Destroyed nuclear power
plant at Chernobyl
in the Ukraine of the former USSR
No Nukes Is Good
Nukes
an
interview with longtime anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott
by Gregory Dicum published by Grist
Magazine on 3 May 3005
In 1971, Helen Caldicott had an epiphany: all life on earth could
end at any moment, simply because a few pig-headed people imagined
they could "win" a nuclear war. A decade later, she had
given up her promising medical career to devote her life to nothing
short of saving the world.
Her urgent Australian twang became a sane voice in a world gone
mad. In 1985, the Caldicott-inspired International Physicians for
the Prevention of Nuclear War won the Nobel Peace Prize. The organization
beat out Caldicott herself, who had been nominated by Linus Pauling,
the renowned chemist, anti-nuclear activist, and 1962 Nobel Peace
Prize winner.
By the end of the Cold War, Caldicott had attempted a quiet retirement
in Australia. But that didn't last. Today, with a renewed push to
develop nuclear weapons in the U.S. and other countries and nuclear
energy slithering back onto the table, the threat is as present
as ever, as she writes in The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's
Military-Industrial Complex .
With her latest endeavor, the Nuclear Policy Research Institute
, Caldicott seeks to counter the media offensives of the nuclear
industry. Meanwhile, she's working on a new book -- her sixth --
about the psychopathologies of nuclear decision makers.
Grist met with Caldicott in San Francisco, where she was planning
a fund-raiser around the release of Helen's War , a sobering film
about her initial efforts to get NPRI off the ground in the midst
of post-9/11 groupthink.
There's
a concerted effort right now to rehabilitate the image of nuclear
power. Proponents argue that fossil fuels are more damaging to the
environment, as well as being in short supply, and that nuclear
is the [best option going forward]. What's going on here?
The people saying these things are not biologists, they're not geneticists,
they're not physicians. In other words, they don't know what they're
talking about. And that makes me very annoyed. First of all, every
reactor produces about [20 to 30] tons of highly radioactive waste
a year. The majority of it is very long-lived and will have to be
isolated from the ecosphere for hundreds of thousands of years ...
As it leaks into the environment, it will bio-concentrate by orders
of magnitude at each step of the food chain: algae, crustaceans,
little fish, big fish, us.
It takes a single mutation in a single gene in a single cell to
kill you. [The most common plutonium isotope] has a half-life of
24,400 years. Every male in the Northern Hemisphere has a small
load of plutonium in his gonads. What that means to future generations
God only knows -- and we're not the only species with testicles.
What we're doing is degrading evolution, and not many people understand
that.
Yet as society begins to recognize that we do have to get away
from the petroleum economy, there's a lot of enthusiasm amongst
environmentalists for hydrogen -- enthusiasm that's shared by the
nuclear industry.
Well, of course, they'll do anything. I've been dealing with them
for 30 years and they lie -- they frighten me. I can debate with
generals about nuclear war and feel much more comfortable because
they know that what I'm talking about is true. The nuclear industry
just lies its way through the whole thing.
Nuclear power is no answer, says Caldicott.
They say nuclear power is the answer to global warming. Well ...
the [Department of Energy] and the EPA [will tell you] that, at
the moment, the process of uranium enrichment for fuel for nuclear
power releases huge quantities of CO2. And that does not include
releases from decommissioning of the reactor and transportation
and long-term storage of the waste.
Meanwhile, the enrichment of uranium is responsible for [over 90
percent] of the CFC-114 gas released into the air in the U.S. Now,
CFC is banned internationally under the Montreal Protocol because
it destroys the ozone layer, one. Two, CFC gas is 10,000 to 20,000
times more potent as a global warmer and heat trapper than CO2.
So the nuclear industry is lying. And advocates for nuclear power
have fallen for the nuclear industry's lies. Not propaganda, but
lies.
Of course we've got to stop burning oil and coal. Those grotesque
vehicles that get 10 miles to the gallon should be banned! Americans
have no idea about conservation. Europeans have the same standard
of living as you and they use 50 percent less energy because they
turn their lights off and they conserve. We are actively killing
the earth by the way we live.
