A Mushrooming Movement

TOMORROW THE U.S. anti-nuclear movement takes its case to Washington D.C. A huge demonstration and a public trial of nuclear power is planned for the afternoon, and organizers hope (and half-expect) it to be the largest U.S. anti-nuclear demonstration ever. No longer content to protest individual nuclear facilities with individual anti-nuke groups, the movement has progressed to a stage of unified action to put pressure where it counts--on the government.

There is a new urgency, and a sense of responsibility to the anti-nuclear movement. Perhaps that is because the issues now seem to be resolving themselves into clearer and more fundamental choices. Some understood these choices long ago. As two distinguished scientists and humanitarians, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russelt, put it earlier in the Nuclear Age:

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Emstein and Russell were specifically trying to head off the threat of nuclear war, but their message applies equally well to the "peaceful" use of nuclear power: the nuclear industry and humankind cannot both survive. It's us or them.

The average nuclear reactor produces 400 to 500 pounds of plutonium a year. One pound, distributed evenly through the atmosphere, is enough to give every person on earth lung cancer for so goes the estimate of Dr. Helen Caldicott, author of Nuclear Madness and an anti-nuclear activist). One-millionth of a gram of plutonium constitutes a carcinogen dose. That's just one of the dangers when reactors operate "safely." Since at Three Mile Island, the public has learned that far more dangerous accidents will happen, and the anti-nuclear movement has been swelling.

Two days after Harrisburg, 35,000 West Germans protested plans to build an underground nuclear dump near Groleban in northern Germany. They began chanting "We All Live in Pennsylvania," and the slogan was soon picked up by demonstrators back in the U.S. Major demonstrations occurred in Japan, in Denmark, and in other nations. French saboteurs blew up millions of dollars worth of nuclear equipment destined for Iraq. The people of the industrialized world have begun turning against nuclear power, but their governments are wedded to the nuclear industry.

WHEN BOSTON demonstrators confronted Gov. Edward J. King here in Massachusetts and demanded a halt to nuclear power, pointing out the grave dangers it poses, he responded, "But we NEEEEED it." Jimmy Carter gave essentially the same answer when asked if his opinions on nuclear power had changed because of the Three Mile Island accdent. They hadn't. In other words, we are addicted to nuclear power.

The nuclear industry profits from our addiction, and is pushing nuclear power around the world. They hope to make even more countries dependent on their (expensive) services. But what sort of a government would inflict nuclear power on its citizens? Governments like those in South Korea, South Africa, and the Philippines, which the U.S. is selling nukes to. Governments like Brazil, Pakistan and Argentina would also like to buy into nukes, and a whole host of other undemocratic regims are interested too.

Yet there is cause for hope. One good tiding comes from the "primitive" peoples of the world, who, it seems, are bent on saving us from ourselves. In the U.S.. Native Americans own most of the land under which lies our uranium supplies, essential to the nuclear fuel cycle, and Indians are unwilling to let the federal government go on mining the stuff. The government of course, is looking for a way around the rules. The Australian aborigines also find themselves sitting on much of Australia's potential uranium supply. Like the Native Americans, they consider these uranium mountains sacred. They even have a legend about them, which says that if even one of those mountains is disturbed, a huge snake will emerge to destroy the world.

BUT WE CANNOT rely on others to prevent our self-destruction. We must ourselves take responsibility for our survival. In the U.S. support for the anti-nuclear movement is coming from the campuses, from the old anti-war people, from the conservationists, and from just plain folks who are running scared. The Student Coalition Against Nukes Nationwide began in the fall of 1978 with four member schools. It now has 40 member schools, including Harvard. Boston Clamshell used to hold Wednesday orientation meetings at its headquarters; hundreds of would-be clams kept calling and dropping by and the Alliance now has to hold its orientation meetings in individual neighborhoods.

If tens of thousands, or even a hundred thousand people show up and they're angry, and scared, and feel used by the government, then the May 6 demo may be looked back on as the beginning of the end of nuclear power in the U.S. That end is already in sight, because no one is planning on building any new reactors. But the reactors now in use continue to turn out in their deadly radiation, and the cancers don't show up until long after the profits do. Besides, nuclear power is a world problem, and the peoples of the world must all say no to nukes in unison. The time has come now to break our nuclear addiction, and to take control of our future. We have no time left to grow up.

Two days after Harrisburg, 35,000 West Germans protested plans to build an underground nuclear dump near Groleban in northern Germany. They began chanting "We All Live in Pennsylvania," and the slogan was soon picked up by demonstrators back in the U.S. Major demonstrations occurred in Japan, in Denmark, and in other nations. French saboteurs blew up millions of dollars worth of nuclear equipment destined for Iraq. The people of the industrialized world have begun turning against nuclear power, but their governments are wedded to the nuclear industry.

WHEN BOSTON demonstrators confronted Gov. Edward J. King here in Massachusetts and demanded a halt to nuclear power, pointing out the grave dangers it poses, he responded, "But we NEEEEED it." Jimmy Carter gave essentially the same answer when asked if his opinions on nuclear power had changed because of the Three Mile Island accdent. They hadn't. In other words, we are addicted to nuclear power.

The nuclear industry profits from our addiction, and is pushing nuclear power around the world. They hope to make even more countries dependent on their (expensive) services. But what sort of a government would inflict nuclear power on its citizens? Governments like those in South Korea, South Africa, and the Philippines, which the U.S. is selling nukes to. Governments like Brazil, Pakistan and Argentina would also like to buy into nukes, and a whole host of other undemocratic regims are interested too.

Yet there is cause for hope. One good tiding comes from the "primitive" peoples of the world, who, it seems, are bent on saving us from ourselves. In the U.S.. Native Americans own most of the land under which lies our uranium supplies, essential to the nuclear fuel cycle, and Indians are unwilling to let the federal government go on mining the stuff. The government of course, is looking for a way around the rules. The Australian aborigines also find themselves sitting on much of Australia's potential uranium supply. Like the Native Americans, they consider these uranium mountains sacred. They even have a legend about them, which says that if even one of those mountains is disturbed, a huge snake will emerge to destroy the world.

BUT WE CANNOT rely on others to prevent our self-destruction. We must ourselves take responsibility for our survival. In the U.S. support for the anti-nuclear movement is coming from the campuses, from the old anti-war people, from the conservationists, and from just plain folks who are running scared. The Student Coalition Against Nukes Nationwide began in the fall of 1978 with four member schools. It now has 40 member schools, including Harvard. Boston Clamshell used to hold Wednesday orientation meetings at its headquarters; hundreds of would-be clams kept calling and dropping by and the Alliance now has to hold its orientation meetings in individual neighborhoods.

If tens of thousands, or even a hundred thousand people show up and they're angry, and scared, and feel used by the government, then the May 6 demo may be looked back on as the beginning of the end of nuclear power in the U.S. That end is already in sight, because no one is planning on building any new reactors. But the reactors now in use continue to turn out in their deadly radiation, and the cancers don't show up until long after the profits do. Besides, nuclear power is a world problem, and the peoples of the world must all say no to nukes in unison. The time has come now to break our nuclear addiction, and to take control of our future. We have no time left to grow up.