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As the warring ruling class seems to be pushing for nuclear brinkmanship, on this election night let us not be distracted.
Much significance will happen at the end of Election Day, and a countdown will begin at 11:00 p.m. PDT on November 5th. While everyone’s attention will be on who our next president will be, the U.S. The Air Force will test-launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with a dummy hydrogen bomb on the tip from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The missile will cross the Pacific Ocean and 22 minutes later crash into the Marshall Islands. The U.S. Air Force does this several times a year. The launches are always at night while Americans are sleeping.
This is what nightmares are made of—between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, and the result is that the Marshallese people have lost their pristine environment and face serious health problems. Our environment is threatened here as well. Not only did the indigenous Chumash people lose their sacred land to Vandenberg Air Force Base, but also America’s Heartland presently has around 400 ICBMs stored in underground silos equipped with nuclear warheads that are ready to launch at a hair trigger’s notice. Named “MinuteMen III,” after Revolutionary War soldiers who could reload and shoot a gun in less than a minute, ICBMs not only put Americans at risk of accident, but they put all life on earth in danger.
ICBMs are not viable for national defense. They are a relic of a bygone era having been invented by Nazi Germany, and their presence only escalates the risk of nuclear accidents or conflicts. A single launch could lead to a nuclear exchange that would annihilate cities, contaminate the environment, and cause irreversible harm to our planet’s ecosystem. Once an ICBM is launched, it cannot be recalled. I don’t want a nuclear strike or accident to happen. We can change course now, and our first step is to decommission the ICBM program also because it is a staggering financial burden to maintain.
Nuclear weapons only provide the terrifying threat of annihilation, either by command or by accident. Nuclear weapons and ICBMs only make the world less safe and strip us of security.
The U.S. plans to spend over $1.2 trillion on nuclear modernization over the next 30 years, which means new, larger nuclear bombs and new, larger ICBMs called Sentinels that will need to be tested. This massive investment in outdated technology diverts critical funds away from humanitarian needs like healthcare, education, and healing climate change—issues that directly impact our quality of life, and our children’s future.
I teach 4th and 5th graders Creative Writing. I adore children’s imaginations, but when my students were given the assignment to write about something important to them, they wrote lines that broke my heart. This is a wake-up call for us adults to face the reality we have made for our children.
“Such a shame, a perfectly good planet, trashed.” Claire, age 9.
“What would you think about no nature in the world? No trees, no butterflies, no birds or bunnies at all! Most important of all, no people. There would be no technology, no schools, no history, no entertainment; everything we have worked for would be wasted. What would you think about a beautiful world that basically had nothing? I think I would absolutely hate it.,” Brynn, age 9.
Other than destruction caused by industrial global warming and by war, which the children are all-too aware of, this child does not know what actually could turn nature and civilization to nothing in a matter of minutes; she doesn’t know about “nuclear winter” or how vulnerable we are to a nuclear accident. Most people don’t.
The claim is that nuclear weapons are deterrents, but it is diplomacy that creates alliances and peace. Nuclear weapons only provide the terrifying threat of annihilation, either by command or by accident. Nuclear weapons and ICBMs only make the world less safe and strip us of security.
As the warring ruling class seems to be pushing for nuclear brinkmanship, on this election night let us not be distracted. By decommissioning ICBMs, the U.S. could lead the world in reducing the nuclear threat and encourage other nations to do the same. For the sake of our health, environment, and the safety of future generations, it’s time to scrap the ICBM program. We owe it to our children to invest in a future that prioritizes peace and sustainability over destruction.
As it is we the people who possess the right of self-determination, we must confront the material reality of our homeland and face what it will take to protect it. Do we have the courage to change our country for the better and ensure our futures? Yes we do, and now is the time to take action.
“Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress,” said Daniel Ellsberg, U.S. military analyst, economist, and author of "The Doomsday Machine."
May we cancel this nightmare weapons program for once and for all and give our children the security that they deserve.
