Portal:Anti-nuclear movement
Portal maintenance status: (August 2018)
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Introduction
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, or international level. Major anti-nuclear groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Peace Action and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. The initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear groups oppose both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The formation of green parties in the 1970s and 1980s was often a direct result of anti-nuclear politics.
Scientists and diplomats have debated nuclear weapons policy since before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The public became concerned about nuclear weapons testing from about 1954, following extensive nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1963, many countries ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty which prohibited atmospheric nuclear testing.
Selected general articles
- Anti-nuclear power groups have emerged in every country that has had a nuclear power programme. Protest movements against nuclear power first emerged in the USA, at the local level, and spread quickly to Europe and the rest of the world. National nuclear campaigns emerged in the late 1970s. Fuelled by the Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl disaster, the anti-nuclear power movement mobilised political and economic forces which for some years "made nuclear energy untenable in many countries".
Some of these anti-nuclear power organisations are reported to have developed considerable expertise on nuclear power and energy issues. In 1992, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that "his agency had been pushed in the right direction on safety issues because of the pleas and protests of nuclear watchdog groups". Read more...
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is an international institute based in Sweden, dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. SIPRI is based in Stockholm.
In the University of Pennsylvania Lauder Institute's 2016 Global Go To Think Tanks Report, SIPRI was ranked 28th among think tanks worldwide. Read more...- Hermann Joseph Muller (December 21, 1890 – April 5, 1967) was an American geneticist, educator, and Nobel laureate best known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of radiation (mutagenesis) as well as his outspoken political beliefs. Muller frequently warned of long-term dangers of radioactive fallout from nuclear war and nuclear testing, which resulted in greater public scrutiny of these practices. Read more...
- In 2008, nuclear energy provided Switzerland with 40 percent of its electricity, but a survey of Swiss people found that only seven percent of respondents were totally in favor of energy production by nuclear power stations. Many large anti-nuclear demonstrations and protests have occurred over the years.
In May 2011, following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Cabinet decided to ban the building of new nuclear power reactors. The country's five existing reactors would be allowed to continue operating, but "would not be replaced at the end of their life span". Read more... - The Bomb is a 2015 American documentary film about the history of nuclear weapons, from theoretical scientific considerations at the very beginning, to their first use on August 6, 1945, to their global political implications in the present day. The two-hour PBS film was written and directed by Rushmore DeNooyer, who noted the project took a year and a half to complete, since much of the film footage and images was only recently declassified by the United States Department of Defense. According to DeNooyer, “It wouldn’t take very many bombs to really change life on Earth, ... The idea that there are thousands of them sitting around is pretty scary. I don’t think people today realize that. They don’t think about it. I don’t think they are scared. But in a way, they should be.” Mark Dawidziak, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, summarized the film as follows: "The Bomb moves swiftly to cover Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War, the arms race, the Red Scare, the witch hunt, the Cuban Missile Crisis, test-ban treaties, the "Star Wars" initiative, the anti-nuke movement, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of new nuclear threats." According to historian Richard Rhodes, “The invention [of 'The Bomb'] was a millennial change in human history: for the first time, we were now capable of our own destruction, as a species.” Read more...
- Mayors for Peace is an international organization of cities dedicated to the promotion of peace that was established in 1982 at the initiative of then Mayor of Hiroshima Takeshi Araki, in response to the deaths of around 140,000 people due to the atomic bombing of the city on August 6, 1945.
The current mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, is the President of the organization today.
Mayors for Peace was started in Japan, and since then Mayors throughout the World have signed on. When Mayors sign on, it means they support the commencement of negotiations towards the elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2020. Read more... - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) is a non-partisan federation of national medical groups in 63 countries, representing doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned people who share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world free from the threat of nuclear annihilation. The organization's headquarters is in Malden, Massachusetts. IPPNW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
IPPNW affiliates are national medical organizations with a common commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons and the prevention of war. Affiliates range in size from a handful of dedicated physicians and medical students to tens of thousands of activists and their supporters. As independent organizations within a global federation, IPPNW affiliates engage in a wide variety of activities related to war, health, social justice, and the environment. Read more...
The anti-nuclear badge “Nuclear Power? No Thanks" (Danish: Atomkraft? Nej tak.), also known as the “Smiling Sun,” is the international symbol of the anti-nuclear movement. It was ubiquitous worldwide in the late 1970s and the 1980s. BBC News reported in 2005 that few symbols had become "as instantly recognizable across the world.". Even the nuclear power industry recognized the logo's "power and success," the BBC report said. Over 20 million Smiling Sun badges were produced in 45 national and regional languages. In recent years the logo is playing a prominent role once again to raise awareness and funding for anti-nuclear groups, especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland where opposition is growing to plans for extending operation of old nuclear reactors and constructing new ones.
The Smiling Sun logo was designed in 1975 by Danish activist Anne Lund who was part of the Danish organization OOA (Organisationen til Oplysning om Atomkraft [dk]/ Organization for Information on Nuclear Power). By posing the question: “Nuclear Power?” and providing a polite answer, “No Thanks”, the logo was meant to express friendly dissent and - by questioning nuclear power - to stimulate dialogue. In 2011, after the Fukushima disaster, a new version was released for renewable energy, with the statement "Renewable Energy", "Yes Please" (Danish: "Vedvarende Energi? Ja tak!") on a green background with a yellow sun. Read more...
