Internationally Renowned Anti-Nuclear Expert Dr. Helen Caldicott to speak on Sept. 17 in White Plains

Is nuclear power the answer to global warming? As world leaders come to terms with the urgent dangers of global warming, nuclear power has been aggressively promoted by the Bush administration as the leading safe, clean alternative to fossil fuels.

Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the international leaders of the anti-nuclear movement will speak on “Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming” at a special event sponsored by the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition and the Lower Hudson Group of Sierra Club on Sunday, September 17, at 2:30 p.m. in White Plains at the Community Unitarian Church.

Dr. Caldicott, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, is considered one of the world’s leading spokespersons for the anti-nuclear movement. She is the founder of the Nobel Prize-winning group, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. Dr. Caldicott is known as a very powerful speaker, combining science with passion, and urgency with humor. An Australian physician, Dr. Caldicott has devoted the last 40 years to the international anti-nuclear movement and she has received numerous prizes and awards for her work, including the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize.

This special event, featuring Dr. Caldicott’s talk and other guest speakers, will be held at the Community Unitarian Church in White Plains, at 468 Rosedale Avenue in White Plains. The event is open to the public, with a $10 donation suggested. For more information about this event or about a reception prior to the event or for directions, contact Darcy Casteleiro at darcy@riverkeeper.org or call (914) 478-4501, ext. 239.

``If you're really serious about greenhouse gases, one of the solutions to that problem is to go back, and let's take another look at nuclear power, use that to generate electricity without having any adverse consequences,'' Cheney said.

Nuclear power can both solve America’s energy woes and help protect the environment, Vice President Cheney told CNN. The answers, Cheney said, lie in increasing the supply of energy sources -- a policy that would include giving nuclear power “a fresh look.” Cheney said, “It is a safe technology and doesn’t emit any carbon dioxide at all. With the gas prices rising the way they are, nuclear is looking like a good alternative.”

Cheney acknowledged that the problem of nuclear waste was “a tough one” and that the US would need to establish a single location to dump the waste, a program he said has been very successful in Europe. “Right now we’ve got waste piling up at reactors all over the country,” he said. “Eventually, there ought to be a permanent repository.” Cheney foresees an additional 1,300 to 1,900 new power plants over the next 20 years to meet demand -- some of which could be nuclear plants -- along with a number of refineries to process oil.

Source: Interview with CNN’s John King May 8, 2001

one of the founders of the anti-nuclear movement. A founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and is

Caldicott has been awarded many citations for her work. Some of these include the Peace Medal Award (United Nations Association of Australia), which she shared with her husband, Dr. William Caldicott, the Integrity Award (John-Roger Foundation), Peace Award (American Association of University Women), and the Ghandi Peace Prize. Dr. Helen Caldicott. The world's leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement, Dr. Helen Caldicott is the founder of the Nobel Prize winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, and herself a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Both the Smithsonian Institute and Ladies Home Journal named her one of the most Influential Women of the Twentieth Century, and she has honorary degrees from nineteen universities. She divides her time between Australia and the United States, where she has devoted the last thirty years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age.. Dr. Helen Caldicott has devoted the last 25 years of her life to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age, and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction. She played a major role in Australia's opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific, and worked with the Australian trade unions to educate their members about the medical dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, with particular reference to uranium mining.

Caldicott founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

She has received numerous prizes and awards for her work, including 19 honorary doctoral degrees, and was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling--himself a Nobel Laureate. Ladies Home Journal, named Dr. Caldicott as one of the "100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century" (May 1999). She has written for numerous publications and has authored five books, Nuclear Madness (1979, revised edition by W.W. Norton in 1994), Missile Envy (1984, Bantam), If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992, W.W. Norton) and A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (1996, W.W. Norton; published as A Passionate Life in Australia by Random House). Her most recent book is The New Nuclear Danger: George Bush’s Military Industrial Complex, published in April 2002 by The New Press in the US and Scribe Publishing in Australia and New Zealand.

She also has been the subject of several films, including Eight Minutes to Midnight, nominated for an Academy Award in 1982, and If You Love This Planet, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1983.

Dr. Caldicott was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, specializing in cystic fibrosis, and on the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide Children's Hospital in 1975.

She currently divides her time between the US and Australia where she lectures widely. She is also the Founder and President of the recently established Nuclear Policy Research Institute soon to be headquartered in Washington D.C.

Peace Activist and Pediatrician Helen Caldicott to Speak at CU

March 27, 2001

Dr. Helen Caldicott, a world-renowned activist recognized for her opposition to the threat of global warfare, will speak at the University of Colorado at Boulder on April 5 on "The Ever Present Threat of Nuclear War."

A pediatrician, Caldicott is speaking as part of the Gustavson Memorial Distinguished Lecture Series, established in honor of former professor, dean and acting CU President Reuben G. Gustavson. The event is sponsored by CU-Boulder and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES.

Free and open to the public, the event will be held in the Cristol Chemistry building, room 140, on April 5 at 7 p.m. The event will be on closed circuit television in the Humanities Building, room 1B50, should there be an overflow crowd.

According to Caldicott, the threat of nuclear war has actually increased since the end of the Cold War. Some 7,500 United States strategic hydrogen bombs stand on hair-trigger alert, along with a similar number in Russia, she said in a statement.

Caldicott has devoted the last 25 years of her life to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age, and the changes required in human behavior to stop environmental destruction.

She has noted that several U.S. federal laboratories -- including Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore in California -- have recently commenced the designing, developing, testing and building of new nuclear weapons.

In addition, a number of U.S. military industrial corporations are lobbying to design and construct new "Star Wars" systems. This is likely to initiate a new arms race between the United States, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and possibly Japan, Caldicott believes.

"There are no enemies, and the world is more at peace than it has been for 85 years, yet the military industrial complex reigns supreme," she said in a statement. "Nuclear war would initiate the final epidemic of the human race and create nuclear winter, causing the end of most life on the planet."

In 1971, Caldicott played a major role in Australia's opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific. While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war.

She helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries on her trips abroad, and the international umbrella group, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

Caldicott was nominated for a Nobel Prize, has written for numerous publications and authored four books. She also has been the subject of several films, including "Eight Minutes to Midnight" and "If You Love This Planet," which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1983.

She currently lives on Long Island, practices pediatrics, continues to lecture and hosts a weekly radio talk show.

CIRES is a joint program of CU-Boulder [ About CU ] and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration [ About NOAA ] . It is headquartered on the CU-Boulder campus.

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