Student blog from spring 2012

The photo on our Helping Hands website shows the nuclear bombs, Fat Man, and Little Boy that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan 66 years ago. War always kills people, but these bombs opened up a new world with weapons of mass destruction, entire cities at a time. 

Now the U.S. and Russian governments have agreed to reduce the number of weapons further. But the U.S. Congress only agreed to reductions along with "modernizing," that is replacing the older weapons with new ones. This could cost $700 billion dollars in the next 10 years.  Think of what we could do with that money other than build weapons of mass destruction. Better schools and green jobs for the future.

Our national budget already is in the red by trillions. Even more important, why should we continue to live with thousands of nuclear bombs on the land, in the air and on or beneath the oceans. Imagine what one bomb did in Hiroshima or Nagasaki!

These bombs don't just go ka boom like in the comics; they could mean that life on earth will be extinct. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki died, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. The Hiroshima health department estimates that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes.  So, can you help?  We need your help to stop killing other people. Here's a survivor:

Severe keloids, or scarring, caused by thermal radiation.

Now do you see what I mean?

Mayors for Peace was started by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were the first, and so far, the only cities to experience a nuclear explosion. Now, more than 5,000 mayors from around the world have joined them to work for a Nuclear Weapons Convention to get rid of these weapons by 2020. Check out their website: www.mayorsforpeace.org

Our school has decided to help by writing the mayor of Boca Raton, and asking her to join.You can do this, too!  But you don't have to be a mayor to help. The mayors have a petition you can sign, and also ask your friends and family. Print it out at:

http://www.mayorsforpeace.org/data/pdf/petitionform_en.pdf

Let's hope this never happens again, and work to prevent it. Right now five countries officially have nuclear weapons:  the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China. India and Pakistan are at war over a region called Kashmir and both countries have tested nuclear weapons. So has North Korea, whose president is not friendly with South Korea or the U.S.A. Israel is also believed to have nuclear weapons, but won't talk about this. South Africa is the only nation that developed nuclear weapons, then disassembled its arsenal. So, it's possible!

The thermonuclear weapons built since Little Man fell on Hiroshima are at least a 1,000 times more powerful, and could vaporize New York City, or other large cities like London or Paris, and leave even larger areas of destruction beyond the city itself.  Radioactivity would go around the world. The is the reason for the Mayors for Peace campaign, Cities are Not Targets!

From Wikipedia:

Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954 atBikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as the first test of Operation Castle. Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States, with a yield of 15 megatons. That yield, far exceeding the expected yield of 4 to 6 megatons, combined with other factors, led to the most significant accidental radiological contamination ever caused by the United States. Fallout from the detonation — intended to be a secret test — poisoned the islanders who had previously inhabited the atoll and returned there afterwards,^[1] as well as the crew of Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5"), a Japanese fishing boat, and created international concern about atmospheric thermonuclear testing.^[2]

 Check out the videos:

http://www.militaryhistory.co.uk/shows/ghost-fleet-bikini-atoll/about.html

 We really hope we stop nuclear bombs from being built, both fission and fusion bombs. How can we use the awesome energy of the atom in a peaceful way? That's the challenge. Let's use our peaceful hands to build a nuclear-weapons free world! Stop the bombs NOW!.

 Aaron Shraiberg and Joanna Vullo

Claremont Montessori Center, Boca Raton, FL.

UPDATE IN ON DEC. 9, 2012

Take a look at this new report from Ploughshares and a new book about the opportunities toward nuclear abolition:

http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report

http://www.brookings.edu/research/books/2012/theopportunity?rssid=foreign+policy#ref-id=20121015_pifer