Time to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Friends,

Every now and then I go back and watch this video (see below) to remind myself just how much additional ionizing radiation the world's nuclear powers have added to our small planet since 1945.  That there are clear reasons, including the additional radiation burden, to ensure that no nation tests nuclear weapons ever again should be obvious.

The United States is one of few nations that have not yet ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that bans all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes. The CTBT was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 10, 1996.

The CTBT will formally enter into force after 44 designated “nuclear-capable states” have deposited their instruments of ratification with the UN secretary-general. So far, 183 states have signed and 157 have ratified the treaty. Yet of the 44 specified countries, India, Pakistan, and North Korea still have not signed, and only 36 have ratified the treaty.


The history of nuclear weapons testing is one of human suffering and environmental degradation.  Additional testing would only start this cycle once again, as well as lead to more nuclear weapons.

Help move the CTBT to full ratification.  Sign The ATOM Project Petition and let the world's leaders know you demand an absolute end to nuclear-weapons testing.

Towards a nuclear-weapons free world,

Leonard

Source URL for the YouTube video: http://youtu.be/LLCF7vPanrY 

CTBT... What's in a Name???

Friends,

The 16th anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) passed yesterday with little, if any, fanfare.

The CTBT bans all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 September 1996, but it has not yet entered into force.

When the treaty opened for signatures on September 24, 1996, it was signed by 71 States, including five of the eight then nuclear-capable states.  Since then the number of countries to have ratified the treaty has grown to 157.  Of the countries yet to sign, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States must ratify the treaty for it to enter into force (Note: The U.S. has signed but not ratified). 

Preparing for the world's first
nuclear weapons test, "Trinity".

There are a number of arguments both for and against U.S. ratification of the CTBT.  All other arguments aside, a strong case can be made that ratification by the major nuclear powers - Russian ratified the treaty in 2000) - would set an international standard that would push other nuclear-capable countries like North Korea, Pakistan, and India to sign.

The U.S. has set far too many conditions to be met for it to ratify the CTBT, and beyond that continues to engage in what many consider to be its own nuclear weapons testing, albeit nothing resembling the full scale nuclear weapons tests of yesteryear. 

The tests in question are what the U.S. refers to as "nonexplosive" or "subcritical" nuclear tests. 

"Scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico scrutinized plutonium activity under high pressure and heat levels like those of a detonating nuclear bomb, the National Nuclear Security Administration personnel said. The Z machine can generate X-rays of unparalleled intensity to mimic the fusion reactions of nuclear warheads, the sources indicated." (GSI, Sept, 21, 2012)

A rose (or skunk cabbage) by any other name...  The U.S., just last month, conducted the sixth of these "nonexplosive" plutonium trials.  What is next?  When is a test not a test???

As the U.S. keeps pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into its nuclear weapons infrastructure to design, build ("refurbish"), test, maintain and deploy the most modern nuclear force anywhere, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty languishes, awaiting the final ink.

The U.S. should be leading the way to disarmament, and in the case of the CTBT it is far too late for that; 157 other nations have already led the way.  That being said, it is not too late for the U.S. to follow their lead and demonstrate that it is part of a community of nations working together for the sake of future generations.  There is little downside.

It is high time to finally ratify the CTBT!!!

Click here to demand an end to all nuclear weapons testing!

Peace,

Leonard

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References:

Wickipedia on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization

A Test is a Test is a Test...

Friends,

There has been lots of buzz lately about whether the United States has conducted nuclear tests over the past year.  Yes Virginia, the US did, in fact, conduct tests intended to make sure that those thousands of nasty nukes in its arsenal will perform as they are designed should someone actually be crazy enough to launch one.

Of course, there was no mushroom cloud like the bad old days of atmospheric testing, or seismographic mayhem that was a telltale sign of underground tests of yore.  Over the decades since the beginning of the nuclear age the U.S. conducted 1030 tests involving the detonation of a nuclear device (215 atmospherice and 815 underground) up until 1992.

The two tests (in November 2010 and March 2011) were conducted at Sandia National Laboratories Pulsed Power and Z Facility, and involved bombarding relatively small plutonium samples with extremely high energy X-rays to determine how it functions under extreme temperature and pressure. 

This type of testing isn't anything like the detonation of a full scale nuclear weapon, but is still a "nuclear" test.  Don't take my word for it however.  The Sandia Labs press release for the March 2011 test said (in describing the test) that the:

"controlled radiation or magnetic pressure creates conditions on a small scale similar to those caused by the detonation of nuclear weapons, which is why from its earliest days pulsed power has been used to study weapons effects."

Of course, this testing at Sandia is just one of many aspects of continuing efforts by the U.S. government to not only maintain, but to upgrade the nuclear weapons stockpiled and deployed in its arsenal.  In addition to the work at the weapons laboratories - Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore - the entire manufacturing infrastructure is being completely rebuilt in order to continue modernizing the nation's nuclear arsenal.

Design, manufacturing, refurbishment, testing, upgrading...  It all boils down to perpetuating a reliance on nuclear weapons, which have no purpose except to incinerate huge numbers of people and leave a radioactive wasteland in their wake.  Testing is testing no matter how you cut it, and it is time to STOP. 

The program of reliability testing and maintenance of U.S. nuclear weapons is referred to as "Stockpile Stewardship."  The term stewardship is defined (by Merriam Webster) as "the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care."

If we are to be good stewards of the Earth and the life that inhabits it (including human life), how do people reconcile being stewards of weapons that by their very nature, if used in even a limited exchange, would contaminate the planet and create conditions that might extinguish life as we know it???

Peace,

Leonard

Note: The Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Gensuikyo) sent a protest note to President Barack Obama on May 23, regarding a news report that it had conducted a new form of nuclear tests in November 2010 and in March 2011. Following is the note.
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May 23, 2011

Mr. Barack OBAMA
President
United States of America

We protest against your conducting a new form of nuclear tests and urge you to make efforts in good faith to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy (the National Nuclear Security Administration) made public by May 21 that it had conducted the new form of nuclear tests twice in November 2010 and in March 2011.

Your Government claimed that these tests were meant to maintain the reliability and efficacy of the nuclear weapons the U.S. already have in its possession. However, any nuclear-weapon test, irrespective of it may involve explosion or not, is aimed at ensuring the use or/and continued deployment of these weapons. This act obviously runs counter to both the objective of achieving “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” agreed upon by the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 and the promise you yourself made in Prague in April 2009.

We strongly urge you to abandon any plan of nuclear testing and nuclear development, and immediately undertake efforts for the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the conclusion of a treaty totally banning nuclear weapons.

YASUI Masakazu
Secretary General