OMNI Nuclear Free Future Month
NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2013. Compiled by Dick
Bennett for Peace, Justice, and the Environment.
See: Nuclear Abolition Day Newsletter June 2
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NUCLEAR-FREE FUTURE MONTH: TIME TO
PHASE OUT NUCLEAR POWER AND START NEGOTIATIONS ON A TREATY TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR
WEAPONS!
It has been 68 years since the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The U.S.
dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on
August 6, 1945, and the second on Nagasaki Fukushima
All stages of the nuclear chain, from
mining to power production to testing and storage of waste, expose surrounding
populations to extremely long-lived mutagenic radionuclides that can lead to
birth defects, cancers and other devastating diseases. As recognized in
the Moorea Declaration, adopted by the Abolition 2000 Conference held in
Moorea, Te Ao Maohi, (French Occupied Polynesia) in 1997, “colonised and
indigenous peoples have, in the large part borne the brunt of … nuclear
devastation – from the mining of uranium and the testing of nuclear weapons on
indigenous peoples land, to the dumping, storage and transport of plutonium and
nuclear wastes, and the theft of land for nuclear infrastructure.”
Building out from the
Hiroshima-Nagasaki anniversaries, since 2006, United for Peace and Justice has
declared August “Nuclear Free Future Month,” providing an opportunity for
groups opposed to nuclear weapons and power to spread their message and to
stimulate recognition of the relationship between nuclear technologies
and the broader crises engendered by the deepening polarization of wealth and
political power and by economic growth and technology choices that are
ecologically unsustainable. The regime of “security” backed by the
constant threat of nuclear annihilation underscores an urgent need for the
redefinition of human security. Generating the immense amounts of energy
necessary to fuel a society addicted to growth with technologies that risk
lethal contamination of the homes and cities they power, and of the natural
world around them, manifests the unsustainable character of a society that
places endless material accumulation above all.
Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are
extreme examples of technologies chosen not to serve the common good, but
rather to serve the power strategies of immense, unaccountable organizations
that have come to dominate the global economy and society. A common
characteristic of these strategies is that a fraction of the population grabs
most of the benefits while everyone bears the risks. It’s time to end the
nuclear cycle for good, and to make the transition to technologies that work
within the rhythms and limits of the biosphere and within institutions designed
for democracy not for the power of the few.
Our main vehicle for coordinating
activities and disseminating information will be the United for Peace and
Justice Nuclear Free Future web pages at www.nuclearfreefuture.org, where you
will find a variety of action ideas and educational resources. We encourage you
to post your group’s planned activities to the calendar you will find there.
Please share your plans for Hiroshima-Nagasaki memorials this August, but
please think outside the traditional bounds and plan and share additional
educational events and actions throughout the month. Please help us spread the
word!
BACKGROUND
Early in his first term,
President Obama announced his commitment to “seek the peace and security of a
world without nuclear weapons.” Four years later, there has been little
progress towards that goal. The new START treaty with Russia U.S. and Russia China ,
France , India , Israel ,
Pakistan , and the United Kingdom
Today, nuclear-armed states are
involved in conflicts around the globe, confronting one another directly or
indirectly from the war in Syria
to resource-driven territorial disputes in Northeast Asia .
Those who hold power on all sides see such conflict as inevitable, as something
that at best can be “managed” in the ways they always have: in elite
negotiating forums that exclude the vast majority of humanity from decisions
that affect us all, and by endless preparation for war. Endless
preparation for war, what we now call “deterrence,” always has failed,
spiraling into rounds of great power wars each of which proved more savage and
destructive than the last. In a world bristling with atomic weaponry, human
civilization likely will not survive another.
This one-sided focus on nuclear weapons
proliferation rather than disarmament has led to deepening discontent outside
the nuclear-armed states. Frustrated by the lack of progress in
traditional negotiating forums such as the Conference on Disarmament and
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conferences, coalitions of countries
have joined in new initiatives. The 2012 session of the United Nations General
Assembly adopted resolutions to hold a High-level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament,
and to establish an Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) “to develop proposals to
take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement
and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons.” In March of this year the
government of Norway Mexico in Mexico City
These new initiatives give cause for
hope, but the nuclear-armed states—where half the people in the world live and
where the most powerful military-industrial complexes exert enormous
influence– have resisted them. The U.S. ,
together with Russia , the United Kingdom , France
and China – all of the
nuclear armed permanent members of the United Nations Security Council –
boycotted the Oslo U.S. the U.K. North Korea United
States
There also is cause for hope in the
struggle to end the dangerous practice of generating electricity with nuclear
energy. The immense and continuing disaster at Fukushima Japan U.S.
For example, a Canadian corporation,
Energy Fuels Inc., has recently purchased several U.S.-based uranium mining
companies and is reopening mining shafts 17 miles south of the Grand Canyon
National Park on land which is sacred to the Havasupai Indians who have been in
the region for 800 years, and is upstream and upwind of their homes. The
implication for the health of the local population is significant.
