Nuclear Hotseat

• Jan Haaken is a professor of psychology and director of the documentary Atomic Bamboozle. The 46-minute film portrays a nuclear industry still rising quickly while downplaying nuclear power’s most crucial and recurring issues—those unresolved and unchanged by small modular nuclear reactors (SMNRs, referred to by the industry as SMRs). Haaken interviewed physicists, activists, conservationists, indigenous community members, focusing on the lies behind the push for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
  
  We spoke on January 15, 2024.

• Colorado Environmental Film Festival
• Atomic Bamboozle page for Colorado Environmental Film Festival - for in-person and streaming tickets
• https://ceff2024.eventive.org/welcome - Overall festival info

The Doomsday Clock was unveiled on Tuesday, January 23, still set at 90 seconds to midnight. But Bill Nye (the ‘Science Guy’) told the audience watching that we should go ahead and hate him and love nuclear power and fusion. Say what?

• Salty, crunchy, potato chip-like seaweed snacks, made from laver (aka nori) seaweed.  Mmmm mmmm good... or is it? What about possible radiation content when it's been harvested from Fukushima's waters? 

• The Doomsday Clock was unveiled on Tuesday, January 23, still set at 90 seconds to midnight. But Bill Nye (the ‘Science Guy’) told the audience watching that we should go ahead and hate him and love nuclear power and fusion. Say what?

Keepers of the Water will be presenting a four-part webinar on uranium mining issues in Northern Saskatchewan.  No registration is required and it will broadcast live from this Facebook Event Page, https://fb.me/e/6zNAhAEJG.  All webinars will begin at 6 pm Central time (SASK).

• #1 - January 30th, 2024, Indigenous Resistance to Uranium Mining.
• #2 - February 13th, 2024: Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) and Consent in Saskatchewan: What You Haven’t Been Told
• #3 - February 27, 2024: Health Impacts of Uranium Mining on Indigenous Bodies
• #4 March TBD, 2023: Decolonizing the Industrial Approach to Mining Our Traditional Lands

Ian Zabarte, Karen Pettit NDE & Areeya Priestess at Temple of Sekmet at the Las Vegas Martin Luther King, Jr. parade using a mock-up of a nuclear waste canister as a float.

• A response to Kallenborn: Why realism requires that nuclear weapons be abolished by Ward Hayes Wilson
• Nuclear deterrence is the existential threat, not the nuclear ban treaty by Ivana Nikolić Hughes, Xanthe Hall, Ira Helfand, Mays Smithwick |

• Health risks from nuclear contamination in St. Louis denounced at congressional hearing
• You've Probably Passed A Nuclear Weapon On The Highway And Didn't Even Know It
• John LaForge: Senior nonviolent resister celebrates nuclear ban treaty the hard way

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) new Executive Director,
Melissa Parke (L) interviewed by Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy

• Melissa Parke took over the helm of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) as Executive Director in September, 2023.  She is a former Australian Minister for International Development and former Member of Parliament for the Australian Labor Party for Fremantle from 2007 to 2016.  As an MP, she regularly voiced support for nuclear disarmament, including as a member of a cross-party parliamentary group dedicated to the cause. She has also been an ambassador for ICAN Australia and has served as a patron of the Tom Uren Memorial Fund, which supports ICAN's work.
  
  She began working on nuclear issues in the 1990s when she joined a campaign to oppose the establishment of a global nuclear waste dump in her home state of Western Australia. Her former constituency of Fremantle is a self-declared "nuclear-free zone" and active member of the Hiroshima-based Mayors for Peace network.
  
  Prior to entering the Australian Parliament, Ms Parke served as an international lawyer with the United Nations in Kosovo, Gaza, New York and Lebanon. More recently, she served as a member of the UN Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. 
  
  I spoke with Melissa Parke on Thursday, January 11, 2024. 

So many numnutz to choose from!  The Congressional "comprehensive" 160-page review of nuclear arms build-up that doesn't mention "waste" even once, or Atoms4Food ? 

