The Cold War’s Toxic Legacy: Costly, Dangerous Cleanups at Atomic Bomb Production Sites
05 March 2018
Popular
Recovery Act-funded work at the Hanford Site. U.S. Department of Energy
By William J. Kinsella
Seventy-five years ago, in March 1943, a mysterious construction project began at a remote location in eastern Washington state. Over the next two years some 50,000 workers built an industrial site occupying half the area of Rhode Island, costing more than $230 million—equivalent to $3.1 billion today. Few of those workers, and virtually no one in the surrounding community, knew the facility's purpose.
<p>
The site was called Hanford, named for a small town whose residents were displaced to make way for the project. Its mission became clear at the end of World War II. Hanford had produced plutonium for the first
<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear">nuclear</a> test in the New Mexico desert in July 1945, and for the bomb that incinerated Nagasaki on Aug. 9.
</p><p>
<a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vldkGEEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" target="_blank">As a researcher</a> in environmental and energy communication, I've studied the <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739119044/Nuclear-Legacies-Communication-Controversy-and-the-U.S.-Nuclear-Weapons-Complex" target="_blank">legacies of nuclear weapons production</a>. From 2000 to 2005, I served with a <a href="http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/hab" target="_blank">citizen advisory board</a> that provides input to state and federal officials on a massive environmental cleanup program at Hanford, now one of the most contaminated sites in the world.
</p><p>
As U.S. leaders
<a href="https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872877/-1/-1/1/EXECUTIVE-SUMMARY.PDF" target="_blank">consider producing new nuclear weapons</a>, I believe they should study lessons from Hanford carefully. Hanford provides one of the more dramatic examples of problems that unfolded—and persist today—at nuclear sites where production and secrecy took priority over safety and environmental protection.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzM5NTg1MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTUzMjA2Mn0.zrKS5ffRTtCygZO_eYrI3o2oE1XrEUhmmBqs2Y7wQEM/img.jpg?width=980" id="c9e50" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d96432088dc0f00092c81d72db6f767d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit..."><a href="https://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/ProjectsFacilities#HM" target="_blank">www.hanford.gov</a></small>
</p><p>
<strong>A Nationwide Nuclear Network</strong>
</p><p>
Hanford was one of three large facilities anchoring the
<a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history" target="_blank">Manhattan Project</a> – the crash program to build an atomic bomb. It was part of a larger complex linking facilities across the nation. A plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, enriched uranium and operated a prototype nuclear reactor. Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico assembled a cadre of world-class scientists to design and build the weapons, using materials produced at the other sites. Smaller facilities across the nation made other contributions.
</p><p>
As World War II phased into the Cold War and the U.S.-Soviet arms race escalated, new sites were added in Ohio, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Colorado and elsewhere. Secrecy masked much of the work at these sites until well into the 1980s, with serious consequences for public health, worker safety and the environment. Nuclear and chemical wastes caused severe contamination at Hanford and the other sites, and dealing with them has proved to be difficult and costly.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzM5NTg2OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTM4NjA0OX0.GZ1jGqkAYnrBrWcpQnyUpR2o4LHznEoy1DIT74I9YTc/img.jpg?width=980" id="433e8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4c3a669d0c5378d06971e2856ba619c5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Major sites in the Cold War nuclear weapons production complex</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit..."> USDOD</small>
</p><p>
<strong>Contamination at Hanford</strong>
</p><p>
When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, the U.S. had mass-produced some 70,000
<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear-war">nuclear bombs</a> and warheads. <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/pu50yc.html" target="_blank">Hanford made most of the plutonium used in those weapons</a>. Workers irradiated uranium fuel in reactors, and then dissolved it in acid to extract the plutonium produced. This method, called reprocessing, generated 56 million gallons of liquid wastes laced with radioactive and chemical poisons.
</p><p>
Hanford's nine reactors were
<a href="http://www.toxipedia.org/display/wanmec/Radioactive+Contamination+of+the+Columbia+River" target="_blank">located along the Columbia River</a> to provide a source of cooling water, and discharged radiation into the river throughout their lifetimes.
</p><p>
Fuel was sometimes reprocessed before its most highly radioactive isotopes had time to decay. Managers knowingly released toxic gases into the air, contaminating farmlands and grazing areas downwind. Some releases supported an
<a href="https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199602/backpage.cfm" target="_blank">effort to monitor Soviet nuclear progress</a>. By tracking intentional emissions from Hanford, scientists learned better how to spot Soviet nuclear tests.
</p><p>
Liquid wastes from reprocessing were stored in
<a href="https://ecology.wa.gov/Waste-Toxics/Nuclear-waste/Hanford-cleanup/Tank-waste-management/Tank-monitoring-closure" target="_blank">underground tanks</a> designed to last 25 years, assuming that a permanent disposal solution would be developed later. The U.S. Department of Energy, which now operates the weapons complex and its cleanup program, is still working on that solution.
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzM5NTg4NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDUwODA2M30.28wTmEVe0qWKIOw6EyPNaPyZjw6uYwSUac4KnaONKCc/img.jpg?width=980" id="1d837" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="00f4ec77ca860b4413e58bc2f2e0a723" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Workers prepare to remove the core from a waste tank at Hanford in 2010.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit..."> Hanford Site</small>
</p><p>
Meanwhile, at least a million gallons of tank wastes have
<a href="http://hanfordlearning.org/hanford-101/cleanup/tri-party-agreement/department-of-energy/" target="_blank">leaked into the ground</a>. This material, and the prospect of more to follow, threatens the Columbia River, a backbone of the Pacific Northwest's economy and ecology. <a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/clock-ticks-as-nuclear-waste-storage-tanks-leak-at-hanford/" target="_blank">Some groundwater is already contaminated</a>. Estimates of when that plume will reach the river are uncertain.<br>
</p><p>
Radioactive trash still litters parts of Hanford. Irradiated bodies of laboratory animals were
<a href="https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Workers-uncover-carcasses-of-Hanford-test-animals-1225341.php" target="_blank">buried there</a>. The site houses radioactive debris ranging from medical wastes to <a href="http://www.oregon.gov/energy/facilities-safety/safety/Pages/Naval-Nuclear-Transport.aspx" target="_blank">propulsion reactors from decommissioned submarines</a> and <a href="http://pdw.hanford.gov/arpir/pdf.cfm?accession=E0025397" target="_blank">parts of the reactor</a> that melted down at Three Mile Island. Some nuclear decision makers have called Hanford a "national sacrifice zone."
</p><p>
<strong>A Struggle for Accountability</strong>
</p><p>
In the mid-1980s, local residents grew suspicious about an apparent excess of illnesses and deaths in their community. Initially, strict secrecy—reinforced by the region's economic dependence on the Hanford site—made it hard for concerned citizens to get information.
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzM5NTg5MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MzEyMzcyMn0.zKJ-CKGOCT9LqpwEb_VXXUrM360-o9OSXGDhTeKRmkk/img.jpg?width=980" id="2c53b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="21ab629baad3728e9fb14ff4b532dba3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Cold War-era billboard at Hanford reinforcing strict secrecy rules</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">USDOE</small>
</p><p>
Once the curtain of secrecy was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09505430120052284" target="_blank">partially lifted</a> under pressure from area residents and journalists, public outrage prompted <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/hanford/background.pdf" target="_blank">two major health effects studies</a> that engendered fierce controversy. By the close of the decade, more than 3,500 "downwinders" had filed lawsuits related to illnesses they attributed to Hanford. A judge finally <a href="http://www.tricityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article57866938.html" target="_blank">dismissed the case</a> in 2016 after limited compensation to a handful of plaintiffs, leaving a bitter legacy of legal disputes and personal anguish.</p><p>Cleanup operations at Hanford began in 1989, but have been hamstrung by
<a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/will-hanford-ever-be-cleaned-up/" target="_blank">daunting technical challenges and management errors</a>. The <a href="http://www.hanford.gov/files.cfm/2016_LCR_Fact_Sheet_Final.pdf" target="_blank">current estimate</a> assumes work will continue through 2060 and cost more than $100 billion, beyond the approximately $50 billion already spent.</p><p>
A key challenge is building a facility to extract the most toxic materials from the tank wastes and enclose them in glass logs to be sent elsewhere for permanent burial.
<a href="http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article159590304.html" target="_blank">Projected costs</a> have ballooned to more than $17 billion, and the estimated completion date is now 2036. And with the proposed <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/341369-trump-triggers-fight-over-yucca-waste-site" target="_blank">Yucca Mountain</a> nuclear waste repository in Nevada mired in controversy, there is still no final resting place for these materials, which will be dangerous for tens of thousands of years.
</p><p>
Cleanup has progressed in other areas. The reactors have been shut down and enclosed in
<a href="https://energy.gov/em/articles/hanford-workers-enter-reactor-prepare-cocooning" target="_blank">concrete and steel "cocoons"</a> until their radioactivity decays further. Hanford's "<a href="http://b-reactor.org/" target="_blank">B Reactor</a>," the world's first large-scale nuclear reactor, is now part of the <a href="https://energy.gov/management/office-management/operational-management/history/manhattan-project/manhattan-project-0" target="_blank">Manhattan Project National Historic Park</a>.
</p><p>
Buffer lands around the outer parts of the site, presumably clean enough for the purpose, have been converted to
<a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Hanford_Reach/maps.html" target="_blank">wildlife refuge areas</a>. And in 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory (LIGO), with a station located at Hanford, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-ligo-texts-you-to-say-its-detected-one-of-einsteins-predicted-gravitational-waves-53259" target="_blank">detected the first gravitational waves</a> predicted by Albert Einstein. LIGO scientists chose Hanford for its remote location and minimal interference from human activity.
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<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="350cd7e117c8e9768f7a976320558cac"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8rlVHEY7BF0?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
</p><p>
<strong>Lessons to Remember</strong>
</p><p>
The Department of Energy now considers
<a href="https://energy.gov/em/cleanup-sites" target="_blank">many of its former nuclear weapons production sites</a> to be fully cleaned up. Some remaining sites are involved in maintaining the current nuclear arsenal and could play roles producing new weapons. Others, like Hanford, are "legacy" sites where cleanup is the sole mission.
</p><p>
There is more oversight of the nuclear weapons complex today, but serious concerns remain. Notably, inspectors have found problems at
<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/" target="_blank">Los Alamos National Laboratory</a> dating back to 2011 related to handling of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-watchdog-identifies-new-workplace-safety-problems-at-los-alamos-lab" target="_blank">beryllium</a>, a toxic material that can cause <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cancer">cancer</a> and lung disease.
</p><p>
These issues at Hanford and other nuclear sites are reminders that nuclear weapons production is a risky process—and that in Washington state and elsewhere, legacies of the Cold War are still very much with us.
</p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cold-wars-toxic-legacy-costly-dangerous-cleanups-at-atomic-bomb-production-sites-90378" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
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Uranium Mining's Toxic Legacy: Why the U.S. Risks Repeating Mistakes
22 February 2018
Health + Wellness
Radiation area from Horseshoe Mesa uranium mine tailings at Grand Canyon's South Rim. Al_HikesAZ / Flickr
By Stephanie Malin
Uranium—the raw material for nuclear power and nuclear weapons—is having a moment in the spotlight.
Companies such as Energy Fuels, Inc. have played well-publicized roles in lobbying the Trump administration to reduce federal protection for public lands with uranium deposits. The Defense Department's Nuclear Posture Review calls for new weapons production to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which could spur new domestic uranium mining. And the Interior Department is advocating more domestic uranium production, along with other materials identified as "critical minerals."
<p>
What would expanded uranium mining in the U.S. mean at the local level? I have studied the legacies of past uranium mining and milling in Western states for over a decade. My <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-price-of-nuclear-power/9780813569789" target="_blank">book</a> examines dilemmas faced by uranium communities caught between harmful legacies of previous mining booms and the potential promise of new economic development.
</p><p>
These people and places are invisible to most Americans, but they helped make the U.S. an economic and military superpower. In my view, we owe it to them to learn from past mistakes and make more informed and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sustainability">sustainable</a> decisions about possibly renewing uranium production than our nation made in the past.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzMyMTU2NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTIyNjAyNn0.vyD6UyRATnB8lrHDuJTlFF3IRJgASojzGXegw0TokR4/img.jpg?width=980" id="7511e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4e4117c87a260dd1ed0c8a4df557225f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">National Energy Education Development Project, CC BY-ND</small>
</p><p>
<strong>Mining Regulations Have Failed to Protect Public Health<br>
</strong>
</p><p>
Today most of the uranium that powers U.S. nuclear reactors is imported. But many communities still suffer impacts of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers" target="_blank">uranium mining</a> and milling that occurred for decades to fuel the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race. These include <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b01408" target="_blank">environmental contamination</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1963288/" target="_blank">toxic spills</a>, abandoned mines, under-addressed <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222290/" target="_blank">cancer and disease clusters</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08941920903005795" target="_blank">illnesses</a> that citizens link to uranium exposure despite federal denials.
</p><p>
As World War II phased into the Cold War, U.S. officials rapidly increased uranium production from the 1940s to the 1960s. Regulations were minimal to nonexistent and largely unenforced, even though the <a href="https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/achre/final/chap12_2.html" target="_blank">U.S. Public Health Service</a> knew that exposure to uranium had caused potentially fatal health effects in <a href="https://upcolorado.com/utah-state-university-press/item/2171-uranium-frenzy" target="_blank">Europe</a>, and was monitoring uranium miners and millers for health problems.
</p><p>
Today the industry is subject to regulations that address worker health and safety, environmental protection, treatment of contaminated sites and other <a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.92.9.1410" target="_blank">considerations</a>. But these regulations <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/13266/chapter/10#225" target="_blank">lack uniformity</a>, and enforcement responsibilities are spread across multiple agencies.
</p><p>
This creates significant regulatory gaps, which are worsened by a federalist approach to regulation. In the 1970s the newly created Nuclear Regulatory Commission initiated an <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/state-tribal/agreement-states.html" target="_blank">Agreement States</a> program, under which states take over regulating many aspects of uranium and nuclear production and waste storage. To qualify, state programs <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/state-tribal/agreement-states/wyoming-faq.html" target="_blank">must be</a> "adequate to protect public health and safety and compatible with the NRC's regulatory program."
