NO-NUKES QUOTES

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Our aim is to have a universal nuclear weapons convention signed by the year 2010 and ultimately abolish all nuclear weapons by the year 2020.
-- Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba

Environmental scientists also show us clearly that from the environmental and ecological points of view that nuclear war is not preventable. The only way to get rid of this danger is to abolish all nuclear weapons
-- Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba

What the Hiroshima survivors are telling us is that no one else should ever go through the experience they suffered. An atomic bombing creates a living hell on Earth where the living envy the dead.”
-- Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba

In some ways more painful is the fact that their experience appears to be fading from the collective memory of humankind. Having never experienced an atomic bombing, the vast majority around the world can only vaguely imagine such horror, and these days, John Hersey’s Hiroshima and Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth are all but forgotten. As predicted by the saying, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,’ the probability that nuclear weapons will be used and the danger of nuclear war are increasing.”
-- Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba

“Passing on to younger generations the memories and the will of those who suffered the bombing is the most important step for humankind to survive in the 21st century,”

This Aug. 6 ... is a time of inheritance, of awakening, and of commitment, in which we inherit the commitment of the bomb victims to the abolition of nuclear weapons and realization of genuine world peace,”
-- Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba

After over 30 years of building nuclear power plants, there is still no safe way of disposing the contaminated nuclear materials that are produced. These contaminated wastes endanger our environment and the lives of countless generations to come. -- Robert Alan Hiroshima Day is an opportunity to raise awareness about the threat of nuclear weapons and the dangers of nuclear energy. It's the perfect time to urge your Mayor to declare your city a Nuclear Free Zone. -- Robert Alan

* We must not only control the weapons that can kill us, we must bridge the great disparities of wealth and opportunity among the peoples of the world, the vast majority of whom live in poverty without hope, opportunity or choices in life. These conditions are a breeding ground for division that can cause a desperate people to resort to nuclear weapons as a last resort. Our only hope lies in the power of our love, generosity, tolerance and understanding and our commitment to making the world a better place for all... -- Muhammad Ali

 

If the entire history of mankind were condensed into a single year, our knowledge of how to destroy life on earth with weapons of mass destruction has been acquired in the last thirty seconds. Never again will we lack the knowledge to eliminate the world in a single act of madness. Therefore, we are faced with a dilemma unique in our history. We must not only control the weapons that can kill us, we must bridge the great disparities of wealth and opportunity among the peoples of the world, the vast majority of whom live in poverty without hope, opportunity or choices in life. These conditions are a breeding ground for division that can cause a desperate people to resort to nuclear weapons as a last resort. Our only hope lies in the power of our love, generosity, tolerance and understanding and our commitment to making the world a better place for all of Allah's children.
-- Muhammad Ali

* “Above all else, we need a reaffirmation of political commitment at the highest levels to reducing the dangers that arise both from existing nuclear weapons and from further proliferation.” -- Kofi Annan

* "The existence of nuclear weapons presents a clear and present danger to life on Earth. Nuclear arms cannot bolster the security of any nation because they represent a threat to the security of the human race. These incredibly destructive weapons are an affront to our common humanity, and the tens of billions of dollars that are dedicated to their development and maintenance should be used instead to alleviate human need and suffering." -- Oscar Arias Sanchez

* "Nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself." -- Philip Berrigan

"If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of Persia." -- Hans Bethe * "I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons." -- Hans Bethe

Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills.
-- Hans Bethe

At that time a senator who was on the Joint Committee of Atomic Energy said rather quietly, 'You know, we're having a little problem with waste these days.' I didn't know what he meant then, but I know now. -- David R. Brower * "Is the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling its energy consumption every 10 years worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste?" -- David R. Brower

* "We're worrying for the country and we're worrying for our kids. We say NO radioactive waste dump in our ngura in our country. Don't waste our country. Don't waste our future." -- Eileen Kampakuta Brown & The Kungka Tju

We know the poison from the radioactive dump will go down under the ground and leak into the water. We drink from this water. The animals drink from this water. We're worried that the animals will become poisoned, and we'll become poisoned in our turn.
-- Eileen Kampakuta Brown & The Kungka Tju

I've also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament - it was about 1982 - they called it Peace Sunday.
-- Jackson Browne

* "It is my profound conviction that nuclear weapons did not, and will not, of themselves prevent major war. To the contrary, I am persuaded that the presence of these hideous devices unnecessarily prolonged and intensified the Cold War. In today's security environment, threats of their employment have been fully exposed as neither credible nor of any military utility." -- General Lee Butler, head of US Strategic Nuclear Forces 1991-1994.

