Mobilizing for the abolition nuclear weapons and atomic power

As we approach the 70^th commemoration of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki this August 6^th and 9^th, those nations that openly and clandestinely possess nuclear weapons have failed to take treaty obligations seriously bringing the entire planet closer to nuclear destruction by accident, insanity or a deliberate act of war.  We can no longer afford to leave the future of planet Earth in the hands of governments, military and dirty, dangerous and dangerous energy industrialists.

This is the central message of The Peace & Planet Mobilization for a Nuclear Free Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World which was convened in New York City on April 24 through April 26, 2015. The weekend conference event culminated Monday in a march of nearly 8,000 participants to the United Nations to deliver 8 million signatures to the United Nations calling for “No More Nukes.”

The international event, sponsored by Peace Action, The American Friends Service Committee and the Western States Legal Foundation, drew more than 300 groups from around the world under the single umbrella with a message to the United Nations’ Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference that we must end the Nuclear Age before it ends civilization.

Conference plenary speakers included Daniel Ellsberg, the publisher of the Pentagon Papers, Professor Zia Mann, Princeton University and Director of Project On Science and Global Security, and Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima bombing survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee for 2015.  

Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps was interviewed on the organization’s commitment to end “The Dangers of Nuclear Escalation.”

Beyond Nuclear has joined nearly 100 other organizations in endorsing "The Nuclear Danger Today: Existing Nuclear Arsenals are the Greatest Nuclear Threat," a group sign on statement drafted by Andrew Lichterman of the Western States Legal Foundation. On May 1, a session of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at UN headquarters in New York will be dedicated to civil society statements, including this one.

Update on May 1, 2015 by admin

Photos from April 28, 2015 War Resisters League and friends nonviolent direct action at the US Mission for UN NPT Review Conference

https://www.flickr.com/photos/felton-nyc/sets/72157649911718884/

"The Danger of Nuclear Escalation"

In an episode entitled "The Danger of Nuclear Escalation," Margaret Harrington, host of "Nuclear-Free Future Conversation" on CCTV in Burlington, Vermont, interviewed Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps about the related risks of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, on the eve of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. The NPT review is held once every five years at the United Nations in New York City, drawing thousands of anti-nuclear weapons and power activists from around the world to shadow conferences, including large numbers of Japanese citizens, including Hibakusha, survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in 1945. Margaret and Kevin discussed the fatal flaw at the heart of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the prospects for nuclear abolition.

UCS warns MOX program could take a century to complete, at a cost of over $100 billion!

In a press release, the Union of Concerned Scientists has brought to light a U.S. Department of Energy contractor's warning that the Mixed Oxide Plutonium-Uranium (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility, under construction at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in South Carolina, could cost taxpayers more than $100 billion, and may not be functional till Fiscal Year 2100, a century after the construction project began!

UCS also emphasizes that the DOE contractor report reaffirms that immobilization -- the mixing of the excess weapons-grade plutonium back into the high-level radioactive waste from which it came in the first place -- and disposal as radioactive waste, would be quicker and cheaper than the MOX option.

Nix MOX activists have called for immobilization as the more sensible option for two decades, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears in both Democratic and Republican administrations, as well as Congresses.

In addition to the astronomical costs, MOX undermines U.S. non-proliferation efforts. It sets a bad example for other countries to follow, of plutonium reprocessing that could easily lead to nuclear weapons proliferation.

"Fresh Call for Total Removal of Nuclear Waste in Bridgeton"

Kevin Killeen of KMOX/CBS St. Louis has interviewed Beyond Nuclear board member Kay Drey regarding the radioactive contamination of the West Lake Landfill:

Eighty-two-year-old Kay Drey says people – and politicians – are forgetting that this is a regional threat to our drinking water.

“…This is in the Missouri River floodplain,” she says. “And the Missouri River is what North St. Louis County drinks and then it flows into the Mississippi River, which is what the city of St. Louis drinks.”

She says there’s been so much noise about landfill odor and controlling the underground fire that people have lost site of the endgame – getting the federal government to dig up the nuclear waste and haul it away from St. Louis County.

Drey says the Missouri Congressional Delegation has become so cozy with Ameren campaign money that it’s afraid to speak out against nuclear waste.

Drey wants voters to demand Congress transfer jurisdiction of the landfill from the EPA to the Army Corps of Engineers so that it can be dug up, hauled off and cleaned up.

“We have to remove these wastes,” she says. “They are effecting the water we drink and the air we breathe, and they are going to effect St. Louis until they are removed and isolated and taken away.”

In March 2015, Beyond Nuclear board member Kay Drey and colleagues in St. Louis published a pamphlet entitled "Remove the radioactive wastes NOW! Protect Metro St. Louis' water and air from West Lake Landfill's radioactive contamination!" It includes a map, showing that the radioactive wastes at West Lake Landfill are upstream of the drinking water intakes for North County and the City of St. Louis, on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The pamphlet urges readers to "Please go to www.moenviron.org to sign a letter asking U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt and Congress members William Lacy Clay and Ann Wagner to work to transfer responsibility for West Lake’s radioactive wastes to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers."