran said.
The nuclear power plants use massive amounts of water. While the supply is not an issue, the temperature of the water could be an issue in the future depending on how fast the climate changes.
“Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World.” – new book
Fallout’: New book sobering reminder of nuclear devastation 75 years after entering atomic age https://www.dailylobo.com/article/2020/08/fallout-new-book-sobering-reminder-of-nuclear-devastation-75-years-after-entering-atomic-age By Hevyn Heckes 31 Aug 20, New Mexicans are perhaps more acutely aware of U.S. nuclear capabilities and the bomb, “Little Boy,” dropped on Hiroshima, since its predecessors were developed and tested in our own backyard. However, most people alive today will not remember the immediate aftereffects of the outsized attack on Japanese citizens that capped off the second world war.
Modern awareness of the atomic bomb and the events of WWII are mostly relegated to fictionalized accounts contained in films such as “Pearl Harbor” and “Schindler’s List.” The events surrounding WWII have long since become a cultural legend, and first-person memories of these events no longer exist. We’ve simply forgotten the horrors of global war — until now.
Leslie M. M. Blume set out to refresh our collective memory regarding the widely recognized end of WWII in “Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World.” She has done so in spectacular fashion – recalling our consciousness to the famous New Yorker article written by one John Hersey.
Blume details the difficulties Hersey confronted in reporting the truth of the atomic bomb’s lingering effects on Japanese citizens and the censorship levied against war correspondents prior to and during Hersey’s investigative presence in Japan.
Blume somehow manages to insert the reader in a manner usually only employed by fiction novels. She plies the reader with insight into how Hersey was able to convince Japanese victims to talk to him – a man they had every reason to hate and mistrust as a representative of their enemies in the U.S.
She explains that Hersey’s interviewees found him affable, educated and empathetic. His personal qualities endeared him to these people who would otherwise have gladly sent him on his way without a word.
Reading this book provides a timely and poignant reminder on the 75th anniversary of the bombings. One is forced to confront the human cost of nuclear weapons. Blume brilliantly interweaves Hersey’s reporting with her own so the reader is able to feel present with Hersey during his research and the victims of Little Boy’s aftereffects.
It becomes more and more clear that those who perished immediately with the bomb’s initial blast were the lucky ones.
Hersey and Blume graphically recount the physiological and psychological trauma Little Boy’s victims endured. One particularly memorable excerpt states, “(Japanese soldiers’) eyes had melted away in their sockets; the liquid had run in rivulets down their faces, which were burned beyond recognition.” Other excerpts tell of victims whose faces had “melted” with the blast so that their appearance seemed blurred.
Clearly, this novel contains sensitive and graphic depictions of physical trauma suffered by Japanese citizens of Hiroshima. This fact takes nothing away from the importance of the reader confronting these depictions to truly understand the catastrophic risks of nuclear war.
Fictional chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm (played memorably by Jeff Goldblum) said in the film “Jurassic Park,” “Your scientists were so concerned with figuring out if they could that they didn’t stop to ask themselves whether or not they should.” This concept and ethical philosophy is perhaps more applicable to the invention of the atomic bomb — a weapon capable of far more devastating effects, up to and including nuclear winter, environmental devastation and species annihilation, than a few stray T-Rexes in a theme park.
As Hersey conveys and Blume emphasizes, nuclear weapons are a tool that could potentially bring about humanity’s self-inflicted extinction. Hersey’s reporting on the atomic bomb’s effects on the citizens of Hiroshima is perhaps a deterrent preventing nuclear disaster, but we must keep these consequences at the front of our minds to continue avoiding the doomsday clock finally tolling the midnight hour. “Fallout” is the poignant reminder we need right now.
Hevyn Heckes is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @H_Squared90
Wylfa nuclear project – a contentious issue in Wales
Wales’ controversial nuclear history and what comes next as D-Day approaches for Wylfa One of Wales’ most contentious projects is facing a possible D-Day next month but opinion remains divided about nuclear power on the isle of Anglesey, Wales Online, 31 AUG 2020
….since its announcement it has been met with a mixture of hope, optimism, and concern from campaigners and local politicians.