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzMyMTU2OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDAzNjAxMX0.ypZFyckVYBX-yB-03J8Xxg8kg1fEd2heRvC2SW2-Wc4/img.jpg?width=980" id="06d2b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="62f353036c046e14892cd57d5df463a3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">The Orphan uranium mine on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon operated from 1956-1969 and is now a radioactive waste site. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Alan Levine, CC BY</small>
</p><p>
Today <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/images/reading-rm/doc-collections/maps/agreement-states.png" target="_blank">37 states</a> have joined this program and two more are applying. Many Agreement States struggle to enforce regulations because of <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-price-of-nuclear-power/9780813569789" target="_blank">underfunded budgets, lack of staff and anti-regulatory cultures</a>. These problems can lead to piecemeal enforcement and reliance on corporate self-regulation.
</p><p>
For example, budget cuts in Colorado have forced the state to <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-price-of-nuclear-power/9780813569789" target="_blank">rely frequently on energy companies</a> to monitor their own compliance with regulations. In Utah, the <a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/opinion-pollution-a-uranium-mill-in-utah-threatens-to-repeat-a-history-of-pollution" target="_blank">White Mesa Mill</a>—our nation's only currently operating uranium mill—has a record of persistent problems related to permitting, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/water">water</a> contamination and environmental health, as well as tribal sacred lands and artifacts.
</p><p>
<strong>Neglected Nuclear Legacies</strong>
</p><p>
Uranium still affects the <a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/pollution-a-26-000-ton-pile-of-radioactive-waste-lies-under-the-waters-and-silt-of-lake-powell" target="_blank">environment</a> and human health in the West, but its impacts remain woefully under-addressed. Some of the poorest, most isolated and ethnically marginalized communities in the nation are bearing the brunt of these legacies.
</p><p>
There are approximately <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/1129580/researchers-to-measure-mixed-metals-mining-contamination-on-native-americans.html" target="_blank">4,000 abandoned uranium mines</a> in Western states. At least 500 are located on land controlled by the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers" target="_blank">Navajo Nation</a>. Diné (Navajo) people have <a href="http://www.sric.org/" target="_blank">suffered some of the worst</a> consequences of U.S. uranium production, including cancer clusters and water contamination.
</p><p>
<a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.5b01408" target="_blank">A 2015 study</a> found that about 85 percent of Diné homes are still contaminated with uranium, and that tribe members living near uranium mines have more uranium in their bones than 95 percent of the U.S. population. Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump's decision to reduce the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bears-ears">Bears Ears National Monument</a> has reinvigorated discussion over <a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/tribal-affairs-trumps-message-for-tribes-let-them-eat-yellowcake" target="_blank">ongoing impacts of uranium contamination</a> across tribal and public land.
</p><p>
Despite legislation such as the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/civil/common/reca" target="_blank">Radiation Exposure Compensation Act</a> of 1990, people who lived near uranium production or contamination sites often became forgotten casualties of the Cold War. For instance, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920903005795" target="_blank">Monticello, Utah</a>, hosted a federally owned uranium mill from 1942 to 1960. Portions of the town were even <a href="https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0800679" target="_blank">built from tailings</a> left over from uranium milling, which we now know were radioactive. This created two <a href="https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0800867" target="_blank">Superfund sites</a> that were not fully remediated until the late 1990s.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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Monticello residents have dealt with <a href="https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/MonticelloMillTailings/MonticelloMillTailingsPHAFinalBlue02262014_508.pdf" target="_blank">cancer clusters, increased rates of birth defects and other health abnormalities</a> for decades. Although the community has sought federal recognition and compensation since 1993, its requests have been <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/rural-communities-can-t-afford-the-cost-of-nuclear-power" target="_blank">largely ignored</a>.<br>
</p><p>
Today tensions over water access and its use for uranium mining are creating conflict between regional tribes and corporate water users around the <a href="https://www.indianz.com/News/2017/12/13/havasupai-tribe-sees-mixed-victory-in-li.asp" target="_blank">North Rim of the Grand Canyon</a>. Native residents, such as the Havasupai, have had to defend their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/17/grand-canyon-uranium-mining-havasupai-tribe-water-source" target="_blank">water rights</a> and fear losing access to this vital resource.
</p><p>
<strong>Uranium Production Is a Boom-and-Bust Industry</strong>
</p><p>
Like any economic activity <a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/boom-bust" target="_blank">based on commodities</a>, uranium production is volatile and unstable. The industry has a <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/article/uranium-boom-uranium-bust-cm258599" target="_blank">history of boom-bust cycles</a>. Communities that depend on it can be whipsawed by rapid growth followed by destabilizing population losses.
</p><p>
The <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/governing-uranium-united-states" target="_blank">first U.S. uranium boom</a> occurred during the early Cold War and ended in the 1960s due to oversupply, triggering a bust. A second boom began later in the decade when the federal government authorized private commercial investment in nuclear power. But the <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html" target="_blank">Three Mile Island</a> (1979) and <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx" target="_blank">Chernobyl</a> (1985) disasters ended this second boom.
</p><p>
Uranium prices soared once again from 2007 to 2010. But the 2011 tsunami and meltdown at Japan's <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx" target="_blank">Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant</a> sent prices plummeting once again as nations looked for alternatives to nuclear power.
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzMyMTU5Ni9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDY4MDY5N30.RVETLoZ16XudnAEZ3nVzK3KWK_Fz8gUEXd9n4b-2DTs/img.png?width=980" id="f3c80" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7e4f817e1e2eebd72682d8df3fd3993a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">U.S. uranium production, 1949-2011</small>
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Companies like Energy Fuels maintain—especially in <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/13/the-uranium-widows" target="_blank">public meetings with uranium communities</a>—that new production will lead to <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/auk.2014.36.issue-2/auk-2014-0205/auk-2014-0205.pdf" target="_blank">sustained economic growth</a>. This message is powerful stuff. It boosts support, sometimes in the very communities that have suffered most from past practices.
</p><p>
But I have interviewed Westerners who worry that as production methods become more technologically advanced and mechanized, energy companies may increasingly rely on bringing in out-of-town workers with technical and engineering degrees rather than hiring locals—as has happened in the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/01/25/automation-guarantees-a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners/" target="_blank">coal industry</a>. And the core tensions of boom-bust economic volatility and instability persist.
</p><p>
Uranium production advocates contend that new <a href="http://www.telluridenews.com/the_watch/news/article_a2195dcf-fe4f-5039-bc80-cd52b67ebbf8.html" target="_blank">"environmentally friendly" mills</a> and <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/governing-uranium-united-states" target="_blank">current federal regulations</a> will adequately protect public health and the environment. Yet they offer little evidence to counter White Mesa Mill's poor record.
</p><p>
In my view, there is little evidence that new uranium production would be more reliably regulated or economically stable today than in the past. Instead, I expect that the industry will continue to privatize profits as the public absorbs and subsidizes its risks.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="2cbea" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="738HZ51576662584"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="941066507366359041" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Grand Canyon Uranium Mining Ban Upheld by Appeals Court https://t.co/xGAISxeWIG @greenpeaceusa @foe_us @EnvAm</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/941066507366359041">1513202714.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://theconversation.com/before-the-us-approves-new-uranium-mining-consider-its-toxic-legacy-91204" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em><br>
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There Are Better Things in France for Trump to Emulate Than a Military Parade
22 February 2018
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President Trump and French President Macron review troops during the Bastille Day parade last July.
By Elliott Negin
President Trump was so impressed by the military parade he saw in Paris on Bastille Day last July that he ordered the Pentagon to plan a bigger one for Washington, DC.
<p style="">"It was one of the greatest parades I've ever seen," Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-marching-orders-to-the-pentagon-plan-a-grand-military-parade/2018/02/06/9e19ca88-0b55-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html?utm_term=.4f10986ac488" target="_blank">told reporters</a> when he met with French President Emmanuel Macron in New York in September for the opening of the UN General Assembly. "It was two hours on the button, and it was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France. We're going to have to try to top it."</p><p style="">Of course Trump wants to top it. All things Trump are always "huge," from his inauguration day crowd to his nuclear button to his tax cut. But if the president really wants to outdo France, below are some tremendous French things that the United States would do well to emulate.</p><p style=""><strong>The French Are Safer</strong></p><p>After the mass shooting last week at a Florida high school, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/963878055969198080?lang=en" target="_blank">tweeted</a> his "prayers and condolences" to the victims' families. His initial comments also focused on mental health, not guns, despite the fact that early last year he <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-signs-bill-revoking-obama-era-gun-checks-people-mental-n727221" target="_blank">signed</a> a bill revoking an Obama-era rule that made it harder for mentally ill people to buy firearms.</p><p>The French, by contrast, do a lot more than offer empty platitudes: They have stringent gun laws. French citizens who want to <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/france" target="_blank">buy a gun</a> have to apply for a hunting or sporting license, which requires a psychological evaluation and, if acquired, must be renewed every five years. Gun sales, meanwhile, are tightly regulated and require official background checks.</p><p style="">Stricter controls definitely make a difference: France has significantly fewer guns in civilian hands and fewer gun-related deaths per capita than the United States.</p><p style="">In 2013, for example, there were an estimated <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/23/us-france-shooting-guns-idUSBRE82M14620120323" target="_blank">10 million guns</a>, both legal and illegal, in France, which at the time had a population of 66 million. That year, <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/france" target="_blank">1,750 people</a> were killed by firearms, amounting to 2.65 deaths per 100,000 people.</p><p style="">By contrast, the United States, with a population of 316.2 million in 2013, had an estimated <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/05/guns-in-the-united-states-one-for-every-man-woman-and-child-and-then-some/?utm_term=.6f553442dee9" target="_blank">357 million guns</a> in circulation—more than one gun per person. That year, there were <a href="https://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe" target="_blank">33,636 U.S. gun deaths</a>, or 10.64 deaths per 100,000—four times the rate in France.</p><p style=""><strong>They're Healthier, Too</strong></p><p style="">White House doctor Ronny Jackson <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/if-trump-is-as-healthy-as-his-doctor-says-hes-beating-long-odds/2018/01/18/9ded80a0-fc63-11e7-8f66-2df0b94bb98a_story.html?utm_term=.19a30c488347" target="_blank">assured</a> Americans in January that President Trump is in "excellent health." Given the results of Trump's physical exam, that's debatable, but the health of the U.S. health care system is not. It's in bad shape, especially when compared with France's.</p><p style="">France's public-private hybrid health care system is consistently rated among the best in the world. Last year, for example, France placed 18th in the health category in the Legatum Institute's annual <a href="http://www.prosperity.com/" target="_blank">Prosperity Index</a>, which ranks 149 countries on health outcomes, economic performance, education quality and six other categories. The United States health care system, meanwhile, came in 30th.</p><p style="">Like every other industrialized nation besides the United States, France has universal health coverage. All French citizens are covered by the government's <em>Assurance Maladie</em>, and most also have private insurance through their job or the private market. The government sets prices for appointments and procedures and reimburses them at 70 percent. It's similar to Medicare and Medicaid, but because the system covers the entire population, the French government has more leverage to keep prices low.</p><p style="">The United States spends <a href="https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-average-wealthy-countries-spend-half-much-per-person-health-u-s-spends" target="_blank">more than twice</a> per capita on health care than France, but French babies have a better chance of staying alive and living longer than American newborns. France's infant mortality rate, according to 2015 World Health Organization (WHO) data, is <a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data/?theme=country&vid=8800" target="_blank">3.2 deaths</a> per 1,000 live births. At <a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.country.country-USA" target="_blank">5.7 deaths</a> per 1,000 live births, U.S. infant mortality is higher than in any comparable industrialized democracy. And at the end of life, France boasted a combined male and female life expectancy of 82.4 years, putting it in 9th place in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#cite_note-10" target="_blank">2015 WHO survey</a>. The United States, by contrast, ranked 31st, with a combined life expectancy of 79.3 years.</p><p style=""><strong>They Eat Better</strong></p><p>France's <a href="https://www.thelocal.fr/20161025/tipping-the-scales-one-in-two-french-adults-are-overweight" target="_blank">obesity rate</a> is 15.3 percent, slightly better than the 15.9 percent for the entire European Union. By contrast, nearly 38 percent of American adults are <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm" target="_blank">obese</a>, including President Trump, who apparently <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/311637-how-tall-is-donald-trump-drivers-license-raises-questions" target="_blank">fudged his height</a> to avoid being classified that way.</p><p style="">French and U.S. stats on food and farming tell a similar disparate story. In 2017, France ranked No. 1 for the second year in a row in the <a href="http://foodsustainability.eiu.com/1512-2/" target="_blank">Food Sustainability Index</a>, which grades 34 countries worldwide in three categories: food loss and waste, nutrition policies and sustainable agriculture. It bested every other country in reducing food waste and came in fourth in nutrition on the strength of its programs that promote healthy diets. In the sustainable agriculture category, it placed third, largely due to a national <a href="http://institut.inra.fr/en/content/view/full/214289" target="_blank">agro-ecology program</a> that, among other things, is encouraging farmers to cut their pesticide use in half by 2025 and <a href="http://blog.ucsusa.org/karen-perry-stillerman/crop-rotation-generates-profits-without-pollution-or-what-agribusiness-doesnt-want-you-to-know?_ga=2.158448122.1753707037.1518580705-803850457.1367700932" target="_blank">rotate their crops</a> to increase soil fertility.