Daniel Joseph Berrigan SJ (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author.
Like many others during the 1960s, Berrigan's active protest against the Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admiration, but it was his participation in the Catonsville Nine that made him famous. It also landed him on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "most wanted list" (the first-ever priest on the list), on the cover of Time magazine, and in prison. His own particular form of militancy and radical spirituality in the service of social and political justice was significant enough, at that time, to "shape the tactics of resistance to the Vietnam War" in the United States.
For the rest of his life, Berrigan remained one of the US's leading anti-war activists. In 1980, he founded the Plowshares Movement, an anti-nuclear protest group, that put him back into the national spotlight. He was also an award-winning and prolific author of some 50 books, a teacher, and a university educator. He, along with his activist brother Philip Berrigan, were nominated in 1998 for the Nobel Peace Prize by 1976 laureate Mairead Maguire. Read more...
Green at the Melbourne's GPO in March 2011
James Green is the national anti-nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and Australian coordinator of the Beyond Nuclear Initiative. Green is a regular media commentator on nuclear waste issues. He has an honours degree in public health from the University of Wollongong and was awarded a PhD in science and technology studies for his analysis of the Lucas Heights research reactor debates. Read more...- Peace Action is a peace organization whose focus is on preventing the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, thwarting weapons sales to countries with human rights violations, and promoting a new United States foreign policy based on common security and peaceful resolution to international conflicts.
Peace Action believes that every person has the right to live without the threat of nuclear weapons, that war is not a suitable response to conflict, and that the United States has the resources to both protect and provide for its citizens. Peace Action has over 100,000 members who belong to over 70 autonomous affiliate and chapter organizations.
The name "Peace Action" was adopted in 1993 by SANE / FREEZE, which had been formed roughly a decade earlier from the merger of the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (also known as "The Freeze"). Read more...
Professor Tilman Alfred Ruff AM (born 1955) is an Australian public health and infectious diseases physician who has focused his efforts on immunization and "the global health imperative to eradicate nuclear weapons." Read more...- The Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold is named after the German nuclear chemist and 1944 Nobel Laureate Otto Hahn, an honorary citizen of Berlin.
The medal is in memory of his worldwide involvement in the politics of peace and humanitarian causes, in particular since the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by the United States Army Air Forces.
It was established by his grandson Dietrich Hahn in 1988 and is awarded by the United Nations Association of Germany (Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen, DGVN, Berlin-Brandenburg) to persons or institutions that have rendered "outstanding services to peace and international understanding". By tradition, the gold medal, together with a leather-bound diploma inlaid in gold, is presented in Berlin at a biennial ceremony on 17 December by the Governing Mayor of Berlin and the President of the DGVN. Read more...
The expanding fireball from the "Badger" United States nuclear test
This is a list of books about nuclear issues. They are non-fiction books which relate to uranium mining, nuclear weapons and/or nuclear power.- American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005)
- The Angry Genie: One Man's Walk Through the Nuclear Age (1999)
- The Atom Besieged: Extraparliamentary Dissent in France and Germany (1981)
- Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism From Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda (2010)
- The Bells of Nagasaki (1949)
- Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (1958)
- Britain, Australia and the Bomb (2006)
- Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security (1982)
- Canada’s Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System (2007)
- Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free (2007)
- Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment (2009)
- Chernobyl: Crime Without Punishment (2011)
- Chernobyl. Vengeance of peaceful atom. (2006)
- Climate Gamble: Is Anti-Nuclear Activism Endangering Our Future? (2015)
- Command and Control (book) (2013)
- The Cold and the Dark: The World after Nuclear War (1984)
- Conservation Fallout: Nuclear Protest at Diablo Canyon (2006)
- Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power (2011)
- Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958–1978 (1998)
- The Cult of the Atom: The Secret Papers of the Atomic Energy Commission (1982)
- The Day of the Bomb (1961)
- The Doomsday Machine: The High Price of Nuclear Energy, The World's Most Dangerous Fuel (2012)
- Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971)
- Explaining the Atom (1947)
- Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy (2004)
- Fallout Protection (1961)
- The Fate of the Earth (1982)
- The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism (2004)
- The Fourth Protocol (1984)
- Fukushima: Japan's Tsunami and the Inside Story of the Nuclear Meltdowns (2013)
- Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats (2012)
- The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now (1998)
- Hiroshima (1946)
- The Hundredth Monkey (1982)
- In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age (2009)
- The International Politics of Nuclear Waste (1991)
- Joseph Rotblat: A Man of Conscience in the Nuclear Age (2009)
- Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation (1982)
- The Last Train From Hiroshima (2010)
- The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy: A Life-Cycle in Trouble (2007)
- Licensed to Kill? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Shoreham Power Plant (1997)
- Los Alamos Primer (1992)
- The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1988)
- Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West (1999)
- Maralinga: Australia’s Nuclear Waste Cover-up (2007)
- Megawatts and Megatons (2001)
- My Australian Story: Atomic Testing (2009)
- The Navajo People and Uranium Mining (2006)
- Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy (1975)
- Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies (1984)
- Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico (2006)
- Nuclear Implosions: The Rise and Fall of the Washington Public Power Supply System (2008)
