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In this episode, we hear more presentations from the Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction symposium held at the New York Academy of Medicine in New York City in February 2015. Some of the speeches include visuals which can be seen by watching the presentations in streaming format on the official conference hosting site. Since the conference, U.S. politicians and mainstream media have only amplified the reignited hatred of Russia, particularly president Vladimir Putin, and made nuclear war more likely. Read Demonization of Putin as Personally Behind Clinton Hack Is Old Propaganda Technique, Mikhail Gorbachev: Appears ‘The World Is Preparing for War’ and Thanks, Trump. Doomsday Clock Now Two and a Half Minutes to Midnight.

Steven Starr

First up is Steven Starr, Associate of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Senior Scientist at Physicians for Social Responsibility. Hear Dr. Caldicott’s 2010 interview with Starr. Visit Starr’s website NuclearDarkness.org to learn more about the consequences of nuclear war, nuclear winter and how nuclear weapons explosions would irreparably harm the global climate. In Starr’s presentation, Nuclear War: An Unrecognized Mass Extinction Event, he explains how nuclear war would be the crime to end all crimes, and would mean the end of all human life on earth. Among the issues addressed are the phenomenon of nuclear winter, why political leaders by and large do not discuss nuclear war, and the lack of awareness among todays youth (and most of the public) about the continuing and now increasing nuclear threat. Starr mentions a 2015 article he co-wrote with Lynn Eden and Theodore Postol, What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above midtown Manhattan?.

Starr notes that the worlds leading climatologists say that nuclear war threatens our survival as a species. Even a small nuclear exchange would render the earth uninhabitable. Political leaders refuse to meet with scientists who could explaint he consequences of detonating weapons. Read the 2017 article Senator Markey wants to curb Trump’s power to use nuclear weapons and the Peace Action citizen alert to block President Trumps ability to launch nuclear weapons. Starr elucidates the firepower of todays nuclear weapons, and the number of weapons ready to fire in the U.S. an Russian arsenals.

Bruce Gagnon

The second speaker in this session is Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons in Space. Listen to Dr. Caldicotts 2009 interview with Gagnon and her three 2011 interviews with Gagnon here, here and here. Gagnons symposium presentation was entitled The Ongoing Dangerous Militarization of Space and Nuclear War. He starts off encouraging people to read the Global Networks newsletter Space Alert

Gagnon covers the missile defense systems the U.S. is using to threaten Russia, the U.S. under President George W. Bush having pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty which had limited the development of missile defense, a key component of first-strike nuclear war planning. He also discusses the U.S. Space Commands use of computer war games as practice and how missile defense makes launch-on-warming a more problematic policy than ever. President Obama broke his campaign promise to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. Gagnon notes that the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal under Obama (who won a Nobel Peace Prize for simply talking about nuclear disarmament at the start of his first term), is causing major instabilities in U.S./Russian relations, in effect representing a whole new arms race. Read The Trillion Dollar Question the Media Have Neglected to Ask Presidential Candidates about Obamas trillion-dollar nuclear weapons upgrade. He discusses the U.S. militarys provocative goal of regime change in Moscow to benefit [...]

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Dr. Caldicott addressing the symposium

In this program, we hear the first series of speakers at The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction, a two-day symposium organized by If You Love This Planet host Dr. Helen Caldicott at The New York Academy of Medicine last year. With the continuing revival of Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia, the presentations are still timely. Read the June 2016 article by Noam Chomsky, The Doomsday Clock: Nuclear Weapons, Climate Change and the Prospects for Survival, the May 2016 article U.S., NATO Look to Combat an Aggressive Russia, the April 2016 article Inevitability: Nuclear War is Coming and the February 2016 story Russia-NATO relations have fallen to new Cold War level – Russian PM. Some of the presentations include visuals which can be seen by watching the presentations in streaming format on the official conference hosting site.

In her introductory remarks, Dr. Caldicott tells the audience how her concern about accidental nuclear war was raised by reading a 2014 article on advances in artificial intelligence in The Atlantic Monthly, But What Would the End of Humanity Mean for Me? Preeminent scientists are warning about serious threats to human life in the not-distant future, including climate change and superintelligent computers. Most people dont care. Also read Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind.

Dr. Caldicott mentions that conference presenter Janne Nolan of the Elliott School of International Affairs said that the conference was the most importance conference taking place in the U.S. today. Dr. Caldiicott also refers to corporate greed, particularly on the part of weapons makers, as part of the renewed anti-Russian stance of the U.S. government. Read Game On: East vs. West, again by Andrew Cockburn, Meet The Big Wallets Pushing Obama Towards A New Cold War, The US Is Pushing Toward WWlll, A Former Reagan Administration Member Speaks Out and Russia, NATO, and the Hubris of the US Political Establishment. Dr. Caldicott notes that Vladimir Putin has raised the nuclear weapons alert level. President Obama never fulfilled his 2008 campaign promise to de-alert nuclear weapons. Read the June 2016 article by Robert C. Koehler, Hair-Trigger Alert: On Bombs, Guns, and the Failure of America.

