“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity” ~llaw

Lloyd A. Williams-Pendergraft

Jul 04, 2025

Share

The PG&E Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant located near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo county in California. It is the last commercial nuclear power plant in California.

LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY and the GLOBAL RISKS & CONSEQUENCES TOMORROW

My Personal Reasons and Thoughts about our Nuclear Future as it relates to this Blog:

Over the last 3 years I have watched, created, and learned in multiple ways to understand what I have, seemingly without conscious consideration ,attempted to make of my latter days of life — a part of which is this daily blog about the pitifully dangerous world we have become forced to exist in — and that it is mandatory to do what I, as well as you, the reader, can do to enlighten our own individual lives by seeking to help our collective lives on planet Earth move forward rather than statically sideways or even bassackwards as it has for the what I call the nuclear years,

It all began for me with the “Manhattan Project”, which changed the world in so many ways, including war, beginning about the same time I was born. One could thus say that I have lived with the “nuclear age” all of my life and as a young adult I somehow oddly became a part of the “nuclear industry” itself as a professional employee for a corporation that was one of the first allowed to provide uranium fuel to the early nuclear reactor power plants on a commercial basis, spending much of 3 decades learning and working in and about the industry. I left the nuclear world shortly after the “3-Mile Island” nuclear accident, suddenly realizing the world-wide danger of “all things nuclear”, including a grown-up realistic vision of the prior nuclear bombing of Japan forcing an immediate stop to WWII, but coming at the malicious expense of ordinary public citizens of hundreds of thousands of Japanese people who had little or nothing to do with the war, but were brutally sacrificed to end a war that had been confined to military theatre operational battles, as in all wars before the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States on August 6th and August 9th of 1945, when I was not yet 4 years old. The word “nuclear” has gradually taken a nasty tone in my mind, and I have long wished it to be removed forever from human use and “disappeared” from our knowledge that it ever existed. But, of course, that wish will never come true.

So that is why I have tried my best to simply report the reasons they — the bassackwards ones who are our world leaders and their masses of followers — should take the time to, on their own and freely, consciously, carefully, look into the endless information that I (and others, too) have provided, without fanfare or seeking “sponsors”, to warn the world on a daily basis for, in my case, more than 3 years that we humans are on the verge of extinguishing most all life on planet Earth — hoping all the while that curious concerned average folks around the world would come to the realization and band together to decry the facts that nuclear weapons and, yes, nuclear energy devastation are rapidly approaching in a way more than simply what we continue to call “threats” for now.

The ridiculous re-birth of the nuclear power industry may well become a major threat to the future of humanity and other life for many highly possible reasons if the industry and its commercial power suppliers and the future AI/Computer generated uses and users continue to successfully move nuclear energy forward around the globe, Nuclear power generation will become, and already are, what I refer to as “stationary nuclear bombs”. Such an effort by questionable human intelligence can easily create its own style of Pandora’s Box of dangers, including nuclear accidents, nuclear or uranium theft, black markets, and possible subversion, including terrorism, sabotage and insurrection. The larger the market grows the greater the risk of insurrection . . .

We fail to understand that most of humanity does not realize where we are blindly leading ourselves, like lemmings, to a place where our own self destruction exists because humanity is not intellectually qualified to avoid the outcome of the use of all things or anything nuclear, and that once used, for the madness and eventual failures of both the spoils of war and the peaceful generation of electricity, the consequences of nuclear waste, terrorism, and accidents will never go away.

So it is that I will continue to post the compilation of “TODAY’s NUCLEAR WORLD’s NEWS DIGEST”, which every day, seven days a week, features as many as 15 of the best nuclear-based media stories in 5 categories and up to 3 “bonus” stories about the “Yellowstone Caldera & Other Volcanoes”, but I will no longer add my personal opinions nor selected images (other than leaving those already inserted in a current media article).