- Nuclear Nebraska: The Remarkable Story of the Little County That Couldn’t Be Bought (2007)
- Nuclear or Not? Does Nuclear Power Have a Place in a Sustainable Energy Future? (2007)
- Nuclear Politics in America (1997)
- Nuclear Power and the Environment (1976)
- The Nuclear Power Controversy (1976)
- Nuclear Power is Not the Answer (2006)
- Nuclear Roulette (2012)
- Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (2004)
- Nuclear War Survival Skills (1979)
- Nuclear Weapons: The Road to Zero (1998)
- Nukespeak: Nuclear Language, Visions and Mindset (1982)
- On Nuclear Terrorism (2007)
- On Thermonuclear War (1960)
- Our Friend the Atom (1957)
- The People of Three Mile Island (1980)
- The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War (1999)
- Plutopia (2013)
- Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy (2007)
- Protect and Survive (1980)
- The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation (2006)
- Nuclear Nonproliferation and Nuclear Liability: The Law at Crossroad' (2017)
- Reaction Time: Climate Change and the Nuclear Option (2007)
- The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (1991)
- The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (2007)
- Smyth Report (1945)
- The Strategy of Conflict (1960)
- Survival Under Atomic Attack (1950)
- Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective (2004)
- Three Mile Island: Thirty Minutes to Meltdown (1982)
- TORCH report (2006)
- Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb (2012)
- The Truth About Chernobyl (1991)
- U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History (1988)
- The Unfinished Twentieth Century (2001)
- Uranium Wars: The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age (2009)
- Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (2005)
- We Almost Lost Detroit (1975)
- Weapons and Hope (1984)
- What Will Work: Fighting Climate Change with Renewable Energy, Not Nuclear Power (2011)
- When Technology Fails (1994)
- World Nuclear Industry Status Report
Norman Cousins (June 24, 1915 – November 30, 1990) was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate. Read more...- The most important objection is that Büyükeceli and the surrounding coastline may lose its touristic potential after the realization of the project. Büyükeceli residents are also worried that the already low population of the town may further decrease and the town may lose its township status.
However, the president of the township's commercial counsel Alper Gursoy also added that nuclear energy is necessary for Turkey's economy and that the construction of such a large plant may benefit the town economically.
On 17 April 2011 a human chain was formed in Mersin to protest the decision. It was planned that there would be 30 locations to form chains along the highway connecting Mersin to Akkuyu. But the participation was higher than the expected and several of these chains were merged with. The east end of the chain was in Mersin midtown and it reached some 20 kilometres (12 mi) west along the highway uninterrupted. Also the settlements at the west including the district centers of Silifke and Erdemli as well as Büyükeceli, the town nearest to construction site participated. "The earthquake and tsunami in Japan proved how dangerous nuclear technology is," said Sabahat Aslan, a spokesperson for the Mersin Anti-Nuclear Platform. “We organized this protest to say ‘no’ to nuclear power plants, which will put future generations in danger.”
On 12 January 2015, it was reported that the signatures of specialists on a government-sanctioned environmental impact report had been forged. The specialists had resigned six months prior to its submission, and the contracting company had then made unilateral changes to the report. The revelation sparked protest in North Nicosia. The construction of the Akkuyu plant is controversial in Cyprus, due to its close proximity to the island. Read more... - The Göttingen Manifesto was a declaration of 18 leading nuclear scientists of West Germany (among them the Nobel laureates Otto Hahn, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg and Max von Laue) against arming the West German army with tactical nuclear weapons in the 1950s, the early part of the Cold War, as the West German government under chancellor Adenauer had suggested. Read more...
- The International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) is an international non-governmental organisation headquartered in Berlin. It was founded in 1988 and seeks "to build and strengthen international legal efforts to ban the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons." Its membership consists of individual lawyers and lawyer's organisations. The current President of the organisation is Christopher Weeramantry, a former Judge of the International Court of Justice. The German section of the organisation was co-founded by former German Minister of Justice Herta Däubler-Gmelin. IALANA had a central role in the process that sought an advisory ruling on the legality of nuclear arms from the International Court of Justice.
The organisation has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Read more...
Worldwide nuclear testing totals, 1945-1998.
The application of nuclear technology, both as a source of energy and as an instrument of war, has been controversial.
Scientists and diplomats have debated nuclear weapons policy since before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The public became concerned about nuclear weapons testing from about 1954, following extensive nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. In 1963, many countries ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty which prohibited atmospheric nuclear testing.
Some local opposition to nuclear power emerged in the early 1960s, and in the late 1960s some members of the scientific community began to express their concerns. In the early 1970s, there were large protests about a proposed nuclear power plant in Wyhl, Germany. The project was cancelled in 1975 and anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired opposition to nuclear power in other parts of Europe and North America. Nuclear power became an issue of major public protest in the 1970s. Read more...
The 18,000 km2 expanse of the Semipalatinsk Test Site (indicated in red), attached to Kurchatov (along the Irtysh river). The site comprised an area the size of Wales.
The anti-nuclear movement in Kazakhstan, "Nevada Semipalatinsk", was formed in 1989 and was one of the first major anti-nuclear movements in the former Soviet Union. It was led by author Olzhas Suleimenov and attracted thousands of people to its protests and campaigns which eventually led to the closure of the nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk in north-east Kazakhstan in 1991. The movement was named "Nevada Semipalatinsk" in order to show solidarity with similar movements in the United States aiming to close the Nevada Test Site.
The Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear weapons tests at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, between 1949 and 1989. The United Nations believes that one million people around Semipalatinsk were exposed to radiation, and the incidence of birth defects and cancer is much higher than for the rest of the country.
According to UNESCO, Nevada-Semipalatinsk played a positive role in promoting public understanding of "the necessity to fight against nuclear threats". The movement gained global support and, became "a real historical factor in finding solutions to global ecological problems". Read more...- This list of nuclear holocaust fiction lists the many works of speculative fiction that attempt to describe a world during or after a massive nuclear war, nuclear holocaust, or crash of civilization due to a nuclear electromagnetic pulse. Read more...
- A nuclear-free zone is an area in which nuclear weapons (see nuclear-weapon-free zone) and nuclear power plants are banned. The specific ramifications of these depend on the locale in question.
Nuclear-free zones usually neither address nor prohibit radiopharmaceuticals used in nuclear medicine even though many of them are produced in nuclear reactors. They typically do not prohibit other nuclear technologies such as cyclotrons used in particle physics.
Several sub-national authorities worldwide have declared themselves "nuclear-free". However, the label is often symbolic, as nuclear policy is usually determined and regulated at higher levels of government: nuclear weapons and components may traverse nuclear-free zones via military transport without the knowledge or consent of local authorities which had declared nuclear-free zones. Read more... - In 1984, Prime Minister David Lange barred nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using New Zealand ports or entering New Zealand waters. Under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, territorial sea, land and airspace of New Zealand became nuclear-free zones. This has since remained a part of New Zealand's foreign policy.
The Act prohibits "entry into the internal waters of New Zealand 12 nautical miles (22.2 km, 13 13⁄16 statute miles) radius by any ship whose propulsion is wholly or partly dependent on nuclear power" and bans the dumping of radioactive waste into the sea within the nuclear-free zone, as well as prohibiting any New Zealand citizen or resident "to manufacture, acquire, possess, or have any control over any nuclear explosive device." The nuclear-free zone Act does not prohibit nuclear power plants, nuclear research facilities, the use of radioactive isotopes, or other land-based nuclear activities.
After the Disarmament and Arms Control Act was passed by the Lange-led Labour government, the United States government suspended its ANZUS obligations to New Zealand. The legislation was a milestone in New Zealand's development as a nation and seen as an important act of sovereignty, self-determination and cultural identity. New Zealand's three decade anti-nuclear campaign is the only successful movement of its type in the world which resulted in the nation's nuclear-weapon-free zone status being enshrined in legislation. Read more... - The anti-nuclear movement in the Philippines aimed to stop the construction of nuclear power facilities and terminate the presence of American military bases, which were believed to house nuclear weapons on Philippine soil. Anti-nuclear demonstrations were led by groups such as the Nuclear-Free Philippines Coalition and No Nukes Philippines. A focal point for protests in the late 1970s and 1980s was the proposed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, which was built but never operated. The project was criticized for being a potential threat to public health, especially since the plant was located in an earthquake zone.
The demand of the anti-nuclear movement for the removal of military bases culminated in a 1991 Philippine Senate decision to stop extending the tenure of US facilities in the Philippines. Tons of toxic waste was left behind after the US withdrawal and anti-nuclear and other groups worked to provide assistance for the bases' cleanup. Read more...
Ole Andreas Kopreitan (19 September 1937 – 23 January 2011) was a Norwegian political activist, best known as an anti-nuclear activist. For 30 years he led the anti-nuclear organization "No to Nuclear Weapons".
He was born in Stavanger as a son of Christian missionary Ole August Kopreitan (1885–1941) and clothing worker Anna Ottervig (1907–1999). He grew up at Hitra, but moved to Hurdal when he was nine years old. He was educated at the teacher's college in Sagene.
He became a political activist in Oslo, and was among others known for storming Madserud tennis court on 13 May 1964, with 50 others, to halt a tennis competition between Norway and South Africa, in protest of apartheid. For this he was convicted for civil disobedience. At that time he was also involved in partisan politics, as chairman of the Socialist Youth Association (SUF). He was a party secretary of the Socialist People's Party from 1967. He later drifted away from partisan politics, mostly due to internal strife in the Socialist People's Party. He instead joined the popular movement Folkebevegelsen mot EF, which worked, successfully, to prevent Norwegian membership in the European Communities. Read more...
In the 1970s, an anti-nuclear movement in France, consisting of citizens' groups and political action committees, emerged. Between 1975 and 1977, some 175,000 people protested against nuclear power in ten demonstrations.
In 1972, the anti-nuclear weapons movement maintained a presence in the Pacific, largely in response to French nuclear testing there. Activists, including David McTaggart from Greenpeace, defied the French government by sailing small vessels into the test zone and interrupting the testing program. In Australia, scientists issued statements demanding an end to the tests; unions refused to load French ships, service French planes, or carry French mail; and consumers boycotted French products. In 1985 the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sunk by the French DGSE in Auckland, New Zealand, as it prepared for another protest of nuclear testing in French military zones. One crew member, Fernando Pereira of Portugal, photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.
In January 2004, up to 15,000 anti-nuclear protesters marched in Paris against a new generation of nuclear reactors, the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR). On March 17, 2007, simultaneous protests, organised by Sortir du nucléaire, were staged in 5 French towns to protest construction of EPR plants. Read more...- Anti-Nuclear Power Plant Rally on 19 September 2011 at Meiji Shrine complex in Tokyo. Sixty thousand people marched chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, to call on Japan's government to abandon nuclear power, following the Fukushima disaster.