</p><p style="">The United States, conversely, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-the-us-food-system-ranks-poorly-in-the-2017-food_us_5a302767e4b0b73dde46a7cc" target="_blank">ranked 21st overall</a>, mainly because of policies that cultivate bad eating habits and destructive industrial farming practices. The fact that Americans consume high levels of meat, saturated fat and sugar placed the United States 24th in the nutrition category. Only Australians <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/where-do-people-eat-the-most-meat-2015-9" target="_blank">eat more meat</a> than Americans, but not by much, and U.S. sugar consumption is the highest among all of countries in the study. The result? More than 40 percent of American children are overweight, the most in any of the countries surveyed.</p><p style="">At 31st out of 34, the U.S. ranking for sustainable agriculture is even more worrisome. Only India, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates ranked lower. The low U.S. score is attributable to a number of factors, including <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/industrial-agriculture/cafos-uncovered.html#.Woizk4JG3GY" target="_blank">livestock production</a>, which strains water resources and emits <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/29/methane-emissions-cattle-11-percent-higher-than-estimated" target="_blank">methane</a>, and the fact that a tiny fraction of agricultural land is devoted to organic farming while nearly a quarter is used for biofuel production and animal feed.</p><p style=""><strong>They Make Education More Affordable</strong></p><p>France starts children off with free, universal preschool at <em>écoles maternelles</em>. With 100 percent preschool enrollment for 3- to 5-year-olds, the country ranked <a href="https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF3_2_Enrolment_childcare_preschool.pdf" target="_blank">first among developed countries</a> in 2014, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international association.</p><p>The United States, where some states offer preschool programs from age 4 but most offer nothing at all, ranked 36th out of the 40 nations OECD surveyed. In 2015, only about a third of American 3-year-olds and 60 percent of 4-year-olds were <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cfa.asp" target="_blank">enrolled</a> in preschool programs, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.</p><p style="">Most schools of higher education in France, meanwhile, are state-subsidized, which keeps <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/advice/cost-studying-university-france" target="_blank">tuition</a> relatively low, even by European standards.</p><p style="">In 2007, the average public university in France charged $234 per year (189 euros) for a bachelor's degree, $321 for a master's degree, $487 for a doctorate and $757 for an engineering degree. The average bachelor's degree takes three to four years, so students spend $702 to $936 for their entire undergraduate education. There are pricier options, but compared to the cost of higher education in the United States, they are still a bargain.</p><p style="">The United States is home to the most prestigious colleges and universities in the world, but they are also among the most expensive. The average cost of <a href="https://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064" target="_blank">tuition and fees</a> for the 2017–2018 school year was $34,740 at private colleges, $9,970 for state residents at public colleges and $25,620 for out-of-state residents attending public universities, according to the College Board.</p><p style="">The high cost of a college diploma saddles American grads with debt that can dog them for much of their adult life. Currently there are more than <a href="https://www.makelemonade.co/top-reads/refinancing-student-loans-5-things" target="_blank">44 million borrowers</a> with more than $1.4 trillion in student loan debt, which after home mortgages is the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2017/02/21/student-loan-debt-statistics-2017/#6f5b3f865dab" target="_blank">highest consumer debt category</a> in the United States. For the class of 2016, the average student loan debt was $37,172.</p><p style=""><strong>They Treat Workers Better</strong></p><p style="">The national minimum wage in France is <a href="https://wageindicator.org/main/salary/minimum-wage/france" target="_blank">9.88 euros an hour</a>, the equivalent of $12.25 an hour in the United States. The U.S. national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, although some states and municipalities now require as much as $15.</p><p style="">The official work week in France is 35 hours, so a French employee making minimum wage would gross the equivalent of $22,297 a year and <a href="https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/0-503-0054?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&bhcp=1" target="_blank">is entitled to</a> health care coverage, a minimum of five weeks paid vacation and 11 national holidays, as many as 90 days paid time off, and a maximum of three years of medical leave pay, which is covered by the state social security system. Maternity leave, which is at least six weeks before childbirth and 10 weeks afterward, is paid.</p><p style="">Most minimum wage employees in the United States working 40 hours a week gross $15,080 a year. Employers with more than 50 employees are <a href="https://www.zanebenefits.com/blog/bid/289948/does-my-employer-have-to-provide-health-insurance" target="_blank">required</a> to offer health care benefits or pay a penalty, and most provide only two weeks paid vacation along with 10 federal holidays. Employers with 50 or more employees also are required to grant up to 12 weeks of <em>unpaid</em> maternity (or adoption) leave or family sick leave.</p><p style="">At the other end of the pay scale, U.S. CEOs make <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/424159/pay-gap-between-ceos-and-average-workers-in-world-by-country/" target="_blank">considerably more</a> than their counterparts in other industrialized countries when compared to what average workers earn. In 2014, the ratio between CEO and average worker pay in the United States was 354 to 1, meaning that for every dollar an employee got paid, the head of the company made $354, far outpacing the 148 to 1 ratio in Switzerland, the country with the second highest pay gap. In France, the ratio was 104 to 1.</p><p style=""><strong>They're Downplaying the Role of Nuclear Weapons</strong></p><p>France, which has always maintained a much smaller nuclear force than the United States, currently <a href="http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/france/nuclear/" target="_blank">has</a> a total of 300 warheads deployed on submarines and bombers. In the 1990s, it eliminated its land-based missiles and signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).</p><p style="">The United States, conversely, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00963402.2016.1264213?needAccess=true" target="_blank">has</a> some 1,590 deployed strategic nuclear warheads on submarines, bombers and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), as well as 2,390 redeployable warheads currently stored in a "hedge" stockpile, some 500 smaller deployed and stockpiled tactical (battlefield) warheads, and an estimated 2,300 retired warheads slated for dismantlement. The United States signed the CTBT the same time France did, but 22 years later, the U.S. Senate has still not ratified it.</p><p style="">ICBMs pose a big problem. The United States keeps them on <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/lets-take-us-nukes-off-ha_b_7174346.html" target="_blank">hair-trigger alert</a>, which dramatically increases the chance of an accidental, erroneous or unauthorized launch in response to a false alarm, a much more likely scenario than an actual attack. A number of retired <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/opinion/how-to-avert-a-nuclear-war.html" target="_blank">generals</a> and former high-level <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116787515251566636" target="_blank">government officials</a> have called for taking ICBMs off high-alert status, while others have called for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/opinion/why-its-safe-to-scrap-americas-icbms.html" target="_blank">scrapping</a> them altogether. Under the Trump administration, taking ICBMs off hair-trigger alert or retiring them are highly unlikely possibilities, and the Pentagon's recently released <a href="https://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlund/trumps-npr-top-take-aways" target="_blank">Nuclear Posture Review</a> <em>lowers</em> the threshold for nuclear use.</p><p style=""><strong>They Do a Better Job Protecting the Environment</strong></p><p style="">Two recent studies ranked France way ahead of the United States when it comes to environmental protection. In the aforementioned Legatum <a href="http://www.prosperity.com/rankings" target="_blank">Prosperity Index</a>, France placed 4th out of the 149 nations surveyed. The United States was 34th. The second <a href="http://www.sgi-network.org/2017/" target="_blank">study</a>, published annually by the Bertelsmann Foundation's Sustainable Governance Indicators program, rated U.S. environmental policies 39th out of 41 countries, mainly because of the U.S. government's inability to seriously address <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a>. France, on the other hand, ranked 12th, largely because of its leadership in international climate diplomacy.</p><p style="">France's climate leadership is evidenced by its binding <a href="http://www4.unfccc.int/ndcregistry/PublishedDocuments/European%20Union%20First/LV-03-06-EU%20INDC.pdf" target="_blank">commitment</a> as a signatory to the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement">Paris climate agreement</a> to reduce its domestic emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. By contrast, the Trump administration announced it was pulling out of the accord (which it cannot officially do until November 5, 2020—the day after the next presidential election) and made it clear it has no intention of honoring the U.S. national pledge.</p><p style="">As part of its plan to meet its Paris accord targets, the French government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/06/france-ban-petrol-diesel-cars-2040-emmanuel-macron-volvo" target="_blank">announced</a> last July that it will ban the sale of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040, and French automakers are already doing their part. Peugeot, Citroën and Renault ranked first, second and fourth on a <a href="https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/environment/2017/03/07/peugeot-leads-in-average-co2-emissions-league-table-as-european-total-fell-in-2016" target="_blank">2017 list</a> of large car manufacturers with the lowest carbon emissions, and Renault started selling battery-powered cars in 2011.</p><p style="">The Trump administration, conversely, wants to <em>weaken</em> fuel economy standards. The National Highway Traffic Safety Commission is now considering permitting an average fleetwide standard of 36.7 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2026, considerably less than the 46.6 mpg requirement imposed by the Obama administration with the auto industry's consent. According to an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency <a href="https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P100Q3DO.pdf" target="_blank">analysis</a>, such a rollback would mean cars and light trucks would emit at least a half a billion more tons of carbon pollution and consume an extra 50 billion gallons of fuel over their lifetimes.</p><p style=""><strong>They Hold Cleaner Elections</strong></p><p style="">Unlike the U.S. system of legalized bribery, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/france.php" target="_blank">French campaign finance laws</a> keep special interest money out of politics. French citizens can contribute as much as $5,750 (4,600 euros) to one or more candidates for a specific election, but corporations, unions and advocacy groups are not allowed to donate to political campaigns or parties. In addition, the government has placed limits on campaign expenditures pegged to the office level. Electoral campaigns are relatively brief, and national television and radio stations air political ads free of charge for all candidates during the three months preceding an election. All paid political ads during that time are prohibited. Citizens are automatically registered to vote when they reach the age of 18, and elections are held on a Sunday to make it easier for people to vote.</p><p style="">Restraining corporate influence in elections is one of the key reasons France outpaces the United States in many of the categories cited above. While special interests—from the gun lobby to industrial polluters to Wall Street—keep U.S. politicians on a tight leash, French elected officials are freer to represent the interests of their constituents, not the narrow interests of deep-pocketed campaign contributors and unregulated super PACs.</p><p style="">So, Mr. President, instead of spending as much as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/02/15/585924807/trumps-military-parade-could-cost-as-much-as-50-million" target="_blank">$50 million</a> on parade displaying overpriced military hardware, how about trying to top some of these much more significant French accomplishments? America has proven time and time again that it can outperform the rest of the world, but history has also shown that it takes leadership to do it.</p><p style=""><em>Dave Cooke, Marcia DeLonge, Joshua Goldman, Chanelle Kacy-Dunlap, Rachel Licker and David Wright provided research assistance for this essay.</em></p><p style=""><em>Elliott Negin is a senior writer in the Communications Department at the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>.</em></p>
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Scientists announce the new Doomsday Clock setting at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Scott Stapf / Twitter
The symbolic Doomsday Clock is ever closer to midnight, or the end of the world, scientists announced Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
The clock is now two minutes to midnight based on the predictions of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a non-profit organization that informs the public about threats to its survival due to nuclear threats, emerging technologies and climate change.
<p>
"This is the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War," the group said.
</p><p>
<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/doomsday-clock-trump-2216983060.html">Last year</a>, the Clock ticked forward an ominous two and a half minutes to midnight mostly thanks to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">President Donald Trump</a>. The nuclear danger of a Trump presidency, combined with his and his administration's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-denier">climate denialism</a>, heighten the risk of a global catastrophe, the group warned then.
</p><p>
As for this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explained that the clock moved forward another 30 seconds because "in 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as dangerous as it has been since World War II."
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="08df1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="II58851576683858"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="956560390002913281" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">See the 2018 Doomsday Clock Statement: https://t.co/ST3D8oi2L3 https://t.co/Ofucv3DFqD</div> — Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)<a href="https://twitter.com/BulletinAtomic/statuses/956560390002913281">1516896743.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>
"The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm. North Korea's nuclear weapons program appeared to make remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks for itself, other countries in the region, and the United States," the group continued. "Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions on both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation."
</p><p>
"On the climate change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather">catastrophic temperature increases</a> in the long run require urgent attention now. The nations of the world will have to significantly decrease their <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenhouse-gases">greenhouse gas emissions</a> to keep climate risks manageable, and so far, the global response has fallen far short of meeting this challenge," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said.
</p><p>
Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, called on immediate global action to rewind the clock.
</p><p>
"It is urgent that, collectively, we put in the work necessary to produce a 2019 Clock statement that rewinds the Doomsday Clock," Bronson said. "Get engaged, get involved, and help create that future. The time is now."
</p>
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Should the President Have Sole Authority to Launch a Nuclear Attack? In the Age of Trump, Experts Offer an Alternate Plan
25 January 2018
Popular
Pierre J. / Flickr / Creative Commons
By Elliott Negin
More than a million people in Hawaii thought it was time to say their final alohas. A state cellphone alert announced that nuclear missiles were heading their way. "Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii," the Jan. 6 text read. "Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill."