It has also been dogged by delays and uncertainty in the decade since it was confirmed Wylfa would get a new nuclear plant……. as we approach possible clarity on a long-proposed and controversial project, what do those closest to the project think?
People Against Wylfa B (or Pawb, meaning ‘everyone’ in Welsh) was set up in the late 1980s and opposes the establishment of a new nuclear plant in north Wales.
One of its leading members, Robat Idris, explained that the history of nuclear power’s prominence in the Anglesey region goes back more than 60 years.
“The development of the UK nuclear programme was part of the Cold War strategy of the government at the time,” he said.
“The Thatcher government wanted to start a programme of building nuclear reactors, which were then shelved. At the time there was strong opposition across the political parties, except the Tories, to nuclear in Wales.”………
the concerns shared by Pawb go deeper than local politics and economics. The dangers associated with nuclear power are well-documented.
Despite being more than 2,000 miles away, farms over 53,000 hectares in north Wales felt the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, with many restrictions placed on farms due to radioactive particles in the soil and vegetation.
This threatened livelihoods across Wales for decades. Some restrictions in areas like Snowdonia were only lifted as recently as 2012.
Often smaller incidents at nuclear stations are not reported on a national scale or are discovered belatedly. At the Sellafield nuclear site, off the coast of Cumbria, between 1950 and 2000 there were 21 incidents or accidents involving off-site radiological releases that warranted a rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
“Historical effects like Chernobyl and Fukushima show that if things go wrong they go wrong dramatically,” Mr Idris said.
“With capitalist extractive models you take what you want and leave the rest. Even though nothing has been built yet there has already been changes to the topography of the area – flattening of hills and demolishing of houses and purchasing of land from farmers.”…….
“We have concerns about the idea that nuclear energy is low-carbon. But it is only low-carbon in the actual production – not in the building and construction, mining of uranium, or other elements,” Mr Idris said.
“There is also an unknown element to the decommissioning process – you are talking about centuries after production stops before a site is safe.”……………………………….
Not all are convinced that Wylfa is the magic pill that will transform Anglesey’s fortunes ……….
we’ve had this salvation of nuclear in the 60s and 70s, and Anglesey is still one of the poorest areas.
“Renewables are coming in more – falling costs, improvements in storage technology. The technology is there and just needs to be purchased.
“It comes back to a lack of a plan B – why haven’t other credible scenarios been presented?”……..
With the impending decision from the UK Government it appears increasingly likely that clarity is coming either way.
If permission is granted then the final hurdle will be arranging funding between the UK Government and the company – something which has proven elusive thus far……… https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/nuclear-power-wales-anglesey-wylfa-18836063
Nuclear Regulatory Commission bans TVA executive over whistleblower retaliation
Nuclear Regulatory Commission bans TVA executive over whistleblower retaliation, Jamie Satterfield, Knoxville News Sentinel, 31 Aug 20
The nation’s nuclear power watchdog says a Tennessee Valley Authority executive’s retaliation against a safety whistleblower was so egregious he is banned from the industry for five years.
TVA Vice President Joseph Shea is barred from working for five years in any activities that require licensing by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency said in a news release. The agency said the penalty is warranted to protect the public.
Shea, the regulatory agency concluded, “played a significant role” in the 2018 firing of nuclear engineer Beth Wetzel after she repeatedly raised safety concerns about TVA’s nuclear power program.
The U.S. Department of Labor last year ruled TVA executives, including its corporate attorney, cooked up a fake reason to fire Wetzel after she criticized one of her bosses. TVA later brokered a secret settlement with her……….. https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2020/08/31/nuclear-regulatory-commission-bans-tva-executive-joseph-shea-over-whistleblower-retaliation/3442778001/
Nuclear waste in Japan – an environmental worry
Nuclear waste disposal is a matter of environmental concern, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/08/31/reader-mail/nuclear-waste-disposal-matter-environmental-concern/ It has been reported that the town of Suttsu in Hokkaido is considering applying for a two-year “literature research” into the possibility of storing high-level radioactive nuclear waste. A maximum of ¥2 billion in subsidies will be granted by the central government.