Long one of the world's most committed promoters of civilian nuclear power, Japan's nuclear industry was not hit as hard by the effects of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident (USA) or the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (USSR) as some other countries. Construction of new plants continued to be strong through the 1980s and into the 1990s. However, starting in the mid-1990s there were several nuclear related accidents and cover-ups in Japan that eroded public perception of the industry, resulting in protests and resistance to new plants. These accidents included the Tokaimura nuclear accident, the Mihama steam explosion, cover-ups after accidents at the Monju reactor, and the 21 month shut down of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant following an earthquake in 2007. Because of these events, Japan's nuclear industry has been scrutinized by the general public of the country.
The negative impact of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster has changed attitudes in Japan. Political and energy experts describe "nothing short of a nationwide loss of faith, not only in Japan’s once-vaunted nuclear technology but also in the government, which many blame for allowing the accident to happen". Sixty thousand people marched in central Tokyo on 19 September 2011, chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, to call on Japan's government to abandon nuclear power, following the Fukushima disaster. Bishop of Osaka, Michael Goro Matsuura, has called on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this anti-nuclear campaign. In July 2012, 75,000 people gathered near in Tokyo for the capital's largest anti-nuclear event yet. Organizers and participants said such demonstrations signal a fundamental change in attitudes in a nation where relatively few have been willing to engage in political protests since the 1960s.
Anti-nuclear groups include the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, Stop Rokkasho, Hidankyo, Sayonara Nuclear Power Plants, Women from Fukushima Against Nukes, and the Article 9 group. People associated with the anti-nuclear movement include: Jinzaburo Takagi, Haruki Murakami, Kenzaburō Ōe, Nobuto Hosaka, Mizuho Fukushima, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tetsunari Iida. Read more...
Helen Mary Caldicott (born 7 August 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, and military action in general.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Caldicott became a leader in the antinuclear movement in the United States through her role in reviving the organization Physicians for Social Responsibility. She also helped to found several other organizations which worked to abolish controlled nuclear fission. In the 1980s, she was effective in raising support and bringing nuclear issues to the forefront. Caldicott splits her time between the United States and Australia and continues to lecture widely to promote her views on nuclear energy use, including weapons and power. Read more...
A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or all wars), minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, and is often linked to the goal of achieving world peace. Means to achieve these ends include advocacy of pacifism, non-violent resistance, diplomacy, boycotts, peace camps, moral purchasing, supporting anti-war political candidates, legislation to remove the profit from government contracts to the Military–industrial complex, banning guns, creating open government and transparency tools, direct democracy, supporting Whistleblowers who expose War-Crimes or conspiracies to create wars, demonstrations, and national political lobbying groups to create legislation. The political cooperative is an example of an organization that seeks to merge all peace movement organizations and green organizations, which may have some diverse goals, but all of whom have the common goal of peace and humane sustainability. A concern of some peace activists is the challenge of attaining peace when those that oppose it often use violence as their means of communication and empowerment.
Some people refer to the global loose affiliation of activists and political interests as having a shared purpose and this constituting a single movement, "the peace movement", an all encompassing "anti-war movement". Seen this way, the two are often indistinguishable and constitute a loose, responsive, event-driven collaboration between groups with motivations as diverse as humanism, environmentalism, veganism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, decentralization, hospitality, ideology, theology, and faith. Read more...
Caroline Patricia Lucas (born 9 December 1960) is a British politician, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brighton Pavilion since the 2010 general election, when she became the Green Party's first MP. She was re-elected in the 2015 and 2017 general elections with an increased majority.
Born in Malvern in Worcestershire, Lucas graduated from the University of Exeter and the University of Kansas before receiving a PhD from the University of Exeter in 1989. She joined the Green Party in 1986 and held various party roles, also serving on Oxfordshire County Council from 1993 to 1997. She was elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England in 1999 and re-elected in 2004 and 2009, also serving as the Party's Female Principal Speaker from 2003 to 2006 and from 2007 to 2008.
Lucas was elected the first Leader of the Green Party in 2008 and was elected to represent the constituency of Brighton Pavilion in the 2010 general election. She stood down as party leader in 2012 to devote more time to her parliamentary duties and focus on an ultimately successful campaign to be re-elected as an MP. She returned to a party leadership role in September 2016, when she was elected as Co-Leader as part of a job-sharing arrangement with Jonathan Bartley. Read more...
Operation Crossroads Test Able, a 23-kiloton air-deployed nuclear weapon detonated on July 1, 1946. This bomb used, and consumed, the infamous Demon core that took the lives of two scientists in two separate criticality accidents.
Anti-nuclear protests began on a small scale in the U.S. as early as 1946 in response to Operation Crossroads. Large scale anti-nuclear protests first emerged in the mid-1950s in Japan in the wake of the March 1954 Lucky Dragon Incident. August 1955 saw the first meeting of the World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, which had around 3,000 participants from Japan and other nations. Protests began in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the United Kingdom, the first Aldermaston March, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, took place in 1958. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. In 1964, Peace Marches in several Australian capital cities featured "Ban the Bomb" placards.
