Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-226).
Contents:
Twenty-first-century nuclear weaponry -- Assessing global catastrophic risk / Seth D. Baum -- Modernization of nuclear weaponry / Hans Kristensen -- Nuclear smoke and the climatic effects of nuclear war / Alan Robock -- Addicted to weapons / Bruce Gagnon -- The plutonium problem / Bob Alvarez -- Nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence / Max Tegmark -- Weapons scientists up close / Hugh Gusterson -- Twenty-first-century nuclear politics -- National politics versus national security / Noam Chomsky -- Escalation watch : four looming flashpoints facing President Trump / Michael Klare -- Nuclear politics / William Hartung -- Ignition points for global catastrophe / Richard Broinowski -- Nuclear weapons : how foreign hotspots could test Trump's finger on the trigger / Julian Borger -- The existential madness of Putin-bashing / Robert Parry -- The sudden German nuke flirtation / Ulrich Kühn -- Solutions -- Law and morality at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons / Ray Acheson -- A new movement to ban nuclear weapons / Tim Wright -- Don't bank on the bomb / Susi Snyder -- Nuclear weapons and possible human extinction : the heroic Marshall Islanders / David Krieger -- Persistent violence and silent suffering: Marshallese migrants in Washington State / Holly Barker -- Adding democracy to nuclear policy / Kennette Benedict.
Summary:
With the worlds attention focused on climate change and terrorism, we are in danger of taking our eyes off the nuclear threat. But rising tensions between Russia and NATO, proxy wars erupting in Syria and Ukraine, a nuclear-armed Pakistan, and stockpiles of aging weapons unsecured around the globe make a nuclear attack or a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility arguably the biggest threat facing humanity. Sleepwalking to Armageddon, pioneering antinuclear activist Helen Caldicott assembles the worlds leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today. Chapters address the size and distribution of the current global nuclear arsenal, the history and politics of nuclear weapons, the culture of modern-day weapons labs, the militarization of space, and the dangers of combining artificial intelligence with nuclear weaponry, as well as a status report on enriched uranium and a shocking analysis of spending on nuclear weapons over the years.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.