Marking the 80th Anniversary of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombs dropped in those cities killed an estimated 210,000 people almost instantly. Hundreds of thousands died later from injuries, burns and radiation. Survivors lived with lifelong physical and psychological impacts.

Today’s nuclear bombs, of which there are more than 12,000 globally, are on average 20 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima. A nuclear exchange of 50 to 100 nuclear weapons would kill millions of people almost immediately. The resulting smoke and fires would create global cooling, leading to crop failures and the deaths of an estimated 2 billion people. As former diplomat Thomas Countryman notes, “Global warming may eliminate our species over the next 70 years. The nuclear arsenal may do it in the next 70 minutes.”

It’s tempting to pretend this could never happen. The Cold War theory of nuclear deterrence may still lull some people into complacency. Others might believe that massive missile defense systems will manage to knock out every bomb launched, like an unlosable video game. But earlier this year the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – founded by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and others who helped develop those first atomic weapons – moved its “Doomsday Clock” to 89 seconds before midnight, the closest the world has ever been to nuclear catastrophe. The organization cited the ongoing war in Ukraine, continuing conflicts in the Middle East and the collapse of nuclear arms control processes as some of the many contributing factors.

Yet we keep manufacturing more weapons.

The recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill added an additional $156 billion to military spending. The now trillion-dollar military budget includes approximately $30 billion for new nuclear warheads and delivery systems. The same bill stripped $917 billion from health care (Medicaid) and $187 billion from food assistance (SNAP) for the most vulnerable Americans, among other cuts. Aside from the human costs, there are economic repercussions as well, including both direct and indirect job loss, as for each $1 million in spending, the military creates only 6.9 jobs, while the clean energy industry and infrastructure each create 9.8 jobs, health care creates 14.3 and education 15.2.

What can we do?

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Democrat representing Massachusetts, has sponsored Senate Resolution 323, and U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Worcester, has sponsored House Resolution 317. These call for

• actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals;
• renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first;
• ending the sole, unchecked authority of any U.S. president to launch a nuclear attack;
• taking U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; and
• canceling the plan to replace the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons.

We can thank Markey for his leadership and ask Sen. Elizabeth Warren, also a Democrat representing Massachusetts, and U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark, a Democrat representing Waltham in Congress, to add their support. Individuals, elected officials and organizations of all types can endorse the above goals here.

And today, Aug. 6, at 8:15 a.m., and this Saturday, Aug. 9, at 11:01 a.m., we can take a moment of silence to remember the hundreds of thousands of people going about their lives, just as we are, who were killed, incinerated, burned, blinded, maimed, radiated, widowed, orphaned and homeless in a flash. 

Jennifer Rose is a founding member of Waltham Concerned Citizens, which has been thinking globally and working locally for peace and justice since 1981.