Support the nuclear ban Resolution! Call your US House Rep.

On April 10, James McGovern (D-MA) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)  of the US House of Representatives introduced a Resolution in Congress embracing the goals of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The Resolution largely follows the policy prescription of the Back from the Brink Campaign, and is an encouraging development alongside the growing list of cities that have endorsed the campaign and joined the ICAN Cities Appeal. Clearly the Trump administration will not sign the TPNW, but, as was the intention all along, the Treaty is proving very useful in building a movement in the US for the fundamental change in policy that will lead to the elimination of nuclear weapons. Please call (202-224-3121) or email your Members of Congress and urge them to co-sponsor this Resolution. We are hoping that there will be a companion resolution in the Senate in the near future. More 

Two screenings of A Translator in DC

If you are in the DC area, there will be two screenings of Un Traductor (A Translator) along with post-screening discussions with the directors: Saturday, April 27 at the National Gallery of Art, 2:30pm, admission free; and Sunday, April 28, 12:30pm at E Street Cinema. Un Traductor is a Cuban film, in Spanish, with English subtitles.

Nothing brings home the tragedy of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster quite like the stories of the children it afflicted. The Cuban drama, Un Traductor (A Translator), a true story, carries this off with quiet, moving grace, through the eyes of a Russian-speaking Cuban academic. When he is abruptly ordered to cease teaching and report to the Havana hospital as an interpreter, he faces the realization that many of the young patients flown in from the Soviet Union for treatment, will die. http://www.filmfestdc.org/filmView.cfm?passID=72

"La Fuga Radiactiva (The Radioactive Leak)," a 30-minute Spanish language drama (with English subtitles) about a CISF disaster: D.C. area premiere at the NIRS office, Takoma Park, MD, Thurs., May 2, 2019, 6:30 pm

Free film showing: "La Fuga Radiactiva" ("The Radioactive Leak") -- a 30-minute, Spanish language (with English subtitles) drama, about a radioactive disaster at a centralized interim storage facility (CISF) for irradiated nuclear fuel (high-level radioactive waste).

D.C. area premiere at the NIRS (Nuclear Information and Resource Service) office, Suite 340, 6930 Carroll Avenue, Takoma Park, MD 20912

Thursday, May 2, 2019, 6:30 pm (just days after the 33rd annual commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, and during the same month as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has announced it will make major rulings re: CISFs targeted at the Southwest)

If you can come, please RSVP to: kevin@beynodnuclear.org.

To be followed by a discussion with NIRS Radioactive Waste Project Director, Diane D'Arrigo, as well as Beyond Nuclear Radioactive Waste Specialist, Kevin Kamps.

Free refreshments will be served.

For more info., contact Kevin Kamps, (240) 462-3216, kevin@beyonduclear.org

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100 years of fortitude: Iconic activist Frances Crowe reaches another milestone

As reported by the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

Crowe is featured in Robbie Leppzer's documentary film, "Power Struggle." (She, and Leppzer, are shown on the film poster, left.) Crowe and her affinity group, "Shut It Down!", were a part of the broad grassroots coalition that successfully shut down Vermont Yankee (VY) on 12/29/14 at 12:44pm Eastern time.

When asked at a major rally on the first day of VY's 20-year license extension, in March 2012, how many times she'd been arrested at the Fukushima Daiichi twin design reactor, she answered "Not enough!" As the questioner was an AP reporter, her words were read nationwide.

Leppzer's film "Seabrook 1977" also documents that Crowe was a founder of the Clamshell Alliance in the mid-1970s.

Crowe's memoir, entitled Finding My Radical Soul, was published days after the VY shutdown, in early January, 2015. In it, she writes that the atomic bombing by the U.S. of Japanese cities was a watershed moment in her life. She then went on to devote her next 74 years, and counting, to anti-nuclear, anti-war, pro-environment, social justice, etc., activism.

Happy 100th birthday, Frances Crowe!

Act now: No money for new nukes!

Please email your Senators or call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Senators' offices.

 

Urge them to redirect funds from futile new reactor research to clean, reliable and safer renewable energy.

Talking points:

• We need climate change solutions now, not decades from now.
• Invest money in new sustainable technology like wind and solar that are cheaper and faster to build.
• Don't pour more money into nuclear technology that can be used for weapons. Uranium mining is predatory to First Nations who are already suffering the legacy of previous mines.

 

Fourteen US Senators have reintroduced the bi-partisan Nuclear Energy Leadership Act (NELA) that would fund research and production of theoretical and untested fast reactors and other allegedly "new" designs, including fusion. The senators falsely repeated that nuclear power is "clean, safe and reliable" and bemoaned the fact that the US has "surrendered" its leadership in nuclear energy to Russia and China, suggesting an underlying agenda that may have little to do with electricity generation. Significantly, China has already surpassed the US in renewable energy development, a fact that did not seem to prompt the same level of "security" concerns from the NELA co-signers. A summary of the bill includes the revival of uranium mining in the US. Supporters say the bill is necessary because the private sector refuses to undertake new nuclear projects "due to the cost of, or risks associated with, the research". The bill would fund "a 10-year strategic plan of "R&D goals" and "breakthrough innovation", just to arrive at an "on-paper design," which would do nothing to address climate change in time. Nor does the bill address any of the challenges associated with new technology such as exorbitant first-of-a-kind construction costs that have already killed other reactor projects.