Veterans For Peace Nuclear Abolition Working Group Presents

Webinar on Twin Existential Threats

Warheads to Windmills:

Addressing the Threats of Climate Change and Nuclear Weapons Before it's Too Late!

PLEASE SHARE WIDELY

Thursday, February 29 (Leap Year Day)

  4pm PST | 5pm MST | 6pm CST | 7pm EST

This webinar is sponsored by VFP's Nuclear Abolition Working Group and features two major anti-nuclear activists speaking on climate and nuclear weapons: Dr. Ivana Hughes and Dr. Timmon Wallis. They will speak on why both issues must be addressed with equal urgency, and then discuss how together we can build mass movement that can put an end to these threats. REGISTER HERE.

Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Chemistry at Columbia University. Her work on ascertaining the radiological conditions in the Marshall Islands has been covered widely. Dr. Hughes currently serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Dr. Timmon Wallis is Executive Director of NuclearBan.US and coordinator of the national Warheads to Windmills Coalition. He has a BA in Human Ecology and a PhD in Peace Studies, and has been writing, teaching and campaigning on the issues of climate and nuclear weapons for many years. His book, Disarming the Nuclear Argument, contributed to the negotiations which led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and earned ICAN its Nobel Peace Prize in 2017. His most recent book, Warheads to Windmills: Preventing Climate Catastrophe and Nuclear War was published in December 2023.

For more information, email gerrycondon@veteransforpeace.org

Commemorating the Castle Bravo nuclear disaster March 1, 1954

March 1 marks seventy years since the US used its biggest ever nuclear weapon on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The bomb was 15 megatons, a thousand times the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and 2.5 times the predicted 6 megatons of TNT.

In all, the US detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, contaminating not just the entire area of atolls but the particulate and gaseous fallout from the Castle Bravo blast blew around the entire planet.

The public was trying to stop the tests - and the first Voyage of the Golden Rule in 1958 and arrest of her crew helped spur the massive public outcry that finally led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

At the 2020 Veterans For Peace National Convention, held virtually, Ariana Tibon-Kilma, a Commissioner with the Marshall Island's National Nuclear Commission, was part of a panel presentation hosted by the VFP Nuclear Abolition Working Group. She feels like there is a great need for education about the health and environmental effects of the nuclear weapons tests, including displacement, and especially for younger people.

An article by Nic Maclellan, reporting from the Marshall Islands, also explores the Climate / Nuclear Nexus. For the Marshall Islands, sinking in rising seas, nuclear contaminants are leaching into the marine environment from the Runit Dome on Enewetak Atoll. The concrete dome was built in the 1970s to cover radioactive-contaminated waste and soil, dumped into the deep crater of a previous nuclear test. A newly published RMI Climate Security Risk Assessment stresses: “Nuclear waste represents an ongoing threat to the Marshallese people and the environment, because of the risk that nuclear waste stored in the Runit Dome cannot be contained.”

The Golden Rule Project commemorates the anniversary of the Castle Bravo disaster and encourages our supporters to write to their Senators to fully fund the Compact of Free Association Aid Package, approved in 2023. $1.5 billion is for Marshall Islands over 20 years for government services and projects, and another $700 million is to be put into a trust fund that could be for nuclear compensation or other uses. Inadequate as it may be, Congress must step up and fund what all four countries have agreed to! (The Compact of Free Association includes Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the United States).

Veterans For Peace Conference

Join us in Ukiah, California the evening of Friday April 12 through the morning of Sunday April 14 for a weekend of fellowship, food and politics. 

All VFP members are welcome!

Veterans Memorial Building, 293 Seminary Ave, Ukiah, CA 95482.

$60 includes all meals.

Watch our website or contact Paul Cox, 510-418-3436 or paulcox@sonic.net for more info!

International Uranium Film Festival

Golden Rule speakers will be present at four International Uranium Film Festival locations. Details will be posted as soon as we know more.