• How You Can Get your city, town or local authority to join the ICAN Cities Appeal.  Even if you’ve never engaged with local politics before, it’s easier than you might think. Learn whether your city is yet involved Here - and if not, what you can do about it.   
• New York Times Minimizes Impacts of Three Mile Island by Karl Grossman
• Nuclear-free NYC: How New Yorkers are disarming the legacies of the Manhattan Project
• "Steadfast Noon" spells Doom by John LaForge
• The backstory on this week's Numnutz:  Why a nuclear weapons ban would threaten, not save, humanity
• "The Hate Song" from the original cast recording of "The Mad Show," illustrating in musical theatre terms the futility of trying to get rid of war with... well, more war.  Perfect for Zachary Kallenborn, who just wrote that extensive screed (see: above) on how abolishing nuclear weapons will make us more vulnerable to nuclear weapons.  (Say what...?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1NcjTvemBw

A round-up of short featured interviews by outstanding anti-nuclear campaigners.

• Dr. Ivana Hughes. She is President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Hughes comes to the Foundation from Columbia University where she is a senior lecturer in discipline in the Department of Chemistry, and where she served as the director of the K=1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies.

Dr. Ivana Hughes, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

• Dimity Hawkins from Australia. She is a co-founder and current Board member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Australia). She is also a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

• We're proud to announce a new feature focusing on US nuclear weapons policy, NATO and US nuclear positions in Europe, and the politics of nukes, with John LaForge.  He has been a Co-Director of the peace and nuclear watchdog group Nukewatch since 1992.  John is a veteran Plowshares activist, a journalist syndicated by PeaceVoice.org, and a regular contributor to Counterpunch.org.  With Arianne Peterson, he co-edited Nuclear Heartland: A guide to the 450 land-based missiles of the United States. 

John LaForge, Nukewatch

The Nukewatch Report with John LaForge will appear once a month on Nuclear Hotseat. 

The nukesters head-hunt Linda Pentz Gunter!  Look at the perks!  The money!  The promises!  How could she resist?  (Did no one at IAEA actually read her bio...?) 

When one thinks of Fukushima, "sushi" is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind. 

• How passport privilege undermines the nuclear ban treaty
• Oppose uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.  Please take a minute to sign on to a letter to the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice.  Let them know you're concerned about a uranium mine operating so near the Grand Canyon and within the new national monument.
• HELP WANTED!  National Radioactive Waste Coalition is looking to hire a coordinator.  24 hours a week, $25/hour.  Chicago-based, remote possible, travel involved.  Full info HERE

Dr. Chris Busby, DU weapons expert

• Dr. Chris Busby is a British scientist primarily studying the health effects of internal ionizing radiation. He is a director of Green Audit Limited, a private company, and scientific advisor to the Low Level Radiation Campaign. He is well known for his testimony in support of UK nuclear workers who suffered from radiation exposure and were seeking compensation from the government.
  
• Damacio Lopez is both a scholar and activist on DU who was born and still lives in Soccoro New Mexico, less than 30 miles from where DU weapons were developed and tested. Damacio has spoken in more than 30 countries, at more than 100 colleges and universities, and at the UN, and he helped draft bans on DU weapons for Belgium and Costa Rica which still stand. 
  This is an excerpt from our interview from Nuclear Hotseat #625, June 13, 2023. 

Leave the World Behind sends a metaphorical warning about the perils of ignoring existential threats — a good admonition about the folly of our continued use of nuclear power, says Linda Pentz Gunter.

Now the nukesters are claiming that they have a portable nuclear reactor all set to go in 2029, aiming for Saskatchewan as their ground zero.  But nukesters always claim great advances that are just a forgettable period of time into the future, by which point we'll have forgotten their broken promises. 