Tell Congress: Cancel Sentinel Missile Program—More Than 700 Scientists Agree: https://secure.ucsusa.org/a/2024-cancel-sentinel-letter
Learn more about the dangers of ICBMS and get involved. https://defusenuclearwar.org/eliminate-icbms/
Between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands that vaporized whole islands, carved craters into the shallow lagoons, and exiled hundreds of people from their homes.
March 1 marks 70 years since the U.S. used its biggest ever nuclear weapon—on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The bomb was 15 megatons, 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
On this day we remember the victims of the Castle Bravo nuclear blast and all other victims of the nuclear era, which has brought untold pain, death, and damage, affecting both people and planet in profound ways.
There’s no better way to remember Castle Bravo day than by taking action on behalf of the victims of radiation and pushing for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands. The blasts vaporized whole islands, carved craters into the shallow lagoons, and exiled hundreds of people from their homes. The Castle Bravo blast was the largest of all, sending particulate and gaseous fallout around the entire planet.
Concerned U.S. citizens tried to stop the tests by contacting Congress, the president, and the press and by demonstrating on campuses and in the streets. They weren’t successful through these conventional means, so in 1958 four Quakers bought a small sailboat, the Golden Rule, and attempted to sail her right into the testing zone in the Marshall Islands.
The crew of the Golden Rule was arrested in Honolulu and could not continue. A second boat, the Phoenix of Hiroshima, took the baton and completed the sail into the Marshall Islands, resulting in the arrest of the Phoenix’s captain. The actions and arrests of these crews spurred a massive public outcry that finally led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
The Golden Rule also inspired the founding of Greenpeace in 1971, whose first mission was to sail to Amchitka Island, Alaska, to stop nuclear weapons testing. The U.S. Navy stopped Greenpeace, too. The nuclear bomb the group had come to stop was detonated, but the subsequent tests were canceled and the U.S. stopped the entire Amchitka nuclear test program.Greenpeace and her vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, played an important role in the Marshall Islands in 1985 when Rongelap residents asked Greenpeace to help them relocate to a new home. Both Bikini and Enewetak’s people were evacuated from their island homes prior to the nuclear tests, hoping to avoid radioactive fallout. But the inhabitants of Rongelap (150 kilometers away) were not so fortunate. Within four hours of the Castle Bravo explosion, fallout was settling on the island. A fine white ash landed on the heads and bare arms of people standing in the open. It dissolved into water supplies and drifted into houses.
With double the usual miscarriages and other health problems caused by the Castle Bravo test, the people of Rongelap begged the U.S. government to evacuate them. But they were now human “guinea pigs,” and U.S. scientists wanted to study the effects of radiation on the population.
Finally, in 1985, Greenpeace made three 180 kilometer trips from Rongelap to Mejato (in the Kwajalein Atoll), taking 300 islanders to safety.
The Golden Rule disappeared from public view in 1958 and eventually sank in Humboldt Bay in far northern California in 2010. After a five-year rebuild, she was re-launched and returned to her anti-nuclear mission by Veterans For Peace.
In 2016 when the Golden Rule visited Portland, Oregon, we visited with a Marshallese group who built a traditional sailing canoe. Most people in and from the Marshall Islands have never heard of the Golden Rule or the Phoenix of Hiroshima. However, when they hear the story, they are very excited that people attempted to help them all those years ago.
Kiana Juda-Angelo presented the Golden Rule Project with a Marshallese flag at our public presentation in Portland, Oregon in 2016.
Hawaii has one of the largest populations of Marshall Islanders in the U.S. It has been our pleasure to meet them and commemorate Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day in Honolulu in 2019.
In 2022, as the Golden Rule sailed down the Mississippi River along the “Great Loop,” we passed through Dubuque, Iowa, where there is a community of 800 or so Marshall Islanders. Veterans For Peace member Art Roche told them the story of the Golden Rule’s 1958 voyage and that we were bringing the boat to Dubuque! They greeted us with leis and songs of sweet harmony in their traditional clothing. We enjoyed dancing, speeches, and song for a whole weekend.