Seattle: Sunday, April 14, 3:00 – 8:00 pm

INTRO: 3:00 – 3:15

ATOMIC BAMBOOZLE: 3:15 – 4:00

GROUND ZERO / VFP: 4:00 – 4:20

THE NUNS, THE PRIEST, & THE BOMB: 4:40 – 6:10

GOLDEN RULE: 6:10 – 6:35

Q&A: 6:35 – 6:50

BURIAL: 7:00 – 8:00

Olympia: Monday April 15 and Tuesday April 16

Purce I in Evergreen College

Portland: Wednesday April 17 and Thursday April 18

Doors open at 6 PM, screening starts at 6:30 PM; ends at 8:30 PM.

First Unitarian Church, Eliot Chapel

Salem and Eugene: Friday April 19 and Saturday April 20

On April 19 in Salem a Golden Rule speaker will talk.

On April 20 at 5:30 pm in Eugene,a Golden Rule speaker will lead a discussion until the first film starts at 6:00 pm.

Golden Rule Pacific Northwest Voyage

From mid-July to the end of September, the Golden Rule will sail the waters of the Pacific Northwest.

Once again, as in 2016, we plan to participate in wooden boat shows, protest against Nuclear-Armed Submarines, a Munitions Depot, and Seattle's Fleet Week.

And as always, we will have educational programs and ask politicians to support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and other measures to pull us "Back from the Brink" of nuclear war!

Please see our website for the latest schedule. Here are some highlights -

"Fleet Week" Parade of Ships is July 30, and that's when we will be in Elliott Bay to give our message of Peace in contrast to the weapons of war invading Seattle.

The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo is holding their annual Hiroshima Day commemoration August 3 - 5. Golden Rule representatives will participate.

The Hiroshima-to-Hope annual commemoration and Lantern Ceremony at Greenlake in Seattle on August 6 from 6 to 9 pm. Veterans For Peace and the Golden Rule will have a table and perhaps say a few words during the program. For more information: 206-928-2590. http://fromhiroshimatohope.org; https://www.facebook.com/FromHiroshimaToHope.

We've added tentative dates for Tacoma, Olympia, Bainbridge Island, Coupeville (Whidbey Is), Bellingham, Vancouver BC, and Friday Harbor (San Juan Is).

Voyage, Stop and Event Planning Meetings

If you live in Washington, Oregon or British Columbia near our route, please join our organizing zoom calls! As you can see from the schedule below, there are lots of dates open for stops and events.

Tuesdays at 6:00 pm Pacific

Online:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81975577010?pwd=YUFXeXREVjQ3NUptZHhoRURUS015QT09

Or call by phone:

253-205-0468

Meeting ID: 819 7557 7010

Passcode: 1234

You can also check with Helen at 206-992-6364 or vfpgoldenruleproject@gmail.com for one-on-one conversations about the voyage.

THANK YOU, Veterans For Peace Board of Directors and Staff!

Veterans For Peace owns the Golden Rule and supports the Project with funds, staff time, and publicity. We recently presented our Annual Report for 2023 and Sail Plan and Budget for 2024 at the Veterans For Peace monthly Board of Directors meeting. Members of the Board were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about our Great Loop and Pacific Northwest Voyages!

THANK YOU!

Support the Pacific Northwest Voyage

and THANK YOU for the new sails!

THANK YOU so much to our supporters who donated generously to pay for the sails! The sail cloth and sails have arrived in Costa Mesa, where Bob Kettenhofen and his son Alec will create the mainsail, mizzen sail and two sail covers as well as apply the Veterans For Peace and Peace Sign logos!

The Kettenhofens love our project and gave us a GREAT PRICE! Soon the Golden Rule will be able to sail around Humboldt Bay!

There are always repairs and maintenance projects (it's a boat, after all). We also need to have enough money for docks, crew food and travel, brochures and t-shirts.

Please donate one of these ways:

• Online:

• send a check to:

VFP Golden Rule Project

PO Box 87

Samoa, CA 95564

• Call Helen Jaccard with a credit/debit card #, 206-992-6364