<p style="">Fortunately, it was a false alarm. It turned out that a Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee had pushed the wrong button during an early morning shift-change safety drill. At a press conference later that day, Hawaii Gov. David Ige <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/is-this-the-end-of-my-life-false-alert-of-missile-attack-sends-hawaii-scrambling/2018/01/13/78c86054-f8a0-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_story.html?utm_term=.414e3ae1f3f0" target="_blank">promised</a> that no single person would be able to send such a warning again. The next day, the agency <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-latest-trump-promises-involvement-after-hawaii-alert/2018/01/14/d3aebcae-f993-11e7-9b5d-bbf0da31214d_story.html?utm_term=.de0e40651dc5" target="_blank">announced</a> it now would require that two people issue an alert.</p><p style="">Good idea. But an even better idea would be to take the same approach to the U.S. nuclear button, the one that <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">President Trump</a> insists is bigger than North Korea's.</p><p style="">In a <a href="https://thebulletin.org/how-limit-presidential-authority-order-use-nuclear-weapons11454" target="_blank">paper</a> published Wednesday in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, two experts from the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a> (UCS) and a University of Maryland national security specialist recommend that U.S. policy require at least two other officials sign off on such a critical decision.</p><p style="">"There's no reason to maintain our current, unnecessarily dangerous policy," said paper co-author Lisbeth Gronlund, co-director of the UCS Global Security Program. "There are viable alternatives that would allow other officials to take part in any decision to use nuclear weapons, whether it's first use or a response to a nuclear attack."</p><p style=""><strong>Not Even a 'Stable Genius' is Reassuring Enough</strong></p><p style="">Putting aside the fact that the nuclear button is actually a briefcase that for some reason is called a football, the U.S. president has the sole authority to order the launch of a nuclear weapon, for any reason and at any time. That's terrifying, regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office. No one person, not even our current, self-described "stable genius," should have the license to start a <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear-war">nuclear war</a>. As former Defense Sec. William Perry <a href="https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-lieu-senator-markey-introduce-restricting-first-use-0" target="_blank">has said</a>, "Certainly a decision that momentous for all of civilization should have the kind of checks and balances on executive powers called for by our Constitution."</p><p style="">President Trump's ignorance about nuclear weapons and his chest-thumping threats to incinerate North Korea have prompted some members of Congress to take action. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) introduced a <a href="https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-lieu-senator-markey-introduce-restricting-first-use-0" target="_blank">bill</a> last January that would prohibit the president from ordering a first nuclear use without Congress declaring war, and last fall the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senators-deadlock-in-debate-over-whether-to-restrain-trumps-nuclear-launch-authority/2017/11/14/491a994a-c95b-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.390ba3ae8027" target="_blank">hearing</a> on the sole authority question for the first time in four decades.</p><p style="">But don't bet on Congress to pass legislation on the matter any time soon. The Markey-Lieu bill does not have the requisite bipartisan support, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who had previously <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/politics/corker-world-war-iii-donald-trump-white-house/index.html" target="_blank">warned</a> that Trump's bellicose rhetoric could put the country "on the path to World War III," <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senators-deadlock-in-debate-over-whether-to-restrain-trumps-nuclear-launch-authority/2017/11/14/491a994a-c95b-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.390ba3ae8027" target="_blank">told</a> reporters after the Nov. 14 hearing that he did "not see a legislative solution today." Something could happen "over the course of the next several months," he added, "but I don't see it today."</p><p style=""><strong>Who'll Be the Next in Line?</strong></p><p style="">A few days after Corker's hearing, Columbia University professors Richard K. Betts and Matthew Waxman published a <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/safeguarding-nuclear-launch-procedures-proposal" target="_blank">proposal</a> to constrain the president's sole authority. They suggest a protocol requiring the secretary of defense and the attorney general to certify the validity and legality of a presidential first-use order. The certification requirement would not apply if the United States were attacked, however, because Betts and Waxman presume it would delay a response.</p><p style="">Gronlund and her co-authors, UCS Global Security Program Co-Director David Wright and University of Maryland School of Public Policy Prof. Steve Fetter, agree that at least two other officials should be involved, but recommend the vice president and the speaker of the House of Representatives, the next two officials in the presidential chain of succession.</p><p style="">Tapping officials from the presidential succession list has three main advantages, Gronlund et al. explain. First, they have political legitimacy. Both are already designated by law to become commander-in-chief and assume authority to order a nuclear attack. Second, they would provide democratic input. Both were elected, and one—the speaker—can act on behalf of Congress. Finally, unlike the defense secretary or the attorney general, they are both independent. The president cannot fire either of them for refusing to follow an order.</p><p style="">Given that the Federal Emergency Management Agency continually tracks the location of the top officials in the line of presidential succession, Gronlund et al. point out, it would be relatively easy to include the vice president and House speaker in the decision-making process and make it possible for them to sign off on a first use order and a retaliatory nuclear launch.</p><p style="">"If the U.S. government is confident that the current system would allow a quick and smooth transfer of launch authority if the commander-in-chief were killed or incapacitated," they write, "it should also be confident that this system would allow a small number of additional officials to affirm a launch decision by the president."</p><p style=""><strong>End Hair-Trigger and Declare No First Use</strong></p><p style="">Gronlund and her co-authors recommend two other changes in U.S. nuclear policy that they say would make the world safer. First, they call on the U.S. to take its land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) off high alert and eliminate the option of launching them in response to an attack warning.</p><p style="">The policy of keeping U.S. land-based missiles on a hair trigger dates to the Cold War era, when both U.S. and Soviet military strategists feared a surprise first-strike nuclear attack on cities and industrial sites as well as on their land-based nuclear missiles and bombers. To ensure that they maintained the capability of responding, both countries kept their land-based nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert so they could be launched within minutes to avoid being destroyed on the ground.</p><p style="">Today, even if all U.S. ICBMs were destroyed in their silos, most U.S. nuclear weapons are deployed on submarines, which are virtually undetectable. They are designed to be able to survive a first strike and launch a retaliatory attack.</p><p style="">It is now much more likely that the U.S. would launch a retaliatory nuclear strike in response to an erroneous or misinterpreted nuclear-attack warning than an actual incident, the chance of which is extremely remote. Indeed, the possibility of an accidental nuclear launch is frighteningly real. A number of <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/hair-trigger-alert/close-calls#.WmecQOdOmCp" target="_blank">technical glitches and human errors</a> in both Russia and the U.S. over the past few decades have nearly triggered one.</p><p style="">Finally, Gronlund et al. urge the U.S. to embrace a no-first-use policy. The sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons, they write, should be "to deter and, if necessary, respond to the use of nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies."</p><p style="">A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/pentagon-nuclear-review-cyberattack-trump.html" target="_blank">leaked draft</a> of the soon-to-be released Nuclear Posture Review, however, indicates that the administration plans to permit the use of nuclear weapons under a wider range of circumstances, including "non-nuclear strategic attacks," which presumably would include cyberattacks. To push back on this ill-advised idea, Gronlund and her co-authors urge Congress to pass the aforementioned Markey-Lieu bill requiring Congress to declare war and authorize the use of nuclear weapons as well as a <a href="https://adamsmith.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/smith-introduces-bill-establishing-no-first-use-policy-for-nuclear" target="_blank">bill</a> introduced by Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) last November that simply states: "It is the policy of the United States to not use nuclear weapons first."</p><p style=""><em><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/author/elliott-negin#.WmIWGZM-ccg" target="_blank">Elliott Negin</a> is a senior writer in the Communications Department at the <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>.</em></p>
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By John Buell
Last winter when President-elect Trump tweeted: "United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes," the tweet was portrayed as shockingly new and threatening. As president, Trump continues his inflammatory rhetoric. Nonetheless, his nuclear posture is closer to his predecessors than is commonly recognized. It has long been U.S. policy and practice to seek and rely on nuclear superiority. The U.S. led every step in the arms race. That arms race remains the greatest immediate threat to the survival of human civilization and other living beings. That threat has persisted under every president from Truman to Trump.
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed" style="">
</p><div id="b8a25" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="MXLKDE1576663566"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="811977223326625792" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes</div> — Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/statuses/811977223326625792">1482425430.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p style=""><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/chomsky-trump-doomsday-clock-2342419463.html">Noam Chomsky</a> reminds us: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Khrushchev proposed sharp mutual reductions in offensive weapons. The incoming Kennedy administration considered the offer and rejected it, instead turning to rapid military expansion, even though it was already far in the lead. The late Kenneth Waltz, supported by other strategic analysts with close connections to U.S. intelligence, wrote then that the Kennedy administration 'undertook the largest strategic and conventional peacetime military build-up the world has yet seen ... even as Khrushchev was trying at once to carry through a major reduction in the conventional forces and to follow a strategy of minimum deterrence, and we did so even though the balance of strategic weapons greatly favored the United States.'"</p><p style="">More recently, anti-missile systems have been portrayed as defensive weapons, but this too is deceptive. No nuclear expert seriously thinks that these could withstand a full-scale nuclear exchange. Their deployment might at least plausibly repel the survivors of a first strike against a small-scale nuclear opponent, such as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/north-korea-radiation-leak-2504456693.html">North Korea</a> or Iran.</p><p style="">The irrationality with which Trump is properly charged is also part of the core nuclear doctrine. He is a perfect manifestation of what nuclear strategists have in mind. Chomsky cites a crucial Strategic Air Command study:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"That Stratcom study was concerned with 'the role of nuclear weapons in the post-cold war era.' A central conclusion: that the U.S. must maintain the right to launch a first strike, even against non-nuclear states. Furthermore, nuclear weapons must always be at the ready because they 'cast a shadow over any crisis or conflict.' They were, that is, constantly being used, just as you're using a gun if you aim but don't fire one while robbing a store (a point that Daniel Ellsberg has repeatedly stressed). Stratcom went on to advise that 'planners should not be too rational about determining … what the opponent values the most.' Everything should simply be targeted. '[It] hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed … That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project.' It is "beneficial [for our strategic posture] if some elements may appear to be potentially 'out of control,'" thus posing a constant threat of nuclear attack—a severe violation of the UN charter, if anyone cares."</p><p style="">Nor is such talk merely theoretical speculation. Not only did the Kennedy Administration pour fuel on the fire of the arms race, it practiced nuclear brinksmanship <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/chomsky-goodman-climate-change-2426716028.html">of the most dangerous sort</a>. Here is Chomsky again:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"As the crisis peaked in late October, Kennedy received a secret letter from Khrushchev offering to end it by simultaneous public withdrawal of Russian missiles from Cuba and U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey. The latter were obsolete missiles, already ordered withdrawn by the Kennedy administration because they were being replaced by far more lethal Polaris submarines to be stationed in the Mediterranean. Kennedy's subjective estimate at that moment was that if he refused the Soviet premier's offer, there was a 33 to 50 percent probability of nuclear war … Kennedy nonetheless refused Khrushchev's proposal for public withdrawal of the missiles from Cuba and Turkey; only the withdrawal from Cuba could be public, so as to protect the U.S. right to place missiles on Russia's borders or anywhere else it chose.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">It is hard to think of a more horrendous decision in history—and for this, he is still highly praised for his cool courage and statesmanship." (Popular culture has this story right. The movie Jackie suggests JFK will be remembered for ending a crisis he created.)</p><p style="">In this context we need to question <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-silence-corporate-media-2485281861.html">corporate media</a>'s frequent reference to modernizing nuclear weapons, the presumed sensible alternative to Trump's bellicosity. Weapons modernization is a euphemism that hides the real agenda, to render such weapons usable in "regional" wars. U.S. strategic rhetoric has always turned on the notion that nuclear superiority deters and that the U.S. must therefore never take the nuclear option—even first strike—off the table. That doctrine is dangerous at its core. How does the U.S. convince an opponent that it is always willing to use nuclear weapons? Eventually only by use of those weapons. (It would also be hard to convince residents of the Marshall Islands that after Japan we have never used such weapons.) </p><p style=""><strong>Apocalypse by Accident?</strong></p><p style="">Ironically, President Trump's frequent nuclear blustering serves to hide one aspect of the nuclear risk. Focus on his instability and possible impetuous resort to the nuclear trigger may distract from equally significant dangers. Any discussion to the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/us-nuclear-weapons-test-2398101399.html">threat posed by nuclear weapons</a> should include recounting and further explanation of the multiple accidents with nuclear weaponry as well as the environmental dangers their manufacture and storage pose. In a review of Eric Schlosser's book on nuclear weapons, Jenny Turner said "the effort to control nuclear weapons—to ensure that one doesn't go off 'by accident' is undermined, over and over again, by demands from the military for bombs they can trust to explode." </p><p style="">There is a long catalogue of near disastrous accidents with nuclear weapons. Details of an infamous 1961 incident involving the accidental drop of an H-Bomb over Greensboro, NC are especially chilling, especially given President Trump's decision similarly to arm B-52s today. These details also suggest we should place little reliance on the willingness of top level generals to restrain the president. Here is a summary from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-carolina-1961:" target="_blank">Guardian</a>: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Further detail on what happened to the Mark 39 bomb when it fell over Goldsboro is given in a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/799648-brodie-goldsboro.html#document/p2/a122687" target="_blank">newly declassified document</a> written in 1987 reviewing the U.S. nuclear weapon safety programme. It records that as the B-52 broke up, the pin to arm the bomb that was normally manually operated was yanked out as it fell, thus arming it.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">All the various stages of the bomb's fall—the operation of the arming system, deployment of the parachute, timer operation, activation of its batteries, and delivery of the signal that would actually fire the bomb at impact—'all followed as a natural consequence of the bomb falling free.' Only the lack of engagement of the final ready-safe switch 'prevented nuclear detonation of this bomb.'"</p><p style="">Despite such expert awareness of the extremely tentative safeguards that stood between America and unthinkable disaster, successive U.S. administrations kept up the line in public that the country's nuclear arsenal was free from any risk of accidental detonation. This incident, just like the Cuban Missile crisis soon to follow, was just one more case where political and military leaders put the preservation of state power ahead of genuine public safety.</p><p style="">Because they are so dangerous, access to them must be limited, and thus independent investigators cannot accumulate information that could inform a critical assessment of their domestic risks. Secondly, preservation of nuclear secrecy is presented as one aspect of U.S. nuclear superiority. Finally, because they are one of the central pillars in our collective identity as a power second to none, criticism of these weapons is often written off as enemy-inspired and thus illegitimate. Add to this the economic boost nuclear arms provide to key military contractors and one has the makings of an almost invulnerable political machine. As Turner put it, "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/nuclear-weapons" target="_blank">Nuclear weapons</a> are not like Wikipedia, on which anybody can spot a mistake and write in."</p><p style="">About the best argument I can think of for the safety of nuclear weaponry is that none has been accidentally detonated so far. From Schlosser's description, this technological success is in large measure fortuitous. I will state it as a law—complex systems are prone to unpredictable malfunctions. And as with many features of industrial life, there is more glory and economic reward in building the technologies than in maintaining them. Furthermore, in the grand scheme of human civilization, not to say of the planet, 72 years is but a trifle.</p><p style="">Donald Trump's climate agenda is extraordinarily dangerous, but his posture on nuclear weapons is not as far out of the accepted strategic doctrines as his critics charge. Policy in both domains constitutes an imminent threat to the future of human civilization. Climate denialism has its parallel in those elites expecting to survive nuclear winter. Up until recently climate concerns have largely displaced the issues of nuclear weaponry. That must stop. Movements against nuclear power and nuclear weapons have a long history of facing repressive attacks and mounting cross-border collaboration. Enormous sums are already invested even in the shoddy maintenance of our nuclear arsenal, and many of Trump's opponents are committed to dangerous modernization of that arsenal. Those funds might better go to meeting the long-term climate crisis. Intensifying climate deterioration risks exacerbating cross border tensions and provoking war, which will surely some day become nuclear. These issues and movements need each other.</p><p style=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/11/29/president-trump-nuclear-business-usual" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p><p style="">John Buell lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine and writes on labor and environmental issues. His most recent book, published by Palgrave in August 2011, is "<em><a href="http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=524042" target="_blank">Politics, Religion, and Culture in an Anxious Age</a>."</em> He may be reached at <a href="mailto:jbuell@acadia.net" target="_blank">jbuell@acadia.net</a>.</p>
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Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. Tom Murphy / National Geographic Creative
By Jake Johnson
Yes, Donald Trump is president. And yes, he has access to the nuclear codes—a fact that has become all too vivid in recent weeks. But many allowed themselves to forget, if only for a brief moment, about the man in the White House on Thursday to hone their attention on what is potentially an even more horrifying development.
As USA Today reported, new research indicates that the supervolcano resting beneath Yellowstone National Park "may blow sooner than thought, an eruption that could wipe out life on the planet."
