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The danger is even greater because today 18 countries have uranium enrichment facilities enabling them, if they wish, to produce fuel for nuclear weapons. Nine of these countries are now known to possess nuclear weapons, and the IAEA estimates that within 10 years as many as 40 or more nations may be able to make them, and many likely will to have available at least in self-defense. In addition, 70 countries now have legally acceptable small nuclear reactors, mostly fueled by highly enriched uranium. These reactors also manufacture plutonium, and both fuels can be used to make nuclear bombs if elements in any of these countries have the know-how and wish to do so. Many of them will be forced to do it in response to threats posed by hostile neighbors and especially by the US that openly claims the right to use nuclear bombs preemptively in any future conflict for any reason it claims is justifiable and certainly will unless restrained. If this happens, it's only a matter of time until a nuclear bomb is set off on US soil with all the devastation that will follow from it.Chapter 8 - Nuclear Power and "Rogue Nations" - Those Having Nuclear Weapons or Threaten to Use Them Are the "Rogue" Ones to Fear
Two nations clearly are at the head of the "rogue" nuclear pack - the US and Russia that combined have 97% of the total known arsenal of about 30,000 nuclear bombs. Because these two nations maintain thousands of these weapons on "hair-trigger" alert, a nuclear exchange between them would cause a nuclear winter and likely end all life on all or most of the planet. It could happen despite the end of the cold war as relations between the two countries have become more frosty and Russia's early warning system is hopelessly outdated, flawed, inadequate and subject to false alerts with only moments to react before it's too late. In addition, other countries having nuclear weapons or sure to develop them in the future, will certainly respond with them (if able) if they're attacked with these weapons or possibly even by conventional ones. Responsible leaders of any nation are likely to develop and use whatever weapons they have in self-defense if forced to do so. It's a very real and dangerous possibility and reason enough to argue for the abolition of this technology from hell that may destroy all human life if left unchecked.
Only one nation above all others is a threat to world security and peace, and that nation is the most "roguish" of all. It's the US, and all other countries know it. The US is now waging two illegal wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, unconditionally supports Israel's right to do the same against the defenseless Palestinians and Lebanese and is threatening additional conflicts against Iran, Syria, Venezuela (to remove a three-time democratically elected President loved by the great majority of his people), and possibly North Korea. In addition, the US claims the right and intent to preemptively use nuclear weapons if it wishes and went to great lengths to undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review conference at the UN in May, 2005. It happened under the aegis of the thuggish US Under Secretary for Disarmament at the time John Bolton (now UN ambassador) who deliberately sabotaged the meeting by refusing to participate in meaningful discussions. Other nations at the conference were outraged and disgusted with his actions and the nation he represents - to no avail, especially after Bolton assumed his UN role and prevented any disarmament discussions in that capacity. Even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who nearly always is unreservedly submissive to US authority, uncharacteristically expressed his disgust calling the US action a "real disgrace" as it surely was. Nonetheless, because of the total US dominance over the UN and its actions, no progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation has been made nor is any likely to be at least as long as the Bush administration remains in office, and probably much longer. Can the world afford to take a chance and wait, hoping for the best that may never come without forceful action?
Chapter 9 - Renewable Energy: The Answer - Alternatives Exist but Are So Far Unaddressed and Insufficiently Developed
Dr. Caldicott makes an impassioned plea throughout her book and her others to free the planet from the scourge of the nuclear threat that may destroy us. In this chapter she states: "there is no need to build new nuclear power plants to provide for the projected energy needs of the future......it would be possible, using other forms of electricity generation to close down most of the existing nuclear reactors with a decade. There is enough wind (power) between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River alone to supply three times the amount of electricity that America needs."
There are other alternatives as well to the use of nuclear power that hold some promise including the conversion of coal to a synthetic fuel. Dr. Caldicott, however, concentrates on renewables in this chapter. She mentions that today that about 2% of electricity in the US comes from this safe and clean source whereas nuclear power supplies 20%. However, if hydroelectric power is included in the mix, about 9% of our electricity came from renewables in 2004 and 18.6% of it worldwide. Clearly, the rest of the world is far ahead of us, and the main problem in this country is the power of the fossil fuel and nuclear industries that have a stranglehold on US policy making and the politicians who make it. Unless they decide it's profitable to move to renewables, it won't happen and we'll continue down the same destructive road to an inevitable bad ending.
