At the weekend we went along to Inverness to attend an event discussing Nuclear weapons. The three speakers were Bill Ramsay from Scottish CND, local MP Drew Hendry and the Green MSP John Finnie.
There was a good crowd in attendance but sadly the age group was definitely of the older generation. There were a few under retirement age but not as many as there should be.
The debate was around two of the CND publications Disarming Trident and The treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons (both can be purchased by clicking on the links for £1 each).
Bill talked through the process for disarmament. Despite what our media tells us, significant work can be done in as little as 10 weeks. Much of the rest of work can be done in 4 years with the plan in place to dismantle the war heads. The mantra that Jackie Baillie repeats about job losses is false. Yes particular jobs in maintaining and using warheads and their transport will go but these skills can be transferred. There will be many more jobs created in undoing what nuclear governments have created.
What I think caused an intake of breath with some of us was the interaction between nuclear weapons industry and the commercial nuclear industry such as nuclear medicine, nuclear power stations etc. The financial interactions are such that some of your household energy bills you pay contribute to nuclear weapons.
Nuclear has been discovered. It can be used in many beneficial ways such as in medicine. We no longer need to live by intimidating each other by having dangerous big boy toys to wave at each other threateningly. These things need to be gone from our lives. I have a hatred of horror movies so have not been watching the docu-drama Chernobyl but I have heard from others who have watched. Some had to just stop watching, it was so terrifying. Yet governments tell us we need to have this stuff.
It’s about time the governments of the world started tidying up their mess. Mess, whether it came from the discovery of nuclear energy or from the bi-products of oil, such as plastic. Whether for power over others or for profit making as much from a source as possible. We need to clean up our world.
The countries we have poisoned by sending our waste for them to ‘recycle’ have started to say no, you are poisoning and killing our people. If we manufacture and use products, we should be responsible for their disposal. I mean physically, not pay others to do it. Many need to take a break from what they do and analyse themselves. TV is full of programmes on asking people to look at food waste, clothing waste, effects of plastic use and misuse.
It is time. Time we started to look after our planet before it gets so sick it can no longer sustain us.
Why “sadly”? Members of the “older generation” have lived their whole lives under a nuclear shadow.
I didn’t mean they shouldn’t have been there. What I meant was it would have been good to see the younger generations participate more