“The future of the town is financially precarious,” said Haruo Kataoka, the mayor of Suttsu, in an interview.
But the money that is thought to revive the town cannot reverse what the nuclear waste is likely to cause.
It is, in my opinion, never a financial issue, but a matter of environmental concern.
What is in question here is high-level radioactive nuclear waste, which can be dangerous for at least 200,000 years and therefore must be handled with the utmost care. It is indeed a problem that any country with nuclear power plants needs to address, however thorny it is. Any indiscreet decision is deemed extremely irresponsible and profoundly unethical.
“Financially precarious,” I must stress, is by no means comparable to environmentally threatening. Besides, it is specifically stated in a Hokkaido ordinance that nuclear waste is hardly acceptable in the prefecture.
Before a final disposal site is selected, or even before an application for research is submitted, the scientific facts ought to be thoroughly understood and the residents properly informed.
The span of recorded history is merely 5,000 years, while 200,000 years is far beyond human experience and comprehension. We certainly cannot live to see what is going to become of the nuclear waste, but I believe that we do not want to leave the thorny problem unaddressed to haunt our future generations.
Santee Cooper finalizes settlement over leftover material at failed SC nuclear project
Santee Cooper finalizes settlement over leftover material at failed SC nuclear project, Post and Courier, By Andrew Brown abrown@postandcourier.com, Aug 31, 2020
Santee Cooper may finally be able to recover some of the money it dumped into two unfinished nuclear reactors in South Carolina.
The board of the Moncks Corner power provider finalized a settlement this weekend with Westinghouse Electric that will enable the state-run utility to sell off leftover parts and materials from the failed expansion of the V.C. Summer project.
The settlement, which has been in the works for months, requires Santee Cooper and Westinghouse to split the profits from any remaining equipment that could be used on another site. …….
The V.C. Summer project is widely considered one of the worst business failures in South Carolina history.
Santee Cooper was the minority owner of the project. It partnered on the unfinished reactors with Cayce-based South Carolina Electric & Gas, which was sold to Dominion Energy after construction was halted in mid-2017 after years of delays and cost overruns.
The two South Carolina utilities spent more than $9 billion on construction before the reactors were abandoned in July 2017.
By that time, Westinghouse had filed for bankruptcy and left the struggling project in the laps of SCE&G and Santee Cooper. As a result, electric customers for both utilities are still paying off debt tied to the abandoned project.
The amount of material left over from the two unfinished nuclear reactors is vast, and there’s one big reason for that. By the time SCE&G and Santee Cooper pulled the plug on the project, they had already purchased more than 90 percent of the parts. Yet only a third of the reactors were actually built. ………….https://www.postandcourier.com/business/santee-cooper-reaches-settlement-over-leftover-material-at-failed-sc-nuclear-project/article_8d01c2e4-eba1-11ea-a8d5-5fad5583ac38.html…..
Vatican representative calls on U.S. to sign nuclear-test-ban treaty
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Vatican representative calls on U.S. to sign nuclear-test-ban treaty, National Catholic Reporter, Aug 31, 2020
VATICAN CITY — The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the absurdity of “pouring valuable resources into the maintenance of weapons of destruction while so many on this planet are struggling to survive,” a Vatican representative told a U.N. meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.”It is impossible to make a moral case for continued nuclear weapon testing,” said Msgr. Fredrik Hansen, charge d’affaires at the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations. “There should never be another nuclear test explosion,” he told the online meeting Aug. 26. The United Nations has designated Aug. 29 as the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, and Msgr. Hansen used the occasion to call on China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States to ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Visiting Hiroshima in November, Pope Francis said that “the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home. The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral,” Hansen said. “Furthermore, the pope has also underscored the need to ‘reject heightening a climate of fear, mistrust and hostility fomented by nuclear doctrines,'” he noted. “Peace and international stability are incompatible with attempts to build upon the fear of mutual destruction or the threat of total annihilation,” the monsignor said, continuing to quote the pope………. https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/vatican-representative-calls-us-sign-nuclear-test-ban-treaty |
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Republicans in Ohio House create new committee for nuclear bailout repeal debate
Ohio House Creates New Committee For Nuclear Bailout Repeal Debate, Cincinnati Public Radio, By ANDY CHOW, 31 Aug 20, Republican leaders in the Ohio House have announced the creation of a new committee to hold hearings on the potential repeal of HB6, a nuclear power plant bailout bill at the center of an alleged $60 million corruption scheme…….
