Nuclear Hotseat

LOL! - IAEA working hard to make their monitoring of the radioactive Tritium-contaminated water being released from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean is actually accurate.  (Screen shot from IAEA self-promotion video) 

• Tim Deere-Jones is a UK-based marine biologist, researcher and consultant.  He specializes in analysis of the radiation threats to our planet’s waters from a wide range of nuclear sources.  Here, he takes on TEPCO, Japan, and most specifically the International Atomic Energy Agency on what they are failing to do or just plain doing wrong in their "safety" tests of the radioactive Tritium-contaminated water being released from the triple meltdown Fukushima nuclear disaster site.
• IAEA self-congratulatory PR/Propaganda video re: their testing of the water release for "safety." 

https://youtu.be/tCQLrtoR8v8?si=ncl8_BnA6TJ06V8p

IAEA propaganda/PR video casting them as heroes in the testing of radioactive tritium-contaminated water
from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean. 
To find out what's wrong with this picture and that claim, listen to the interview with marine biologist Tim Deere-Jones.

• Dr. Tanya Maus is director of the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio, which holds the largest archive of materials in the United States relating to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and hibakusha issues, and is second only to the Hiroshima Peace Institute in Japan in its size and scope.
  
  Tanya holds a PhD in modern Japanese history from the University of Chicago. Over the past decade, she has taught numerous history courses on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as Japanese imperialism in East Asia. She has served as the director of the PRC since January 2015, where she tends to the care and preservation of its Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives, making its diverse contents widely accessible to researchers, humanities scholars, journalists, artists, undergraduate/high school students and the public. Through the Peace Resource Center and its archives, Dr. Maus seeks to expand the local, regional, national and international awareness of the experience and danger of nuclear war.
  
  We spoke on October 27, 2023.

The Peace Resource Center’s non-violence, social justice, and global  peace programming, as well as a priceless archive and collection of  historical documents, makes it a unique “Hands On” space that promotes  and affirms peace as a core value of the Wilmington College mission.

What - Another type of U.S. nuclear bomb?  Bigger?  24 times more powerful than Hiroshima or Nagasaki?  WHY?????????  Which leads us to...

NUKEMAP is a web-based nuclear weapons effects simulator, created in 2012 by Alex Wellerstein. Since then it has had many updates to its effects model and capabilities.  It has been used by over 20 million people globally and has been featured in both academic and general-audience publications and television shows for depicting nuclear weapons effects.

“The scariest site on the Internet isn’t lurking on the dark web, but hiding in plain sight at nuclearsecrecy.com,” says The Washington Post.

To see what the proposed B-61-13 nuclear gravity bomb would do to Manhattan and surrounding area, Nukemap - CLICK on the LINKS or the map below to see what a bomb akin to the proposed B-61-13 nuclear gravity bomb would do to Manhattan and surrounding areas. 

THEN, IF YOU WANT TO CHECK OUT WHAT A NUCLEAR BOMB WOULD DO TO YOUR AREA, SCROLL DOWN FOR INSTRUCTIONS:

To use NUKEMAP to see what one of these nuclear bombs would do in your neighborhood - or anyplace on earth:

• Change item #1 in the set-up (on the right) to your region, city, or neighborhood .
• For item #2, choose the bomb closest to the proposed new B-61 -13, the B-61-Mod 7. 
• Make sure you check the boxes for Casualties and Radioactive Fallout. 
• Then hit the red DETONATE button and let the games begin!  Lots of fun for all ages!  (...presuming you get to ANY age with these monsters available to destroy the Earth and every living thing on it.)
• Then share this link with your senators and congresspeople.  Maybe one of their aides will be open enough to consider it.

Nukemap  Credit:  OPENSTREETMAP/MAPBOX/NUKEMAP/ALEX WELLERSTEIN

• Union of Concerned Scientists RECA talking points for use in calls to House Chair Mike Johnson
• https://www.independent.com/2023/10/28/the-dangers-of-not-testing-diablos-reactor-unit-1/ ]" class="text-nh underline hover:text-nh-dark" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Dangers of Not Testing Diablo’s Reactor Unit 1
• The climate blind spot in nuclear weapons policy - The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
• Hedge Funds Pile Into Uranium Stocks Set for ‘Dramatic’ Rise

Halloween is supposed to be a scary holiday, and I can think of nothing scarier than nuclear. So I talked with some people who know a thing or two about nuclear to find out what about it scares them most. Vrtually everyone I recorded could have spoken for an hour at minimum.  But I wanted to get as many people as possible on the show, which required limiting the length to around one minute, direct address with no interview to steer the comments.

These statements came in little snippets/snapshots running from 8 seconds to 90 seconds; you’ll hear more than 30 voices, from front line anti-nuclear movement leaders to audience members at the showing of a really scary documentary about the San Onofre nuclear power plant.  All were recorded between September and October, 2023.

