For a copy of the original article in Japanese, please contact Toshihiro Higuchi at th233@stanford.edu.
At the end of last year, the expert panel established by the Cabinet Office submitted a report on the effects of low-level and chronic radiation exposure. It is a Herculean task to tackle the difficulty challenge of risk management within such a short period. Risk management regarding the type of radiation exposure at issue, however, is not a matter of pure science to be left solely with scientific experts. It is essential for each of us to judge the degree of its danger and work out social consensus as to solutions.
Our past experience offers a lesson worth noting. In March 1954, the U.S. hydrogen bomb test showered an enormous amount of deadly fallout on a Japanese tuna fishing boat. The specter of “radioactive tuna” terrified consumers, and reports of cesium and strontium in brown rice and vegetables continued. As public opinion against nuclear tests was boiling, the U.S. government claimed that health damage from them was negligible and asked the scientific committee established by the United Nations to investigate this problem.
Accurate estimates of the health damage caused by low-level radiation exposure, however, proved extremely difficult. A fierce debate inevitably broke out over the validity of the findings, and people began to feel even more insecure. The claim that the damage from pollution was small also turned out to be relative in comparison to the security value of nuclear weapons, the scale of X-rays, natural background and other radiation hazards, and such commonly accepted dangers as smoking cigarettes or driving a car. In reality, however, the world was deeply divided over the merits of nuclear armaments. Moreover, the essential character of fallout hazards differed from our everyday risks in that we could neither avoid the danger of fallout nor expect due compensation for it. As a result, all prerequisites for comparative analysis quickly eroded in the case of radioactive contamination. In August 1958, the United Nations Scientific Committee reported its conclusion that there was no reason to tolerate the risks of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests. In the end, the U.S. government’s claim lost its ground.
Our society has a wide diversity of values. It is simply impossible to seek a universal answer as to how much radiation dose is acceptable to all stakeholders. Even if those in charge of risk management unilaterally determine the “acceptable” dose, it will be meaningless unless people at risk accept such decision. It will rather saw a seed of distrust and make risk management even more difficult.
Our next task is to listen to the voices of people at risk through regular field visits and social media such as Internet, and to explore a point of social consensus as to the risks associated with nuclear power.
July 10, 2011 was a milestone in history, marking twenty years since South Africa acceded to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). To this day, South Africa remains the only country to have produced and assembled nuclear weapons and to have later relinquished that arsenal. Moreover, that denuclearization came without any direct external intervention, and involved opening-up the former top secret program to international scrutiny, voluntarily, beyond that required by the NPT. While each example of nuclear weapons proliferation has a unique history and basis, South Africa is a particularly instructive exemplar as a result of its unprecedented rollback. That rollback provided sufficient transparency for clear insights into:
1) Why a nation might seek to acquire nuclear weapons,
2) What tactics might a nation employ to conceal the existence of nuclear weapons program under a “Peaceful” nuclear program umbrella,
3) What strategies might a nation consider with respect to the potential use of such weapons, and
4) Why a nation might choose to renounce its nuclear weapons.
This seminar will focus upon a few less reported, but nonetheless salient, aspects of the South African nuclear weapons program pertinent to the monitoring and assessment of the capabilities and intent of other threshold nations whose nuclear programs remain suspect (despite having been repeatedly declared as being solely for only peaceful purposes). They include object lessons derived from the various efforts that the minority-ruled government of South Africa took to conceal its nuclear program from external discovery, and to ensure sufficient ambiguity to allow that program to progress unabated, despite externally imposed restraints and sanctions, (and only up until termination was self-imposed through internal decision making). The lessons thus learned also provide an objective basis for comparison and assessment of alternative intents represented by the various capabilities, activities, and statements associated with those of contemporary nuclear threshold states exhibiting similar ambiguity.
About the speaker:
Frank Pabian is the Senior Geospatial Information Analyst at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Global Security Directorate and a visiting scholar at CISAC. Frank has nearly 40 years in the nuclear nonproliferation and satellite imagery analysis fields including 30 years with US National Laboratories. During 1996-1998, he served as Nuclear Chief Inspector for the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during ground inspections in Iraq, focusing primarily on equipment/materials “Hide Sites”, and “Capable Sites” that were deemed potentially associated with weapons of mass destruction development and/or production.
His responsibilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory include “Rest-of-World” infrastructure analysis involving the exploitation of all-source information, particularly commercial satellite imagery in combination with openly available geospatial tools for visualization. Frank has published in numerous peer-reviewed scientific journals on the use of commercial satellite imagery for treaty verification and monitoring, and his work has been featured on magazine covers and in textbooks for training in the nonproliferation and intelligence professions. Frank is a recipient of the US Intelligence Community Seal Medallion (gold medal) for “sustained superior performance” for Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty verification support to the IAEA during South Africa’s denuclearization, and for associated discoveries derived from original analysis of all-source, including open source, information. Frank is also a “Certified Mapping Scientist, Remote Sensing” with the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASP&RS).
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
The 2012 SPICE catalog is now available. SPICE developed five new curriculum units in 2011.
Nuclear Tipping Point: A Teacher's Guide
The documentary Nuclear Tipping Point tells the story of how four Cold War-era leaders—former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former Senator Sam Nunn—came together to address the threat of nuclear power falling into the wrong hands. Produced by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), the film is narrated by actor Michael Douglas and earned wide media attention when it came out in 2010.
Now, through a partnership between SPICE and NTI, the film is accompanied by a new teacher’s guide for classroom use of the documentary. The guide underscores the importance of teaching for critical literacy and addresses specific connections to the National Standards for History in the Schools. Student activities include multiple choice quizzes, persuasive writing and analysis, and ideas for creative projects.
China in Transition: Economic Development, Migration, and Education
China in Transition introduces students to modern China as a case study of economic development. What are the characteristics of the development process, and why does it occur? How is development experienced by the people who live through it, and how are their lives impacted? How do traditional cultural values—such as China’s emphasis on education—contribute to and/or evolve as a result of modernization? Students examine these questions and others as they investigate the roles that migration, urbanization, wealth, poverty, and education play in a country in transition.
The 20-year war in Vietnam was a prolonged and devastating conflict. In its aftermath, South Vietnamese civilians fled from the Communist takeover on perilous boat journeys that led to the formation of diasporic communities. Others faced lengthy detention in post-war re-education camps. This unit aims to help students learn and appreciate these and other important legacies that have shaped Vietnam and the world at large.
Angel Island: The Chinese-American Experience
Angel Island: The Chinese-American Experience is a graphic novel that tells the story of Chinese immigrants detained at Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay between 1910 and 1940. It offers a stark contrast to the more celebrated stories of European immigrants arriving at Ellis Island on the East Coast and poses important questions about U.S. immigration policy, both past and present.
As the second-largest country in Europe, Ukraine has always stood at a crossroads of cultural influences. It is a key part of Europe–and the management of its relationships with other countries (in particular, Russia) is key to the future of the whole of eastern Europe. This unit seeks to provide high school teachers and students with a broad introduction to Ukrainian history with activities that touch upon Ukrainian culture.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
The Film's Mission
This film is meant to be a wakeup call for humanity, to help develop an understanding of the realities of the nuclear weapon, to explore ways of presenting the answers for “a way beyond” and to facilitate a dialogue moving towards resolution of this Gordian knot of nuclear weapons gripping the world. The documentary’s characters are the narrative voices, interwoven with highly visual sequences of archival and contemporary footage and animation. The story is a morality play, telling the struggle waged over the past six and half decades with the last act yet to be determined, of trying to find what is “the way beyond?”
Director's Statement
“In My Lifetime” takes on the complex realities of “the nuclear world”, and searches internationally for an answer to the question is there a Way Beyond? This documentary is part wake up call, part challenge for people to engage with the issue of ridding the world of the most destructive weapon ever invented.
In February 2008, I began a journey to film and report on the story of the inner workings of the nuclear world. There has been a re-emergence of the realization that a world with nuclear weapons, including a proliferation of fissile nuclear materials, is a very dangerous place. Of course this realization has been known since the creation of the atomic bomb. It continues to be a struggle which has not been resolved.
This is a very complex issue with many voices, speaking from many perspectives, representing the forces and entrenched institutions in the nuclear states, not to speak of the rest of the world’s nations some of them with nuclear power capable of producing their own fissile materials and now there is the danger of so called “non-state actors”, who want to get their hands on the nuclear fissile materials necessary to create nuclear weapons. Today the materials and technology to make nuclear weapons are more readily available than any government who possess them would like one to believe.
At this writing it there are new developments in this parallel nuclear world, with a new emergence of the debate as to what has to change and steps need to be taken to move away from nuclear weapons. Since over the past year there definitely has been movement towards dealing with the reality, as a result this project has been able to record the changes taking place.
Following the screening, Robert Frye (the film's Director) will discuss the film with the audience.
For more information about the film, please visit the Nuclear World Project website.