Ted Postol

Next, we hear the symposiums first presentation by

Theodore Postol, a professor of Science, Technology, and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Postol was a guest on If You Love This Planet in 2008. Postol covers the technical issues which greatly increase the risk of accidental nuclear war. He states that the danger of nuclear war is now higher than during most of the Cold War (1947 to 1991). Among other issues Postol covers are the fragile Russian early warning system and how little U.S. leaders have done to address what should be the most urgent international priority to safeguard the planet.

Max Tegmark

The next presentation is by Max Tegmark, physics professor at MIT and one of the writers with Stephen Hawking of the 2015 warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Tegmark, concerned about nuclear war since his teens, delivers a cosmic perspective on the need to take our heads out of the sands and remove the nuclear danger from all of our lives. He addresses the folly of increasingly allowing computers and robots to make decisions for us. Tegmark praises retired Soviet colonel Stanislav Petrov, who as a thinking human was able to save the planet from nuclear war in 1983.

Alan Robock

The last speaker in this segment of the conference is Alan Robock, professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University. Robock was featured as a guest on If You Love This Planet in 2008 and 2011. Robock focuses on the risks of nuclear winter and nuclear famine, not only from a U.S.-Russian exchange but also from a war between [...]

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Bob Herbert and Dr. Helen Caldicott on Nov. 8 (The New School)

Renowned journalist Bob Herbert interviews Dr. Helen Caldicott at The New School in New York, November 2012.

Dr. Caldicott discusses her latest book, Loving This Planet (The New Press, Oct. 2012) which features 25 interviews from If You Love This Planet, as well as the state of the earth and U.S. presidential election (held two days before this interview). Among the topics covered are the urgency of addressing global warming, permanent-war mentality in the Pentagon and how the American public no longer thinks of peace, the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, Hurricane Sandy, the 1980s nuclear weapons freeze movement spearheaded by Dr. Caldicott and Randall Forsberg, and the study Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy. Listen to

Dr. Caldicotts interview with study author Dr. Arjun Makhijani.

Dr. Caldicott explains how nuclear power contributes to climate change and mentions her book Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer . Herbert asks

Dr. Caldicott about her interview with filmmaker Michael Madsen and the problem of nuclear waste. They also discuss Fukushima and what it would mean for Japan if the damaged Building 4 collapses, and how one million people have died as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. Listen to Dr. Caldicotts interview with Dr. Janette Sherman-Nevinger. Dr. Caldicott mentions her forthcoming trip to Japan. Watch a short video of her November press conference in Tokyo. Herbert mentions Dr. Caldicott’s conversation with Maude Barlow about the problem of global water supplies. Herbert and Dr. Caldicott also touch on Americas weaponization of space to dominate space. Listen to

Dr. Caldicotts interview with Dr. Craig Eisendrath. Dr. Caldicott talks about how American culture and corporations have taken over the world and destroyed healthy cultures. Herbert points to the fantasy thinking and lack of political engagement among American citizens. Dr. Caldicott also mentions the problem of plastic waste polluting the oceans. Listen to her interview with Capt. Charles Moore. Relevant to this interview is the December 2012 article US War Machine Leaves Ugly Imprint in Afghanistan. Watch the complete conversation between Dr. Caldicott and Herbert here. Listen to Dr. Caldicotts 2012 interview with Bob Herbert here and her 2009 interview here.

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Helen Caldicott, M.D. (nuclear-free.com)

This week, we hear a repeat of Dr. Caldicotts March 31, 2011 lecture in Hanover, New Hampshire, three weeks after the Japan earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Fukushima nuclear power plant. She discusses the dangers of radioactive elements and the future of the planet. Note: Dr. Caldicott is convening a two-day international symposium on the medical and ecological effects of Fukushima on March 11 and 12, 2013 at the New York Academy of Medicine. The public is welcome. Details at nuclearfreeplanet.org. At the start of her lecture, Dr. Caldicott refers to the book Radioactive: Marie Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. She also mentions her appearance on Democracy Now, debating George Monbiot, after Fukushima. Later in the talk, she refers to her still-relevant book about the present nuclear danger, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bushs Military-Industrial Complex and her latest book, If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Save the Earth. For background on this episode, read Dr. Caldicotts recent articles on Fukushima, Unsafe at Any Dose and How nuclear apologists mislead the world over radiation. Watch her April 9 presentation at the recent Chernobyl conference in Berlin [note: about three minutes of the beginning of the speech are missing, and there is some occasional cross-talk from translaters at the beginning]. See her press conference in Montreal about how Fukushima will dwarf the Chernobyl catastrophe. Listen to her debate about the ramifications of Fukushima with George Monbiot and Laurence Williams. Read her interview with CNN: Nuclear radiation the greatest health hazard. For the very latest on Fukushima, read Fukushimas Apocalyptic Threat Demands Immediate Global Action and watch this May 17 TV interview with Professor Christopher Busby from the European Committee on Radiation Risks, Situation at Fukushima Out of Control. For more background on the hazards of nuclear power, read Dr. Caldicotts book Nuclear Power is Not the Answer and visit NuclearFreePlanet.org and BeyondNuclear.org. And also read the article 417,000 cancers forecast for Fukushima 200 km contamination zone by 2061 and Life in the Zone: What we’re still learning from Chernobyl (this article requires payment). And be sure to listen to Dr. Caldicotts interview with Janette Sherman, M.D. about the 2009 New York Academy of Sciences report which documents that nearly 1,000,000 people have died as a result of the Chernobyl meltdown