Among the activists you'll hear from:

• Karl Grossman - Long Island, NY
• Harvey Wasserman - Los Angeles
• Manna Jo Green - New York
• Leona Morgan - New Mexico
• Dave Kraft - Chicago
• Kevin Hester - New Zealand
• Anna Rondon - Navajo Nation
• Tim Deere-Jones - UK

...and many more! 

Spooky Stories from Hanford - thanks to Hanford Challenge and Columbia Riverkeep

Whether it originated with Aristotle, the Jesuits, or Lenin, all of them said:  "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man."  Or woman.   The nukesters know how to put on a show - and provide materials for school involvement -  to recruit the imagination of children around the world with their annual "International Nuclear Science Week."  It's a real Pinnochio's Pleasure Island of trips and traps for impressionable young minds, without a single word about the forever deadly radioactive waste.  And we wonder how they embed their propaganda so deeply into the world consciousness?   They start young.  Pure evil. 

• If You Love Nuclear Energy, Then You Love Nuclear Weapons by Harvey Wasserman
• Filmmaker Greg Mitchell's award-winning film, ATOMIC COVER-UP, is now airing  for free  at the PBS main site and all PBS apps, and it will start appearing over PBS stations this weekend.  The film features the first on-the-ground footage of the devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the United States dropped the atomic bombs in 1945.  Narration is from the newsreel photographers who were there.  Devastatingly powerful film - perfect to show on a double bill with the "what - did we do something bad on the ground?!?" Oppenheimer film to fill in the blanks from that Hollywood bio-opus. 
• The International Uranium Film Festival will return to the United States March-April, 2024 with stops scheduled in 10 states, 12 venues.  Highlight will be DU in DC, films on depleted uranium weapons being shown in Washington.  More information and details on the itinerary will be posted here as it becomes available. 

International Uranium Film Festival  in Window Rock, NM, 2018
It's returning to Navajo Nation in 2024 as part of a 2-month  tour of North America.  

• Leona Morgan is Diné and an indigenous community organizer and activist who has been fighting nuclear colonialism since 2007.  She helped to successfully prevent a new uranium mining and processing project in Churchrock and Crownpoint, New Mexico.  Leona co-founded and did much work under Diné No Nukes, which helped to establish the Haul No! Initiative and Radiation Monitoring Project.  Here she talks about the work of the group Haul No!
  
  I spoke with Leona Morgan on October 20, 2023.

Why do people continue to think that being a tourist on a radioactive nuclear explosion site is a good idea?  Selfies at the Trinity site

• Keynote conversation with Christopher Nolan
  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists  Annual Gathering 2023
  November 6, 2023 | 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Central Time
  REGISTER HERE
• Diablo Canyon Does the Time Warp
• List of Hollywood Films on nuclear issues

2022 Nuclear Free Future Award Laureates (top, L-R) - Anthony Lyamunda, Libbe HaLevy, Makle Gottsch  (Keystone photo on landing page taken from screenshot of awards event)

The Nuclear Free Future Foundation educates people about the dangers of using nuclear technology for civilian and military purposes.  A highlight of their work is The Nuclear Free Future Award, which honors people around the world who are working for a nuclear-free future. Until 2018, the award ceremonies took place in various locations in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia, since the Covid pandemic as an online event. The 2022 winners were highlighted in a Zoom Awards ceremony on Friday, October 13, 2023, and here we present excerpts from that international call.

• Anthony Lyamunda has worked tirelessly to prevent uranium mining in his native Tanzania. His organization, Civil Education is the Solution for Poverty and Environmental Management (CESOPE) empowers local people with an understanding of the political process and their own rights and has led the way in opposition to uranium mining.
  
• Malte Göttsche is a junior professor and researcher in physics dealing with new verifications possibilities in nuclear arms control. His group delivers rarely found expertise and resources to foster control and verification among nuclear weapons states. He heads the research group "Verification and Nuclear Disarmament" in Aachen, Germany.
  
• Libbe HaLevy launched her international podcast, Nuclear Hotseat, in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.  But her first encounter with nuclear power was in 1979 when she was one mile away from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant as it went into partial meltdown. In 2024 she will serve as the US ambassador for the International Uranium Film Festival.

A high level, international nuclear summit co-sponsored by the presumed-impartial-but-biased-pro-nuclear-in-its charter International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)?!?!???- Their big press release DOESN'T HAVE EVEN ONE MENTION OF THE "R"-WORD - RADIATION/RADIOACTIVITY!  Why does anyone trust the IAEA to be an impartial judge of circumstances in Japan over the dump of radioactive tritium-contaminated water from Fukushima into the Pacific??? 

• CITIZENS RESISTANCE AT FERMI 2 - Link to petition to prevent the release of irradiated thermally heated water into Lake Erie.   Includes a document explaining exactly what this case is about and why you need to sign it.
• REPORT on The 2023 Nuclear Free Asia Forum in South Korea by Pinar Demircan
• What is the nuclear test ban treaty and why is Russia changing its position?

