Minutes, Abolition 2000 NY Meeting and Speech of Douglas Roche
Alice Slater
Dear Friends,
Enclosed and attached are the minutes of our Abolition 2000 NY Metro meeting with Senator Douglas Roche, O.C. whose inspiring talk is attached. Please see if you can follow up on any of the activities noted here. Many thanks to Denise Lekowski, who did a great job taking the minutes. Best regards, Alice
Present: Alice Slater, Douglas Roche, John Burroughs, Peter Weiss, Denise Lekowski, Guy Quinlan, Lia Petridis, John Kim, Denise Katzman, Rosemarie Pace, Cesar Jaramillo, Leilani Nelson, Hiro Sakurai, Tomoi Zeimek, Takayo Lee, Alicia Godsberg, Thomas Garafolo, Ann Lakhdhir, Kevin Sanders, Vernon Nichols, Premilla Dixit, Bob Alpern, Jim Wurst
Minutes by: Denise Lekowski
Agenda
1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Report on Abolition 2000 Annual Meeting in Geneva: Alice talked about the meeting which was scheduled to piggyback on the ICAN strategy session. Everyone is keenly focused on getting negotiations started to ban the bomb. The Network had a good turnout and revitalized its Working Groups. A new Working Group on Divestment was formed, which is also being taken up by Tim Wright at ICAN. See Report by Tim on divesting from nuclear weapons investments at http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/1413460/109493547/name/ICAN-DisarmamentDevelopment.pdf The Nuclear Energy and Sustainable Energy groups were combined and there is a new group exploring the possibilities of recruiting scholars to draft a Model Missile Ban Treaty. The minutes of the meeting will be posted soon to if you wish to contact Working Group conveners and join a Working Group.
3. Report on Fukushima Delegation and Indian Point Update: Alice spoke about the situation in Japan and that there is a tremendous cover up. The government continues to raise the levels of radiation that children can be exposed to, rather than evacuating them. The risk of exposure to radiation is not limited to Japan. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organizations has released radiation data which it is monitoring world wide to governments and the industry dominated IAEA and WHO, but this has not been provided to the public. The radiation fallout is not just in Japan, but is traveling around the globe. We get occasional reports such as findings of contaminated lettuce in CA and tainted milk in VT. The Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy has brought a Freedom of Information Act proceeding, to see what the US government knows about the extent of radiation from Fukushima.
Alice reported on the meeting with a delegation from Japan organized by Abolition 2000 NY Metro and Beyond Nuclear, with eyewitnesses, including mothers and children from Fukushima. Tomoi from One World No Nukes talked about what Japanese citizens are doing about Fukushima and the continuing threat of exposure to radiation.
Tomoi spoke about the remaining contaminated rubble in Fukushima and that the Tokyo government agreed to accept 1,000 tons of waste rubble that will be burned and dumped into Tokyo Bay. She spoke about many mothers in Japan that are struggling to protect their children from radiation in food. Tomoi brought a petition letter urging for the need to stop the radiation spread. She respectfully requested that people cosign this petition and help to gain public support with a focus on media coverage so that people can be made aware of the dangers that they face, particularly in Fukushima where there are still 2,000 people due to lack of information. One World No Nukes is specifically looking for US media coverage and hoping that the Japanese media will pick this up and provide necessary information to people still living in Fukushima and other areas. Tomoi mentioned that they want to get this letter to change.org by October 22nd because the first letters will be delivered to Tokyo by October 27th before the end of the month when the contaminated rubble will be brought to Tokyo. The action alert will be posted to our group.
4. Report on Wall Street and Possibilities for Action: Alice asked how many attendees had been down to Wall Street. Many people indicated that they had. She indicated that we all should go. She had gone with Code Pink who did a teach-in on the costs of war and suggested that Abolition 2000 should also have a presence there. Peter was down there too and thought it was important that we raise our issues there. Bob said that Brooklyn for Peace will be tabling and Code Pink is already tabling. Alicia said that Peace Action will be tabling there with Bob and they are willing to go with anyone who wants to go down there. Contact Alicia at Ali...@panys.org if you want to go down, or if you have people in your organization to make signs, and talk to the protesters about nuclear abolition. There are at least 1,000 people sleeping there every night and they have working groups including one with environmental justice issues. Premilla was going there after our meeting and we sent our bottles of juice down with her from our meeting for the protesters.
6. Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., A Global Ban on Nuclear Weapons: Time for Action: Senator Roche gave a great presentation. See attached speech. During a question and answer period there was discussion on whether we should be focusing solely on nuclear weapons or addressing both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons in our outreach work. Senator Roche explained that he felt we should focus on the worst and most dangerous issue which involves weapons and that mixing them might alienate people who support nuclear energy. He also thought that focusing on both would allow government officials to make absurd arguments for nuclear energy and that since we continue to move towards renewable energy, nuclear energy will decline as it becomes less attractive in the future. Others thought that Fukushima had changed the equation and it was now time to bring the issues together. It was mentioned that there may be a generational gap in which older activists are more likely to support a ban on nuclear weapons and youth focus on eliminating nuclear energy. Bob gave an example of a nuclear weapons conference at Brooklyn College later this month and that the organizers specifically asked for a talk about nuclear energy.
5. Updates
a. Parliamentarians for Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament Outreach Bob said there are three representatives who should be PNND members: Congresswoman Clarke (NY-11) on the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness Response and Communications, Congressman Edolphus Towns (NY-10) on the Energy and Commerce Committee and Congressman Nadler (NY-28) of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials. Alice urged us to contact all the New York delegation and ask them to join. PNND has 800 members, globally and only 8 in the US. In NYC, only Carolyn Maloney has signed on. A brochure and letter of invitation to bring when you meet with your member of Congress can be found here. http://www.abolition2000.org/?page_id=1584
b. Mayors for Peace Bloomberg has rejected efforts to get him to join Mayors for Peace but this is seen as a continuing opportunity. There is also the opportunity to distribute information on this in Liberty Park.
c. Indian Point
Governor Cuomo is good on Indian Point but this is ultimately up to the NRC. However, Cuomo does not support us on fracking for natural gas by drilling thousands of feet below the shale rock in upstate NY (and around the country) which, in addition to poisoning the water may be the cause of earthquakes. We need to pressure him to support sustainable energy and not divide the anti-nuclear forces and the anti-fracking groups. See, A Sustainable Energy Future is Possible Now at http://www.abolition2000.org/a2000-files/sustainable-now.pdf
7. Announcements and Upcoming Events: During and after the meeting the following events were announced:
§ John Kim of Fellowship Reconciliation mentioned a panel discussion at Fordham Law School on October 22, 2011. The discussion will focus on nuclear abolition and people can register at the first floor. There may be a small fee for attending. There should also be information on the ABILA (American Branch of International Law Association) website.
§ Cesar Jaramillo of Project Ploughshares announced a Space Security Panel, on October 13th, 1:15 to 2:30 at Conference Rm 7, North Lawn Bldg at the UN.
§ John Burroughs of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Action announced a panel on October 21st titled, Launch of the Nuclear Abolition Forum: Dialogue on the Process to Achieve and Sustain a Nuclear Weapons Free World, where the inaugural issue of as well as the release of the inaugural issue of the Forum’s periodic magazine will be released at the Baha’i International Centre, 866 UN Plaza, 9.30 to 11.00 AM, Refreshments will be provided. The Forum consists of a dedicated website for posting articles and discussing key nuclear abolition aspects and initiatives, and a periodical (available in hardcopy and as online PDF), which will focus on specific issues and elements (technical, legal, institutional and political) for achieving and sustaining a world free of nuclear weapons. The inaugural issue of the magazine has as its theme the application of International Humanitarian Law to nuclear weapons and comprises articles from a range of high-level experts.
§ On October 15, 2011 there will be an international action which is an opportunity to link Liberty Park with other efforts around the world.
§ Tomoi Zimer of One World No Nukes brought the STOP Spreading the Radiation Project Letter which we need to sign on to at change.org by October 22, 2011. She and Takayo Lee are working on an art exhibit about nuclear power and Fukushima.
§ There will be a meeting next week at the Stony Point Conference Center from 1:00P to 6:00P. Contact Bob Alpern for details at boba...@aol.com
§ Denise Katzman announced that on October 20, 2011 there is going to be a FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) and NJ/NY Expansion Project Meeting on fracking. This is an important opportunity to speak out against fracking. She also had materials explaining how we can stop the Spectra Pipeline and why it is harmful. This must be done before October 31, 2011.
Alice Slater
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NY
446 East 86 St.
New York, NY 10028
646-238-9000(cell)
We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire's level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet's daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us.
Buckminster Fuller