Issues surrounding nuclear power explored in speaker series
Nuclear power is being promoted recently as the green solution to climate change. However, this ignores the accidents at nuclear power plants, their vulnerability to climate change, the high cost and delayed construction of new plants, the harm to adjacent communities, and possibly the most important problem—tons of radioactive waste that will burden humanity for generations to come. The “Anti-Nuclear Research and Activism in the US and Japan” film and speaker series will link nuclear accidents in Japan with the U.S. The series will bring three speakers, two filmmakers, and one film to campus in winter and spring terms to discuss nuclear issues and activism in the U.S. and Japan. This series is of particular importance in the Pacific Northwest because of the Hanford Site in Washington and the new push for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors along the Columbia River.
On Wednesday, February 5, 2025 there will be a screening of the award-winning documentary film SOS–The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy at 7 p.m. in 123 Pacific Hall. The film chronicles how Southern California residents came together to force the shutdown of an aging, leaking nuclear power plant only to be confronted by an alarming reality—tons of nuclear waste left near a popular beach, only 100 feet from the rising sea. The solution for the waste, to ship it to a storage site on Indigenous land in the Southwest, causes the residents to rethink the decision to export their toxic waste. The film’s producer/directors Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle will engage in discussion following the screening along with director Morgan Peterson who will participate via Zoom.
On Wednesday, February 19, 2025 Shannon Cram, associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington in Bothell will give a talk titled “Unmaking the Bomb: Environmental Cleanup and the Politics of Impossibility” at 4 p.m. in 111 Lillis Hall. Cram is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the intersections of geography, anthropology, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities. Her new book, Unmaking the Bomb: Environmental Cleanup and the Politics of Impossibility (2023), blends history, ethnography, and memoir, as she investigates remediation efforts at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the former weapons complex in Washington State.
The series, cosponsored by the OHC’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Science, and Humanities, will continue in spring term.