Key note lecture at A Mountain of Waste 70 Years High: Ending the Nuclear Age Conference held at the University of Chicago December 1-2, 2012. The conference took place just blocks from the makeshift laboratory used to conduct the experiment that produced the worlds first sustained nuclear reaction validating the possibility of an atomic bomb. There were many unknowns in the experiment. Yet out of expedience and hubris the scientist conducted the experiment in Chicago. Tens of thousands of city dwellers were oblivious of the risk to which they were being involuntarily exposed. Such disregard for the people has been a constant through out the nuclear age. From the mining of the ore, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the exposure of service men and civilians to radioactive fall out, to the present catastrophic radiation releases that Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and now Fukushima have demonstrated are ever threatening to catch us off-guard and forever poison the planet.
Beyond Nuclear, http://www.beyondnuclear.org Nuclear Energy Information Service, Friends of the Earth, UChicago Climate Action Network, International House Global Voices Program
Dr. Norma Field is Robert Ingersoll Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of Japanese Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago. She is interested in the struggle for social justice and sees the nuclear issue as a major front line.
The Atomic Age (news archive, resources, symposia video & slide shows, and more) http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/atomicage/home
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