Nuclear power became an issue of major public protest in the 1970s and demonstrations in France and West Germany began in 1971. In France, between 1975 and 1977, some 175,000 people protested against nuclear power in ten demonstrations. In West Germany, between February 1975 and April 1979, some 280,000 people were involved in seven demonstrations at nuclear sites. Many mass demonstrations took place in the aftermath of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and a New York City protest in September 1979 involved two hundred thousand people. Some 120,000 people demonstrated against nuclear power in Bonn, in October 1979. In May 1986, following the Chernobyl disaster, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people marched in Rome to protest against the Italian nuclear program, and clashes between anti-nuclear protesters and police became common in West Germany.
In the early 1980s, the revival of the nuclear arms race triggered large protests about nuclear weapons. In October 1981 half a million people took to the streets in several cities in Italy, more than 250,000 people protested in Bonn, 250,000 demonstrated in London, and 100,000 marched in Brussels. The largest anti-nuclear protest was held on June 12, 1982, when one million people demonstrated in New York City against nuclear weapons. In October 1983, nearly 3 million people across western Europe protested nuclear missile deployments and demanded an end to the arms race; the largest crowd of almost one million people assembled in the Hague in the Netherlands. In Britain, 400,000 people participated in what was probably the largest demonstration in British history. Read more...
Members of Nevada Desert Experience hold a prayer vigil during the Easter period of 1982 at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site.
The Nevada Desert Experience is a name for the movement to stop U.S. nuclear weapons testing that came into use in the middle 1980s. It is also the name of an anti-nuclear organization which continues to create public events to question the morality and intelligence of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, with a main focus on the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) Nevada Test Site (now renamed the Nevada National Security Site). Read more...- The anti-nuclear movement in Russia is a social movement against nuclear technologies, largely stemming from the results of the Chernobyl incident in 1986. During the most active phase of the anti-nuclear movement, from 1988 to 1992, construction of over 100 nuclear projects were prevented on the territory of the Soviet Union. Also, the economic troubles of the 1990s led to a reduction in the number of construction projects. This deprived the anti-nuclear movement of its raison d’être. At the same time, it too was affected by financial difficulties, in particular the lack of donations, which continues to be an issue today. Since the 2000s the Russian Government embarked on highly pro-nuclear policy, with plans to invest billions of dollars in developing the nuclear industry, which leaves the movement with big challenges.
The first nuclear power plant in Russia was built in 1954, a 5 MWe reactor in Obninsk.In the several years prior to 1954, Russia began building more nuclear power plants, and by the mid-1980s, had built a total of twenty-five reactors. By the early 2000s, Russia has about ten nuclear power plants and thirty-one operating reactors. With these new nuclear power plants and reactors, eight out of the ten nuclear power plants can be found in the European part of Russia. In the Eastern part of Urals, two other nuclear power plants can be found.
Russia has a long history of nuclear power plants. It was beneficial to the country when it first began but the view quickly changed in the post-Chernobyl period. On April 26, 1986 when the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant malfunctioned, it gave birth to the anti-nuclear movement in Russia and many anti-nuclear organizations emerged in the USSR. Many of these anti-nuclear protest or activities took place in the 1980s, which motivated people to pursue the anti-nuclear law that was later to be found to be short lived, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the earlier years of the anti-nuclear movement, there were several activists that followed help assist in the movement to pursue the goal of becoming an denuclearized country. Read more... - Albert Smith Bigelow (1 May 1906 – 6 October 1993) was a pacifist and former United States Navy Commander, who came to prominence in the 1950s as the skipper of the Golden Rule, the first vessel to attempt disruption of a nuclear test in protest against nuclear weapons. Read more...
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, a Japanese nuclear plant with seven units, the largest single nuclear power station in the world, was completely shut down for 21 months following an earthquake in 2007.
These are lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents. Read more...- Dr. Randall Caroline Forsberg (July 23, 1943 – October 19, 2007) led a lifetime of research and advocacy on ways to reduce the risk of war, minimize the burden of military spending, and promote democratic institutions. Her career started at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 1968. In 1974 she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts (where she earned her Ph.D. in 1980) to found the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies as well as to launch the national Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Read more...
- There was some official public discussion concerning the localization of the power plant, but it was interrupted by the introduction of martial law in Poland in 1981. Despite this, no organized opposition beyond sending letters to the authorities took place.
The protests escalated only after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Ecological organizations were the most active participants. The most prominent local organizations were the Franciscan Ecological Movement, which organized a series of public lectures on the risks of the Żarnowiec power plant, miniconferences in the Gdańsk Scientific Society, and manifestations; and the Gdańsk Economic Forum, an anti-nuclear organization which initiated manifestations at the construction site, conducted leaflet campaigns in the Tricity and sent hundreds of letters to the authorities. Some nationwide organizations such as Ruch Wolność i Pokój joined the protest and were responsible for its most drastic forms, including roadblocks and a 63-day hunger strike. Several public figures spoke against completing the project, including the leader of Solidarity, Lech Wałęsa. Protesters also cited the negative assessment of the plant's security by two employees of the National Atomic Energy Agency.
The protests forced the government to hold a local referendum concerning the plant. An initial decision was taken in 1987, but was postponed for political reasons until the local government elections in 1990. The referendum was preceded by an intensive propaganda action by Gdańsk's ecological organizations. Among the information in the disseminated leaflets and posters, there were false claims of the reactors being of the same design as those in Chernobyl, "deep tectonic movements" which would cause the failure of the pumped-storage reservoir and flooding, and supposed inevitable radioactive contamination of the lake due to an open-ended cooling system. The results were strongly negative, with 86.1% of voters against completing the power plant. Read more...
