n the beginning was the will to destroy. The main motive indeveloping nuclear technology was to optimise a bomb with adestructive potential which put everything known before it in theshade. Death and destruction have been accompanying not only thenuclear bomb since Hiroshima and Nagasaki,but also the commercialuse of nuclear power. This technology cannot be controlled,and dozensof accidents have again and again proven its destructive nature. Everyfire from a cable,every burst pipe,can within minutes make a nuclearpower plant into a nuclear nightmare. It was only a question of timebefore this would actually happen. It finally did,at 1.23 a.m. on26 April 1986.Unlike the attack on Hiroshima,theexplosion in Block 4 of the nuclear powerplant at Chernobyl occurredunintentionally. But this was a price that was prepared to be paid. Using nuclearpower means a life-endangering risk which continues to be tolerated,kept quietabout and forgotten. But,as the UnitedNations’Secretary General,KofiAnnan haspointed out,seven million people don’thave the luxury of being able to forgetChernobyl. Seven million men,womenand children are suffering every day fromthe repercussions of that disaster. Hardlyany of these people are known by name.Even the medical files are only registeredby an anonymous number. “CertificateNo.000358/”is the number given to thesuffering of Annya Pesenko.Many of the 860,000 helpers who risked their lives using primitivemeans to try to limit the damage in the days and weeks after theexplosion are suffering. Hundreds of thousands who had to abandontheir homes within minutes in order,like refugees from a war,to savetheir very lives,are suffering. The people who have no choice but tocontinue living in the highly irradiated regions of Belarus,Ukraine andRussia,are suffering.Those in the cancer hospital in Kiev sitting in the corridor waiting to betreated are suffering. Many of them are children or young people,manyhave no chance of ever being cured.And all those who have lost those they loved most in their life - theirchildren,their sisters,their fathers and mothers,their wife or bestfriend - are suffering.Countries which possess nuclear bombs and continue to produce andmaintain them cause nuclear contamination. And not only nuclearpower plant accidents but misapplications in the medical sphere,or thetheft of nuclear material can have fatal consequences to the health of individuals. This calendar tells about them all about people who havepaid because others have thought nuclear power can be controlled.There are thousands of reasons for opposing nuclear power,and wehave put forward 365 of them here.The use of nuclear power is in the final analysis a question of civilisation,indeed philosophy. Do the few have the right to expose somany others to such a great danger?
Look at Robert Knoth’s photos of people whose lives have changed dramatically because of nuclearpower,and decide for yourself.
You can find a glossary of the terms used,further information and a list of sources at
www.greenpeace.org/nuclearcalendarglossary
I
365 reasons to oppose nuclear power
© AP/Igor Kostin
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