This personal decision has arrived because I am well into an important nuclear based novel, draft titled “El Nuclear Diablo”, that will eventually serve the same intended purposes as the blog, but in a more interesting, exciting, readable, and literate level — and hopefully also in a more appreciable and adventurous way than my daily whines that I have long posted on the blog . . . ~llaw

And as one devoted everyday bibliophile — as I had come to think of it — I do hope you will continue to visit this very important daily Post, and I am considering, but have not come to any conclusion, offering a Q&A section to replace the “In my Opinion” area. Today’s July 4th Post will be the last in the present format, and I have appropriately explained some of my personal reasons for discontinuing the blog as we — meaning all the occasional readers

In My Opinion: (for the last time in this format . . .}

This very welcome Post and fittingly timed (Published today) as my last chosen piece for commentary is close to my heart is a very well told story of extremely dangerous political neglect from “Pediatric Research”. It is a timely and excellent piece that all of us need to read and think seriously about where the future of humanity is involved.

I need only to add the following (the 2nd to last paragraph) from the short but to-the-point article to say, as a final personal concern that should also be yours, how precisely my biggest fear about the future failure of mankind to prevent the passing of most human and other life on planet Earth! ~llaw

The 2nd to last paragraph:

It is an alarming failure of leadership that no progress has been made on these needed measures, nor on many other feasible steps away from the brink, acting on the obligation of all states to achieve nuclear disarmament. Nine states jeopardise all humanity and the biosphere by claiming an exclusive right to wield the most destructive and inhumane weapons ever created. The world desperately needs the leaders of these states to freeze their arsenals, end the modernisation and development of new, more dangerous nuclear weapons, and ensure that new technology such as artificial intelligence can never trigger the launch of nuclear weapons.

• Editorial
• Published: 04 July 2025

Ending nuclear weapons, before they end us

• Kamran Abbasi,
• Parveen Ali,
• Virginia Barbour,
• Marion Birch,
• Inga Blum,
• Peter Doherty,
• Andy Haines,
• Ira Helfand,
• Richard Horton,
• Kati Juva,
• Jose F. Lapena Jr.,
• Robert Mash,
• Olga Mironova,
• Arun Mitra,
• Carlos Monteiro,
• Elena N. Naumova,
• David Onazi,
• Tilman Ruff,
• Peush Sahni,
• James Tumwine,
• Carlos Umaña,
• Paul Yonga &
• Chris Zielinski

Pediatric Research (2025)Cite this article

This May, the World Health Assembly (WHA) will vote on re-establishing a mandate for the World Health Organization (WHO) to address the health consequences of nuclear weapons and war.¹ Health professionals and their associations should urge their governments to support such a mandate and support the new UN comprehensive study on the effects of nuclear war.

The first atomic bomb exploded in the New Mexico desert 80 years ago, in July 1945. Three weeks later, two relatively small (by today’s standards), tactical-size nuclear weapons unleashed a cataclysm of radioactive incineration on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the end of 1945, about 213,000 people were dead.² Tens of thousands more have died from late effects of the bombings.

Last December, Nihon Hidankyo, a movement that brings together atomic bomb survivors, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its “efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.³ For the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the award validated the most fundamental human right: the right to live. The Committee warned that the menace of nuclear weapons is now more urgent than ever before. In the words of Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes, “it is naive to believe our civilisation can survive a world order in which global security depends on nuclear weapons. The world is not meant to be a prison in which we await collective annihilation.”⁴ He noted that our survival depended on keeping intact the “nuclear taboo” (which stigmatises the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable).⁵

The nuclear taboo gains strength from recognition of compelling evidence of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, its severe global climatic and famine consequences, and the impossibility of any effective humanitarian response. This evidence contributed significantly to ending the Cold War nuclear arms race.^6,7

While the numbers of nuclear weapons are down to 12,331 now, from their 1986 peak of 70,300,⁸ this is still equivalent to 146,605 Hiroshima bombs,⁹ and does not mean humanity is any safer.¹⁰ Even a fraction of the current arsenal could decimate the biosphere in a severe mass extinction event. The global climate disruption caused by the smoke pouring from cities ignited by just 2% of the current arsenal could result in over two billion people starving.¹¹

A worldwide nuclear arms race is underway. Deployed nuclear weapons are increasing again, and China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and UK are all enlarging their arsenals. An estimated 2100 nuclear warheads in France, Russia, UK, US and, for the first time, also in China, are on high alert, ready for launch within minutes.⁸ With disarmament in reverse, extensive nuclear modernisations underway, multiple arms control treaties abrogated without replacement, no disarmament negotiations in evidence, nuclear-armed Russia and Israel engaged in active wars involving repeated nuclear threats, Russia and the US deploying nuclear weapons to additional states, and widespread use of cyberwarfare, the risk of nuclear war is widely assessed to be greater than ever. This year the Doomsday Clock was moved the closest to midnight since the Clock’s founding in 1947.¹⁰

