Nuclear weapons
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A nuclear weapon is one which derives its destructive force from either nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. They create immense fireballs, over pressures, thermal and electromagnetic pulses, as well as long lasting radioactive fallout contamination. There remains enough of them (around 30,000, some on hair trigger alert, ready for use) to "overkill" every person on earth several times.
"A full scale nuclear exchange, lasting less than 60 minutes...could wipe out more than 300 million Americans, Europeans, and
Russians, as well as untold numbers elsewhere. And the survivors--as Chairman Khrushchev warned the Communist Chinese, `the
survivors would envy the dead.' For they would inherit a world so devastated by explosions and poison and fire that today we
cannot conceive of its horrors." President John F. Kennedy, address to the nation on the Limited Test Ban Treaty, 26 July
1963
"In an all-out nuclear war, more destructive power than in all of World War II would be unleashed every second during the long afternoon it would take for all the missiles and bombs to fall. A World War II every second--more people killed in the first few hours than all the wars of history put together. The survivors, if any, would live in despair amid the poisoned ruins of a civilization that had committed suicide." - President Jimmy Carter, Farewell Address to the American People, 14 January 1981
Nuclear weapons have been used twice in conflict, by the US on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as in many
French, US and British tests in the Pacific and in Australia. They have been a keystone of strategic warfare, under the doctrine
of deterrence.
"By far the greatest single danger facing human-kind, in fact all living beings on our planet, is the threat of nuclear
destruction..." - The Dalai Lama.
Contents |
Understanding nuclear weapons
The causes
Evidence
Cost-benefit analysis
What are the solutions
Organisations that work on nuclear disarmament
Organisations that work on nuclear disarmament include: Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth (FoE), Nuclear Free Australia (NFA), Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), Anti Nuclear Alliance of WA (ANAWA), Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPW).
Remember, around 30,000 nuclear weapons still threaten you, your loved ones and all living things on our planet - every
day. The typical explosive power of just one average sized hydrogen bomb is 1,000 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on
Hiroshima, August 6, 1945.
We cannot afford to allow this threat to exist.
Nuclear weapons-related companies include: Boeing, IBM, Siemens, Rosebank Engineering, General Electric, Westinghouse, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, the US Department of Energy and many more.
Nuclear power is the only energy source to fuel such weapons.
Check your superannuation for uranium investments.
