Statement towards a Nuclear-free World – World Council of Ch

Statement towards a Nuclear-free World – World Council of Ch

Postby Oscar » Sun Jul 27, 2014 3:24 pm

Statement towards a Nuclear-free World – World Council of Churches

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07 July 2014

The 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches met in a region where nuclear explosions, accidents and threats have taken a heavy toll. Northeast Asia is the only place on earth where nuclear weapons have been used in warfare. During the Cold War more than 1,000 nuclear bombs were tested in adjoining areas of the Pacific and Asia. Today all states in the region either possess nuclear weapons or depend on the US nuclear arsenal. The 100-plus nuclear power plants in East Asia and the many more planned are signs of economic prowess but also reminders of the Fukushima tragedy. South Korea has the highest geographic concentration of nuclear power plants in the world.

Living in proximity to nuclear power plants and in the target zones of opposing nuclear forces, people of conscience and courage in Northeast Asia are raising serious questions about the military and economic path of their societies. Before and after the Busan Assembly, ecumenical and inter-religious conferences in Japan, Korea, USA and Europe have called variously for replacing nuclear power in the region as a step toward sustainable development, and eliminating nuclear weapons as a step toward peace.[i]

Nuclear weapons cannot indeed be reconciled with real peace. They inflict unspeakable suffering with blast, heat and radiation. They wreak destruction which cannot be bound by space or time. Their power is indiscriminate and their effects cannot be matched by any other device. As long as nuclear weapons exist, they pose a threat to humanity.

Cities are the main targets of nuclear weapons. Attacking cities with 100 small, Hiroshima-size bombs would kill some 20 million people outright and cause two or three times that number of casualties over time. Soot from the incinerated cities would be lofted into the upper atmosphere, disrupting the global climate. For a decade, colder temperatures and shorter growing seasons would put two billion people at risk of starvation.[ii]

In the face of such data, 124 governments declared in 2013 that “It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances.”[iii] Nuclear strategy, however, demands an unequivocal commitment to use the weapons and nuclear history is rife with accidents, miscalculations and near-disasters.[iv] What is more, even one nuclear detonation would overwhelm the emergency services of any country in the world.[v] The only way to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again is to eliminate the weapons themselves.

The related technology of nuclear energy is a peculiarly hazardous form of development. The Fukushima Daiichi disaster in 2011 has demonstrated once more the threats it poses to people, community life and natural ecosystems. Tens of thousands of the people displaced by the disaster will never be allowed to go home. Their farms, villages and cities stand empty, contaminated. The disaster’s full impact on public health and the environment will never be known. A complete clean-up is impossible.

Victims of Fukushima are now referred to as hibakusha, a term that connotes suffering, social stigma and an unnatural fate. The term was first used to describe people struck by the atomic bombings in Japan.

2015 is the 70th anniversary of those bombings. The hibakusha of 1945 still bear witness in the hope that no one else will ever suffer their fate. They are now joined by the hibakusha of 2011 who decry nuclear power. It is right that Christians and churches listen to them and make their witness our own.

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Oscar
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