What we are doing for nuclear disarmament

Posted by admin — 7 December 2006 at 1:00am - Comments

Trident Sub at sea

In 1971 12 people set out from Vancouver, Canada in an old fishing trawler to stop US atmospheric nuclear testing, near Amchitka in Alaska. They had two concerns: the first being the environmental damage the nuclear testing was wreaking on the fragile Arctic ecosystem; second came the proliferation of nuclear weapons and threat of nuclear war. It was the conjunction of these two threats which gave the fledgling group its name: Greenpeace.

The Greenpeace ship and crew were arrested by the US coastguard, but the press reports about the expedition put pressure on the US government. Four months later, the US canceled the test series.

Since then we have campaigned against both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Bearing witness in test zones, supplying scientific data and measurements on human and environmental impacts, and conducting direct non-violent actions to call attention to the problem.

As an international organization, Greenpeace is working for a world free of nuclear weapons. We campaign globally for multilateral cooperation to end nuclear proliferation and testing.

Here in Britain we've been campaigning hard in recent years against government plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons and the submarines which will carry them, including taking direct action at the Faslane nuclear weapons base and conducting citizens' weapons inspections at Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment to draw attention to the work going on their to develop new warheads - work which threatens to destroy both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

About Earth Lady

Coordinator of the North Kent group and a Garden Design student

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