(Dr. Caldicott refers to the report in her speech, and it can be downloaded for free here).

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S. Banerjee (Jon Chase / Harvard News)

Subhankar Banerjee is an Indian-born American photographer, writer and activist. Over the past decade he has been a leading international voice on issues of arctic conservation, indigenous human rights and global warming, and over the past five years he has also been focusing on forest deaths from global warming. His photographs and writing have reached tens of millions of people around the world through exhibitions, publications and public lectures. His new book is called Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point. At the start of this interview, Dr. Caldicott refers to a September 2012 report of a massacre of members of the Yanomami Indian Tribe of the Amazon. A week after this program was recorded, the report was found to be false, yet the general situation of native peoples being displaced or killed when they stand in the way of resource extraction is an increasingly widespread scenario. Read the September 11 article, Campaign group retracts Yanomami massacre claims. Among the topics discussed in this conversation are Dr. Caldicotts trip down the Amazon river where she witnessed tribes uncorrupted by western civilization, Banerjees work with indigenous communities in the Arctic, how the mining industry and other corporations are harming native peoples globally and these crimes will increase to maintain an affluent western standard of living, the tremendous expansion of Earth-destroying mining for coal, uranium, and irone in Australia, and catastrophic forest fires and droughts induced by global warming. Read the September 2012 article Australian mega mine plan threatens global emissions target: Unprecedented increase in the scale of Australian mining would nullify an internationally agreed goal, Greenpeace warns. Dr. Caldicott mentions her book If You Love This Planet (revised and updated in 2009). Dr. Caldicott mentions Banerjees writings on the Arctic such as Ignoring Protest and Warnings, Obama Ushers in Era of Unprecedented Arctic Drilling, Shell Game in the Arctic and Resource Wars Connect Yanomami Massacre and Shell’s Arctic Drilling. Dr. Caldicott points to how oil drilling in the Arctic will cause even more global warming. Banerjee mentions his important 2010 article Why We Cant Have Another One Hundred Years of Fossil-Digging in North America which covers five projects that he says would completely destroy the earth. Relevant to this interview is the January 2013 article Smoking Gun: Tar Sands Report Eviscerates Industry Claims. Dr. Caldicott and Banerjee also discuss why Obama capitulates to polluting industries on nearly every environmental front, including his support for the Keystone XL pipeline. Related to this point is Obamas role as warmaker. Read Glenn Greenwalds article The War on Terror - by Design - Can Never End. Banerjee discusses the fall 2012 Smithsonian conference, The Anthropocene: Planet Earth in the Age of Humans about the unprecedented destruction our species is now causing on the planet. He also mentions Prof. Richard Muller of UC Berkeley. Read The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic. Also referenced is Michael Klares book The Race for Whats Left. Listen to Dr. Caldicotts interview of Klare. Dr. Caldicott remarks on her attendance at a 2012 conference in Freiburg, Germany where she heard about the potential global temperature increases that may occur this century, and the implications for human life. Banerjee discusses Obamas involvement in Arctic Ocean drilling. Read the July 2012 article Obama Is Fast-tracking an Environmental Disaster to Please Big Oil. Banerjee announces that he and global-warming expert James Hansen will give a presentation in February 2013 in Santa Fe. Later in the program, Dr. Caldicott and [...]