Freda Meissner-Blau (11 March 1927 – 22 December 2015) was an Austrian politician, activist, and prominent figurehead in the Austrian environmental movement. She was a founder and the federal spokesperson of the Austrian Green Party. Read more...
Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have remained highly controversial and contentious objects in the forum of public debate.
The nuclear weapons debate refers to the controversies surrounding the threat, use and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. Even before the first nuclear weapons had been developed, scientists involved with the Manhattan Project were divided over the use of the weapon. The only time nuclear weapons have been used in warfare was during the final stages of World War II when United States Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress bombers dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945. The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s ethical justification for them have been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades.
Nuclear disarmament refers both to the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world. Proponents of disarmament typically condemn a priori the threat or use of nuclear weapons as immoral and argue that only total disarmament can eliminate the possibility of nuclear war. Critics of nuclear disarmament say that it would undermine deterrence and make conventional wars more likely, more destructive, or both. The debate becomes considerably complex when considering various scenarios for example, total vs partial or unilateral vs multilateral disarmament. Read more...- Jens Scheer (30 May 1935 – 18 July 1994), was a physicist, professor of nuclear physics at the University of Bremen and one of Germany's best-known anti-nuclear activists.
Scheer was member of the Communist Party of Germany party (KPD). For reason of his KPD-membership and his political activities, Scheer was threatened in 1975 with the loss of his academic position at the University of Bremen and an interdiction of enacting his profession, as membership in the KPD and his position as university professor were considered incompatible. The legal proceedings lasted for about five years, after which the final verdict was the payment of a fine.
One of Scheer's main research interests was low-level radiation and its effects on human beings. He claimed that radiation exposure at critical moments in life weakens the immune system, thus leading to a higher susceptibility to infectious diseases. After the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, he invested considerable efforts in attempting to determine the extent of damage caused in the longer term by this disaster. Read more...
Cecil Frank Powell, FRS (5 December 1903 – 9 August 1969) was an English physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and for the resulting discovery of the pion (pi-meson), a subatomic particle. Read more...
The CND symbol, designed by Gerald Holtom in 1958. It has become a nearly universal peace symbol used in many different versions worldwide.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It opposes military action that may result in the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and the building of nuclear power stations in the UK.
CND began in November 1957 when a committee was formed, including Canon John Collins as chairman, Bertrand Russell as president and Peggy Duff as organising secretary. The committee organised CND's first public meeting at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster on 17 February 1958. Since then, CND has periodically been at the forefront of the peace movement in the UK. It claims to be Europe's largest single-issue peace campaign. Between 1959 and 1965 it organised the Aldermaston March, which was held over the Easter weekend from the Atomic Weapons Establishment near Aldermaston to Trafalgar Square, London. Read more...
Bikini Atoll. On the northwest cape of the atoll, adjacent to Namu island, the crater formed by the 15 Mt Castle Bravo nuclear test can be seen, with the smaller 11 Mt Castle Romeo crater adjoining it.
Bikini Atoll (pronounced /ˈbɪkɪˌniː/ or /bɪˈkiːni/; Marshallese: 'Pikinni', [pʲi͡ɯɡɯ͡inʲːii̯], meaning "coconut place") is an atoll in the Marshall Islands which consists of 23 islands totalling 3.4 square miles (8.8 km2) surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 km2) central lagoon. It is at the northern end of the Ralik Chain, approximately 87 kilometres (54 mi) northwest of Ailinginae Atoll and 850 kilometres (530 mi) northwest of Majuro. Within Bikini Atoll, Bikini, Eneu, Namu and Enidrik islands comprise just over 70% of the land area. Bikini and Eneu are the only islands of the atoll that hosted a permanent population. Bikini Island is the northeastern most and largest islet. Before World War II, the atoll was known by its German name, Eschscholtz Atoll.
The atoll is known for the nuclear testing the United States conducted on it during the 1940s and 1950s, before which the indigenous population was removed. Read more...
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over 39 countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Greenpeace was founded by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, Canadian and US ex-pat environmental activists in 1971. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, and anti-nuclear issues. It uses direct action, lobbying, research, and ecotage to achieve its goals. The global organization does not accept funding from governments, corporations, or political parties, relying on 2.9 million individual supporters and foundation grants. Greenpeace has a general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and is a founding member of the INGO Accountability Charter; an international non-governmental organization that intends to foster accountability and transparency of non-governmental organizations.
Greenpeace is known for its direct actions and has been described as the most visible environmental organization in the world. Greenpeace has raised environmental issues to public knowledge, and influenced both the private and the public sector. Greenpeace has also been a source of controversy; its motives and methods (some of the latter being illegal) have received criticism, including an open letter from more than 100 Nobel laureates urging Greenpeace to end its campaign against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The organization's direct actions have sparked legal actions against Greenpeace activists, such as fines and suspended sentences for destroying a test plot of genetically modified wheat and damaging the Nazca Lines, a UN World Heritage site in Peru. Read more...
