An appeal from Steven Leeper of Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation to help stop a monstrous, problematic nuclear weapons project that costs six times as much as the Manhattan Project from proceeding in New Mexico :
PLEASE HELP THE LOS ALAMOS STUDY GROUPRead the rest here.
The Los Alamos Study Group (LASG) has shot an arrow into the beating heart of the nuclear weapons industry.
In August this year, LASG and its highly esteemed legal team filed suit to bring the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) plutonium processing facility to a screeching halt.
Your financial contribution will help stop this grossly dangerous, counterproductive waste of land, scientific talent, and money that threatens the very possibility of life on this planet. A defeat in Los Alamos will set a precedent, putting governments across the globe on notice that they must heed the voice of humanity and forego nuclear weapons production in favor of life-sustaining projects.
The money you contribute will help continue the strong legal efforts already underway. LASG is working very hard on this effort, and success is in sight, but resources are running low. Please help them strike a meaningful blow against the nuclear weapons industry, the tiny minority that insists on ignoring and endangering the vast majority. If 1,000 peopel were to send, $100 each, they could see the lawsuit though to the end. Please send $100, or $50, or even $10 (tax-deductible). You will strengthen LASG, weaken the nuclear industry, and probably halt the CMRR-NR.
For a quick look at what they are accomplishing, please look at this article published at Foreign Policy in Focus: "The Front Lines of Disarmament: Blocking a Nuclear Facility Six Times the Cost of the Manhattan Project" by Russ Wellen:That is, six times the cost of the division of the Manhattan Project (to develop nuclear weapons during World War II) that was based in New Mexico. The heart of it -- what later became known as Los Alamos National Laboratory. Odds are, with the Cold War consigned to history, you couldn't have imagined that a nuclear weapons facility of such immensity was still on the table.
Greg Mello is the executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG), which, since 1989, has been spearheading nuclear disarmament in New Mexico, and, consequently, the nation. Since 1999, it has concentrated on halting or, failing that, downsizing a building project at Los Alamos called the Chemical and Metallurgical Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR). The intended function of this facility is to increase the capacity to produce new plutonium pits. The actual site of the nuclear fission, they're the beating heart of the warhead.
The CMRR, writes Greg Mello in a press release, "was marketed to Congress as a $350 million building [but] has grown to an estimated $4.3 billion." The "per square foot of useful space has grown to more than 100 times what [Los Alamos's] existing plutonium facility cost in 1978, in constant dollars [adjusted for inflation]."
1 comment:
Dear Steve --
Wow, thank you! I hadn't read your generous appeal until now, as I was doing my best to stay focused on the lawsuit and the barest essentials. How very kind of you to think of us in our hour of need.
This project has serious problems. We have slowed it some years already, but if we can pause it for another year or two, sanity may break through the dark clouds of ignorance.
Although outrage is dangerous, all in all there should be less blocking of it. We cannot allow governments, acting in the name of profit instead of people and nature, to destroy our earth. We need young people, whose stake in the world is great and whose ambitions are not yet dulled, to dedicate their lives to protecting the planet and working for justice, maintaining connections with those who can inspire them. It does not take many people to make a big difference for life.
Best wishes to you, Steve, in the new year,
Greg Mello
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