Nuclear Disarment

“We have the power to build a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons. I call on all humanity to support this sensible and achievable goal. Let us each do our part in this common journey – and thereby ensure that there will be no more victims such as those we honor today”. This is how the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, ended his speech on the last Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony. Since the end of the Second World War people know and fear the nuclear power and the atomic warheads. Many organizations like The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Campaign against Nuclear Energy, Global Zero and Greenpeace constantly urge countries to follow an environmental and secure policy but, unfortunately global governments are suffering from “mass amnesia” when it comes to disposal nuclear weapons.

The nuclear power is a threat to humanity in every possible way because nuclear elements cannot be stabilized, the radiation they emit is lethal and because it can be used as a weapon of mass destruction. Nuclear materials used in the production of energy such as uranium and plutonium are highly unstable and the current human level of technology is not able to detain a catastrophe. The International Atomic Energy Agency states that all nuclear power plants are fail-safe but history has taught us differently. An example for this is the Chernobyl disaster which happened nearly 24 years ago and people still suffer the consequences of it, not only in the Ukraine but in the neighboring countries too.

There are many other examples of near catastrophes because of old parts of reactors or corrosion or of inappropriate storing of nuclear waste which, according to the above mentioned agency, needs up to a few billion years to disintegrate. Furthermore, not only are nuclear power plants and nuclear stations not fully able to prevent a possible tragedy but, most of them are not resistible to earthquakes and other natural catastrophes. This is why in Japan in the last few years many nuclear reactors were shut down by the Japanese government. Extreme exposure of radioactivity released by nuclear elements is harmful to living cells and causes a myriad of illnesses which in most cases end deadly. This is the case in the surrounding of Chernobyl where there are still birth defects caused by damage done to the reproductive organs or little children who at an early age get cancer or tumor because one of their parents was exposed to radiation. And the Chernobyl disaster is not the only time when humans were exposed to a large amount of radiation. In 1979, a core meltdown happened in Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in the early morning hours and an amount of radioactive gasses far greater than allowed, escaped. Over 140 000 people from the surrounding of the nuclear reactor were evacuated in only five days. Luckily, no one was exposed for a long time to the radioactivity so, a greater catastrophe was avoided but, still the simple possibility that something bigger could have happened is shocking. The greatest threat to humanity, presented by nuclear elements, is the atomic bomb which can be used as a weapon of mass destruction. In the history of the humankind, the atomic bomb has been used only once, to end the Second World War. Nearly 65years ago the US Army fired two nuclear warheads on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The consequences were devastating. Thousands of people died, and even more got the radioactive sickness which causes disintegration of the human cells, then organ failure and finally a painful death.

Nowadays, there is a new danger facing the civilian folk of many countries, which is called nuclear terrorism. Since the end of the Second World War, governments are troubled with the possibility of a terrorist attack with nuclear missiles or even “dirty bombs”, which are pretty easily made, by attaching a radioactive material to an explosive. If all of the above mentioned is taken into consideration, one can conclude that everything nuclear material has brought to the people of this planet is pain and grief and disposal of the material should be pondered. Each of the few good means for which nuclear materials are used, can be replaced by an alternative mean.