<p style="">USA Today's Matthew Diebel noted that Arizona State University researchers have "analyzed minerals in fossilized ash from the most recent mega-eruption and found changes in temperature and composition that had only taken a few decades. Until now, the magazine reported, geologists had thought it would take centuries for the supervolcano to make the transition."</p><p>"The discovery, which was presented at a <a href="http://iavcei2017.org/" target="_blank">recent volcanology conference</a>, comes on top of a 2011 study that found that ground above the magma reservoir in Yellowstone had bulged by about 10 inches in seven years," Diebel adds.</p><p style="">Scientists believe that the volcano's last supereruption took place around 631,000 years ago. As the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/science/yellowstone-volcano-eruption.html" target="_blank">noted</a>, researchers "suspect that a supereruption scars the planet every 100,000 years, causing many to ask when we can next expect such an explosive planet-changing event."</p><p>Though no one is attempting to put a time frame on the next eruption, Hannah Shamloo of Arizona State University observed that it is "shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption."</p><p style="">Amid the perpetual chaos of the American news cycle and the looming threat of war between <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear-war">nuclear</a>-armed nations, commentators on social media met the possibly dire new research with a mixture of alarm and somber humor.</p><p style="">"We are all just living at the mercy of the supervolcano under Yellowstone," <a href="https://twitter.com/joshfoxfilm/status/918522088549478400" target="_blank">concluded</a> film director and environmentalist Josh Fox. "Puts things into perspective, doesn't it?"</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed"></p><div id="8caec" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="KJEODA1576663721"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="918552418836762625" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This story will help you stop worrying about Trump for a moment
https://t.co/OQmVSrgyLr</div> — Ben Wikler (@Ben Wikler)<a href="https://twitter.com/benwikler/statuses/918552418836762625">1507834937.0</a></blockquote></div><p></p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed" style=""></p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed"></p><div id="f9a83" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3B2AST1576663721"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="918518860487233538" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Me: This week really blows
Science: Boy do we have some news for you
https://t.co/2MjMMwFHlb</div> — Kate Aronoff (@Kate Aronoff)<a href="https://twitter.com/KateAronoff/statuses/918518860487233538">1507826936.0</a></blockquote></div><p></p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed"></p>
<p style=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/10/12/forget-trump-huge-volcano-could-literally-wipe-out-life-earth" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p><p style=""><br></p><p style=""><br></p><p style=""><br></p><p style=""><br></p>
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Nobel Prize Winners Name Trump and His 'Ignorance' as Top Threats to World Population
01 September 2017
Popular
Wikipedia
By Julia Conley
Along with nuclear war and climate change, President Donald Trump has made the list of what Nobel Laureates consider to be major risks to the world population.
In a survey of 50 Nobel Prize winners in the sciences, medicine and economics, more than a third of the respondents said damage to the environment brought about by issues like over-population and climate change, was the biggest threat to mankind. Twenty-three percent said nuclear war was their top concern, while six percent said theirs was "the ignorance of political leaders"—with two of the winners naming Trump specifically.
<p style="">Peter Agre, winner of the chemistry Prize in 2003, told the Times Higher Education, which <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/do-great-minds-think-alike-the-the-lindau-nobel-laureates-survey#survey-answer" target="_blank">conducted </a>the poll and released the results Thursday, that "Trump could play a villain in a Batman movie—everything he does is wicked or selfish." He also called the president "extraordinarily uninformed."</p><p style="">The survey also found serious concerns among the respondents about the brand of populism pushed by Trump as well as right-wing European leaders. Forty percent of the Nobel winners called Trump-style populism, characterized by his distrust of climate science and the media, and political polarization "a grave threat to scientific progress, while 30 percent say that they are a serious threat."</p><p style="">"Today, facts seem to be questioned by many people who prefer to believe rumors rather than well-established scientific facts," said Jean-Pierre Sauvage, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year.</p><p style="">Another laureate added, "it is a disaster when people start believing things that are false and, even worse, when governments induce them to believe facts that are evidently wrong and ignore all evidence-based, scientifically proven data."</p><p style="">The Times Higher Education noted that "Agre is particularly worried by how Trump 'flaunts his ignorance' to appeal to a group of Americans who are happy to dismiss the opinions of scientists."</p><p style="">It's not the first time some of the world's top scientists and doctors have publicly expressed disapproval of the president. Earlier this year, 62 Nobel Laureates signed a <a href="https://notoimmigrationban.com/" target="_blank">petition</a> denouncing Trump's executive order directing U.S. agencies to ban travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.</p><p style=""> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/31/nobel-prize-winners-name-trump-and-his-ignorance-top-threats-world-population" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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Nuclear weapon test Bravo on Bikini Atoll. Wikimedia Commons
By Bunny McDiarmid
Looking back, one of the key moments that was to define both my professional and personal path was the moment I stepped onto the small atoll of Rongelap, in the Pacific Ocean.
It was May 17, 1985 and I was 24 years old.
<p style="">At first glance, it appeared as if I had reached paradise; sandy beaches with coconut trees, water so crystal clear you could see the bottom, meters deep. And yet nothing was as it should be.</p><p style="">Waiting for us on the beach, with flowers, was the local community. The women held a banner reading "we love the future of our children."</p><p style="">I was there with the crew of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, to help them relocate. Their beloved island was making them sick, and what you couldn't see here could kill you.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style=""><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMDYwODU2Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDM2MjMwMn0.aPpNk1oye8UxHPcsrTT6L-oB7Fi_-LcfpNOSXk0jI-E/img.jpg?width=980" id="f65ad" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="51136d219d24569348910a8b377946a8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><small placeholder="add caption..." class="image-media media-caption">Bunny McDiarmid during the evacuation on May 17, 1985</small></p><p style="">Back in March 1954, the atoll received <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/02/bikini-atoll-nuclear-test-60-years" target="_blank">a massive dose of radiation</a> when the U.S. tested its most powerful <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear">nuclear</a> weapon. The test was <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/02/27/castle-bravo-the-largest-u-s-nuclear-explosion/" target="_blank">code named "Castle Bravo"</a> and the people of Rongelap were given no warning and offered no protection.</p><p style="">Radioactive fallout rained down on the island, falling for days. It dissolved into the water supplies, into the sea, and onto the houses, gardens and people. It contaminated them all.</p><p style="">In the tropics, where people spend a lot of time outside, the children played in the fine white ash, thinking it was snow.</p><p style="">In the years that followed, it became clear to the people that their island was no longer safe. The impact of the radiation poisoning, impossible to clean, was revealing itself with time. The number of children that had their damaged thyroids removed, the number of women that had children born with severe deformities, known as "jellyfish babies," was impossible to ignore.</p><p style="">They no longer trusted what the U.S. military scientists were telling them about the safety of their island. They were left with no choice but to leave, with little hope of ever returning.</p><p><br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style=""><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMDYwODIwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTY3Njg5Mn0.CT0tPd4itEapDNWcKQsJzdzr1jO3J24duJBs4wvX0Gw/img.jpg?width=980" id="0dccc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3977bf90baae2d45b0616b3fd82b9b9a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><small placeholder="add caption..." class="image-media media-caption">Evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejato by the crew of the Rainbow Warrior</small></p><p style="">The contrast between the beautiful setting and the criminal irresponsibility of the U.S. military who used these people as guinea pigs is still heartbreaking this many years later.</p><p style="">Aug. 29, marked the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/againstnucleartestsday/" target="_blank">International Day Against Nuclear Tests</a>.</p><p style="">And while every day during the past few months stands as a stark reminder as to why nuclear tests and nuclear weapons are so dangerous, today is a good day to reflect on the lessons we've learned in fighting nuclear tests, and, most importantly, how we carry on the fight to rid the world of this evil invention.</p><p>This year, we do so with renewed impetus.</p><p style="">As the last few months has revealed, the majority of the world's nuclear warheads are in the hands of men for whom the idea of using them is becoming thinkable.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed"></p><div id="44c48" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="SYV20I1504109418"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="895581786549432321" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">72 Years After Bombing of Nagasaki ... 15,000 Nuclear Weapons Still Exist in the World Today https://t.co/4dcCaKqZ8j @foeeurope @EnvAm</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/895581786549432321">1502358311.0</a></blockquote></div><p></p><p style="">It is perhaps hard to imagine that not so very long ago, nuclear tests were common and held regularly. Hailed as a benchmark of scientific progress and the ultimate guarantee of security, nuclear weapons have been tested <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/againstnucleartestsday/" target="_blank">more than 2000 times since July 16, 1945</a>, when the "Trinity" test was conducted by the U.S. army in New Mexico.</p><p>In the 60s and 70s, the number of tests peaked, before decreasing in number but continuing steadily until the late 90s.</p><p style="">The countries conducting the most tests were the U.S. with 1,054 tests, the USSR with 715, France with 210, and the UK and China with 45 tests each.</p><p style="">Public outrage and the relentless efforts of determined individuals across the world eventually led major powers to stop testing in the physical environment. Greenpeace first set sail as an organization in 1971 to stop nuclear weapons testing and the role that we played in this, alongside so many, fills me with pride.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style=""><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMDYwODIwNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTg0MDIxMX0.uJuia9VKDGstXqr9wEvfZOfnV5gd095sF7r7-lNwN60/img.jpg?width=980" id="576e4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e464b3377e2874fb36a0d05ff8827dc7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><small placeholder="add caption..." class="image-media media-caption">Protest at the UN building in Geneva, encouraging nations to sign the CTBT</small></p><p>In 1996, major states signed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Nuclear-Test-Ban_Treaty" target="_blank">Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty</a> pledging to discontinue all nuclear testing. Although the treaty has never entered into force, nuclear testing essentially screeched to a halt with its adoption.</p><p>It forged an international zero-tolerance stance against nuclear testing. The handful of nuclear tests conducted after 1996 received universal condemnation and unanimously adopted UN Security Council sanctions.</p><p style="">The only country to have performed nuclear tests in the 21st century is North Korea—completing <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-bargaining-factbo-idUSKBN178127" target="_blank">five tests</a> in the past 11 years.</p><p style="">With the end of the Cold War, and with major powers signing various treaties committing them to disarm, media and public interest died down. We entered a period where many were living under the false pretense that the threat of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear-war">nuclear war</a> was something of the past.</p><p>And yet, the countries that have committed to disarming have not done so.</p><p style="">They have stalled, found excuses or blatantly ignored their commitments. The result is stark. Nearly 25 years after the end of the Cold War there are still an estimated 16,300 nuclear weapons at 98 sites in 14 countries. Rather than disarm, the nine nuclear-armed states continue to spend a fortune maintaining and modernizing their arsenals.</p><p style="">That false pretense under which we have been living has been shred to pieces during the last few months.</p><p style="">Nuclear war, it seems, is no longer inconceivable.</p><p style="">President Trump, who is the ultimate commander of the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal, (<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat" target="_blank">believed to consist of 6,800 warheads</a>) has threatened North Korea with "fire and fury." North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. territory of Guam, in the Pacific Ocean. The threat of nuclear attack has become a bargaining chip, a threat spoken about all too easily and lightly.</p><p>These latest developments fill me with anger and even despair. Have we learned nothing from the past?</p><p style="">But I try to see the positive. At least the veil has been lifted, once again we are reminded of how high the stakes are, how fragile is our existence in a world where nuclear weapons are still so prevalent.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style=""><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMDYwODIwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMjE4ODIzNn0.kXxr7OBFIznwbuIhUO_NZX47hRE6tKTFzHVRKX3Ifps/img.jpg?width=980" id="f449f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c6af4821e1a19813956af5d7fad18ddc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><small placeholder="add caption..." class="image-media media-caption">Activists hold a banner in front of the embassy of North Korea in Bern in 2006.</small></p><p style="">These weapons of mass destruction are designed for one purpose only: war. Their use and even the threat of their use poses an existential threat to all life on our precious planet.<br></p><p>The solution to the current crisis is clear: negotiation and diplomacy. Only this can bring us back from the brink. But this is not enough, we can wait no longer for the countries in possession of nuclear weapons to disarm.</p><p style="">In July, a historic milestone was reached at the United Nations in New York when 122 countries voted in favor of a new treaty banning nuclear weapons.</p><p style="">In September, the treaty will open for signature. Nuclear armed states and many of their allies have boycotted the treaty and have done all they could to try and derail the negotiation. They failed, but their absence is significant as unless a country ratifies the treaty, it is not bound by it.</p><p style="">Nevertheless, the importance of the treaty is enormous—it will make it harder for the proponents of nuclear weapons to describe them as a legitimate and useful means to provide security. The treaty sets the benchmark for a world where nuclear weapons are considered as a threat to security, not an avenue to it.</p><p style="">In this time where the threat of war has become thinkable again, world governments must use it as an impetus to come to their senses and disarm.</p><p style=""><em>Bunny McDiarmid is the executive director of <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/" target="_blank">Greenpeace International</a>.</em></p>
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72 Years After Bombing of Nagasaki ... 15,000 Nuclear Weapons Still Exist in the World Today
09 August 2017
Energy
A cloud rises over Nagasaki, Japan, in the moments after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Aug. 9, 1945. Wikimedia Commons
By Susan Southard
Wednesday is the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. At 11:02 a.m. Aug. 9, 1945, a five-ton plutonium bomb exploded a third of a mile above the city. Its blast winds tore through the city at two and a half times the speed of a Category 5 hurricane.
Two-year-old Masao Tomonaga was asleep in his home while his mother worked in another room. Within seconds of the blast, their house imploded on top of them. Remarkably, both survived. At 1.7 miles from the bomb's hypocenter, they were out of reach of its most intense infrared heat rays, which instantly carbonized human and animal flesh and vaporized the internal organs of those directly beneath the bomb.
<p>Tomonaga's mother pushed her way through the rubble to find him. They had minutes to escape to a hillside shrine before fires sped through their neighborhood, leaving their flattened home in ashes.</p><p>Six weeks ago, 74-year-old Tomonaga, now a leading specialist on long-term radiation effects on the human body, flew to New York as Nagasaki's official representative in support of a breakthrough international <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear-war">nuclear weapons</a> ban treaty, adopted at the United Nations on July 7.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed"></p><p>Backed by 122 nations and with strong support from civil society organizations across the globe, the accord is the world's first comprehensive treaty banning the use, threat of use and production of nuclear weapons. It places nuclear weapons on the same legal footing as all other weapons of mass destruction—including chemical and biological weapons, landmines and cluster munitions, which have long been outlawed.<br></p><p>The treaty was not an act of naiveté. Its proponents knew that nuclear-armed and nuclear-defended nations—including Japan—would vehemently reject the ban, defending their position that nuclear weapons prevent nuclear war. The ban was negotiated too with clear understandings of the current heightened tensions between the U.S. and Russia, because of North Korea's nuclear weapons development and testing, and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/donald-trump-PEBSL000163-topic.html" target="_blank">President Trump</a>'s nuclear posturing.</p><p>The strategy—as was successfully implemented with landmines—is to delegitimize and ultimately eliminate the most destructive and inhumane weapons made. After treaty ratification in September, the next step is to convince first one, then other nuclear-armed or defended nations to abide by it. Similar treaties banning weapons of mass destruction have resulted in policy changes even by countries that haven't signed them—including the U.S., which now follows the landmines ban without having signed that treaty.</p><p>Testimony like Tomonaga's can only help. Using his experience as a survivor, radiation scientist and physician who has treated <em>hibakusha</em> (atomic bomb-affected people) for nearly 50 years, Tomonaga gave a statement before the United Nations that countered vague images of nuclear war with details of its terrifying acute and long-term human consequences.</p><p>Within weeks of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, adults and children began experiencing mysterious and excruciating symptoms: vomiting, fever, dizziness, bleeding gums and hair loss. Purple spots began appearing all over their bodies—the effects of high-dose, whole-body radiation exposure. Many died within a week of the first symptoms.</p><p>Over the next nine months, pregnant women whose fetuses had been exposed in utero suffered spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and infant deaths. Many newborns developed physical and mental disabilities.</p><p>By 1948, childhood and adult <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/diseases-illnesses/leukemia-HEDAI0000054-topic.html" target="_blank">leukemia</a> rates began increasing among <em>hibakusha—</em>and these rates remained high for decades. At highest risk were children under 10 within a mile of the bombing, who developed leukemia at a rate 18 times greater than the general population.</p><p style="">By 1955, numerous other <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/diseases-illnesses/cancer-HEDAI0000010-topic.html" target="_blank">cancers</a> also appeared at rates far higher than for non-<em>hibakusha</em>. Even today, the bomb's radiation continues to ravage the bodies of aging survivors, now in their 70s and 80s, who are developing a special type of leukemia, MDS (Myelodysplastic syndrome). Scientists are still studying second- and third-generation<em> hibakusha</em> for genetic effects potentially passed down from their parents and grandparents, reminding us how much we still don't understand about the insidious nature of radiation exposure on the human body.</p><p style="">The use of a nuclear weapon, designed to inflict catastrophic harm to vast numbers of people, would violate international law, which prohibits the targeting of civilians during wartime. Yet almost 15,000 nuclear weapons still exist in the world today; more than 4,000 are actively deployed across the globe. Whether by intentional military choice, a nuclear accident or an act of terrorism, we risk far worse humanitarian and environmental disasters than Nagasaki and Hiroshima.</p><p style="">After decades of monumental efforts to champion Tomonaga's vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, this treaty fills the legal gap in the prohibition of such weapons and puts us on the path to their total elimination. Perhaps now there is a chance that after a 72-year reign of nuclear terror, the narrative of nuclear war that started in 1945 will come to a close.</p><p style=""> <em><em><em>Susan Southard is the author of "Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War," which was the recipient of the Lukas Book Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.</em></em></em></p><p style=""><em><em><em></em>This piece originally ran as an op-ed in the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-southard-nagasaki-20170809-story.html" target="_blank">Los Angeles Tim</a></em><a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-southard-nagasaki-20170809-story.html" target="_blank">es</a>. Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/08/09/72-years-after-bombing-nagasaki-there-are-15000-nuclear-weapons-world" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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72 Years After Hiroshima, Where Is Japan's Commitment to End Nuclear Weapons?
06 August 2017
Popular
The "original" Greenpeace crew on-board the Phyllis Cormack on their voyage to Amchitka Island. Robert Keziere / Greenpeace
By Yuko Yoneda
It started with just 12 of them. With a bold mission, this group of activists set sail to Amchitka island off Alaska to protest the detonation of an underground U.S. nuclear test. It was September 1971, and though the mission was initially unsuccessful, it was the beginning of what became Greenpeace, and just one of the many issues—the elimination of nuclear weapons—that the environmental organization would campaign endlessly against.
<p><span></span>Fast forward to 2017, and what was once a hard-fought battle and one of Greenpeace's legacy issues, has now become a successful defeat. On July 7, the United Nations adopted the "<a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/nuclear-weapons-banned-historic-UN-treaty/blog/59807/" target="_blank">Nuclear Weapons Treaty</a>" with an overwhelming majority—an epoch—making agreement that prohibits not only the development, experiment, manufacture, possession and use of nuclear weapons, but also the "threat to use." Nuclear and chemical weapons and anti-personnel landmines and cluster bombs were also banned. The treaty will be open for signature by states on September 20.</p><p>To our disappointment, however, Japan did not join the 122 countries or two-thirds of the United Nations member countries, that stood up to stop nuclear weapons. The peculiar absence of Japan, whose preamble explicitly recognizes "unacceptable suffering of and harm caused to the <a href="http://www.undocs.org/en/a/conf.229/2017/L.3/Rev.1" target="_blank">victims of the use of nuclear weapons</a> (<em>Hibakusha</em>) as well as those affected by the testing of nuclear weapons" begs explanation. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMDIwOTIwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1ODEzNjIxOH0.W0jKPhYRFJ6p-sbmJkl32hwYjdYxu9Zuka6_64mgBpA/img.jpg?width=980" id="150f4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3844dfbd6d7bb28c52928c8dd79781a9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><small placeholder="add caption..." class="image-media media-caption">Greenpeace activists hold up flags of the nuclear nations along with a 5 meter high mock nuclear bomb outside the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (1996).</small><small placeholder="add photo credit..." class="image-media media-photo-credit">David Adair / Greenpeace / Ex-Press</small></p><p>The <a href="http://www.mofa.go.jp/press/kaiken/kaiken4e_000363.html" target="_blank">Government of Japan expressed a concern</a> that the treaty that was negotiated only among non-nuclear weapon states could create "a more decisive divide" between the states with and without nuclear weapons. From a standpoint of realpolitik of the Cold War era, Japan is under an American nuclear umbrella, and as such, would violate a treaty prohibiting the "threat to use" if it were to be a signatory. Therefore Japan sides with the nuclear weapons states (the U.S., Russia, China, France, UK, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries that rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella.<br></p><p>The adoption of this historic treaty by an overwhelming majority of the UN membership, nonetheless, represents a hard-won victory for people such as the <em>Hibakusha</em> (Japanese word for the surviving victims of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), victims of American nuclear tests and their descendants , and grassroots activists who worked tirelessly against the European nuclear deployment and <a href="http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/u" target="_blank">uranium mining in Australia</a>. The treaty is a long lasting legacy of their testimonies, protests and actions of the past decades, and keeps a hope alive for realization of the nuclear free world.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMDIwOTIxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjQ0NjMwNX0.vrJPzLslPpk9KD7eVNRKIA4ZzZdAshWyux2_d8foRdc/img.jpg?width=980" id="cf853" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="905fc2b41694d6baefc04f63eb475fca" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><small placeholder="add caption..." class="image-media media-caption">Protest at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C. (2016)</small><small placeholder="add photo credit..." class="image-media media-photo-credit">Ian Foulk / Greenpeace</small></p><p><a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/this-treaty-would-ban-nuclear-weapons/blog/59085/" target="_blank">Setsuko Thurlow</a>, a Hiroshima atomic bomb victim who now lives in Canada, told delegates of the treaty negotiations:<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I want you to feel the presence of not only the future generations, who will benefit from your negotiations to ban nuclear weapons, but to feel a cloud of witnesses from Hiroshima and Nagasaki."</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We have no doubt that this treaty can—and will—change the world."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMDIwOTIxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNjE0MjA5N30.mBvDbS8a4ddFRoJp1iLALD8Hlmg66aSKvCOPk4J2dXs/img.jpg?width=980" id="4d648" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d2b174e881e2188d4db2d26816278b31" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><small placeholder="add caption..." class="image-media media-caption">Peace doves released on the 60th Anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing.</small><small placeholder="add photo credit..." class="image-media media-photo-credit">Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / Greenpeace</small></p><p>On the 72nd anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, we stand in solidarity with the survivors and those across the world who have campaigned against nuclear weaponry and call for Japan to join the treaty. The elimination of nuclear weapons has been the cause that Greenpeace campaigned so passionately and heavily for since 1971. As the only country in the world hit by a nuclear attack, Japan's commitment to the treaty would not only be a long-fought win for the country's tainted history, but also an important step towards a future world that is ultimately safe and nuclear free.<br></p><p><em>Yuko Yoneda is the Executive Director at Greenpeace Japan.</em></p>
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By Tim Radford
Four U.S. scientists have just introduced one more good reason not to launch a nuclear war. It would not simply guarantee the mutual destruction of the participants. It would also precipitate catastrophic climate change.
And, they argue in the journal Environment Magazine, even a single nuclear missile strike could darken the skies, chill the atmosphere, stop rainfall, ruin harvests and cost a billion lives.
<p><span></span>Observers with memories that stretch back to the Cold War and the arms race between the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) powers on the one hand and the USSR on the other will know something of this already.</p><p><span></span>In 1983 the astronomer Carl Sagan and colleagues <a href="http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ackerman/Articles/Turco_Nuclear_Winter_83.pdf" target="_blank">introduced the idea of global annihilation</a> or at least the end of human civilization, in a "nuclear winter" as a consequence of a nuclear weapons exchange.</p><p><span></span>Years later, as the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russian Federation was born, the same scientists did their calculations again, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/23/science/nuclear-winter-theorists-pull-back.html" target="_blank">reduced the threat</a> to a kind of "nuclear autumn."</p><p><span></span><strong>Nuclear Club</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Eight nations now possess a nuclear arsenal; the US, Russia and China all have nuclear weapons big enough to precipitate a nuclear calamity, and a ninth, North Korea, now claims to have nuclear capability.</p><p><span></span>This prompted researchers and political scientists from the University of Nebraska Lincoln to revisit the question, based on a theoretical study of the effect of one hundred 15-kiloton warheads, with the explosive power of 150,000 tons of TNT.</p><p><span></span>Once exploded, such a strike would incinerate 1,300 square kilometres of a city and its surrounds. This would be quite enough to push five million metric tons of black carbon smoke particles into the stratosphere."</p><p><span></span>This would be enough to screen solar radiation, reduce the agricultural crop season by between 10 and 40 days a year for at least five years, and lower global temperatures to a point lower than normal for at least 25 years.</p><p><span></span>In the very short term, this cold snap would be colder than anything for the last 1,000 years. Rainfall would decrease by as much as 20 percent to 80 percent in the Asian monsoon region.</p><p><span></span><span style="background-color: initial; color: rgb(119, 119, 119); font-style: italic;"></span>The American southwest and western Australia could become 20 percent to 60 percent drier. South America and southern Africa, too, would see less rain. This global "nuclear drought" and the resulting famines "could kill up to a billion people from starvation.</p><p><span></span>The most immediate victims would be those in countries that are already poor or food-insecure. And, the scientists warn, should a warhead fall upon a nuclear power facility "the spread of toxic radionuclides and their long-term effects would be greatly magnified."</p><p>The drop in precipitation would, they warn, also increase conflict in developing regions, "although global temperature reduction may reduce social violence in the United States and other developed countries."</p><p><span></span>"We're losing our memory of the Cold War and we're losing our memory of how important it is to get this right," said <a href="http://polisci.unl.edu/tyler-white" target="_blank">Tyler White, a political scientist concerned with international security and nuclear policy</a> and one of the authors. </p><p><span></span>"Even a conflict that doesn't involve the United States can impact us and people around the world." </p><p><span></span><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/nuclear-war-would-set-off-climate-catastrophe/" target="_blank">Climate News Network</a>.</em></p>
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Noam Chomsky Explains Why 'The Republican Party Is the Most Dangerous Organization in World History'
30 May 2017
Popular
In this Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with the world-renowned linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky. In a public conversation we had in April, we talked about climate change, nuclear weapons, North Korea, Iran, the war in Syria and the Trump administration's threat to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and his new book, Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power.