CISAC Conference Room
About the topic: Given the increased threat of nuclear terrorism by non-state actors, current global mechanisms addressing nuclear security have revealed serious limitations. As a result, after President Obama’s speech in 2009 at Prague, the first Nuclear Security Summit Meeting was successfully held in Washington D.C. Based on its success, the second Nuclear Security Summit Meeting is scheduled to be held in March 2012 in Seoul, Korea. In addition to the ongoing issues, the Seoul Meeting will deal with new issues such as nuclear safety in reflection of the recent Fukushima accident. The meeting may also take on other issues such as the framework agreement, further institutionalization of the Nuclear Security Summit Meeting and sustainable financing. Ultimately, this process should reinforce the effectiveness of global efforts to tackle nuclear terrorism and related issues.
About the Speaker: Professor Suh-Yong Chung is an international expert on international governance and institution building. His recent research interests include governance building in global climate change, Northeast Asian environmental cooperation institution building and nuclear security governance building. Dr. Chung has recently participated in various national and international conferences and seminars on nuclear security, such as the ROK-US Nuclear Security Experts Dialogue, and the WMD Study Group Meeting of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP).
Dr. Chung is the Associate Professor of Division of International Studies of Korea University, an Adjunct Professor of The Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the General Secretary of CSCAP Korea. Dr. Suh-Yong Chung holds degrees in law and international relations from Seoul National University, the London School of Economics and Stanford Law School.
CISAC Conference Room
While Chernobyl, and now Fukushima, are household words, far fewer people have heard of Maiak in the southern Urals and Hanford in eastern Washington State where Soviet and American engineers built plutonium plants to fuel the Cold War nuclear arsenal. Within nuclear "buffer zones," plant managers, who were pushed to produce as much plutonium as quickly as possible, polluted freely, liberally and disastrously. During the plutonium disasters that ensued, each plant issued over 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment, at least twice the amount released at Chernobyl. Under cover of nuclear security and powered by generous corporate welfare, plant managers employed influential public relations campaigns, restricted medical research, deployed temporary, migrant workers as ‘"jumpers" for the dirtiest work, and generally denied the existence and hazards of radioactive contamination. This was the house plutonium built. Kate Brown argues these histories are important because they supplied models, staff, blueprints and subsequent ready-made disasters for Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Kate Brown is an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is the author of a Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Harvard 2004), which won the American Historical Association’s George Louis Beer Prize for the Best Book in International European History. Brown is a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow and is working on a book called Plutopolia, a tandem history of the world’s first plutonium cities, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2012.
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Special Japan Studies Program and CEAS Series: Winter-Spring 2011-12
Looking Back, Looking Forward: Japan's March 11 Disasters One Year Later
The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that hit Japan in March 2011 had both immediate catastrophic consequences and long term repercussions. Fundamental areas of Japan’s environment, economy, society, and collective national psyche were deeply affected, giving rise to a broad range of urgent issues. These include economic debates about how to meet the country’s energy demands with nuclear power plants offline, and what path to take for the country’s energy future; political crises, including criticism of the government’s disaster response; the psychological challenges of coping with trauma and grief; a daunting environmental clean-up; and social developments, including a new wave of civil society activism. This series brings together scholars and activists from a wide range of specialties to take stock of how the Japanese have been affected by the disasters, and to assess the efforts of residents, volunteers, and policy makers to recover and move forward.
Philippines Conference Room
The triple disasters in Japan in March 2011 have created overwhelming trauma in the stricken areas for people of all ages. The mental health needs are immense, both immediate and long term, and ripple out into Japanese society. Members of the Nichibei Care Network, a group of mental health professionals in the Bay Area who organized to assist relief activities, will offer their reflections on the trauma suffered. They will also report on the heroic efforts that are taking place daily as people rebuild lives through compassion and caring.
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Special Japan Studies Program and CEAS Series: Winter-Spring 2011-12
Looking Back, Looking Forward: Japan's March 11 Disasters One Year Later
The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that hit Japan in March 2011 had both immediate catastrophic consequences and long term repercussions. Fundamental areas of Japan’s environment, economy, society, and collective national psyche were deeply affected, giving rise to a broad range of urgent issues. These include economic debates about how to meet the country’s energy demands with nuclear power plants offline, and what path to take for the country’s energy future; political crises, including criticism of the government’s disaster response; the psychological challenges of coping with trauma and grief; a daunting environmental clean-up; and social developments, including a new wave of civil society activism. This series brings together scholars and activists from a wide range of specialties to take stock of how the Japanese have been affected by the disasters, and to assess the efforts of residents, volunteers, and policy makers to recover and move forward.
Philippines Conference Room