Nuclear Hotseat

Massive icebergs from Jakobshavn Glacier melting in Disko Bay on sunny summer evening, Ilulissat, Greenland.

The next United Nations Climate Change conference, COP 29, is scheduled to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan from 11 to 22 November, 2024 - an annual bone tossed to those who are striving to reverse the climate catastrophe despite not having any power to do so. Incessant pro-nuclear doubletalk has infested what is supposed to be a rallying event for genuine renewables and conservation, drowning out the voices of informed activists.

To prepare our minds for what's coming in November (besides that other thing in the U.S. on November 5), we’re revisiting an interview from 2022, after COP 27, on the consequences of nuclear radiation on the Arctic ice. Our interviewee is a regular resource for Nuclear Hotseat who always comes up with clear explanations of complex issues.

• Tim Deere-Jones is a marine biologist – a radiation researcher and consultant – who specializes in analysis of the radiation threats to our planet’s waters from a wide range of nuclear sources. Here he provides a SPECIAL report produced exclusively for Nuclear Hotseat on the Nuclear Arctic radiation dangers. 
  
  We spoke on Monday, January 24, 2022.
  
• PDF DOWNLOAD of the text of this presentation – CLICK HERE
• CONTACT for Tim Deere-Jones:  [email protected]

Starving kids is fine as long as we keep overfeeding the nuclear hogs.

Ukranian president Vladomir Zelinsky posted this photo of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility's cooling tower fire.  The resulting damage is so bad, the tower will need to be torn down. 

• file:///Users/libbehalevy/Downloads/978-3-031-59595-0.pdf    Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change by Doug Brugge • Aaron Datesman

Prof. Robert "Bo" Jacobs and his brilliant book NUCLEAR BODIES: The Global Hibakusha

This is a. SPECIAL full-length interview with Prof. Robert "Bo" Jacobs on his book, NUCLEAR BODIES: The Global Hibakusha.

• HIBAKUSHA is the term for those who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in recent years, it has come to be applied more widely to all who have been exposed to radiation from nuclear bomb testing and other sources of contamination from manufacturing, uranium mining, nuclear reactors, and radioactive waste. As today’s guest will explain, that means just about all of us.
  
  Prof. Robert “Bo” Jacobs is an American historian of nuclear technologies and radiation techno-politics. He moved to Japan in 2006 after being hired by the Hiroshima Peace Institute. and is currently a professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Graduate School of Peace Studies of Hiroshima City University. He’s the author of the 2022 book, NUCLEAR BODIES: The Global Hibakusha, and that’s what we’ll be talking about.
  
  I spoke with Bo Jacobs on Friday, July 21, 2023.

Jack Cohen-Joppa of The Nuclear Resister (l) on Zoom with Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy. Note his tee shirt in light of the demonstrations he talks about at Rocky Flats.

• Depleted Uranium weapons - nuclear radiation weapons without the blast.  Who's got them and are they being used by Ukraine?  Russia?  Israel?  Jack Cohen-Joppa parses the known and verifiable information.  Since 1980, Jack Cohen-Joppa and Felice Cohen-Joppa have been co-coordinators of the Nuclear Resister and co-editors of the newsletter. The Nuclear Resister networks the anti-nuclear and anti-war resistance movements while acting as a clearinghouse for information about contemporary nonviolent resistance to war and the nuclear threat. Their emphasis is on support for the women and men jailed for these actions.  For 44 years, they have covered reports on nuclear and anti-war arrests while encouraging support for more than 1,000 imprisoned activists.
  
  Their stated belief is that in any significant movement for social change, many committed individuals are imprisoned. Behind bars, they are physically isolated from their supporters and their own resistance activity is limited. Broader awareness of their actions and support for the imprisoned activist are essential to the movement for a peaceful, nuclear-free future. We’ll have more on that and how you can help. after the interview. 
  I spoke with Jack Cohen-Joppa on August 30, 2024.