But some European countries derive more of their power from
nuclear energy than the U.S.
Many countries in Europe are starting to realize that what they've
done with nuclear power is ridiculous and immoral. Belgium, Germany,
and Sweden have now passed laws to close down the reactors. So they're
learning, but a little too late. Where are they going to put the
waste?
Meanwhile, here in the U.S., we're going in the other
direction, talking about new nuclear plants and even new nuclear
weapons. Why now?
Because the nuclear scientists in the labs keep pushing and pushing.
They like building and testing their nuclear weapons. They get a
lot of money for it, and they're addicted to it.
The generals like their missiles too. One general basically said,
"If you threaten our missiles and our early-warning systems,
baby, that's threatening the family jewels." Got it? That's
the reason they're still there. Missiles are an extension of their
sexuality. There's a deep psychosexual pathology inherent in the
brains of these men. "Missile erections," "deep penetrations"
-- even the language they use is sexual. I've thought, in my more
light-hearted times, that maybe they should all be given Viagra,
and then they wouldn't need their missiles.
Although women have also led nuclear-equipped countries,
and very aggressively.
Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Golda Meir. But you're picking
three women out of millions of men. Some women -- very few -- emulate
male behavior. Condoleezza Rice is one. The magic number is 30 percent
[according to a U.N. report]. Below 30 percent representation [in
government], women tend to please the men and vote for missiles.
Above 30 percent, they say, "No, you're not getting your missiles
-- we're voting for milk for children." So women need to support
each other in order to do what they know is correct behavior, and
express their nurturing instincts. It's got nothing to do with politics.
Most of the nuclear-policy focus lately has been on
the various dangerous, unpredictable regimes that are busily acquiring
nuclear weapons. Why does yours continue to be on the United States?
The most dangerous regime in the world at the moment is this regime.
The country with the largest number of weapons of mass destruction
is America. Of the nearly 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, Russia
and America own 95 percent. No one else can destroy all life on
earth except Russia and America. The two rogue nations in the world
are Russia and America, holding the world at nuclear ransom. Period.
We got to within 10 seconds of nuclear war in 1995 when Yeltsin
made a mistake. On 9/11, America was on the second- or third-highest
state of nuclear alert, ready to launch. Weapons are still on hair-trigger
alert. They go off, Putin and Bush get minutes to decide whether
or not to press their buttons, the nuclear "exchange"
is over in an hour, and that's the end of most life on earth.
And to look at North Korea, who may have two or eight bombs, or
none -- that's a form of displacement activity. If you put rats
in a cage and threaten them with a lethal situation, they run around
doing something irrelevant to that which threatens them. That's
what people are doing by looking at North Korea and not looking
at the main issue at hand, which is about to blow us all up. I mean,
the whole thing's insane.
It's interesting that you have a lot of inroads with military people.
And a lot of the people who have come out for nuclear disarmament
in the last decade have military backgrounds. Why do you think that
is?
Well, because they know how dangerous it is. They're scared.
And yet you'd think they are also in a position to do something
about it.
Well, you know, they wait till they're retired. That's typical of
these men. It's not that they have an epiphany -- they know all
along. So, in a way, they're acting as evil people by allowing it
to happen during their watch and only coming out when they retire.
And I use that word "evil" in a fairly careful way. They
are participating in plans to blow up the planet. I can't think
of any other word that's more appropriate to describe that than
"evil."
Yet today, in spite of this well-documented danger, the issue's
not at the forefront of many people's awareness. There's a great
deal of complacency.
Well, ignorance. I don't think anyone's shocking people into facing
reality right now. I'm trying and it's not so easy because I don't
get access to the media. It's hard to get on a lot of stupid shows
and talk the truth. They don't want the truth. They want theater.
I founded NPRI as a way to get this access. So that I, and others,
can get on to debate these awful right-wing characters from the
Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute and American Enterprise
Institute. We need equal time, and that's difficult to come by.
But it's starting to happen where we're developing a fair bit of
credibility.
