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This article provides information about the potential threat to humanity and the global environment posed by nuclear test:
The Nuclear Age began in July 1945 when the US tested their first nuclear bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico. A few years later, in 1953, President Eisenhower launched his “Atoms for Peace” Programme at the United Nations amid a wave of unbridled atomic optimism.
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However, the use of nuclear power has never been “peaceful”. Almost half a century after Eisenhower’s speech the planet is left with the legacy of nuclear waste, which will be radioactive for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Nuclear installations, whether military or civil, have a sad record of accidents and incidents, shrouded in cover-ups, lies and misinformation.
Radiation released into the environment has led to the contamination of soil, air, rivers and oceans; causing cancer and other diseases in people. Greenpeace is campaigning to end nuclear power, reprocessing and waste dumping. Green peace was born when a group of peace activists tried to sail into the US nuclear weapons testing zone near Amchitka, Alaska in 1971. Although Green peace could not prevent that nuclear test it could make a world opinion against nuclear testing.
Green peace opposes the current form of globalisation that is increasing corporate power. According to them The World Trade Organisation (WTO) promotes free trade for the gain of private interests, over and above our health and the environment. It is fatally flawed and is moving the world in the wrong direction – away from peace, security and sustainability. By stalling on issues that are crucial to poorer countries, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) faces a crisis of legitimacy.
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They demand that the WTO adopts a policy of trade that truly works for all and that preserves and restores the environment. They support global environmental standards and argue that the governments must work to achieve sustainable development which means integrating three things: environmental, social and economic priorities. The Cold War may be over, but this does not mean nuclear weapons have disappeared. Far from it, there are over 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with more than a thousand of them ready to launch at a moment’s notice, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Over 400 reactors in warships and nuclear submarines are still circling the globe.
Some are rotting away on the bottom of the ocean or in a distant port somewhere in Russia. Accidents such as the Russian submarine, the Kursk, tragically sinking in the Barents Sea can happen every day, anywhere. Over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have left a legacy of global and regional contamination. People living near the test sites have suffered from cancers, stillbirths, miscarriages and other health effects — and are still suffering today. Many had to leave their hometown or island as it became too contaminated to live there.