• Prison Addresses for the Two Susans, convicted for their nonviolent protest actions at Büchel air base in Germany, where U.S. nuclear weapons are stored.  Susan Crane and Susan van der Hijden are now serving their time at an open (lower security) prison in Koblenz. You can write to them individually at the followin addresses:
  
  • Susan Crane, JVA Koblenz – Offener Vollzug, Simmerner Str. 14a, 56075 Koblenz, Germany.  Sentenced to 229 days in June 4, 2024)
  • Susan van der Hijden, JVA Koblenz – Offener Vollzug, Simmerner Str. 14a, 56075 Koblenz, Germany.  Sentenced to 115 days in June 4, 2024)
  • You can read their prison reflections here and here, from Nukewatch
• This is the Ukraine update on the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) website: https://www.icbuw.eu/icbuw-update-on-du-in-ukraine/
• This is the ICBUW weapons and platforms list:
• The Israel and Gaza update as regards DU Weapons.

Russia's war in Ukraine has put another nuclear power plant in danger: their own.

Monthly update on issues and actions regarding the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear War from ICAN - the Nobel Peace-Prize winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Here, we learn the latest on the actions taken to pass the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) with ICAN's Head of Media, Alistair Burnett, reporting from ICAN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Poster for film FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO

• Award-winning filmmaker Lois Lipman talks about how she first learned about the plight of Downwinders, those who lived downwind of the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb.  Her resulting film, FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO, tracks not just Trinity's history of radiation impact, but the timelines of Downwinder illness through five generations.  She also covers recent efforts to pass the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) in Congress, to provide some financial compensation to those harmed by America's nuclear weapons program.  FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO website

Downwinder Tina Cordova demonstrating outside entrance to Trinity site.
From the film FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO.

• Article: Documentary about Trinity Test victims fights for wider audience
• Article: A Nuclear Legacy in Los Alamos?  About recently found plutonium contamination in Acid Canyon, a popular hiking trail adjacent to Los Alamos. 
• Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium

The Democrats went wild for Harris and Walz... but nobody was talking about nukes!  Note the use ot screws to denote how we're all being screwed by nuclear.

The only reference to nuclear weapons found during. the entire Democratic National Convention - an art piece entitled “Elections matter.”  The mushroom cloud artwork produced by TaskForce uses thousands of screws to represent the world’s nuclear arsenals, and flagging tape used on construction sites. Photo by Thomas Gaulkin

The second Atomic Age Cinema Fest - a co-presentation of Kat Kramer Films that Change the World and the International Uranium Film Festival, will take over the Crescent Theatre in Los Angeles for two days of films, plus a panel discussion jam packed with Hollywood celebrities.  More info on further episodes

To get a glimpse of what an experience that will be, LISTEN to Nuclear Hotseat #223, which provides an audio mosaic of the first Atomic Age Film Festival, held in Hollywood in 2016.

https://youtu.be/sNlwV5ybL_c?si=F28ysVE0lDsZS6XG

Webinar on Japan's release of radioactive tritium-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.

• Nuclear Free Team of the Sierra Club offers a free screening of ATOMIC BAMBOOZLE during the entire month of September.  https://watch.eventive.org/scnuclearfree/play/65df9b811095cc004ea923de" class="text-nh underline hover:text-nh-dark" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">REGISTER HERE - : https://watch.eventive.org/scnuclearfree/play/65df9b811095cc004ea923de
  Supporting informational webinar on September 30, 5-7 pm Pacific Time.  Panelists will be filmmaker Jan Haaken, Associate Producer Cathy Sampson-Kruse, M.V. Ramana, Mark Z. Jacobson, and David Schlissel. The panel will be moderated by Nuclear Free Team Co-Chair Mike Carberry.  REGISTER HERE  https://sierraclub.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2CNxDUwVSGWZvzFEpIpwEw.
• PIKETON/PORTSMOUTH INTERVIEWS - Saturday September 14th at the Career Technology Center in Piketon Ohio 1:00-4:00 PM.  These interviews will be for a documentary with Duane Pohlman Local 12. This is for the people who have or had Cancer or other related illnesses living or working at Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant.  To join the private Facebook group DON'T DUMP ON US, contact Gina Doyle on Facebook and ask to join the group.  She'll give you the link to send a Friend request.  It's for the protection of the private information shared on the FB site.
• Digital Activism: Do’s and Don’ts to Keep Yourself Safe Online

