Sleepwalking to Armageddon : the threat of nuclear annihilation Cover Image

Book

Sleepwalking to Armageddon : the threat of nuclear annihilation / edited by Helen Caldicott.

Summary:

With the worlds attention focused on climate change and terrorism, we are in danger of taking our eyes off the nuclear threat. But rising tensions between Russia and NATO, proxy wars erupting in Syria and Ukraine, a nuclear-armed Pakistan, and stockpiles of aging weapons unsecured around the globe make a nuclear attack or a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility arguably the biggest threat facing humanity. Sleepwalking to Armageddon, pioneering antinuclear activist Helen Caldicott assembles the worlds leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today. Chapters address the size and distribution of the current global nuclear arsenal, the history and politics of nuclear weapons, the culture of modern-day weapons labs, the militarization of space, and the dangers of combining artificial intelligence with nuclear weaponry, as well as a status report on enriched uranium and a shocking analysis of spending on nuclear weapons over the years.

Record details

ISBN: 9781620972465
ISBN: 1620972468
ISBN: 9781620973882
ISBN: 162097388X
Physical Description: xviii, 232 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Publisher: New York : The New Press, 2017.
Copyright: ©2017

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [209]-226).

Formatted Contents Note:

Twenty-first-century nuclear weaponry -- Assessing global catastrophic risk / Seth D. Baum -- Modernization of nuclear weaponry / Hans Kristensen -- Nuclear smoke and the climatic effects of nuclear war / Alan Robock -- Addicted to weapons / Bruce Gagnon -- The plutonium problem / Bob Alvarez -- Nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence / Max Tegmark -- Weapons scientists up close / Hugh Gusterson -- What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above midtown Manhattan? / Steven Starr, Lynn Eden, Theodore A. Postol -- Twenty-first-century nuclear politics -- National politics versus national security / Noam Chomsky -- Escalation watch : four looming flashpoints facing President Trump / Michael T. Klare -- Nuclear politics / William D. Hartung -- Ignition points for global catastrophe : a legacy of U.S. foreign policy / Richard Broinowski -- Nuclear weapons : how foreign hotspots could test Trump's finger on the trigger / Julian Borger -- The existential madness of Putin-bashing / Robert Parry -- Unthinkable? The German proliferation debate / Ulrich Kühn -- Nuclear remedies -- Law and morality at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons / Ray Acheson -- A new movement to ban nuclear weapons / Tim Wright -- Don't bank on the bomb / Susi Snyder -- The heroic Marshall Islanders : nuclear zero lawsuits / David Krieger -- Persistent violence and silent suffering: Marshallese migrants in Washington State / Holly Barker -- Adding democracy to nuclear policy / Kennette Benedict.