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Marion Pack

In this conversation recorded in June, Dr. Caldicott talks with California anti-nuclear activist, Marion Pack. Pack is one of many members of the Orange County community who highlight serious safety issues with the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, located a few miles south of San Clemente, California. If San Onofre were to melt down, it would contaminate Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, and make large regions of southern California uninhabitable forever. As background, read Shut down San Onofre: The continuing nuclear threat to southern California and Bad Vibrations: San Onofre steam generators cannot safely be repaired – new Fairewinds video and report. Topics addressed in the interview include nuclear waste, the 1980s Nuclear Freeze movement, the present public apathy toward nuclear war, and the many recent safety risks and radiation leaks at the San Onofre nuclear plant between San Diego and Los Angeles, where whistleblowers have been threatened. They examine a terrifying close call which brought the plant close to a major accident, and how San Onofre’s position on three major earthquake fault lines, right on the coast, makes it a sitting duck for a major meltdown like Fukushima. Later in the program, Dr. Caldicott stresses the urgent need for civil disobedience around nuclear issues and global warming, in the face of political inertia. She refers to Kumi Naidoo, head of Greenpeace. Read Civil Disobedience Needed to Win Action on Climate Change, New Greenpeace Chief Says. She also refers to Peter Finch’s famous scene in the film Network in discussing the level of outrage the public should exhibit toward threats to the planet. For a recent update on San Onofre, read the November 30 Friends of the Earth press release: San Onofre: Laguna Hills meeting no substitute for formal court hearings about the local utilitys plans to restart one of the crippled reactors. For more information, see sanonofresafety.org.

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Tom Engelhardt

This weeks guest is Tom Engelhardt, creator of the TomDispatch.com website, a project of the Nation Institute, a non-profit media center based in New York, where he is a fellow. Englehardt is the author of two collections of his TomDispatch columns: The United States of Fear and The American Way of War: How Bushs Wars Became Obamas, as well as The End of Victory Culture, a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War. Another of his recent books Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare 2001-2050, which he co-authored with Nick Turse. Note: This particular interview was recorded in summer 2012, before the November election. Topics discussed include the Department of Homeland Security, the continuing epidemic of gun violence in the U.S., Americas use of drones and sales of drone weaponry to an expanding number of nations, the constantly looming threat of U.S./Russian nuclear war, how politicians use fear and paranoia to control the public, Afghanistan and weapons in space. Check out Engelhardts December 2012 article Dreams for Obama: From Community Organizer to Robot President: The updated story of a president in a straitjacket of his own making. Also related to this interview are the articles Revealed: US and Britain Launched 1,200 Drone Strikes in Recent Wars, Decade of US War on Terror Yields More Terrorism: Inaugural study says that terror attacks worldwide have grown rapidly in the years since 9/11 and spiked during the US occupation of Iraq, and Pentagon, CIA Lines Blur as US Wars Step Further into Shadows: New Pentagon strategy reflects the Obama administration’s affinity for espionage and covert action.

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Holly Barker

This weeks guest is Holly Barker, author and teacher at the Anthropology Department at the University of Washington in Seattle. Barker worked for the Republic of the Marshall Islands Governments Embassy in Washington D.C. for 17 years, helping conduct research in the Marshall Islands about the effects of nuclear testing from a Marshallese perspective. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Marshall Islands from 1988-1990, and lived on a remote outer island with a Marshallese family for two years while teaching in a local elementary school. Barker is the author of Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World (which just came out in second edition), and co-authored with Dr. Barbara Rose Johnston an award-winning book called Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report. During the interview, Barker mentions the activism of Dr. Neal Palafox. Listen to Dr. Caldicotts 2011 interview with Dr. Palafox. Dr. Caldicott recommends listeners watch the documentary film Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1

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Brian D. Victoria

This weeks special guest is Brian Daizen Victoria, Professor of Japanese Studies and director of a program at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio titled: Japan and Its Buddhist Traditions. Apart from numerous journal articles, Victorias major writings include Zen at War; Zen War Stories; an autobiographical work in Japanese and a translation of The Zen Life by Sato Koji. In this discussion, Dr. Caldicott and Victoria look at the evolution of Buddhism in Japan including its role in Japans militarism in World War II, how individuals in societies can be gripped by tribalistic thinking or embrace a universalist point of view, death and dying, why men kill, and the moral choices we all face in a time when nuclear war still threatens everyone, and other profound questions. Victoria refers to the film Joyeux Noël [note: the website has a clickable English-language version].

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Jay Harman

This weeks guest is Jay Harman, entrepreneur and inventor. Harman has taken a hands-on approach to his lifelong fascination with natural fluid systems. In the process, he has grown companies that design innovative products, ranging from prize-winning watercraft called the WildThing and the Goggleboat, to a medical research company that developed a non-invasive technology for measuring blood glucose, to his latest company, PAX Scientific. Born and raised in Australia, Harmans love of nature began as a boy swimming in the ocean near his home. He began his career as a naturalist with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, but he quickly demonstrated talents as an inventor. While still with the Australian government, he designed, built, and licensed a set of crustacean measuring gauges as well as a range of hovercraft. Harman is at the leading edge of biomimicry, following natures models to design more efficient products and devices. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Sharks Paintbrush in which he explains his many developments in biomimickry. Harman appears in Prince Charless documentary Harmony: A New Way of Looking at the World