Tons of radioactive waste from nuclear reactor operation keeps piling up, with no resolution in sight.  What to do with the waste? Canada has been making plans… but they’re bad ones. Here to explain how we got ourselves into this problem, what’s wrong with Canada’s current plans, and suggest some temporary steps that can be taken are two experts:

• Dr. Gordon Edwards is head of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility,
• Elysia Petrone, who is of mixed descent (Italian, German and Anishinaabe), is a board member for Mining Watch Canada and a member of Niniibawtamin Anishinaabe Aki (We stand for our land), an indigenous-led group dedicated to stopping the disposal of nuclear waste in Anishinaabe territory.
• Niniibawtamin Anishinaabe Aki - our concerns with nuclear waste.pdf

Zahn's Corner Middle School, shuttered in 2019 as too contaminated with radioactive material from the demolition of the nearby Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, sold to a Christian school and rehab center.  Note the sign on the fence warning of radioactive contamination.

Radioactive particles from the Portsmouth 
Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, migrated into the nearby Zahn’s Corner Middle School and  contaminated it with radioactive materials including plutonium and americium.  The problem forced the school to be shut down in 2019.  But after five years, the local school board decided to unload this liability and offer it up for auction. The one known potential buyer - a Christian school - was contacted by activists, attorney Terry Lodge and Prof. Michael Ketterer, who had discovered the contamination. They explained all the biological and legal reasons why the school should not be used. Within 24 hours, this group decided against bidding.

However, there was another Christian group in play, with what promises to be a very dirty backstory.  I spoke with Vina Colley of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS) on August 17, 2024, the day of the auction, about what had just taken place.

No matter what happens in Chicago, Democrats will continue supporting nuclear power.

Democratic National Convention - an explosion of confetti, non-nuclear.

Dawn Chapman of Just Moms StL (l) and Nuclear Hotseat host Libbe HaLevy at
symposium on West Lake Landfill issues in North St. Louis, February 19, 2016.

Keystone Photo - activists Dawn Chapman and Kay Drey on-site at radioactively contaminated Coldwater Creek in N. St. Louis, MO.  February 19, 2016.

• Reuters news agency published a scathing report on August 8 blasting companies and government agencies responsible for some of America's most toxic waste sites -- and how they are using a federal health agency’s faulty reports to save money on cleanups, defend against lawsuits and deny victims compensation.  Focus was on the West Lake Landfill in North St. Louis and ongoing contamination from the WWII legacy radioactive waste that has caused rates of cancer, MS and auto-immune disease to skyrocket in the adjacent neighborhood. 
  
  Specifically, it honed in on how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) presented reports riddled with distorted, obsolete data to “prove” - put that word in quotes - that there was nothing to worry about from the smouldering, radioactive Bridgeton waste dump in North St. Louis, Missouri.
  
  We talk with Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms StL, who has been fighting this landfill and pushing for clean-up and restitution for more than a decade.  We spoke on Sunday, August 11, 2024. 

Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy interviewing Dr. Helen Caldicott on-site at the West Lake Landfill in North St. Louis.  February 19, 2016. 

• Just Moms StL on Facebook
• Just Moms StL website
• Reuters story:  How a US health agency became a shield for polluters

It's hard to compete with childless cat ladies and Olympic gold but there's still plenty of race to run to stop nuclear folly.

Seafood too contaminated with radionuclides from Fukushima to sell in Japan?  Easy!  Ship it to the U.S. for beaucoup bucks!  Scallops with a side of cesium - mmmmmm!