Chaos and agony: the human consequences of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Dr. Masao Tomonaga, IPPNW’s regional Vice President for North Asia, Professor Emeritus of Nagasaki University, and a survivor of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki, has published a new article in the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament entitled “The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Summary of the Human Consequences, 1945-2018, and Lessons for Homo sapiens to End the Nuclear Weapon Age.”
The article is a comprehensive, carefully documented review of the immediate and long-term medical, psychological, and social consequences of the atomic bombings, and a challenge to political leaders to abandon nuclear weapons before they are used again. Read more…
Which would you prefer―nuclear war or climate catastrophe?
To: The people of the world
From: The Joint Public Relations Department of the Great Powers
The world owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, Boris Johnson, and other heroic rulers of our glorious nations. Not only are they hard at work making their respective countries great again, but they are providing you, the people of the world, with a choice between two opportunities for mass death and destruction. Read more…
A young Hannah Rabin was the peace movement’s Greta
by Vappu Taipale
Founders of the Children’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1982. From left: Susie Dennison, Hannah Rabin, Solves Schumann, Nessa Rabin, Maria Schumann, Max Schumann, Becky Dennison.
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, has become the face of an entire generation demanding urgent action to prevent climate collapse. We older members of the peace movement remember very well our own young activist, 16-year-old Hannah Rabin from the USA, who campaigned to prevent nuclear war in the early 1980s.
Hannah and her friends started their activities against nuclear war by collecting children’s letters to US President Ronald Reagan. They promised to travel to the White House, where they read aloud more than 2,000 letters. Read more…
Sharing a story of survival
Setsuko Thurlow speaks during a reception in her honor on October 5. Photo: Steve Lipofsky
[Hiroshima survivor and ICAN campaigner Setsuko Thurlow was honored in Boston on October 5, when the Longwood Symphony Orchestra hosted a special evening at the New England Conservatory of Music’s Jordan Hall as part of its 2019 Healing Art of Music™ program. For the second year, the LSO selected IPPNW and Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility as community partners, and hosted the event as a benefit for the two organizations. Ms. Thurlow delivered the following remarks during a reception preceding the concert. She spoke again just before the concert began.]
My visit to Boston rekindles some sense of kinship within me. In the late 1970s and early 80s both Boston and Toronto, where I live, were struggling to get disarmament education and advocacy work started in schools, universities, churches, professional organizations, as so on. I remember in these days one of your organizations, Educators for Social Responsibility, had done a superb job of producing a new curriculum for disarmament education, and that our Toronto School Board benefitted from it greatly. Read more…
An unforgettable memory
Setsuko Thurlow addresses audience in Jordan Hall before the LSO performs. Photo: Steve Lipofsky
[Hiroshima survivor and ICAN campaigner Setsuko Thurlow was honored in Boston on October 5, when the Longwood Symphony Orchestra hosted a special evening at the New England Conservatory of Music’s Jordan Hall as part of its 2019 Healing Art of Music™ program. For the second year, the LSO selected IPPNW and Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility as community partners, and hosted the event as a benefit for the two organizations. Ms. Thurlow delivered the following remarks before the concert. She also spoke earlier in the evening at a special reception.]
As a young teenage survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, I have an unforgettable memory.
Only two years after that catastrophic bombing, my school was able to build a new building in the midst of the total devastation of the city. The school was also able to bring together all these fortunate surviving girls like me, and formed a choral group. Read more…
New scientific study describes severe consequences of a limited, regional nuclear war
New research on the consequences of a limited, regional nuclear war, published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, concludes that casualty levels and long-term impacts on the global environment will be far more severe than previously believed. (Toon, Owen B., Charles G. Bardeen, Alan Robock, Lili Xia, Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, R. J. Peterson, Cheryl Harrison, Nicole S. Lovenduski, and Richard P. Turco, 2019: Rapid expansion of nuclear arsenals by Pakistan and India portends regional and global catastrophe. Science Advances, 5, eaay5478, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aay5478.)
The authors of the paper, entitled “Rapid expansion of nuclear arsenals by Pakistan and India portends regional and global catastrophe,” look first at regional blast, thermal, and radiation effects, and conclude that “for the first time in human history, the fatalities in a regional war could double the yearly natural global death rate.
“Moreover, the environmental stresses related to climate changes caused by smoke produced from burning cities could lead to widespread starvation and ecosystem disruption far outside of the war zone itself.“ Read more…
For me it all began with a bet
by Lars Pohlmeier, MD
Thirty years ago the Berlin Wall fell. That was the source of my political optimism to abolish nuclear weapons.
In September 1989, I was standing right in the center of Berlin in front of “Checkpoint Charlie,” which was one of the checkpoints between the so-called Soviet Sector and the American Sector in the divided city of Berlin. Several dozens of kilometers of wall divided East and West Berlin and also surrounded the Western part of Berlin.
My friend Hennig and I, both 19 years old at the time, were looking at the heavily armed soldiers ready to kill anyone without notice who would try to cross the border from the East to the West. We were thinking about whether this wall would ever be gone in our lifetime. Read more…
How nuclear power powers the bomb
by Alex Rosen, Co-President, IPPNW-Germany
Reuters recently reported that nuclear energy is both too slow and too expensive to present a meaningful response to the climate catastrophe facing our planet So why are countries like the UK, France, Russia, or China still investing in it?
The answer lies in the demands of the military, who require a robust backbone of civil nuclear infrastructure for their nuclear weapons programs. Read more…
Doctor sees another side of himself in exhibition portrait
[Editor’s note: The following article, written by Canberra Times reporter Steve Jones, was published in The Times on 20 September.]
IPPNW co-president Tilman Ruff at Australia’s National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
by Steve Jones, The Canberra Times
Not many of us get to see a portrait of ourselves in a big-time art gallery.
But it happened to Dr Tilman Ruff at lunchtime on Thursday.
His portrait, by photographer Nikki Toole, is in a special exhibition at the newly re-opened National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand (second from right, front row) represented the federation at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Merida, Mexico, along with Drs. Jans Fromow Guerra and Ruby Chirino of the Mexican affiliate.
Nobel Laureates’ statement on the urgent need to prevent nuclear war
[Editor’s note: The 17th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, meeting in Merida Mexico on 21 September, has adopted the following statement drafted by IPPNW.]
Since August 1945, when the US detonated the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded eight times to individuals and organizations for their work to prevent nuclear war and to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons. Read more…
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