{"id":42391,"date":"2020-08-07T15:05:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/its-been-75-years-since-hiroshima-yet-the-threat-of-nuclear-war-persists\/"},"modified":"2020-08-07T15:05:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T12:05:00","slug":"its-been-75-years-since-hiroshima-yet-the-threat-of-nuclear-war-persists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/its-been-75-years-since-hiroshima-yet-the-threat-of-nuclear-war-persists\/","title":{"rendered":"#It’s been 75 years since Hiroshima, yet the threat of nuclear war persists"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#It’s been 75 years since Hiroshima, yet the threat of nuclear war persists<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\n The Hiroshima Peace Memorial commemorates the deaths of over 140,000 people in the 1945 nuclear bombing. Credit: Shutterstock
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It is important to mark the solemn 75th anniversary of the first and only use of atomic weapons against cities as not only a remembrance of a tragic past event, but as a reminder of an ever-present threat that we have failed to address.<\/p>\n

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According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, civilization-ending nuclear war\u2014whether started by design, blunder or miscommunication\u2014is at the highest risk of realization since 1945, as the Doomsday Clock is at 100 seconds to midnight.<\/p>\n

As a professor of disaster and emergency management who has spent time at the site of the first atomic blast and subsequently studied civil defense preparedness for survival during nuclear war, the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes at an especially depressing time.
\nAt the current moment, we as a civilization are at a low point in our failure to reduce the risk of nuclear weapon attacks. The risks of uninformed decision-making, mishaps or seemingly rational but flawed choices made under pressure can lead nations down a rapid one-way path of nuclear destruction that we can never fully prepare for.
\nWeapons of mass destruction<\/b>
\nThe world forever changed on July 16, 1945, when the first atomic bomb was detonated at the Trinity Test site in the New Mexico desert. The early morning blast was the capstone of an experiment that represented the potential of scientific achievement. <\/p>\n

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\n A replica of the atomic bomb known as Fat Man, which was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on Aug. 9, 1945. Credit: JacK Rozdilsky, Author provided
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Twenty-one days after the successful test blast, the decisions made to quickly use this new bomb as an unparalleled weapon represented the capability of humankind to inflict suffering onto others. As with many acts of warfare, the use of the bomb was a purposeful creation of a disaster: a weapon of mass destruction.
\nFor 2020, the status of world nuclear forces, provided by the Federation of American Scientists, indicates that nine nations hold 13,410 nuclear warheads, with what is thought to be 1,800 nuclear weapons on high alert for immedia<\/a>te use. <\/p>\n

These weapons lurk in the background, and sometimes they make headlines. In 2017, threats of nuclear war were in the news<\/a> again as tensions mounted when North Korea was developing its own nuclear weapons. The situation was further aggravated when U.S. President Donald Trump’s words threatening nuclear war were shockingly juvenile and frightening in tone.
\nCivil defense<\/b>
\nProtecting the public requires the emergency management and homeland security branches of governments to develop civil defense plans. An example of Cold War-era Canadian civil defense efforts is the late 1960s 11 Steps to Survival<\/i> guide. Civil defense from nuclear attack is fraught with difficulty, and perhaps among the most complex actions that an emergency manager will ever need to engage in. <\/p>\n

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