It is a measure of arrogance to assert that a nuclear weapons-free world is impossible when 95% of the nations of the world are already nuclear-free. I think that the vast majority of people on the face of this earth will endorse the proposition that nuclear weapons have no place among us. There is no security in nuclear weapons. It is a fool’s game.”
-- General Lee Butler, head of US Strategic Nuclear Forces 1991-1994

“I am the only person who ever looked at all twelve thousand five hundred of our targets. And when I got through I was horrified. Deterrence was a formula for disaster. We escaped disaster by the grace of God. If you ask one person who has lived in this arena his whole career, I have come to one conclusion. This has to end. This must stop. This must be our highest priority.”
-- General Lee Butler, head of US Strategic Nuclear Forces 1991-1994

Nuclear weapons play on our deepest fears and pander to our darkest instincts. They corrode our sense of humanity, numb our capacity for moral outrage, and make thinkable the unimaginable. They prey on democracies and totalitarian societies alike, shrinking the norms of civilized behavior and dimming the prospects for escaping the savagery so powerfully imprinted on our genetic code.
-- General Lee Butler, head of US Strategic Nuclear Forces 1991-1994

People who say to me that the elimination of nuclear weapons is utopian have somehow managed to completely ignore the fact that the end of the Cold War was a far more utopian prospect only ten years ago than eliminating nuclear weapons is now.
-- General Lee Butler, head of US Strategic Nuclear Forces 1991-1994

A world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons…. Nuclear weapons pose an intolerable threat to humanity and our habitat….
-- General Lee Butler

There are still thousands of warheads loaded on operational systems and standing on high states of alert on virtually hair-trigger posture. And you have to ask yourself: Why is that? Who is the enemy? What is the threat?
-- General Lee Butler

* "As a doctor, as well as a mother and a world citizen, I wish to practice the ultimate form of preventive medicine by ridding the earth of these technologies that propagate disease, suffering, and death." -- Helen Caldicott

“American leaders have declared that nuclear weapons will remain the cornerstone of US national security indefinitely. In truth, as the world’s only remaining superpower, nuclear weapons are the sole military source of our national insecurity. We, and the whole world, would be much safer if nuclear weapons were abolished.”
-- Rear Admiral Eugene J Carroll, US Navy

For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants. ~ Jimmy Carter

* "The risk of an all-out nuclear holocaust destroying all life on the planet has diminished, but the danger of actual nuclear weapons use has increased." -- David Cortright If the United States wants to prevent other countries from acquiring the bomb, it must be prepared to reduce and eventually end its own reliance on nuclear weapons. -- David Cortright

Reducing the nuclear danger will require a universal, consistent opposition to all forms of weapons development
-- David Cortright

* "A common denominator in every single nuclear accident -- a nuclear plant or on a nuclear submarine -- is that before the specialists even know what has happened, they rush to the media saying, 'There's no danger to the public.' They do this before they themselves know what has happened because they are terrified that the public might react violently, either by panic or by revolt." ~ Jacques Cousteau

* "There’s a very simple reason for focusing on the nuclear issue. Many, many issues are of supreme importance in one way or another, but if we blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons, no other issue is really going to matter. Quite possibly there would be no other human beings left to be concerned about anything else." -- Alan Cranston Unprecedented warnings by officials most closely linked with nuclear arms negotiations and defense strategy indicate that we are running out of time. If we fail to act soon, the scars of a major nuclear disaster will mark our immediate and distant future. -- Alan Cranston

The probability of a fatal nuclear detonation is greater now than at any time during the Cold War. As the Russian military deteriorates, and as rogue governments and terrorists seek to acquire nuclear capabilities, the threat continues to grow.
-- Alan Cranston

As they were during the Cold War, urban population centers remain the most likely targets of a nuclear attack. Now, however, an attack may come without warning from an unknown enemy, to achieve unclear motives.
-- Alan Cranston

The explosion of a terrorist’s single nuclear device in a major metropolitan center would trigger an unparalleled humanitarian and environmental disaster. An accidental military launch of multiple warheads could result in a worldwide nuclear holocaust. Medical researchers and military analysts forebode grim consequences.
-- Alan Cranston

* "The risks of transporting deadly nuclear waste, the environmental justice impacts and the long-term health effects of both these projects are untenable...We cannot afford to be silent on these important issues." ~ James Cromwell

* I know that nuclear is better than fossil fuels when it comes to carbon dioxide, but nuclear energy is by no means clean. We don't know what to do with the waste we already have and it seems like a bad idea to me to make more when we have so many cleaner options such as wind and solar. -- Sheryl Crow

 

Hiroshima Day - August 6

 

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