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The first volume of a work discussing the state of scientific knowledge of the possible environmental consequences of nuclear war. It presents a consensus as to the effects nuclear detonations might have on climate, ecosystems and food supply.
Most of the earth's population would survive the immediate horrors of a nuclear holocaust, but what long-term climatological changes would affect their ability to secure food and shelter? This sobering book considers the effects of fine dust from ground-level detonations, of smoke from widespread fires, and of chemicals released into the atmosphere. The authors use mathematical models of atmospheric processes and data from natural situationsâ€"e.g., volcanic eruptions and arctic hazeâ€"to draw their conclusions. This is the most detailed and comprehensive probe of the scientific evidence published to date.
A handbook for scholars, students, policy makers, journalists, and peace and environmental activists.A handbook for scholars, students, policy makers, journalists, and peace and environmental activists, Nuclear Wastelands provides concise histories of the development of nuclear weapons programs of every declared and de facto nuclear weapons power, as well as detailed surveys of the health and environmental effects of this development both in these countries and in non-nuclear nations involved in nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining. Among the more obvious but largely deferred costs of the Cold War are those related to the management of radioactive waste. The world is burdened with thousands of unwanted nuclear devices and mounting surpluses of weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium. In addition, the process of weapons production and testing has left many lands, aquifers, rivers, lakes, and seas contaminated by a multitude of weapons-related poisons. This book follows the production process step by step and country by country from uranium mining to the final assembly and storage of weapons, analyzing the potential hazards of each step and compiling the most complete information available on the actual health and environmental effects, in each country involved. Nuclear Wastelands includes a wealth of information that has only recently come to light, particularly on the nuclear weapons program of the former Soviet Union. It also features critical analyses of official public communications concerning the health and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons production, bringing to light governmental secrecy and outright deception that have led to the subversion of democratic principles, and have camouflaged the damage done to the very people and lands the weapons were meant to safeguard.
“There are two problems for our species’ survival—nuclear war and environmental catastrophe, ” says Noam Chomsky in this new book on the two existential threats of our time and their points of intersection since World War II. While a nuclear strike would require action, environmental catastrophe is partially defined by willful inaction in response to human-induced climate change. Denial of the facts is only half the equation. Other contributing factors include extreme techniques for the extraction of remaining carbon deposits, the elimination of agricultural land for bio-fuel, the construction of dams, and the destruction of forests that are crucial for carbon sequestration. On the subject of current nuclear tensions, Chomsky revisits the long-established option of a nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, a proposal set in motion through a joint Egyptian Iranian General Assembly resolution in 1974. Intended as a warning, Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe is also a reminder that talking about the unspeakable can still be done with humor, with wit and indomitable spirit.
The hydrogen test-bomb Bravo, dropped on the Marshall Islands in 1954, was one of scores of cold-war nuclear tests that blanketed the nation with fallout. Johnston and Barker reveal the horrific history of human rights violations endured by the Marshallese, as well as their long struggle for reparations.
Underground facilities are used extensively by many nations to conceal and protect strategic military functions and weapons' stockpiles. Because of their depth and hardened status, however, many of these strategic hard and deeply buried targets could only be put at risk by conventional or nuclear earth penetrating weapons (EPW). Recently, an engineering feasibility study, the robust nuclear earth penetrator program, was started by DOE and DOD to determine if a more effective EPW could be designed using major components of existing nuclear weapons. This activity has created some controversy about, among other things, the level of collateral damage that would ensue if such a weapon were used. To help clarify this issue, the Congress, in P.L. 107-314, directed the Secretary of Defense to request from the NRC a study of the anticipated health and environmental effects of nuclear earth-penetrators and other weapons and the effect of both conventional and nuclear weapons against the storage of biological and chemical weapons. This report provides the results of those analyses. Based on detailed numerical calculations, the report presents a series of findings comparing the effectiveness and expected collateral damage of nuclear EPW and surface nuclear weapons under a variety of conditions.
In The Future of Fallout, and Other Episodes in Radioactive World-Making Joseph Masco examines the strange American intimacy with and commitment to existential danger. Tracking the simultaneous production of nuclear emergency and climate disruption since 1945, he focuses on the psychosocial accommodations as well as the technological revolutions that have produced these linked planetary-scale disasters. Masco assesses the memory practices, visual culture, concepts of danger, and toxic practices that, in combination, have generated a U.S. national security culture that promises ever more safety and comfort in everyday life but does so only by generating and deferring a vast range of violences into the collective future. Interrogating how this existential lag (i.e., the material and conceptual fallout of the twentieth century in the form of nuclear weapons and petrochemical capitalism) informs life in the twenty-first century, Masco identifies key moments when other futures were still possible and seeks to activate an alternative, postnational security political imaginary in support of collective life today.
Nuclear Weapons under International Law is a comprehensive treatment of nuclear weapons under key international law regimes. It critically reviews international law governing nuclear weapons with regard to the inter-state use of force, international humanitarian law, human rights law, disarmament law, and environmental law, and discusses where relevant the International Court of Justice's 1996 Advisory Opinion. Unique in its approach, it draws upon contributions from expert legal scholars and international law practitioners who have worked with conventional and non-conventional arms control and disarmament issues. As a result, this book embraces academic consideration of legal questions within the context of broader political debates about the status of nuclear weapons under international law.
"This book describes several weapons of mass destruction and examines the extent and duration of environmental damage to be expected from them"--Jacket.
Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist for The California Book Award in Nonfiction The San Francisco Chronicle's Best of the Year List Foreign Affairs Best Books of the Year In These Times “Best Books of the Year" Huffington Post's Ten Excellent December Books List LitHub's “Five Books Making News This Week” From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness exposé of the dangers of America's Top Secret, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that continues to this day. Here, for the first time, former high-level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking firsthand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that the legacy of this most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization--and its proposed renewal under the Trump administration--threatens our very survival. No other insider with high-level access has written so candidly of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era. Framed as a memoir--a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating--this gripping exposé reads like a thriller and offers feasible steps we can take to dismantle the existing "doomsday machine" and avoid nuclear catastrophe, returning Ellsberg to his role as whistle-blower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real-life Dr. Strangelove story and an ultimately hopeful--and powerfully important--book about not just our country, but the future of the world.