House Democrats criticize the new committee as just another hurdle towards a full repeal.
Rep. Michael Skindell (D-Lakewood) says the legislature should act quickly in order to stop further implementation of the law, such as increased electric bills next year.
Duke Energy Has Squandered Billions in Failed Natural Gas and Nuclear Projects,
Report: Duke Energy Has Squandered Billions in Failed Natural Gas and Nuclear Projects, Alex Formuzis, alex@ewg.org, EWG, 31 Aug 20, WASHINGTON – Since 2013, Duke Energy and its partners have scrapped natural gas pipelines and nuclear power plants totaling $11.6 billion, according to a new report by the Environmental Working Group.
For most businesses, this record of blowing billions of dollars on one failed project and boondoggle after another would send finances reeling and the executives in charge packing.
But not when you are the nation’s largest investor-owned electric utility, with a captive ratepayer base of 7.7 million across six states, and state lawmakers and regulators in your pocket who let you pass those losses onto customers through new fees and rate increases………………
Failed, costly projects like the ACP and the Edwardsport plant are business as usual for Duke, from the cancelled Lee nuclear plant in South Carolina to the cancelled Levy and shuttered Crystal River nuclear plants in Florida.
Plans for the construction of the Levy plant first began in 2006 under Progress Energy, which merged with Duke in 2012. The original estimate was $5 billion to $6 billion. By the time of the merger, the price tag had grown to $24 billion and the in-service date was pushed back eight years, to 2024.
Even in the face of overruns nearly five times higher than the original cost estimates, Duke was unfazed, pressing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build and operate the plant. The NRC granted Duke’s request in 2016, but that same year the utility announced it would halt production. Florida regulators allowed Duke to charge customers $800 million for a plant that never delivered a kilowatt of electricity.
To drag Duke and other utilities into the clean energy future, politicians and regulators must disrupt the monopoly model that has ceded control of energy to profit-first corporations. Electricity rates should be tied to efforts to increase efficiency and promote renewables like rooftop and community solar – both of which Duke has fought to deny the captive ratepayers in its vast expansive service area. And stockholders, not ratepayers, should bear the costs and risks of big capital projects.
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The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action. Visit www.ewg.org for more information. https://www.ewg.org/energy/release/23293/report-duke-energy-has-squandered-billions-failed-natural-gas-and-nuclear
75 years on, the plan is still for planet-ending nuclear confrontation
It’s been 75 years Why are we still planning for the ultimate planet-ending act?, By Ray Acheson, on August 
30, 2020 by beyondnuclearinternational
Reaching Critical Will, a program of the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, has released its new report — Assuring Destruction Forever: 2020 edition. This is its introduction, (edited here for publication timing), a powerful reminder of the lessons humanity has yet to learn, 75 years after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It’s August 2020. Seventy-five years since a US president sitting in Washington, DC decided to drop two atomic bombs on the people of Japan—one on the city of Hiroshima, the other on Nagasaki. Thus began the nuclear age, marked with the construction of multiple “doomsday machines” programmed for unwinnable wars and global conflagration; astonishing wastes of human and financial resources; bullish, masculinised conflicts among states that deploy violence here and there while dancing around their potential for planet-ending acts; and the relentless peddling of all this as completely, totally, and undeniably rational.