Watch here:
<p><strong><strong>Here's a transcript of the interview:</strong></strong><br></p><p><strong>Amy Goodman:</strong> In this <em>Democracy Now!</em> special, we spend the hour with the world-renowned linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky. In a public conversation we had in April, we talked about climate change, nuclear weapons, North Korea, Iran, the war in Syria and the Trump administration's threat to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. We also talked about Noam Chomsky's new book, <em>Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power</em>. Hundreds of people packed into the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for our public conversation.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> I wanted to ask you about this comment that you made that the Republican Party, you said, is the most dangerous organization in world history. Can you explain?<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> I also said that it's an extremely outrageous statement. But the question is whether it's true. I mean, has there ever been an organization in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on Earth? Not that I'm aware of. Is the Republican organization—I hesitate to call it a party—committed to that? Overwhelmingly. There isn't even any question about it.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Take a look at the last primary campaign—plenty of publicity, very little comment on the most significant fact. Every single candidate either denied that what is happening is happening—namely, serious move towards environmental catastrophe—or there were a couple of moderates, so-called—Jeb Bush, who said, "Maybe it's happening. We really don't know. But it doesn't matter, because fracking is working fine, so we can get more fossil fuels." Then there was the guy who was called the adult in the room, John Kasich, the one person who said, "Yes, it's true. Global warming's going on. But it doesn't matter." He's the governor of Ohio. "In Ohio, we're going to go on using coal for energy, and we're not going to apologize for it." So that's 100 percent commitment to racing towards disaster.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Then take a look at what's happened since. The—November 8th was the election. There was, as most of you know, I'm sure, a very important conference underway in Morocco, Marrakech, Morocco. Almost roughly 200 countries at the United Nations-sponsored conference, which was—the goal of which was to put some specific commitments into the verbal agreements that were reached at Paris in December 2015, the preceding international conference on global warming. The Paris conference did intend to reach a verifiable treaty, but they couldn't, because of the most dangerous organization in human history. The Republican Congress would not accept any commitments, so therefore the world was left with verbal promises, but no commitments. Well, last November 8th, they were going to try to carry that forward. On November 8th, in fact, there was a report by the World Meteorological Organization, a very dire analysis of the state of the environment and the likely prospects, also pointed out that we're coming perilously close to the tipping point, where—which was the goal of the—the goal of the Paris negotiations was to keep things below that—coming very close to it, and other ominous predictions. At that point, the conference pretty much stopped, because the news came in about the election.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And it turns out that the most powerful country in human history, the richest, most powerful, most influential, the leader of the free world, has just decided not only not to support the efforts, but actively to undermine them. So there's the whole world on one side, literally, at least trying to do something or other, not enough maybe, although some places are going pretty far, like Denmark, couple of others; and on the other side, in splendid isolation, is the country led by the most dangerous organization in human history, which is saying, "We're not part of this. In fact, we're going to try to undermine it." We're going to maximize the use of fossil fuels—could carry us past the tipping point. We're not going to provide funding for—as committed in Paris, to developing countries that are trying to do something about the climate problems. We're going to dismantle regulations that retard the impact, the devastating impact, of production of carbon dioxide and, in fact, other dangerous gases—methane, others.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Ok. So the conference kind of pretty much came to a halt. The question—it continued, but the question was: Can we salvage something from this wreckage? And pretty amazingly, the countries of the world were looking for salvation to a different country: China. Here we have a world looking for salvation to China, of all places, when the United States is the wrecking machine that's threatening destruction, in—with all three branches of government in the hands of the most dangerous organization in human history.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And I don't have to go through what's happened since, but the—in general, the Cabinet appointments are designed to—assigned to people whose commitment and beliefs are that it's necessary to destroy everything in their department that could be of any use to human beings and wouldn't just increase profits and power. And they're doing it very systematically, one after another. EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, has been very sharply cut. Actually, the main department that's concerned with environmental issues is the Department of Energy, which also had very sharp cuts, particularly in the environment-related programs. In fact, there's even a ban on posting and publishing information and material about this.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And this is not just at the national level. The Republican Party, whatever you want to call it, has been doing this at every level. So, in North Carolina, a couple of years ago, where the Legislature, mostly thanks to gerrymandering, is in the hands of the Republicans, there was a study. They called for a study on the effect of sea level rise—on what sea level rise might be on the North Carolina coast. And there was a serious scientific study, which predicted, in not—I forget how many years—not a long time, about roughly a meter rise in sea level, which could be devastating to eastern North Carolina. And the Legislature did react, namely, by passing legislation to ban any actions or even discussion that might have to do with climate change. Actually, the best comment of this—I wish I could quote it verbatim—was by Stephen Colbert, who said, "If you have a serious problem, the way to deal with it is to legislate that it doesn't exist. Problem solved." You know, this is going on all over the country.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And it's not just—it's not simply climate change. That's bad enough. But there's another huge specter that we're kind of trying to survive under, and that's nuclear war. That's a whole other story. Here, both the Obama administration and, increasingly, Trump are radically increasing that danger. This—the threat of the new developments is captured very effectively in the best, simple monitor of the state of the world, established at the beginning of the nuclear age by the <em>Bulletin of Atomic Scientists</em>. I'm sure you all know about this, but the <em>Bulletin of Atomic Scientists</em> regularly brings together a group of scientists, political analysts, other very serious people, to try to give some kind of estimate of what the situation of the world is. The question is: How close are we to termination of the species? And they have a clock, the Doomsday Clock. When it hits midnight, we're finished. End of the human species and much else. And the question every year is: How far is the minute hand from midnight?<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Well, at the beginning, in 1947, beginning of the nuclear age, it was placed at seven minutes to midnight. It's been moving up and back ever since. The closest it's come to midnight was 1953. 1953, the United States and Russia both exploded hydrogen bombs, which are extremely serious threat to survival. Intercontinental ballistic missiles were all being developed. This, in fact, was the first serious threat to the security of the United States. There's an interesting story behind that, but I'll put it aside, unless there's time to talk about it. But then, it came to two minutes to midnight. And it's been moving up and back since.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Two years ago—2014, I think it was—the analysts took into account for the first time something that had been ignored: the fact that the nuclear age—the beginning of the nuclear age coincided with the beginning of a new geological epoch, the so-called Anthropocene. There's been some debate about the epoch in which human activity is drastically affecting the general environment. There's been debate about its inception. But the World Geological Organization has recently determined that it's about the same time as the beginning of the nuclear age. So we're in these two eras in which the possibility of human survival is very much at stake, and, with us, everything else, too, of course, all living—most living things, which are already under very severe threat. Well, a couple of years ago—I think it was 2014—the <em>Bulletin</em> began to take that into account and moved the minute hand up to three minutes to midnight, where it remained last year.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">A couple of—about a week into Trump's term, the clock was moved again, to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight. That's the closest it's been since 1953. And that means extermination of the species is very much an—very much an open question. I don't want to say it's solely the impact of the Republican Party—obviously, that's false—but they certainly are in the lead in openly advocating and working for destruction of the human species. I agree that's a very outrageous statement. So I therefore simply suggest that you take a look at the facts and see if it has any merit or if it just should be bitterly condemned. That's up to you. My view, the facts are pretty clear.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> At this point, as President Trump nears his 100th day, North Korea and Iran have been a major focus. Are you concerned that with the president at the lowest popularity rating, I think, in any president's history at this point, that he will focus abroad, as he has in the last few weeks, dropping the MOAB, the "Mother of All Bombs," in Afghanistan, bombing the Syrian government, and yet focusing specifically on North Korea and Iran—in North Korea, McMaster, General McMaster, the national security adviser, saying tensions with North Korea are coming to a head. Do you think there is a possibility that the U.S. would attack North Korea?<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> I mean, this administration is extremely unpredictable. Trump probably has no idea what he's going to do five minutes from now, so you can't—literally—so you can't really make predictions with much confidence. But I doubt it very much. The reason is very simple: An attack on North Korea would unleash—no matter what attack it is, even a nuclear attack, would unleash massive artillery bombardment of Seoul, which is the biggest city in South Korea, right near the border, which would wipe it out, including plenty of American troops. That doesn't—I mean, I'm no technical expert, but as far as I can—as I read and can see, there's no defense against that. Furthermore, North Korea could retaliate against American bases in the region, where there's plenty of American soldiers and so on, also in Japan. They'd be devastated. North Korea would be finished. You know, so would much of the region. But if attacked, presumably, they would respond, very likely. In fact, the responses might be automatic. McMaster, at least, and Mattis understand this. How much influence they have, we don't know. So I think an attack is unlikely.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">But the real question is: Is there a way of dealing with the problem? There are a lot of proposals: sanctions; a big new missile defense system, which is a major threat to China, it'll increase tensions there; military threats of various kinds; sending an aircraft carrier, the <em>Vinson</em>, to North Korea, except by accident—it happened to be going in the opposite direction, but we'll forget that. But these are—those are the proposals, that kind of proposals, as to how to solve.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Actually, there's one proposal that's ignored. I mean, you see a mention of it now and then. It's a pretty simple proposal. Remember, the goal is to get North Korea to freeze its weapons systems, weapons and missile systems. So one proposal is to accept their offer to do that. Sounds simple. They've made a proposal. China and North Korea proposed to freeze the North Korean missile and nuclear weapons systems. And the U.S. instantly rejected it. And you can't blame that on Trump. Obama did the same thing a couple of years ago. Same offer was presented. I think it was 2015. The Obama administration instantly rejected it.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And the reason is that it calls for a <em>quid pro quo</em>. It says, in return, the United States should put an end to threatening military maneuvers on North Korea's borders, which happen to include, under Trump, sending of nuclear-capable B-52s flying right near the border. Now, maybe Americans don't remember very well, but North Koreans have a memory of not too long ago, when North Korea was absolutely flattened, literally, by American bombing. There was—there was literally no targets left. And I really urge people who haven't done it to read the official American military histories, the <em>Air Quarterly Review</em>, the military histories describing this. They describe it very vividly and accurately. They say, "There just weren't any targets left. So what could we do?" Well, we decided to attack the dams, the huge dams. That's a major war crime. People were hanged for it at Nuremberg. But put that aside. And then comes an ecstatic, gleeful description of the bombing of the dams and the huge flow of water, which was wiping out valleys and destroying the rice crop, on which Asians depend for survival—lots of racist comment, but all with exaltation and glee. You really have to read it to appreciate it. The North Koreans don't have to bother reading it. They lived it. So when nuclear-capable B-52s are flying on their border, along with other threatening military maneuvers, they're kind of upset about it. Strange people. And they continue to develop what they see as a potential deterrent that might protect the regime from—and the country, in fact—from destruction. This has nothing at all to do with what you think about the government. So maybe it's the worst government in human history. OK. But these are still the facts that exist.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">There are similar questions to raise about Iran. So, Iran is, you know, the—again, the adults in the room, like Mattis and so on, say it's the greatest threat to peace, you know, the greatest sponsor of terrorism, on and on. How is it a sponsor of terrorism? Well, could go through that. So, for example, in Yemen, it's claimed that they are providing some aid to rebel tribesmen, Houthi tribesmen, in Yemen. OK, maybe they are. What is the United States doing in Yemen? It's providing a huge flood of arms to its Saudi Arabian ally, who are destroying the country, who have created a huge humanitarian crisis, huge numbers of people killed, massive starvation. They're threatening now to bomb a port, which is the only source of aid for surviving people. But Iran is the major source of terrorism.<br></p><p><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> MIT professor emeritus Noam Chomsky in a public conversation we recorded in April at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When we come back, we'll talk about Syria, WikiLeaks and more.</p><p>[break]</p><p><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Patti Smith, singing at <em>Democracy Now!</em>'s 20th anniversary at the Riverside Church in New York. This is <em>Democracy Now!</em>, democracynow.org, <em>The War and Peace Report</em>. I'm Amy Goodman, as we return to my public conversation with Noam Chomsky, the acclaimed linguist and dissident, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We recorded this in April at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hundreds of people packed into the church.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> I last <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/4/full_interview_noam_chomsky_on_democracy" target="_blank">interviewed</a> you on April 4th, just a few weeks ago, on <em>Democracy Now!</em>. It was the 50th anniversary of Dr. King giving his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, why he opposed the war in Vietnam, where he called the U.S. "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world." And I wanted to turn from North Korea and Iran to Syria. It was the day of the gas attack in Syria, so we didn't get to talk about it very much. And I'm wondering your thoughts on what you think happened, and then the ensuing U.S. bombing that President Trump would later talk about, saying he was having chocolate cake with the Chinese president—very, very good chocolate cake—when they launched the Tomahawk missiles into Iraq, he said. And he was corrected by the interviewer—right?—who said it was actually Syria.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> Bunch of "ragheads"; it's all about the same. But, well, there are some things we know for sure. There was a serious chemical weapons attack. Nobody doubts that. It's plausible that it was the Syrian government, which does raise some questions. It's not so obvious why the Assad regime would have carried out a chemical warfare attack at a moment when it's pretty much winning the war, and the worst danger it faces is that a counterforce will enter to undermine its progress. So it does raise some questions. It also—even though maybe you can think up some reason why the Assad regime, which is a murderous, brutal regime, might have done it, there's even another question as to why the Russians would have allowed it. Now, remember, this is a—the air base is a joint Russian-Syrian base. Russia has plenty of clout in Syria. And for them, it's a total disaster. They have global concerns, not just local concerns in Syria. So there are some concerns.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And there are further concerns. There has been—the White House did put out a careful—you know, a justification, an intelligence report, to explain and account for, showing why they had absolute confidence that it was a Syrian government attack. This was analyzed closely by a very serious and credible analyst, Theodore Postol, professor at MIT, who has a long record of highly successful, credible analysis. He's a highly regarded strategic analyst and intelligence analyst. And he gave a pretty devastating <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Vs2rjE9TdwR2F3NFFVWDExMnc/view" target="_blank">critique</a> of the White House report. You might—you can pick it up online and take a look at it. So there certainly are some questions.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">That there's—that Syria is capable of a monstrous act like that, the Syrian government, that much is not in doubt. But one question that arises is: Before doing something, could you find out what happened? OK? I mean, let's have an inquiry, take a look and see what in fact actually happened. There are plenty of cases where things—where it looked as though things happened, but they didn't. And remember that reporting from Syria is extremely difficult. If reporters go into the rebel-held areas and don't do what they're told, you know, get your head cut off. Patrick Cockburn and others have written about this. You just can't seriously report from those areas. There are obvious questions when you're reporting from the government side. So the reporters are—there are very good reporters doing a serious, courageous job, but there's not much you can do. So we just don't know a lot. Well, those are the circumstances in which the 59 Tomahawk missiles were launched. That's pretty easy. It's easy to sit in Washington and push a button and say, "Go kill somebody." That's considered courage, you know, macho, showing how strong we are.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">What did they actually do? Well, apparently, the Tomahawk missiles were targeting a part of the airfield that doesn't seem to be used. And, in fact, the next day, planes were taking off. And, in fact, the village that was attacked by the chemical weapons has been even more heavily attacked by straight bombing from the Assad government after the 59 Tomahawk missiles. So whatever they were intended to do doesn't seem to have anything to do with Syria. I suspect that what they were intended to do was pretty much what you described, to shore up Trump's image as—I think it was Nikki Haley at the U.N., said, "There's a new sheriff in town." So now we've got Wyatt Earp, you know, pulling out his gun and getting rid of the bad guys. No more of this soft stuff. So, it was probably an attempt to shore up that image.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Pretty much like the bomb in Afghanistan. Nobody knows what it was for, what it had to do with. Probably destroyed a large part of Afghanistan. Shortly after that, there was a mass—an incredibly brutal and successful Taliban attack, which killed a couple hundred recruits, most of them unarmed. The young draftees didn't know what they were doing. It was so bad, the defense minister resigned. Doesn't seem to have any effect on—it was supposedly aimed at ISIS. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. They don't seem to be affected by it.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">So these look like—there doesn't seem to be any strategic analysis behind any of these actions, as far as anyone can tell. They seem like kind of about at the level of the twitters that keep coming out: something that kind of occurs to me, so why not do it? It's cheap. It may kill a lot of people, makes me look good and, you know, makes it seem as if I'm defending the country, and so on. It's hard to see it as anything but that. That these things help the people of Syria and Iraq is very hard to imagine.