If You Love This Planet, Dr. Helen Caldicott

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Kay Drey (Jo Mannies)

Dr. Caldicott interviews Kay Drey, a board member of Beyond Nuclear. Drey is also a board member of the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center. For nearly 40 years, she has researched the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear waste, and advocated for the closure of nuclear plants and other uranium facilities. She was quite active in civil rights work before focusing on nuclear power. Drey and Dr. Caldicott discuss the widespread public health implications of so-called routine radiactive releases from nuclear power stations, in which many hazardous gases and fission byproducts are emitted during daily operations. Drey refers to a Beyond Nuclear pamphlet, Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive: The Truth is In About Nuclear Power. For more information, read Dr. Caldicott’s book Nuclear Power is Not the Answer which includes information from Drey’s studies.

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Arnie Gundersen

This week Dr Caldicott welcomes back nuclear engineer Arnold Gundersen for yet another update on the stricken Fukushima plant which suffered multiple nuclear meltdowns in 2011. As background, read the May 5 article Thousands March as Japan Shuts off Nuclear Power, for Now: Japan goes nuke free for first time in four decades amidst pressure to restart and the April 7 article Fukushima Reactor 4: Life On Planet Earth in the Balance. They discuss the vulnerabilities of each of the four damaged reactors including the worldwide implications if much more radiation is released, and the psychological effects on the Japanese of the disaster. They also talk about California’s two nuclear power plants, both right on (more…)

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Broinowski

In this episode, Dr. Caldicott has another chat with academic and author, Richard Broinowski, adjunct professor in media and communications at the University of Sydney. Prof. Broinowski, Dr. Caldicott’s brother, is also a retired Australian diplomat who was posted in Tokyo, Rangoon and Tehran, and served as Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Central American Republics and Cuba. Broinowski is the author of three books, with a fourth due to appear this October, on the nuclear disaster at Fukushima and its implications for Japan and the international nuclear industry. Broinowski and Dr. Caldicott discuss the history of U.S. involvement with (more…)

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Gusterson

In this fascinating conversation, respected anthropologist, author and lecturer Professor Hugh Gusterson from George Mason University delves into the psychology of nuclear weapons scientists, and the culture of war. Prof. Gusterson has studied those who design nuclear weapons and those who fight to abolish them in field research conducted in the U.S. and Russia. Read five articles by Prof. Gusterson for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: An education in occupation (which Dr. Caldicott mentions on the program), The new abolitionists, Weapons labs and the inconvenient truth, The lessons of Fukushima, and The costs of war. Listen to Dr. Caldicott’s earlier conversation with Prof. Gusterson.