Seventy-five years of apocalyptic potential
But it is not rational. And the continued investment by certain governments in not just the maintenance but also the “modernisation”—the upgrading, updating, and life- extending—of nuclear weapons is absurd, dangerous, and immoral. Fortunately, during the COVID-19 crisis, people are starting to take notice of where all of the money—in many cases, taxpayers’ money—has gone; of why their governments cannot provide basic protective equipment and medical supplies and services during a global pandemic. And even more fortunately, there is something we can do to get rid of the threat of nuclear weapons and release trillions of dollars to deal with real, rather than imagined, crises of security, safety, and stability: we can divest, and we can disarm.
For seventy-five years, the world has lived under the threat of radioactive blast and firestorm, the effects of which are immediately devastating and punishingly intergenerational. For seventy five years, from production to testing and use to storage of radioactive waste, nuclear weapon activities have contaminated land and water—and will continue to do so for thousands of years more. For seventy-five years, a very few governments—nine, at current count—have decided to invest trillions of dollars into these instruments of death and destruction. For seventy-five years, corporations like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Bechtel have reaped incredible profits from government contracts for bombs and bombers. Certain academics, politicians, and bureaucrats have risen through the ranks of think tanks or government administrations in positions bankrolled by the nuclear profiteers, spinning theories of “nuclear deterrence” and “strategic stability” to justify this massive, unconscionable investment in technologies of massive violence.
It’s been seventy-five years. Will we reach one hundred if we continue on like this? Can we survive a century with nuclear weapons? Can we survive a century of wasted money and ingenuity; a century of tensions between human beings armed to the death with the capacity to destroy entire cities, countries, the world, in moments; a century of living with this existential threat while another, that of climate change, promises even more damage and uncertainty ahead?
The question of can we, though, is not as relevant as should we. Should we just keep going, the way the nuclear war mongers want? They say we’ll be fine. Better than if we were to disarm, they argue. Eliminating nuclear weapons will “destabilise” international relations, they assert. It will mean another global conflict, invasions and occupations, “dogs and cats living together.”
Preparing for major apocalypse in the midst of a “minor” one
Right now, we are in the midst of a global pandemic for which no governments were sufficiently prepared. We do not have enough basic equipment like ventilators and protection for health care workers. Capitalist economies are tanking as the majority of workers have been ordered to stay at home to prevent the virus from spreading even more rampantly than it has already. Millions of people have lost or will lose their jobs. Hundreds of thousands have and will lose their lives.
But don’t worry: the nuclear-armed states can still launch their nuclear weapons! US Strategic Command has said that the coronavirus has had “no impact” on the ability of the United States to launch its nuclear weapons. “Right now across the command, we are working to make sure that our ICBMs remain on alert and our critical command and control capabilities stay viable,” say those in charge of the US doomsday machine.
While nuclear weapon forces in all nuclear-armed states are likely to be affected by the pandemic and may have to delay or reduce active deployments or other activities they deem necessary for the effectiveness of their “deterrence” doctrines, the fact is that there are still approximately 13,410 nuclear weapons in the world. While this is significantly less than the 70,000+ kicking around in the 1980s, it is still more than enough to destroy our planet many, many times over………….
Even without the detonation of a nuclear bomb, accidentally or on purpose, these weapons are costing lives. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has calculated annual nuclear weapon spending in three countries and compared it to the costs of meeting immediate health care needs during the coronavirus pandemic. In France, for example, which spends approximately €4.5 billion a year right now on its nuclear weapon programme, the government could redirect those funds to pay for 100,000 hospital beds for intensive care units, 10,000 ventilators, and the salaries of French nurses and 10,000 doctors. In each of the nuclear-armed states, the money spent on nuclear weapons has directly impacted the resources available to deal with the pandemic. ……….
it is not just during the COVID-19 pandemic that we need to be concerned with nuclear weapon maintenance, modernisation, or use. This is a pandemic we live with every day, to the point where it has become completely normal for the vast majority of people in the world. Out of sight, out of mind. Missile tests don’t even make the news. Nuclear weapon tests, such as those most recently by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), grab the headlines for a moment—but the fact that those most vocally condemning the DPRK’s actions possess far larger nuclear arsenals themselves is virtually never discussed outside of antinuclear activist circles.