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> What do you think has to be done to solve the crisis, the humanitarian catastrophe, in Syria?<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> In Syria, it's a terrible catastrophe. And, you know, unfortunately, there isn't a lot that can be done about it. There are some things that can be done. I mean, the idea that you can send in the Marines and bomb and so on, that has a small problem. If you do, you probably set off a nuclear war, and not only is Syria destroyed, the rest of Syria, but the rest of the world, too. So there's a little difficulty in that scenario, whatever one thinks about the justification for it.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">So what can be done? Well, one thing that can be done, which is really easy, very easy, is to take care of the people fleeing from this disaster. I mean, there are huge numbers of people fleeing from the disaster. What do we do about them? Make sure they don't come here, you know, kind of like people fleeing from—you know, my relatives, in fact, fleeing, trying to flee from Eastern Europe under the—before when the Nazis were coming along. "We don't want 'em. Not here." You know. So the Syrians don't come—maybe a tiny trickle, but very few come here. Europe's not that much better—in fact, pretty horrible, too. So one thing you could do is just take care of the people who are fleeing the disaster.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Another thing you can do is provide humanitarian aid for those in the region. Now, there are countries who are absorbing refugees, remember, like take Lebanon. It's not a rich country like us. Poor country. About 40 percent of the population are refugees, many of them fleeing from the Israeli wars as far back as '48, many—huge number of Syrians. Jordan, another poor country, has absorbed a huge number of refugees. Turkey has a couple of million. Iran has accepted refugees. So there are very—there are poor countries that are accommodating refugees, but not the rich countries. The rich countries, it's not our business, certainly not us. It's even a more serious problem with regard—for us, moral problem, with regard to Central America, but let's keep to Syria. So another thing you could do is provide badly needed aid and assistance for those who have succeeded in fleeing the disaster, or who remain in parts of Syria where survival is possible, but are living under horrible conditions. Now, that's all cheap and easy, a tiny fraction of increasing the military budget to cause more destruction.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Noam, I wanted to, before we get to your book, your latest book, ask you about this latest development in the United States. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency gave his first major address, and he focused on WikiLeaks. And it looks like now the U.S. is preparing an arrest warrant for Julian Assange, who's been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for almost five years now. Pompeo calling WikiLeaks a "hostile non-state intelligence service," calling Julian Assange himself a "demon," and said he's not protected by the First Amendment. Your thoughts?<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> Well, I think it speaks for itself. WikiLeaks has released lots of information that governments don't like. It's overwhelmingly information that citizens should have. It's information about what their governments are doing. And perfectly natural that systems of power don't want to be exposed, so they'll do what they can to prevent exposure. I think it's a disgraceful act. In fact, I think it's disgraceful even to keep Julian Assange holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy. I did visit him there once, but you can guess yourself. It's, in many ways, worse than imprisonment. At least if you're in prison, you can see other prisoners, and you can get out and look at the sunshine now and then. He's in a small apartment, where he can't go out. You know, he can go to the balcony, but that's about it, a small—basically, a couple of rooms inside a small apartment. It's not a big embassy. The embassy is like a kind of an apartment in London, surrounded by police and so on. There's been no credible basis for any of this. And to go on to try to raise it to the level of criminal prosecutions, I think, is, again, one of these efforts to look tough at home, and the kind of effort that a government would carry out that is dedicated to trying to protect itself from exposure of facts that citizens should have, but systems of power don't want them to have. I think that's the crucial issue.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> The suggestions are it has to do with his aiding and abetting perhaps Chelsea Manning and also Edward Snowden, doing that with Edward Snowden, which he openly admits, while he's trapped in the Ecuadorean Embassy.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> If the charge is true, he should be honored for it. Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden carried out heroic, courageous acts. They fulfilled the responsibility of somebody who takes citizenship seriously—that is, who believes that the people of a country ought to know something about what their government is up to. OK? Like if their government is carrying out murderous, brutal attacks in Iraq, people should know about it. Takes us back to Martin Luther King's talk in 1967. If the government is, and corporations, too, incidentally, are listening in to your telephone conversations and what you're doing, you know, tapping this discussion and so on, we should know about it. Governments have no right to do things like that. And people should know about it. And if they think it's OK, fine, let them decide, not do it in secret. And I think people wouldn't agree to it. That's why it's kept secret. Why else keep it secret? You know? And these are people who exposed it at great risk to themselves. So those are heroic, courageous acts. If WikiLeaks was abetting them, more power to them. That's what they should be doing.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> I mean, President Trump endorsed WikiLeaks, right? He said, "I love WikiLeaks," during the campaign.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> Yeah, when it was releasing things that he liked, yeah. Any system of power will do that. "You release information that I like, it's great. But I don't want to be exposed."<br></p><p><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Professor Noam Chomsky in conversation in April at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When we come back, he'll talk about the media's coverage of the Trump administration, and his new book, <em>Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power</em>. We'll be back in a minute.</p><p>[break]</p><p><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff singing "Rican Beach," here in our studios at <em>Democracy Now!</em> This is <em>Democracy Now!</em>, democracynow.org, <em>The War and Peace Report</em>. I'm Amy Goodman, as we return to our public conversation with the acclaimed linguist and dissident Noam Chomsky. It was recorded in April at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Speaking of entities that President Trump doesn't like, he calls the press the enemy of the American people, the enemy of the people. Can you assess, as the media assesses President Trump in his first a hundred days, the media's behavior?<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> Well, I think the media has fallen over backwards to try to give him some protection and leeway. I mean, you know, there are things that are so ludicrous and outrageous that a reporter simply can't keep from saying something about them, like there's one ridiculous claim after another that comes out of the tweets—you know, 3 million illegal undocumented refugees voted for Clinton, Obama wiretapped the Trump Tower, you know, one after another.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">My sense is—this is just a guess—that this is a media strategy, that it's the Bannon-Trump-Spicer strategy to try to keep attention focused on one or another form of lunacy, but not look at what's actually happening. And what's actually happening is that Paul Ryan and his associates behind the scenes are systematically and carefully dismantling every element of government that is of any benefit to people and that doesn't maximize corporate power and profit. I mean, the dedication of the Republican leadership, especially the Ryan-type leadership, their dedication to slavish servility to corporate power and wealth is just phenomenal. I mean, read this morning's business pages. Their latest step is to try to prevent exposure of complaints against banks that carry out improper activities. It is possible now, thanks to the Consumer Protection Act, for people to criticize when they think a bank has carried out some improper activity. But we've got to keep that silent, you know, because we have to protect corporations from any exposure of criminal activities they might carry out. I mean down to that level, in fact, everywhere you look.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">I mean, the healthcare proposal was so shocking that, I mean, it was a proposal basically to cut taxes for the rich and to ensure that poor and middle-class people—the people who voted for Trump, in fact—don't get medical aid. As you saw, of course, the Congressional Budget Office estimated 24 million additional people uninsured. There was an analysis of that by Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, two health specialists, just studying the relationship between lack of insurance and deaths. There's plenty of evidence about that. And it turns out that would have meant about 45,000 additional deaths a year. Well, that's OK, as long as you cut taxes for the rich.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And step by step, that's what's happening behind the façade of Trumpisms and, you know, Spicer antics before the press. And the press is pretty much falling for it. That's what they focus on, not what's being carried out. There is, of course, criticism—mild criticism—of outrageous lies, but I think that just plays the game. That's what the lies are for. Then you can yell about the liberal press that is trying to undermine us. It's all a kind of a desperate effort to keep a con game going. Trump does have a base, a voter base. He's kicking them in the face with abandon. And the idea is: How do you hold onto them while you're doing this? Not an easy trick. And this, I think, is part of the con. And there are people in the press who are pointing it out—Paul Krugman, for one—but nothing like it should be.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Which takes us to your latest book, <em>Requiem for the American Dream</em>, where you talk about the 10 principles of the concentration of power and wealth, how it's happening, what to watch out for.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> Well, credit for the 10 principles should go to the producers of the film. What they did was take a lot of interviews and discussions about all sorts of things and put them in a coherent and, I think, pretty effective form, including formulating 10 principles—that's their contribution—and including material that discusses them. And you can look at the film and see, or the book, but my feeling is they did a really good job. I'm impressed by it.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> So the book is accompanying this film that is now out on Netflix. But you talk about, for example, principle one, reducing democracy; principle two, shaping ideology; and principle three, redesigning the economy.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> Well, all of those fall together, and they're part of a pretty remarkable development that's taking place in—actually, in human history. Humans, in the last 60 or 70 years, have succeeded in creating a kind of a perfect storm, literally. Two—there's a kind of a pincers movement that we've created, two major attacks on the prospects for survival: global—global warming, nuclear weapons, the Anthropocene, the nuclear age.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And the third is a set of socioeconomic policies designed to undermine the possibility of dealing with the problems. The problems could be dealt with only in a functioning democracy of engaged, informed people, who could make decisions, who would be informed and could make decisions to deal with the crises. But the so-called neoliberal programs of the past generation, the sort of somewhat market-oriented programs, designed to undermine the institutions, the governmental and popular institutions, that might deal with these issues, it's all a unit. One result is a very significant decline in democracy. You can see it in the—which is almost built into the policies. It's perfectly built—you can't carry out economic policies of the type that have been—that have been implemented in the past generation in a functioning democracy. That's impossible. I mean, just take a look at the numbers.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">So, the neoliberal programs were basically taking off right around 1980. It escalated—started a little with the late Carter, escalated under Reagan, went on more under Clinton and so on. 2007 was the peak of supposed success. This is right before the crash. A lot of euphoria among economists, political analysts about the great achievements of neoclassical economics, of the great moderation, you know, the neoliberal programs, a dismantling of regulations—all these great successes, 2007. What was happening to American working people at that time? In 2007, wages, real wages, were lower than they had been in 1979 when the experiment took off. In fact, for the majority of the population, it's a period of stagnation or decline. Benefits have declined.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">People had been—some of the reasons were explained by Alan Greenspan, head of the Federal Reserve, who was in charge pretty much of managing the economy. He testified to Congress that part of the success of the economy, the low inflation and so on, was due to what he called growing worker insecurity. Working people were insecure. They were intimidated. They knew that they were in a dangerous situation, precarious situation. As a result, they didn't press for increase in wages and—for decent wages and benefits. They were willing to accept, in fact, an effective decline in their living standards. And Greenspan, who was a close observer of the economy, pointed out that this continued, even when jobs were increasing in the late Clinton period. It was deeply embedded in the nature of the policies being carried out, that working people are intimidated, they're living precarious lives, many of them are part-time, they're losing security, their unions are being destroyed, and their wages are declining. So it's all great. The economy is wonderfully healthy. Can you carry out policies like that in a democracy? I mean, are people going to vote for it?<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Same in Europe, even worse in many ways. The so-called austerity programs, even the economists of the International—the IMF, International Monetary Fund, their own economists say—report that these policies make no economic sense. But the IMF bureaucrats, the ones who are part of the decision-making apparatus, they vote for them. How do you—and the effect on Europe is the same thing, as far as democracy is concerned. Just like in the United States, there's anger, contempt for major—for centrist—you know, for the major governing institutions. Here, it's Congress; there, it's the political parties. You just saw it in France yesterday: The two major parties were barely visible in the election. And it's happening all over Europe, same kind of thing that's happening here. I mean, here, it's happening in a way which is almost farcical because of the—you know, the kind of actions carried out by the leadership. In Europe, it's being—it's being pursued in a way which is really ominous. I mean, you don't have to look far back to find a time when fascist parties actually had power in Europe. And we know what happened. And now there are neofascist parties, with fascist roots often, which are pretty close to power, even in places like Austria and Germany, which have some memories about. France, as well, was—under the Nazis, was a very pro-Nazi country, the Vichy government. It was rounding up Jews faster than the Germans wanted them. A really ugly record. And seeing these things come back, or just seeing a situation in which, according to recent polls, a majority of Europeans think there should be no more Muslims in Europe, I mean, that evokes some memories, not nice ones.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And a lot of—you can't attribute it all to the neoliberal economic policies, but a lot of it does follow from that. When you impose on people circumstances of this kind, you have to make sure that they have no way of responding politically. In Europe, it's done pretty straightforwardly. The main decisions about socioeconomic policies are made by the so-called troika—IMF, European Central Bank and the European Commission, which is unelected. So three unelected bodies, they make the decisions. They do listen to voices, the voices of the northern banks, mostly German banks. And the people suffer. And they get—they are angry, frightened, often reacting in dangerous ways. We see similar phenomena here.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">So, to go back to the pincers movement, what's happened is we've created two huge threats to survival. We have systematically—not you and me, but the leadership has systematically created socioeconomic policies, which have as a consequence, almost immediate consequence, the undermining of functioning democracy—the one thing that might deal with the disasters. Like I said, it's a kind of perfect storm. Real credit to the human species to have contrived something like this.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Principle four is shift the burden onto the poor and the middle classes. Principle five, attack the solidarity of the people. Six, let special interests run the regulators. Seven, engineer election results. Eight, use fear and power of the state to keep the rabble in line.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> Is it necessary to comment? I think you're all familiar with it.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Nine is manufacture consent, and principle 10 is marginalize the population.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong><span></span>Noam Chomsky<span></span>:</strong> Well, in fact, that's exactly what's happening. And it's the—and there's a reason for it. You cannot carry out the kinds of policies that have been developed in the last generation, and have the population function democratically. In Europe, you can't get people to vote for policies which are undermining their lives; which are leaving especially younger people without any hopes of decent employment; which are driving people to precarious existences; which are undermining wages, reducing benefits; in England right now, undermining, threatening what had been the world's most—by far, the world's most effective and efficient national health system. You can't get people to vote for things like this.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">So what you have to do is marginalize them in one way or another, turn them against each other, aim—turn their anger against vulnerable people—that's standard technique—get people to—don't look at the people who are really doing this to you. Look at the ones who are more vulnerable: immigrants, the poor, you know, Muslims, blacks—anybody. We're familiar with that, too. There's not a slight history about it.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">So, sure, that just—it's like—it's like an almost logical consequence of the socioeconomic policies, which have been imposed and lauded, in fact, by elites, including liberal elites. A lot of this was done by—say, by the Clinton administration. It was hailed, the deregulation, for example, which very quickly led to one after another financial crisis. That was initiated by liberal economists, who were telling us how wonderful it is. And there's actually, you know, a theory, neoclassical economic theory, which says, "Yeah, it's fine."<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Actually, there were people who warned against it. There were people who knew, a lot of left independent economists, but even people right out of the mainstream, like Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate. Back around 1995 or so, he wrote an article, actually in a World Bank research journal, in which he warned against what he called the "religion that the market knows best." He says that's the religion, as he put it, that's being followed by economists. And he says you've got to take a look at that religion. Like a lot of religions, it just doesn't work. Economic history and even logic show us lots of things that are wrong about it.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">But that was pursued with abandon on the basis of theories of efficient markets, you know, rational behavior, rational expectations and so on—none of which had any empirical basis or founding. But they were the—the doctrines were accepted for the very simple reason that they were highly beneficial to wealth and power. That makes them acceptable.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">And you get the results that you have: the undermining of the only means possible to try to deal with the existential crises that we have created. So, again, it's a kind of perfect storm, part—all sorts of sources, including just socioeconomic policies of a bipartisan nature.<br></p><p><strong><span></span><strong>Amy Goodman</strong><span></span>:</strong> Noam Chomsky, speaking April 24th at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His latest book, <em>Requiem for the American Dream</em>.</p><p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/29/noam_chomsky_in_conversation_with_amy" target="_blank">Democracy Now!</a>.</em></p>
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