Led by Ireland and New Zealand, in late 2024, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted overwhelmingly to establish a 21-member independent scientific panel to undertake a new comprehensive study on the effects of nuclear war,¹² with its final report due in 2027. Noting that “removing the threat of a nuclear war is the most acute and urgent task of the present day”, the panel has been tasked with examining the physical effects and societal consequences of a nuclear war on a local, regional and planetary scale. It will examine the climatic, environmental and radiological effects of nuclear war, and their impact on public health, global socioeconomic systems, agriculture and ecosystems.

The resolution calls upon UN agencies, including WHO, to support the panel’s work, including by “contributing expertise, commissioned studies, data and papers”. All UN Member States are encouraged to provide relevant information, scientific data and analyses; facilitate and host panel meetings, including regional meetings; and make budgetary or in-kind contributions. Such an authoritative international assessment of evidence on the most acute existential threat to humankind and planetary health is long overdue. The last such report dates from 1989. It is shameful that France, UK and Russia opposed this resolution.¹³

In 1983 and 1987,¹⁴ WHO convened an international committee of scientists and health experts to study the health effects of nuclear war. Its landmark, authoritative reports were influential and an excellent example of WHO fulfilling its constitutional mandate “to act as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work”. In 1993, WHO produced an additional shorter report on the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons, which included discussion of the production chain of nuclear weapons, including processing, testing and disposal.¹⁵

However, despite WHA having mandated WHO to report periodically on relevant developments, no further work was undertaken and in 2020 WHO’s mandate on nuclear weapons and health lapsed.

The Marshall Islands, Samoa and Vanuatu, supported by seven co-sponsoring states and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), are working to renew WHO’s mandate. They are seeking wide support for a resolution on the health effects of nuclear weapons/war at this year’s WHA in Geneva on 19-27 May.¹ WHO would then re-establish a programme of work on this most critical threat to health, and be able to lead strongly in providing the best health evidence to the UN panel.

Health professionals are well aware how crucial accurate and up-to-date evidence is to making good decisions. We and our organisations should support such a renewed mandate by urging our national WHA delegates to vote in support and commit the modest funds needed to re-establish WHO’s work programme, especially now, as the organisation faces severe financial strain with the US decision to withdraw its membership.

Our joint editorial in 2023¹⁶ on reducing the risks of nuclear war and the role of health professionals, published in over 150 health journals worldwide, urged three immediate steps by nuclear-armed states and their allies: adopt a “no first use” policy, take their nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, and pledge unequivocally that they will not use nuclear weapons in any current conflicts they are involved in. We also urged nuclear-armed states to work for a definitive end to the nuclear threat by urgently starting negotiations for a verifiable, timebound agreement to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, and called on all nations to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.¹⁷

It is an alarming failure of leadership that no progress has been made on these needed measures, nor on many other feasible steps away from the brink, acting on the obligation of all states to achieve nuclear disarmament. Nine states jeopardise all humanity and the biosphere by claiming an exclusive right to wield the most destructive and inhumane weapons ever created. The world desperately needs the leaders of these states to freeze their arsenals, end the modernisation and development of new, more dangerous nuclear weapons, and ensure that new technology such as artificial intelligence can never trigger the launch of nuclear weapons.

The UN scientific panel and a renewed mandate for WHO’s work in this area can provide vital authoritative and up-to-date evidence for health and public education, evidence-based advocacy and policies, and the mobilised public concern needed to trigger decisive political leadership. This is a core health imperative for all of us.

References

1. World Health Organization. Effects of nuclear weapons and war on health and health services. EB156/CONF./10, Executive Board (accessed 4 March 2025); https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB156/B156_CONF10-en.pdf (2025).
2. Tomonaga, M. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: a summary of the human consequences, 1945-2018, and lessons for Homo sapiens to end the nuclear weapon age. J. Peace Nucl. Disarmament 2, 491–517 (2019).