When the Golden Rule was in New York City we met the Permanent United Nations Representative from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Ambassador Amatlain Elizabeth Kabua. She explained that there were several issues that could be improved:
For the last three decades, Marshall Islanders have sought compensation from the U.S. for the health and environmental effects of nuclear testing. They’ve been denied standing to sue in U.S. courts, and Congress has declined their requests. The Compact of Free Association (COFA) which governs the relationship between the U.S., Palau, Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands was renegotiated in 2023. However, Congress has yet to fund the $7 billion dollars that was approved.
The Marshall Islands are also being hit hard by global warming and slowly sinking into the rising seas. This will submerge a highly radioactive nuclear waste dump, Runit dome. Runit dome contains nuclear contamination from both the Marshall Islands and the Nevada test site.
On March 1, let’s remember all of the victims of radiation—from Hiroshima and Nagasaki; nuclear testing areas; and uranium mining, milling, processing, and disposal sites.
Let your senators and representative know that you support fully funding the Compact of Free Association (COFA).
Tell them that you support the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, including its expansion to include those people exposed from the Trinity test in New Mexico in 1945.
Work for the U.S. to sign the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which includes compensation for victims of radiation. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, is working hard to get all nations to sign the treaty.
Back from the Brink urges the U.S. government to:
Their website has an advocacy toolkit and sample scripts for talking with the press and policy makers.
Two important bills are in Congress: H. Res 77 would implement the Back from the Brink Measures. HR 2775 would move money from nuclear weapons manufacturing to funding fossil-free, nuclear-free energy as well as human needs. Ask your representative to sponsor these bills and your senators to introduce a companion bill!
There’s no better way to remember Castle Bravo day than by taking action on behalf of the victims of radiation and pushing for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
"These actions undermine the integrity of the COP presidency and the process as a whole," former Marshallese President Hilda Heine wrote in her resignation letter to COP28 chief Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
United Nations Climate Change Conference advisory board member Hilda Heine resigned on Friday, citing reports that the Emirati oil executive presiding over COP28 has been busy pushing for fossil fuel deals in the run-up to the event.
Earlier this week, the Center for Climate Reporting and the BBC reported that Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber—who is simultaneously serving as COP28 president and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)—"has held scores of meetings with senior government officials, royalty, and business leaders from around the world in recent months" as the "COP28 team has quietly planned to use this access as an opportunity to increase exports of ADNOC's oil and gas."
"These actions undermine the integrity of the COP presidency and the process as a whole."
In her resignation letter, which was seen and first reported by Reuters, Heine—who is a former president of the low-lying Marshall Islands, one of the world's most climate-imperiled nations—called the United Arab Emirates' plan to make oil and gas deals at COP28 "deeply disappointing."
"These actions undermine the integrity of the COP presidency and the process as a whole," she asserted, adding that the only way Al Jaber can restore confidence is to "deliver an outcome that demonstrates that you are committed to phasing out fossil fuels."
Al Jaber has denied that he's using COP28 for fossil fuel deal-making.
"These allegations are false, not true, incorrect, and not accurate," he said Wednesday at a Dubai press conference. "And it's an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency."
A spokesperson for COP28's presidency said they are "extremely disappointed by Dr. Heine's resignation."
"We appreciated her advice throughout the year and that we only wish she would have been with us here in the UAE celebrating the adoption of a fund that will support vulnerable island states and those most affected by climate impacts," the spokesperson said, referring to the global "loss and damage" fund that one critic
slammed as "a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the need they are to address."
The UAE isn't the only major oil producer pushing fossil fuels while participating in COP28. Saudi Arabia—whose Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday was among the world leaders kicking off talks at the conference—"is overseeing a sweeping global investment program" intended to "ensure that emerging economies across Africa and Asia become vastly more dependent on oil," the Center for Climate Reporting and Channel 4 News revealed this week.