Those on opposite sides debate whether alternatives alone can solve this nation's electricity needs. However, the respected journal, The New Scientist, recently wrote that the combination of wind and tidal power, micro-hydro, and biomass make renewable power increasingly practical. It said wind power and biomass are now almost as cheap as coal, and wave power and solar photovotaics are becoming more competitive. A report from the New Economics Foundation supports these conclusions. It said renewables are easy to build, cheap to harvest, economical to use overall, safe, flexible and clean.
Despite industry resistance and support for it by complicit governments, especially in the US, the mounting evidence of the destructiveness of carbon emissions and nuclear proliferation dictates the urgent need to implement safe alternative solutions to our energy needs and do it now. The threat of global warming is the most obvious one, and that issue has entered mainstream discussion to some degree. It's now clear the planet is becoming warmer, the number and intensity of destructive storms are increasing, and the phenomenon of catastrophic environmental events are becoming more common. Still, the US pretends it isn't so as evidenced by its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, weak and ineffective as it is. It's now up to the public and individual states to act in lieu of the federal government and hope a future administration may be more responsible than this one - a faint hope given the power and influence of energy industry that so far refuses alternatives to its interests and has been able to get its way. But the public can't stop trying because the alternative is catastrophic and mustn't be allowed to happen if at all posssible.
Chapter 10 - What Individuals Can Do: Energy Conservation and Efficiency - If the Government Won't Do It, People on Their Own Can
Western Europeans are able to maintain a high living standard similar to people in the US using half the amount of energy we do. If they can do it comfortably, so can we, but we need the urging and mandating of reduced energy standards by government at the state and local levels combining to pressure the federal government to do the same. Dr. Caldicott lists a menu of ways we can live responsibly using energy-efficient technologies that have been available for many years and are becoming more sophisticated and cost effective all the time. They range from what we can do in our homes, the type of cars we drive and way we use them to how new buildings are constructed and much more. The key is the urgency to act, and the goal is energy efficiency and safety and the benefits to be gained from them.
Everyone needs to be involved and many cities, states and businesses already are if only for the cost savings achieved by acting responsibly. A 2004 study by Synapse Energy Economics titled "A Responsible Electricity Future," offered a pragmatic and workable plan. It concluded that energy efficiency can reduce US electricity demand by almost 28% by 2025; nonhydro renewable energy, including geothermal, landfill gas, biomass, solar thermal, solar power generation, and especially wind power can provide 15% of US electricity needs by 2025; combined heat and power generation will produce 10% of it; oil, coal, and gas-fired generators can be retired after fifty operating years; and no new nuclear plants need be built and all old ones can be closed after 45 years of operation.
The net result of this plan is many billions of dollars saved, a reduction in global warming, and a cleaner and safer environment free from the destruction guaranteed by the continued use of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Can it be done, and is there still time to do it? Some experts claim no on both counts, and they may be right. But that's no excuse for giving up and allowing a fate too frightful and devastating to allow to happen without a concerted effort to prevent it. Hope sustains us and when combined with commitment and enough effort by those of us willing to expend it, anything is not only possible, it quite likely can be attained. We have no time to waste because we've already wasted so much of it.
Everyone should read Helen Caldicott's important new book and her previous one The New Nuclear Danger. The two combined clearly explain how threatening the military and commercial use of nuclear technology is to human survival. It's no exaggeration to say either we must destroy it or it will destroy us. Albert Einstein, whose theories led to the development of atomic power, knew this well and believed the splitting of the atom changed everything and threatened us all. In 1946, he said, after he understood the horror of Hiroshima: "Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." Einstein believed and was saying that unless nuclear technology is abolished, we face the real threat of our extinction. Helen Caldicott in her new book and her others is saying the same thing. Are we listening, do we understand, and will we act in time to save ourselves and our progeny?
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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