---

Subscribed

TODAY’s NUCLEAR WORLD’s NEWS DIGEST, Friday, (07/04/2025)

There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:

1. All Things Nuclear
2. Nuclear Power
3. Nuclear Power Emergencies
4. Nuclear War Threats
5. Nuclear War
6. Yellowstone Caldera & Other Volcanoes (Note: There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in today’s Post.)
7. IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only) (Note: If the IAEA Weekly News does not return by the following Friday from today, this category will be removed)

Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.

A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.

TODAY’s NUCLEAR WORLD’s NEWS DIGEST, Friday, (07/04/2025)

All Things Nuclear

NEWS

Iran cracking down on people suspected of aiding Israel in war last month – WSIU

WSIU

… nuclear scientists during last month’s war … All Things Considered · Morning Edition · Law Enforcement · Politics …

Trump Admin CHANGES THE STORY About Iran’s Nuclear Weapons – YouTube

YouTube

major channels on almost all the platforms. We also have a live 24-hour news channel that features all our shows. The Young Turks is the flagship …

Nuclear Power/IAEA Fast Facts | CNN

CNN

May 30, 2011 – Germany announces it will abandon the use of all nuclear power by the year 2022. … that is aimed at reining in Iran’s nuclear prog

Nuclear Power

NEWS

Wisconsin governor signs bills to bolster nuclear power – POLITICO Pro

POLITICO Pro

Evers, a Democrat, said exploring nuclear power options are a way to combat climate change and lower carbon emissions. “We must continue our efforts …

Nuclear Power/IAEA Fast Facts | CNN

CNN

Kansai Electric Power Company’s Takahama nuclear plant in western Japan. JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images. CNN —. Here’s a look …

Record-Breaking Results Bring Fusion Power Closer to Reality | Scientific American

Scientific American

Breakthroughs from two rival experiments, Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X and the Joint European Torus, suggest the elusive dream of controlled nuclear …

Nuclear Power Emergencies

NEWS

Ukraine nuclear power plant alert as ALL external electricity cables helping keep reactor fuel …

Daily Mail

… Atomic Energy Agency said on X, adding that the plant was relying on its emergency diesel generators for power. Its six reactors are all shut down …

IAEA Chief Visits Liberia, Pledges Support for Cancer Care, Farming, Clean Water

allAfrica.com

The move marked a significant step toward stronger nuclear governance and emergency preparedness. … nuclear power as part of its energy mix. Close …

IAEA: Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant without electricity | blue News – Bluewin

Bluewin

“The nuclear power plant is currently dependent on electricity from its emergency diesel generators, which underlines the extremely precarious …

Nuclear War Threats

NEWS

US faces long-term battle to contain Iran after Trump’s strike on their nuclear facilities

Fox News

… threat of nuclear war‘ · Brian … Israel insists on striking preemptively if it detects renewed threats.

Beijing fears Russia’s defeat due to nuclear arsenal risks – Chinese expert – Ukrinform

Ukrinform

Chinese leaders have repeatedly warned against not only the use of nuclear arms, but even nuclear threats,” Wang said answering Ukrinform’s Beijing …

Ending nuclear weapons, before they end us | Pediatric Research – Nature

Nature

… threats, Russia and the US deploying nuclear weapons to additional … The growing threat of nuclear war and the role of the health community.

Nuclear War

NEWS

Iran won’t attack the US but will continue nuclear development, senior Iranian official says

Politico

Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said Iran had “already responded” to the U.S. attack on its three nuclear enrichment facilities late last …lear threat is more precarious than during the Cold War

The Washington Post

How nuclear war could start. (Cristiana Couceiro/For The Washington Post). By Hans Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns and Allie …

U.S. strikes on Iran nuclear sites lead to fragile Israel-Iran ceasefire | Fox News

Fox News

New Cold War?: US faces long-term battle to contain Iran after Trump’s strike on their nuclear facilities. The CIA is now acknowledging severe, long- …

Yellowstone Caldera

NEWS

Yellowstone scientists discuss real dangers of thermal areas – Buckrail

Buckrail

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — In this week’s Caldera Chronicles, the scientists of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) discuss the common …

Could Yellowstone National Park Visitors See New Thermal Feature Again This Summer?

Discover Magazine

A Hydrothermal Hotbed. Yellowstone National Park is a hotbed of volcanic history. Situated within the Yellowstone Caldera, the park is home to …

IAEA Weekly News

(IAEA Weekly News unavailable)