The nuclear power debate is a long-running controversy about the risks and benefits of using nuclear reactors to generate electricity for civilian purposes. The debate about nuclear power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, as more and more reactors were built and came online, and "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies" in some countries. Thereafter, the nuclear industry created jobs, focused on safety and public concerns mostly waned. In the last decade, however, with growing public awareness about climate change and the critical role that carbon dioxide and methane emissions plays in causing the heating of the earth's atmosphere, there's been a resurgence in the intensity nuclear power debate once again. Nuclear power advocates and those who are most concerned about climate change point to nuclear power's reliable, emission-free, high-density energy and a generation of young physicists and engineers working to bring a new generation of nuclear technology into existence to replace fossil fuels. On the other hand, skeptics can point to two frightening nuclear accidents, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and subsequently the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, combined with escalating acts of global terrorism, to argue against continuing use of the technology. The debate continues today between those who fear the power of nuclear and those who fear what will happen to the earth if we don't use nuclear power. At the 1963 ground-breaking for what would become the world's largest nuclear power plant, President John F. Kennedy declared that nuclear power was a "step on the long road to peace," and that by using "science and technology to achieve significant breakthroughs" that we could "conserve the resources" to leave the world in better shape. Yet he also acknowledged that the Atomic Age was a "dreadful age" and "when we broke the atom apart, we changed the history of the world."
Proponents of nuclear energy argue that nuclear power is a clean and sustainable energy source which provides huge amounts of uninterrupted energy without polluting the air or emitting the carbon emissions that cause Global warming. Use of nuclear power provides plentiful, well-paying jobs, energy security, reduces a dependence on imported fuels and exposure to price risks associated with resource speculation and Middle East politics. Proponents advance the notion that nuclear power produces virtually no air pollution, in contrast to the massive amount of pollution and carbon emission generated from burning Fossil fuel like coal, oil and natural gas. Modern society demands always-on energy to power communications, computer networks, transportation, industry and residences at all times of day and night. In the absence of nuclear power, utilities need to burn fossil fuels to keep the energy grid reliable, even with access to solar and wind energy, because those sources are intermittent. Proponents also believe that nuclear power is the only viable course for a country to achieve energy independence while also meeting their "ambitious" NDC's (nationally determined contributions) to reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement signed by 195 nations. They emphasize that the risks of storing waste are small and existing stockpiles can be reduced by using this waste to produce fuels for the latest technology in newer reactors. Finally, even though alarmist media reports of nuclear accidents raised fear levels a lot, in fact the Chernobyl disaster caused 56 direct deaths and Fukushima reactors caused no actual deaths as a result of the nuclear meltdown. The operational safety record of nuclear is excellent when compared to the other major kinds of power plants and by preventing pollution, actually saves lives every year.
Opponents say that nuclear power poses numerous threats to people and the environment and point to studies in the literature that question if it will ever be a sustainable energy source. These threats include health risks, accidents and environmental damage from uranium mining, processing and transport. Along with the fears associated with nuclear weapons proliferation, nuclear power opponents fear sabotage by terrorists of nuclear plants, diversion and misuse of radioactive fuels or fuel waste, as well as naturally-occurring leakage from the unsolved and imperfect long-term storage process of radioactive nuclear waste. They also contend that reactors themselves are enormously complex machines where many things can and do go wrong, and there have been many serious nuclear accidents. Critics do not believe that these risks can be reduced through new technology. They further argue that when all the energy-intensive stages of the nuclear fuel chain are considered, from uranium mining to nuclear decommissioning, nuclear power is not a low-carbon electricity source. Read more...
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Selected images
Members of Nevada Desert Experience hold a prayer vigil during the Easter period of 1982 at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site.
Human chain against nuclear plant in Turkey on 17 April 2011
Three renewable energy sources: solar energy, wind power, and hydroelectricity
Anti-nuclear power movement's Smiling Sun logo: "Nuclear Power? No Thanks"
The 18,000 km2 expanse of the Semipalatinsk Test Site (indicated in red), which covers an area the size of Wales. The Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk from 1949 until 1989 with little regard for their effect on the local people or environment. The full impact of radiation exposure was hidden for many years by Soviet authorities and has only come to light since the test site closed in 1991.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament symbol, designed in 1958. It later became a universal peace symbol used in many different versions worldwide.
The abandoned city of Prypiat, Ukraine, following the April 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is in the background.
The 150 MW Andasol Solar Power Station is a commercial parabolic trough solar thermal power plant, located in Spain. The Andasol plant uses tanks of molten salt to store solar energy so that it can continue generating electricity even when the sun isn't shining.
Following the 2011 Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster, authorities shut down the nation's 54 nuclear power plants. As of 2013, the Fukushima site remains highly radioactive, with some 160,000 evacuees still living in temporary housing, and some land will be unfarmable for centuries. The difficult cleanup job will take 40 or more years, and cost tens of billions of dollars.
Demonstration against French nuclear testing in 1995 in Paris
Anti-nuclear demonstration in Munich, Germany, March 2011
Eight of the seventeen operating reactors in Germany were permanently shut down following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster
Anti-nuclear demonstrations near Gorleben, Lower Saxony, Germany, 8 May 1996
Anti-Nuclear Power Plant Rally following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on 19 September 2011 at Meiji Shrine complex in Tokyo, Japan
Worldwide nuclear testing totals, 1945–1998
Montage of film stills from the International Uranium Film Festival
On 12 December 1982, 30,000 women held hands around the 6 miles (9.7 km) perimeter of the base, in protest against the decision to site American cruise missiles there.
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