We cannot wait until a nuclear weapon is used again before we pay attention and act to end the threat of nuclear war. We don’t have to.
In 2017, the majority of the world’s countries negotiated and adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It outlaws the possession, use, threat of use, and development of nuclear weapons. It closes existing legal gaps in international law, provides for nuclear disarmament, and categorically rejects the idea nuclear weapons provide security or stability.
Among other things, this treaty precludes nuclear weapon modernisation, and bans any assistance—material or otherwise—with such programmes. This follows the letter and spirit of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which obligates nuclear-armed states both to nuclear disarmament and to ceasing the nuclear arms race. None of the nuclear-armed governments are in compliance with either treaty. It is here, on the basis of international law and all of the commitments and actions to which these governments have voluntarily subscribed over the past fifty years, that we can demand an end to nuclear weapons.
It is also on the basis of public health, environmental protection, and of morality and human rights, that we can demand nuclear weapon divestment and disarmament. It is past time to unleash the funds and the forces of human ingenuity to more productive, positive, progressive ends: towards a Green New Deal and a Red Deal. Towards health care, housing, education, food, decarceration and prison abolition, migration, and more. Towards international relations and transnational cooperation based on peace, equity, justice, and solidarity, instead of weapons and war.
Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. This article forms the introduction to the organizations’ new report — Assuring Destruction Forever. We have elected not to change its British spellings. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/08/30/its-been-75-years/
Nuclear nations have handled COVID-19 the worst
The most useless of arsenals – Nuclear nations have handled COVID-19 the worst https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/08/30/the-most-useless-of-arsenals/, By Tilman Ruff, August 30, 2020 by beyondnuclearinternational
The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated that massive arsenals are useless in a pandemic. The countries that have spent obscene sums on nuclear weapons have failed to provide the most basic of protective equipment against the coronavirus, putting their citizens in danger every day.
New pathogens will continue to evolve, spread and disrupt our world. Indeed as we deplete habitats for other species, wreak climate havoc, and grow food industrially, we can expect new infectious diseases more often.
COVID-19 is just the latest; it will certainly not be the last. Bad enough it is, but far from the worst we could expect.
Exposing vulnerability
COVID-19 has caught even the wealthiest nations unprepared; their massive armaments useless against a small, mindless aggregation of single stranded RNA, a few proteins and a thin lipid envelope about 120 nm across.
Nations investing obscene sums in nuclear weapons that must never be used have been unable to provide the most basic of protective equipment – gowns, gloves, and facemasks for their frontline health professionals putting themselves in danger every day.
The best funded public health organization in the world, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States, went from recommending N95 respirators for doctors and nurses at risk to recommending improvised bandanas in the face of severe shortages of the most basic protection costing a fraction of a dollar.
The US government rejected international assistance with test kits and was then left with woefully inadequate numbers of its own faulty kits.
Learning from the pandemic
This coronavirus can teach us a lot if we are willing to learn.
It shows where the real threats to our security lie, for which massive military arsenals and the most powerful WMD are not only useless, but get in the way.
It shows our interconnected vulnerabilities and capacities, that globalized problems respect no borders, are shared and demand cooperative solutions.
It has shown how quickly the exceptional hubris of arrogant leaders serving their own and narrow vested interests can enable great harm to occur; evil measured in monumental failures of leadership, causing tens of thousands of deaths that could readily have been prevented.
It has shown the uselessness of ideological baggage in confronting big challenges.
It has laid bare that respect for truth, evidence and science; and listening to the expert custodians of that evidence, are crucial.
It has demonstrated that changes once deemed unthinkable can be made, and made fast.
It has shown that female leaders are often more sensible and reliable in a crisis, and that we need more of them.
It has shown the great ingenuity, resourcefulness and kindness that people everywhere are capable of.
