Swanwick Star Issue Nr. 11 (2018)

The Biological Wrong-Turn

 

The Biological Wrong-Turn – Is there any way back from Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

 

Even as a child of ten, to the surprise of one of Oppenheimer’s colleagues, I had figured out how to build an atomic bomb. He happened to be visiting our house because my mother was always inviting over guests. This fact is not meant to be a reflection on my own brilliance, but, rather, on the rudimentary nature of the technology involved. Even then, once I had that under my belt, I decided the far more noble thing for any nuclear physicist (for that was my ambition at the time) would be to turn their attention towards a clean energy source like nuclear fusion or other alternate for the good of mankind.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was in 1976 and, now, it is 2018. I have often asked myself if a ten year old could figure out nuclear fission, could not the best brains in the world figure out nuclear fusion or a better alternative in 40 years? – apparently, not, since nuclear fission still reigns supreme at nuclear power plants across the globe with all its radioactive waste and other hazards.

Following over 1000 nuclear tests and detonations in New Mexico and at the notorious Nevada Test Site, the US developed the atom bombs that were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to end World War II. At autopsy, 17% of Hiroshima & Nagasaki atom bomb survivors were found to have thyroid carcinomas. Ironically, studies in the 1950’s, revealed that individuals exposed to radioiodines generated by detonations at the Nevada Test Site also had an excess of thyroid neoplasms.

Did you think that was the end of the nuclear story? So did I, until I attended a conference in Bosnia and Herzogovina and started to research the topic upon my return. That was just the beginning of how we entered the atomic age, my friends…

In the 1950’s, even after WWII, America continued testing nuclear devices in the Bikini & Marshall Islands. The consequences for the natives were devastating. Many islanders developed thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer within a decade.

The short-term effects of environmental radiation include a decrease in white blood cells and a weakened immune system. Chronic fatigue is another symptom associated with radiation exposure and various disorders such as respiratory, pulmonary, and digestive. Many radioactive isotopes generated by nuclear explosions will remain in the environment for thousands, if not millions of years and these can be transmitted into the human body through the air, water, and soil. Gamma radiation released steadily from these radioisotopes can also cause somatic genetic mutations and other DNA damage, which may be transmissible to future generations. The long-term effects of radiation can include leukemia, thyroid and other cancers in humans.

The first nuclear fission-based power plants started to spring up in Russia and America during the 1950’s. And, slowly, the nuclear power plant disasters started to pile up decade upon decade and pollute the environment – Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima…

In the 1980s, Soviet and other scientists started warning about the impact of nuclear weapons on global climate and their role in climate-change.

Then, in the 1990’s, some unscrupulous individuals had the bright idea of using the nuclear waste from these power plants to make depleted uranium weapons. Depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process employed in nuclear reactors. It has been used to make depleted-uranium bombs and to coat bullets, which proved to be effective armour-piercing projectiles. The US & NATO proceeded to use depleted-uranium bombs and bullets in the Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq, the Bosnian and Serbian War, Afghanistan, and, contemporaneously, in the Syrian War.

Taken together, this means that a significant portion of the world is contaminated with radioactive heavy metals, now, and, that the citizens of these countries suffer their deadly and debilitating radiochemical effects daily. It is a fate equal to consigning our fellow human beings perpetually to the final hell of Dante’s Infernoright here on this earth. The potential pollution of the entire planet with this radioactive waste in endless wars should be cause for humans to examine their collective conscience.

Do we need to re-think a nuclear world? Surely, by creating a weakened race of humans with cancers and immune deficiencies, the future of mankind is in jeopardy, and total extinction lies that way. Animals and plants are not immune to the biological effects of radiation either and the extinction of a myriad other species lies down this garden-path we find ourselves treading.

When I got back from Bosnia & Herzegovina, I kept looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person I saw there – inside, I felt like I had been shattered into a thousand tiny, little pieces. The whole world I knew had come crashing down – our society, civilization, media, politicians, institutions of higher learning had all completely betrayed and deceived us by pretending to be so morally virtuous. However, they had successfully hidden this skeleton. It was as if there was not a single beating heart left in the world and everything had suddenly turned to stone.

There is not much around us in the world to help us retain our equilibrium,  but the two shining examples that came into my mind were Krishnamurti and David Bohm, who had actually been conducting workshops on using Dialogue as a means of peaceful communication at Swanwick concurrently with the development of depleted uranium weapons and just prior to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Suddenly, it seemed like something momentous had taken place during that era…something that we must continue into the present…something that may be our only hope…so, here we are, asking ourselves if there is an alternative to the exclusive self-interest of war in our own lives. If we can change, perhaps, the world around us will also change.

I would like to open this dialogue session with a quote from Life Aheadby Krishnamurti –

“We have been talking about the deteriorating factors in human existence, and we said that fear is one of the fundamental causes of this deterioration”.

Personally, I have never been so afraid of the human capacity for destruction in all my life.

CS

presented on August 18, 2018 at the ‘You Are The World’ dialogue-retreat