Radiation researcher Dr. Michael Ketterer

• Dr. Michael Ketterer has a PhD in Analytical Chemistry and has worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement, taught at John Carroll University, Northern Arizona University, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and at University of Denver. Since 2000, Michael has been conducting studies of plutonium in the environment, publishing and lecturing extensively, and has analyzed samples from locations worldwide. He is currently studying plutonium dioxide particles in soils near the former Rocky Flats facility in Colorado, and fingerprinting off-site contaminants near the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in southern Ohio. Michael is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University.  We spoke on October 2, 2023.
• Michael Ketterer CONTACT

The nukesters are choosing glamour-pusses to hawk their wares and recite their talking points.  Don't they realize that someone who, in part,  names herself "Dope" is not a reliable representative?

• Nuclear Free Future Award - MEET THE WINNERS including Nuclear Hotseat’s Libbe HaLevy, 2022 winner for Education!– Friday, October 13, 2023, 10 a.m. Pacific time
  REGISTER https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nxZDuzIoQj6tT-B7igxKjg#/registration 
  FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:  In 2022, three extraordinary activists were honored with a Nuclear-Free Future Award. However, at the end of 2022, the Awards transited out of their former home at the Nuclear Free Future Foundation and there was no official ceremony... Until now! Beyond Nuclear invites you to meet the 2022 winners at a special online awards ceremony on Friday, October 13 at 1pm Eastern US time. Please register at the link below to hear from uranium mining activist, Anthony Lyamunda, Resistance (Tanzania); Nuclear Hotseat podcaster, Libbe HaLevy, Education (USA); and nuclear policy researcher, Malte Göttsche, Solution (Germany) as they are interviewed about their work. A special announcement about the 2023 Awards event and winners will be made during the event.
• SOS: San Onofre Syndrome will be streaming online as of Sunday, October 15 at 5 p.m. Pacific time.  To buy your tickets, CLICK HERE. 

Map of sites in the U.S. where depleted uranium (DU) weapons have been manufactured and/or tested. (March, 1993) - supplied by Damacio Lopez from his upcoming book, Memoirs of a Gadfly: One Man's Fight Against Depleted-Uranium Munitions.

• Damacio Lopez is an academic, author, researcher, and activist who focuses on the issues of depleted uranium (DU) weapons.  DU weapons were developed only 2 miles from his childhood home in Socorro, New Mexico.  He has traveled to Iraq to measure radiation from DU weapons and published two books on the subject. His newest book, Memoirs of a Gadfly: One Man's Fight Against Depleted-Uranium Munitions, will be published in 2024.  Here, we focus on the recent US decision to send DU weapons to Ukraine.  I spoke with Damacio Lopez on Friday, September 22, 2023.
• CONTACT DAMACIO:   [email protected]
• Damacio asks that you contact the United National Secretary General  and the five members of the Security Council with your concerns.  UN Secretary General António Guterres:  [email protected]; CHINA:  [email protected];  FRANCE:  https://onu.delegfrance.org/;  RUSSIAN FEDERATION: https://russiaun.ru/" class="text-nh underline hover:text-nh-dark"> https://russiaun.ru/; UNITED KINGDOM: https://www.gov.uk/contact; UNITED STATES:  https://usun.usmission.gov/mission/contact-us/

The RECA extension/expansion lobbying group in DC.

• Mary Dickson is an award-winning writer, playwright, downwinder, and thyroid cancer survivor who is internationally recognized for her advocacy for survivors of nuclear weapons testing. She has spoken and written widely about the human cost of the arms race, including twice at the World Forum on Nuclear Survivors in Hiroshima. For the past three years she has been part of a consortium of downwind communities across the West as well as national allies working to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA.  We spoke on September 28, 2023.
  
• Dawn Chapman is co- founder of Just Moms, StL  She is one of the residents living near the Bridgeton landfill and Coldwater Creek, both of which were contaminated with Manhattan Project WWII nuclear weapons waste.  We spoke on September 29, 2023.

• Find your representative's phone, address and email at:  https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

FROM THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS:  Sept. 27 virtual discussion, After Oppenheimer: Learn How to Call Your Member of Congress - A webinar on making effective phone calls to Congress with members of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M27XFgz9LG4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M27XFgz9LG4

MEET THE WINNERS - including Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy, 2022 winner for Education!

REGISTER https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nxZDuzIoQj6tT-B7igxKjg#/registration 

In 2022, three extraordinary activists were honored with a Nuclear-Free Future Award. However, at the end of 2022, the Awards transited out of their former home at the Nuclear Free Future Foundation and there was no official ceremony. Until now! Beyond Nuclear invites you to meet the 2022 winners at a special online awards ceremony on Friday, October 13 at 1pm Eastern US time. Please register at the link below to hear from uranium mining activist, Anthony Lyamunda, Resistance (Tanzania); Nuclear Hotseat podcaster, Libbe HaLevy, Education (USA); and nuclear policy researcher, Malte Göttsche, Solution (Germany) as they are interviewed about their work. A special announcement about the 2023 Awards event and winners will be made during the event.