It has shown that what the science and experts tell us – that new pandemics will occur and that we are woefully prepared to deal with them – will occur if warnings are not heeded.
Choosing to listen
We can prevent some new pandemics from occurring. We can always respond better if we listen to the evidence and prepare well for what can be expected.
If we do not listen to or choose to see the overwhelming evidence of accelerating climate disruption, and quickly and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, catastrophe will bear down on us in our lifetimes and the world our children and grandchildren live in will be much more violent, difficult and impoverished.
If we ignore the reality of what nuclear weapons do, and the growing dangers of their use, then what may be a small risk on any given day, over time will become inevitable.
A final epidemic
This COVID pandemic will abate. However after a nuclear war there will be no re-building, no coming back. It would be the final epidemic. There will not be a health care system in overloaded crisis; there will be no health system and no one able to staff it. We can prepare for a pandemic; for nuclear war there is only prevention.
That is why we have to act now to protect our Earth from rampant heating and the abrupt ice age that would follow the radioactive incineration of nuclear war; as if our lives depended on it, because they do.
We can’t stop all new epidemics. And we don’t yet know if we can eradicate the COVID-19 virus.
But we can and must end nuclear weapons before they end us. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides the best available path forward. We should heed the lessons of COVID and take that path while we still can.
Tilman Ruff is Associate professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Co-President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize 1985) and Co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, Nobel Peace Prize 2017)
This article first appeared on Croakey and is republished with kind permission of the author.
A string of USA nuclear scandals: bribes, corrupt politics and lies, in effort to keep the industry alive
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Nuclear Industry Politics: Bribes, Corruption and Lies https://www.ewg.org/energy/23289/nuclear-industry-politics-bribes-corruption-and-lies?utm_campaign=EWG+Content&utm_content=1598472836&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1paLNGDeZaXdPj0OfluAkJC31n5WWzJdlOTUamCB5IA5The U.S. nuclear industry knows it can’t compete fairly on the open market with safe, clean, cost-effective renewable energy sources like solar, wind and storage batteries, so it’s turning to illegal and unsavory tactics. This year, a string of scandals has exposed how some utilities are willing to use bribes, corrupt politics and lies to keep aging reactors online and planned new plants alive.
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Global coronavirus update – India’s huge jump in infections, but USA still leads in cases
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Meanwhile, far-right protesters and others have stormed the German parliament building following a protest against the country’s pandemic restrictions. This story will be regularly updated throughout Monday. India records world’s biggest single-day jump in virus casesThe Health Ministry on Sunday local time also reported 948 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking total fatalities to 63,498. India has now reported more than 75,000 infections for four straight days. The surge has raised the country’s total virus tally to over 3.5 million and comes at a time when India is reopening its subway networks and allowing sports and religious events in a limited manner from next month as part of efforts to revive the economy. Even as eight Indian states remain among the worst-hit regions and contribute nearly 73 per cent of the total infections, the virus is now spreading fast in the vast hinterlands, with experts warning that the month of September could be the most challenging. Global cases reach 25 millionThe number of confirmed coronavirus cases globally has topped 25 million, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. The United States leads the count with 5.9 million cases, followed by Brazil with 3.8 million and India with 3.5 million. The real number of people infected by the virus around the world is believed to be much higher — perhaps 10 times higher in the US, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention — given testing limitations and the many mild cases that have gone unreported or unrecognised. Global deaths from COVID-19 stand at over 842,000, with the US having the highest number with 182,779, followed by Brazil with 120,262 and Mexico with 63,819. Far-right pandemic restriction protesters attempt to storm German parliament Senior German officials have condemned attempts by far-right protesters and others to storm the parliament building following a protest against the country’s pandemic restrictions. Hundreds of people, some waving the flag of the German Reich of 1871-1918 and other far-right banners, breached a security barrier outside the Reichstag late on Saturday local time but were intercepted by police and forcibly removed……… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-31/coronavirus-update-covid19/12610940 |
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1 This Month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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