In mid-May, we're having a symposium called "Full Spectrum
Dominance." It will be a retreat for 40 of the nation's top
journalists with some pro-nuclear people, anti-, and people in the
middle -- the top thinkers in the country. Many people say to me,
"This is urgent -- we need media education because no one's
writing about it." The media is determining the fate of the
earth.
You met with Ronald Reagan when he was president --
in an interview with Amy Goodman you described an oddly touching
scene of holding his hand to comfort him -- but you came away devastated
by the feeling that there was nothing to be done. Have you tried
to meet with George W. Bush?
No. I think Reagan had a heart; he was basically a nice fellow.
I don't think this fellow has a lot of heart. And I also don't think
he's very bright. Reagan was intelligent in an intuitive way. There
was someone at home there you could actually connect with. I'd certainly
see George Bush and try to talk to him, but I wouldn't want any
of his neo-conservative people around him. I'd have to work pretty
hard, I think, to get to his core.
Do you think there's anybody else -- some other avenue
into the administration?
No, I don't think there's anyone there at the moment who is really
worth talking to. I think they're terribly blocked and terribly
dangerous. They practice psychic numbing -- that's the medical terminology
-- to block out what they're doing. They're doing evil and not looking
at it. But I tell you what: I treated a lot of these fellows on
their deathbeds, or when their children were dying, and when they're
in that very emotionally vulnerable situation they recant. They
look at themselves and look inside their souls and realize what
they've done, and they're terribly sorry. But it's too late then.
In the film Helen's War , there's a sense that you've
come out of retirement to go back into the fray. This has been your
mission since 1971, and yet here we are, almost 35 years later --
I know, and it's worse. I often feel like I've wasted my life doing
this work for no good reason, because I love medicine. I gave it
up to do this work. People have been saying that I might have helped
prevent a nuclear war in the 1980s, but who knows?
I was compelled to do it. I couldn't stop myself. But am I glad
I did it? If we had gotten rid of the bombs I'd be very glad, and
die fulfilled. I think, though, we've got a chance now to get the
revolution going again -- to build it again and complete the work.
All doctors have to be optimists.
Looking back, what stands out as your greatest success?
Of my whole life? The biggest thing I ever did was give birth to
my three babies. That's why we're here, to reproduce -- biologically
speaking. Next to that, I guess it was the end of the Cold War,
but in truth, when that occurred, my husband had just left me. So
I was deeply depressed and I hardly knew the Berlin Wall came down,
which was sort of ironic.
You've done an incredible thing; you've completely dedicated your
life to what you believe in. Not everyone can do that.
Why not? Not everyone wants to do it, but everyone can do it. It's
a decision you make. I've seen so many people die unfulfilled. And
those who've dedicated their lives to great causes of service to
the environment and to the human race have died totally fulfilled.
I think people have to examine why they were conceived, why they
were born. It's our responsibility in this particular generation,
when life on earth -- probably the only life in the universe --
is so threatened.
Everyone can be extraordinarily effective, they just have to not
be self-indulgent or narcissistic or greedy, and work for other
people and other things. In that action lie the germs of true happiness.
You'll never be happy trying to make yourself happy. It doesn't
work.
So if someone reads this interview, and they get to
the end of it, and now they have the knowledge --
Then they have to act. Read The New Nuclear Danger: George W.
Bush's Military-Industrial Complex -- there's enough information
in that so you could debate Rumsfeld at any time and beat him on
television. And at the back of that book there's a huge list of
anti-nuclear groups all around the country and the world, and you
can look up all the people making the weapons and where they live
and how you can contact them. The CEOs of Lockheed Martin and Boeing
and the like. It's got a huge list of things you can do and places
you can go and actions you can take. Knowledge is ammunition, but
you have to work out what you're going to do with your life to save
the planet.
Gregory Dicum is the author of Window Seat: Reading the Landscape
from the Air . He writes a biweekly column for SFGate , the online
edition of the San Francisco Chronicle , and has written for the
New York Times Magazine ,Harper's ,Mother Jones , and others.
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