Nuclear Hotseat

Nuclear Hell:  Hibakusha Setsuko Thurlow at the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Awards Ceremony, giving her acceptance speech on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Hell began 75 years ago with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It continues to this day, with the ongoing threat of nuclear detonation.  This week, we honor the messages of two veteran campaigners against nuclear weapons:

• Setsuko Thurlow is a dedicated campaigner against nuclear weapons for ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear War.  She was a 13-year-old child in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, in school when the United States dropped the atom bomb on that city.  As a hibakusha - atomic bomb survivor - Setsuko has worked tirelessly with ICAN.  When the group received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in realizing the successful UN negotiations for a Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Setsuko - along with ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn - accepted the award on behalf of the group.  Here is the deeply moving speech Setsuko Thurlow gave on behalf of ICAN at the Nobel Peace Prize Awards Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 2017.Full Nobel peace prize ceremony link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1daV8n6fTY&feature=emb_err_woyt
• Alice Slater serves on the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War and is the UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. She’s on the Board of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, the Global Council of Abolition 2000, and the Advisory Board of Nuclear Ban-US, supporting the mission of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in realizing the successful UN negotiations for a Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We spoke on Friday, July 31, 2020.

• International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons - ICAN - www.ICANw.org
• World Beyond War - www.WorldBeyondWar.org
• Don't Bank on the Bomb - www.DontBankOnTheBomb.com
• Nuclear Age Peace Foundation - www.WagingPeace.org
  
• VIDEO:  Obstacles to Nuclear Abolition -- a discussion with David Swanson, Alice Slater, and Bruce Gagnon

Alice Slater, as part of the discussion, "Obstacles to Nuclear Abolition"

• NUKEMAP – To get an idea of what a nuclear bomb would do if it were dropped on your neighborhood, I urge you to google Nukemap, nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein’s site where you can model nuclear holocaust in your own back yard, including blast radius, number of dead and number of injured. It’s a real eye-opener.  https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Nukemap allows you to program in a location (including your own neighborhood!), size of bomb, type of blast - don't forget to check the boxes for Casualties and Radioactive Fallout -
and see for yourself what an atomic bomb would do to the place where you live.  Start with a Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb, and work your way up to Tsar Bomba!  Lots of fun for the kiddies during Covid lockdown!