Month: December 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/tillerson-offers-olive-branch-to-north-korea-if-it-abandons-nuclear-weapons/2017/12/15/06b4fce4-e198-11e7-bbd0-9dfb2e37492a_story.html?utm_term=.ddb314593ef1

– Haley Stieber

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/15/world/asia/north-korea-scientists-weapons.html

The article doesn’t really go into depth about the actual people behind North Korea’s nuclear weapons, but it does explore the way that they are treated and viewed by Kim Jung-Un.  It also explores the ways in which they are using science as a propaganda tool, which I found really interesting.

-Cherish

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/chernobyls-bugs-art-and-science-life-after-nuclear-fallout-180951231/

Cornelia Hesse-Honegger collected 50 to 500 insects at various locations in regions under the Chernobyl cloud, and made water color illustrations of the abnormal ones.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/12/china-refugee-camps-border-north-korea

Document suggests at least five camps are being set up as Beijing prepares for possible influx of refugees should Kim Jong-un’s regime collapse.

Another related article from the New York Times:

https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20171212/china-north-korea-border/en-us/

Unfortunately I have repeatedly forgotten to post to the blog this semester. I thought I would try and give a last update on the Iran Nuclear Deal at our last class, hopefully Kathryn will show my links!

I have one link to a recent Washington Times

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/dec/11/donald-trumps-iran-nuclear-deal-deadline-ignored-c/

It seems Congress has done nothing to agree on new changes in the Iran Nuclear Deal. Although this means that it has been sent back to Trump, and can possibly be scrapped all together. The entire situation seems to be extremely unnecessary, with possibly heavy consequences. The article also seems to suggest that the situation with Iran isn’t leaving options to negotiate with North Korea either.

Here is another link to an article by the foreign minister of Iran

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/opinion/mohammad-javad-zarif-europe-iran.html

From his point of view he is trying to emphasize that Iran’s military is completely for defensive purposes, and it is important to recognize that Iran has the right to protect themselves. He urges European countries that are part of the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA) to not follow the foot steps of the United States to help deescalate tensions if needed. He also states that Iran has also been engaging in humanitarian efforts to help Syria.

I personally feel what is going on in Washington around the Iran Nuclear Deal is heading in a bad direction. Even if the deal might need renegotiations, how Trump is approaching the issue is inflaming the situation. Seems like there are other issues at hand that are more crucial to focus on.

 

I attended the December 2nd Nuclear Energy event at the University of Chicago that we talked about in class. Here is a video I made by combining my own footage from the event with the official video put out by the university:

Password: e=mc2

The anniversary ceremony of Cai Guo-Qiang’s pyrotechnic display satisfied my expectations of a profoundly spectacular and monumental moment. The artist himself described the work beforehand as “being a defining symbol of humanity in the 21st century”. The lecture series that followed, programmed by the University of Chicago, was also very informative and delved deeper into the meaning of the Henry Moore sculpture “Nuclear Energy” and surrounding temporary installation “Nuclear Thresholds” that served as the foreground for the pyrotechnics display. The temporary installation surrounding the Moore sculpture very symbolically and playfully expressed the bifurcation of nuclear fission through it’s clever expansive division of long rubber cords into a messy playful pile of chaos:

Ann Wagner, a prominent art historian, gave an interesting lecture on Henry Moore’s cast bronze sculpture “Nuclear Energy”, which like Cai Guo-Qiang’s performance, celebrated the earlier 50th anniversary of the Chicago Pile 1 experiment in 1942 by being unveiled at 3:36pm on December 2nd, 1967. Most notably, she mentioned that Henry Moore was the victim of a gas attack on the front lines during world war one in 1917. Gas based weapons have since been banned globally as a weapon of warfare because of their horribly demonstrable effects on human health and unethical destruction of innocent civilian populations. I thought this anecdote was interesting  in respect to his working on a sculptural piece grappling with the celebratory anniversary of a technology which lead to a similarly unethical weapon of the atomic bomb which dealt destruction and horror beyond the power of a chemical gas attack. How do we define what is unethical in warfare? How do we determine when enough destruction is enough? Is it the number of lives lost, or the bad feeling in our stomachs?

Heres an article of the event posted by the University of Chicago:

https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2017/12/02/pyrotechnic-artwork-commemorates-75th-anniversary-first-nuclear-reaction

And if you’d like the see some more of Cai Guo-Qiang’s work you can find a cool, non-nuclear related, video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHLd-QIb2_U

-Matt

found this video game that simulates a global nuclear war- seems interesting, i haven’t played it, but there’s a demo you can download on the site. it had good reviews when i looked it up.
https://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/

• https://ironline.american.edu/blog/nuclear-missile-range/
  ^ Here is a nice infographic of missile ranges, updated for the DPRK’s new test.https://www.defconwarningsystem.com/documents/recovery_from_nuclear_attack.pdf
  ^ archived FEMA document from 1988 detailing how the cleanup/recovery process from a nuclear attack should go.

  https://www.defconwarningsystem.com/documents/Planning_Guidance_for_Response_to_a_Nuclear_Detonation-2nd_Edition_FINAL.pdf
  ^ Document from 2010 RE: nuclear preparedness – some pages are redacted, there is a more complete version out there somewhere. Probably similar to our plans for a nuclear attack now.

  https://www.defconwarningsystem.com/documents/Nucelar%20Attack%20Planning%20Base%20-%20Direct%20Effects.pdf 
  ^Interesting FEMA document from 1990 making a guess at where nuclear blasts would hit the US, broken down by county. Now outdated.

  https://www.defconwarningsystem.com/documents/medplanresmannucdet-guide-final.pdf
  ^Similar preparedness document but from the Department of Health and Human Services. Dates from ~2012 / Obama-era .

I saw this on Facebook, and thought it was cute. Also informative!

Figured this might be an interesting read.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/investigation-radioactive-leaks-at-illinois-nuclear-plants/