- Nevada Desert Experience
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November 1951 nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
The Nevada Desert Experience is a name for the movement to stop U.S. nuclear weapons testing that came into use in the middle 1980s. It is also the name of a particular anti-nuclear organization which continues to create public events to question the morality and intelligence of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, with a main focus on the U.S. Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site.
Activists working for social justice, environmental preservation, and international peace organized a peace vigil to last six weeks long in the Spring of 1982 about 60 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site. In 1983 they repeated the vigil, calling it the Lenten Desert Experience. This anarchist group of Christian organizers decided that the program had been successful enough to start an organization, which led to a faith-based aspect to the nuclear abolition movement. They named it "Nevada Desert Experience" or NDE because of the work within the prayer-actions for peace that included learning to appreciate the Mojave and the Great Basin Deserts of North America. Organizers believed that appreciation of the beauty and power of the natural environment, coupled with a universal code of ethics (the Golden Rule) organically leads humans to make a stand for peace and environmental justice.
The movement's immediate goal of ending nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site was met in 1992, when President George H. W. Bush signed a moratorium on underground nuclear weapons tests. The abolition movement, led by NDE and the Western Shoshone-based Shundahai Network were sparked back into action with the renewal of non-nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site in 1997. These "subcritical" bombs use fissile materials which do not reach a self-sustaining chain reaction of a typical nuclear bomb. The bombs are designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, whereby the data collected can be fed to computers to simulate full-scale nuclear explosions for the NSA and DOE. Their explosive yield is low, and small amounts of radiation may be released. Because each subcritical experiment costs roughly 20 million dollars (USD) and much time from the humans working within the nuclear weapons management industry, the tests indicate to nuclear abolition activists a strong continued interest (within the U.S. Government) in favor of nuclear weapons. Therefore, the Nevada Desert Experience continues to work for deep ecological sensitivities and social peacemaking, with one goal being to clean up and contain the contamination created by 55 years of nuclear testing in Nevada & Western Shoshone country.
In protest to UAV attacks in Pakistan and the perceived extremely high danger of harming civilians [1][2][3], in an event sponsored by Nevada Desert Experience, Father Louie Vitale, Kathy Kelly, Stephen Kelly, SJ, John Dear, and others were arrested outside the Air Force Base on Wednesday April 9, 2009.[4] Subsequent monthly protests have been ongoing and conducted by a number of organizations including Code Pink.[5]
See also
- Corbin Harney
- Louis Vitale
- Thomas Gumbleton
- Nevada Test Site
References
- ^ Nevada Desert Experience : Predators & Reapers - Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
- ^ Combat Drones: Losing the Fight Against Terrorism << Peace Policy
- ^ Obama Steps Up Drone Bombings Despite Civilian Deaths
- ^ VCNV
- ^ CODEPINK : Peace activists to rally Monday outside Creech Air Force Base: Will call for end to U.S. drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan
"Pilgrimage Through a Burning World, by Ken Butigan" Chronicles and discusses the political and religious aspects of the nonviolent protest against nuclear testing called the Nevada Desert Experience. 2003, 256 pp., paper"
External links
- Western States Legal Foundation Non-profit, public interest organization which monitors and analyzes U.S. nuclear weapons programs
- Poison Fire USA Animated map of nuclear activities in the United States
Anti-nuclear movement in the United States General issues Anti-nuclear movement in California · Anti-nuclear groups in the United States · Anti-nuclear protests in the United States · Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament · List of cancelled nuclear plants in the United States · Nuclear power in the United States · Nuclear weapons and the United States ·
Organizations
and groupsAbalone Alliance · Clamshell Alliance · Committee for Nuclear Responsibility · Corporate Accountability International · Critical Mass · Friends of the Earth · Greenpeace USA · Institute for Energy and Environmental Research · Mothers for Peace · Musicians United for Safe Energy · Nevada Desert Experience · Nuclear Control Institute · Nuclear Information and Resource Service · Physicians for Social Responsibility · Plowshares Movement · Public Citizen · Shad Alliance · Sierra Club · Three Mile Island Alert · Women Strike for Peace ·People Daniel Berrigan · Larry Bogart · Helen Caldicott · Glenn Carroll · Barry Commoner · Frances Crowe · Carrie Barefoot Dickerson · Jane Fonda · John Gofman · Paul Gunter · John Hall · Amory Lovins · Arjun Makhijani · Gregory Minor · Ralph Nader · Linus Pauling · Eugene Rabinowitch · Bonnie Raitt · Martin Sheen · Karen Silkwood · Louie Vitale · Harvey Wasserman ·Main protest
sitesBlack Fox · Bodega Bay · Diablo Canyon · Indian Point · LLNL · Montague · Naval Base Kitsap · Nevada Test Site · Rancho Seco · Rocky Flats · San Onofre · Seabrook · Shoreham · Three Mile Island · Trojan · Vermont Yankee · Yankee RoweBooks Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free · Conservation Fallout · Critical Masses · Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy · Killing Our Own · Licensed to Kill? · Making a Real Killing · Nuclear Implosions · Nuclear Politics in America · The Cult of the Atom · TMI 25 Years Later · We Almost Lost DetroitCategories:- Anti–nuclear weapons movement
- Peace organizations
- Civil disobedience
- Religious activism
- Christian pacifism
- Anti-nuclear protests
- Nonviolence organizations
- Anti-nuclear organizations in the United States
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