• The California-based Samuel Lawrence Foundation has generously donated a new award to the International Uranium Film Festival. This award, named the "Samuel Lawrence Foundation Award for the Best Young Filmmaker," will be presented to the most outstanding film of the year directed by promising new talents, accompanied by a $1,000 cash prize. 
  For more information, contact the Festival directly:  Márcia Gomes de Oliveira, Co-Founder & Executive Director, International Uranium Film Festival.
• US Promotion of Banned Fukushima Seafood Contradicts Biden’s Cancer Initiatives, by Kimberly Roberson
• COP28 and the nuclear energy numbers racket from the Union of Concerned Scientists

Klee Benally

It is with great sadness that we mark that passage of Klee Benally, a Navajo activist and musician who advocated on behalf of Indigenous people and environmental causes.  Benally advocated for the cleanup of abandoned mines, where uranium ore was extracted from the Navajo Nation over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities during the Cold War.  He protested police violence and racial profiling and was among activists who gathered outside metro Phoenix’s NFL stadium in 2014 to denounce the offensive team name previously used by the franchise from Washington, D.C.  An accomplished musician, he released acoustic album, “The Unsustainable Sessions’ in November 2019. The musician/activist released acoustic album, The Unsustainable Sessions in November 2019.  The musician/activist died Dec. 30 at a Phoenix hospital.  He was only 48 years old. 

The ultimate in nuclear numnutzery - the atomic/nuclear/hydrogen bomb - brought to you by the winner(s) of the annual Nuclear Hotseat Numnutz of the Year for 2023!

As regular listeners to the show will know, Nuclear Hotseat’s Numnutz of the Week is a regular feature that highlights the absurdity, stupidity, short-sightedness, and greed of the nuclear industry. Not necessarily the blatant headine insanity of the big stories, but smaller bits that assail our senses and are so crazy they're... well, numnutz.  This compilation from the past year's NOTW features culminates in awarding the highly coveted Numnutz of the Year, 2023 - followed by a eulogy/elegy written and sung by Tom Lehrer which explains concisely - and in perfect rhyme - exactly what we're facing.  A way to wish you a peaceful, healthy, happy, nuke-free 2024 and beyond!

https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=dzEg4qr2XMdBm8uP

Tom Lehrer, "We Will All Go Together When We Go"

LINK to Nuclear Hotseat #611 - Voices from Japan 2023 - which features producer Beverly Findlay-Kaneko's on-the-ground report on Denshoukan, the Great Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Museum, Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture.  Central headquarters for pro-nuclear propaganda aimed at children and teens.  Learn in-depth how kids are being manipulated into accepting nuclear energy. 

Tomarinkan Nuclear Energy PR Center, Tomari, Hokkaido: Beverly Findlay-Kaneko with the Tomarinkan Mascot cartoon character. (Nicknamed Mr. Nuclear Condom).
Photo – Yuji Kaneko, used by permission of the photographer.

Let's end the year with inspiration from the late Sr. Megan Rice and a way to effectively fight back against nukes with Susi Snyder of ICAN. 

• Sr. Megan Rice was a Roman Catholic nun who was arrested more than 40 times for protesting America’s military industrial complex and nuclear weapons-. She’s best known for breaking into Y-12, one of the world’s largest and most highly guarded uranium storage sites -  the "Fort Knox" of the US  uranium stockpile.
  
  But on July 28, 2012, this diminutive octogenarian nun and two other senior antinuclear activists used simple bolt cutters and their beliefs to walk into Y-12 – and not be noticed for more than 30 minutes! Our extremely embarrassed government threw the book at these three activists, charging them with “sabotage” – a felony with a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. She and the others served just over two years before being released.
  
  Sr. Megan passed away on Oct 17, 2021 at the age of 91, and there is no better commemoration of her life and work than her own words, recorded for Nuclear Hotseat on May 25, 2012, just after her release from prison.

Susi Snyder, posing with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons  (ICAN) Nobel Peace Prize for 2017.

• Susi Snyder is Programmer Coordinator at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. For more than a decade, Susi headed the Don’t Bank on the Bomb project, which was her position when we spoke for this interview on May 10, 2019. Her information is as relevant now as it was then. The report on nuclear bomb producing companies that she references is updated every year. The 2024 report,  “Risky Returns: Nuclear weapon producer and their financiers” is a joint publication of ICAN and PAX.