Tomorrow afternoon Sydney time, join my hybrid lecture, either at #UNSW, or register on Zoom at the link below.
It will be a book talk about my book, Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (Yale 2022). The subtitles is: How millions harmed by #nuclear weapons & power have been made invisible during the Cold War & after
Countdown The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons by Sarah Scoles
Drawing from years of on-the-ground reporting at the nation's nuclear weapons labs, Scoles interrogates the idea that having nuclear weapons keeps us safe, deterring attacks and preventing radioactive warfare. She deftly assesses the existing nuclear apparatus in the United States, taking readers beyond the news headlines and policy-speak to reveal the state of nuclear-weapons technology.
THE BOMB IN THE BASEMENT tells the fascinating story of how Israel became the Middle East's only nuclear power and -- unlike Iraq and Iran -- succeeded in keeping its atomic program secret.
Grateful for the complex and detailed review of my book Nuclear bodies: the global hibakusha by Sonali Huria in the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament.
NYT video about the Palomares nuclear accident over Spain in 1966.
A US h-bomber was refueling in mid-air over Southern Spain. Both exploded and four h-bombs fell onto a small Spanish beach town (2 into the Mediterranean). This film examines health consequences to the clean up crew.
Fantastic new film. It does far more than what the headline says, it is a thoughtful inquiry, especially into global warming, and highlights many voices not traditionally included.
"New film underscores Doomsday Clock’s importance and Bulletin history"
Fallout cloud from a nuclear weapon test at the Nevada Test Site during the Upshot-Knothole series (1953).
This is about an hour after the test, and the cloud is in the process of spreading into Southern Utah where it will dump a significant portion of its radioactive fallout on houses, farms and ranches.
Scientists calculate that four specific tests (out of almost 500) were responsible for the majority of the radioactive fallout deposited downwind of the Polygon nuclear test site in Kazakhstan (the primary test site of the former USSR).
This is very bad news for radioactive waste management at #Hanford
"Hanford’s pre-treated waste might not meet Vit Plant criteria"
Much of the worst radioactive waste at Hanford is the "liquid" waste in the Tank Farms. The plan was to vitrify them (enclose them in glass). Now, looks like the Vit Plant may not be up to the task. Billions more wasted after the first Vit Plant was scuttled for safety concerns.
All of the tanks in the Tank Farm are leaking. Workers are hospitalized annually for inhaling toxic fumes working at the site. They may remain with no viable plan to process the waste into a form that is manageable.
You try to get two glass beads (to the left in this photo), each with a tail so that when you get them in the holes for Hiroshima & #Nagasaki, the back end stands up like a mushroom cloud.
Mass murder triumphalism
Photo of original item in my office here in #Hiroshima.
Selecting the irradiated (one of the chapter titles of my book):
The US conducted 1,054 nuclear weapon tests.
88% were conducted inside the US at the Nevada Test Site.
8% were conducted in the Marshall Islands.
This chart shows that the US concentrated the much larger hydrogen bomb tests in the Marshall Islands, and that the 8% of tests there released far more blast, heat and radiation than the domestic tests.
"Domesticating Hiroshima in America in the Early Cold War"
How Americans came to see The US as perhaps the "real" #Hiroshima during the early Cold War. Even in the 21st century describing the idea of a terrorist nuclear detonation in the US as an "American Hiroshima."