The inextricable connection between
nuclear weapons and nuclear power always has run both ways. The capacity
to sustain a nuclear fuel cycle and to operate reactors provides much of the
technological base for the production of nuclear weapons. But the
potential to acquire nuclear weapons also provides a political base for
an expensive and dangerous technology that otherwise would be hard pressed to
compete with other ways to generate electricity. The common technology and
materials base provides a rationale for governments to shroud the development
of nuclear technology in secrecy, concealing both the risks and the full costs.
“Civilian” applications of nuclear technology then provide a glamorous,
high-tech gloss over the underlying deadliness of the entire enterprise: “Atoms
for Peace,” and promises of electricity “too cheap to meter.”
This drama is playing out again in
countries with elites striving to join the top tier of a stratified global
economy, where large scale, centralized electricity generation is a first
priority to power privileged new enclaves of production and consumption. This
time around, however, there is a globalized nuclear industry, centered in the
original nuclear weapons states and in Japan India
to Turkey to Vietnam
ENDORSE THE CALL
This call was initiated by the United
for Peace and Justice Nuclear Disarmament/Redefining
Security Working Group. We invite other groups to endorse this Call
and participate in Nuclear Free Future Month. If your organization would like
to be added to the following list of endorsers to help work for a nuclear free
future, please follow this link to fill out the endorsement form. Circulate the Call among progressive
organizations in your community and connect with others who are organizing
against the war machine. Seek peace, be part of the solution. No Nukes! No Wars!
JOIN THE PLANNING
GROUP
Groups planning
Nuclear-Free Future month through the United for Peace and Justice Nuclear
Disarmament/Redefining Security Working Group include the following. If you’d
like to get involved please send an e-mail message to Jackie Cabasso, working
group convener:wslf (at) earthlink.net .
Please consider joining
these groups by making a donation of $25, $50 or $100 (or
more!) to support the
Nuclear Free Future Month website and related resources. Or volunteer your time
and skills.Donate online or
make your check payable to United for Peace and Justice and mail it to PO Box 607New York , NY 10017
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Home » categories » Issue
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Nuclear Free Future Month
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EndWars
Nuclear Free Future
Month
By Carol Urner, DISARM/End Wars Issue
Committee
United for Peace and Justice Nuclear
Weapons and Human Security Working Group in which WILPF DISARM- End Wars
actively participates.
August's Nuclear Free Future month opened with WILPF women
across the country recommitting themselves to work for a Nuclear Free Future.
Send your August NFF news tocarol.disarm@gmail.com.
Boston and Cape Cod Branches sponsored community meetings with
Cecile Pineda and Hattie Nestel, discussing Cecile’s powerful new book, Devil’s Tango: How I learned the Fukishima Step by StepDISARM
is helping our members Hattie and Cecile do ten book signings in communities
seeking to shut down nearby nuclear reactors in Massachusetts, New York,
Vermont and New Hampshire.
The wide variety of grassroots and national peace groups
(including Peace Action, AFSC, Western States Legal Foundation and WILPF)
that organize together within the UFPJ Nuclear Weapons and Human Security
Working Group facilitated by Jackie Cabasso, regard August as Nuclear Free
Future month. After
August is often a difficult month for organizing events but can
be a good month for planning future ones. Refer to our DISARM Nuclear Free
Future Resources in the July
eNews for
program and action project resources on Depleted Uranium, Mayors
for Peace Cities, and phasing
out nuclear power.
And watch for our updated web page later this month with a
report on WILPF participation in Hiroshima-Nagasaki observances and a list of
DVDs that could and should be shown in high school and college classrooms
everywhere.
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GOOGLE SEARCH, FIRST PAGE,
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Candlelight Vigil for a Nuclear Free Future : Indybay
Jul 23, 2013 - For more info about this
event: pup [at] skyighway.com. United for Peace and Justice has declared August "Nuclear Free Future
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Apr 6, 2009 - United for Peace and
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Dec 9, 2011 - Last week UFPJ brought
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UN AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS
GOOGLE SEARCH AUGUST
6, 2013, FIRST 3 ENTRIES
1.
UNODA - Nuclear
Weapons Home
Nuclear weapons are the most dangerous
weapons on earth. One can destroy a whole city, potentially killing millions,
and jeopardizing the natural environment ...
2.
UNODA - Secretary-General's five point proposal on nuclear ...
Or they could consider negotiating a nuclear-weapons convention, backed by a
strong system of verification, as has long been proposed at the United Nations.
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News for UN Nuclear Weapons
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Student Operated Press
GlobalPost - 21 hours ago
The international community must not
give up on ridding the world ofnuclear weapons, U.N. General Assembly
President Vuk Jeremic said ...
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