I want to talk to you about something
I’m sure is on the forefront of your
minds
how to survive a nuclear blast now if
you’re like most Americans that is not
on the forefront of your minds you do
not think about that very often and look
I get why there’s a lot of things to
worry about in our present world is
there not this is one extra horrible
thing we might want to add to the pile
perhaps you don’t think about it because
you think it’s just too awful to think
about perhaps you think it’s not likely
to happen maybe the treaties maybe the
agreements maybe all of the very sober
leaders we have in the international
arena will keep from doing it maybe you
think well if North Korea say shot a few
weapons in the air we’d be able to shoot
him out I regret to tell you that’s
probably not the case you maybe you
think oh terrorists would never be able
to smuggle a nuclear weapon or get the
material they’d get caught well it’s not
so clear that that’s the case either
what I really want to push back on
though is an attitude that I’ve seen for
a lot of people have where if I go to
them and say what would you do if a
nuclear weapon went off nearby say in
Manhattan and they’d say well I wouldn’t
have to do anything right I just be dead
which is morbid at the same time it’s
also a little reassuring right you don’t
have to think about it you don’t have to
worry it’s out of your control it’s out
of your hands I want to talk to you
today about why that’s not entirely true
fact and also why there might be some
very good reasons to start thinking
about this in a very serious and
practical way I talked to a lot of
experts in my job I talked to people who
study the past I talked to people who
study the present I talked to people who
are physicists I talked to people who
are former policymakers I sometimes talk
to present-day government bureaucrats
who speak under deep deep confidential
and I can tell you that one of the
things that is a recurrent recurrent
theme is that people who study nuclear
weapons today actually believe that at
the moment in the early 21st century we
may be more likely to have a nuclear
weapon be used in anger then during much
of the cold
now I want to say the consequences would
not be the same as the Cold War that’s
the only uplifting news I can provide
the weapons are not as large typically
as in the Cold War there’s actually
fewer of them today than there were say
in the 60s what they believe would be
more likely is say a single weapon going
off or maybe a couple weapons going on
so it’s not as world-ending as during
the Cold War but the chances might be
higher research by two of my colleagues
Kristin Karl and Ashley Lydell who are
working with me on this project has
found in a recent national survey they
did this survey in the last few months
that most Americans a substantial most
they’re about 70 percent had made little
to no effort in their own description in
thinking about what they might do in the
event of a nuclear bomb going off in
some way and most Americans also report
that despite lots of government attempts
to communicate along these lines despite
people like myself trying to communicate
among these lines that they have never
heard any information about what that
might be and this is in spite of the
fact that we live in a world where
nuclear issues are alive again for
better and worse right we have had the
emergence of a new nuclear State our
friends North Korea they have tested a
nuclear warhead that was about ten times
as energetic as the Hiroshima bomb
successfully and they have demonstrated
a missile capability that could reach
anywhere in the United States in about
20-30 minutes we also live in a world
where if a terrorists were able to get a
mass of nuclear fuel about this big they
would probably be able to assemble that
into a workable weapon and this is maybe
a few kilograms out of roughly thousand
tons of that material that exists
worldwide and sometimes in civilian
hands sometimes in military hands and we
also had this reminder last January in
which hundreds of thousands of Hawaiians
got a text message telling them that
there was an incoming ballistic missile
and quote this is not a drill and this
is a remark
reminder that we do still live in a
nuclear world that nuclear threats do
still exist and also that there’s a
great possibility of error in even these
very important and complex systems in
this case it later turned out it was
that the person who authorized this
message actually believed that it was
real it was not a technical error it was
a human error one little mistake and we
had about 40 minutes of terror as a
result people in the Cold War knew more
about nuclear weapons than they do today
and you might say well that’s natural
there were more nuclear threats more
nuclear weapons it’s not because it was
just in the air some of it was because
of deliberate education there was a
program known as civil defense that the
United States engaged with in the 1950s
and the idea behind civil defense is
pretty simple military defenses are if
the missile comes try to shoot the
missile or something along those lines
civil defence is what you and I do we’re
not in the military we’re just regular
people there the practices and behaviors
and steps we can take that might
increase our chances for survival in the
event of the worst if you’ve heard of
civil defense at all it’s probably
because you’ve heard of the film Duck
and Cover it’s the most famous
production it was one of the earliest
productions that was created in 1952 by
archer productions for the federal civil
defense administration it’s eight
minutes long it was made to be shown in
elementary school classrooms it centers
around a turtle named is Burt and Burt
the turtle is very alert when danger
confronts him he doesn’t get hurt
[Music]
and he got an alert the idea behind the
Duck and Cover film is simple get down
and cover yourself up
that’s what duck and cover means and
it’s very easy to laugh at this and
everyone I show the Duck and Cover film
too laughs and they laugh even if
they’ve never seen it before they laugh
even if they don’t know anything about
nuclear weapons they say well this can’t
be right
this can’t be real how was this gonna
help me really I can survive a nuclear
weapon by curling up in the corner and
covering my head what are the odds that
that’s true and this is not reinforced
if you look at what we have as evidence
of what nuclear weapons do I don’t see
any schoolyard desks preserved amongst
the rubble there with people happily
underneath them it can be very easy to
look at this civil defense material and
say well none of this is of any value
and if you factor in stuff that happens
in the later Cold War we’re talking
about thousands of weapons weapons that
have hundreds to thousands of times more
explosive power than the weapons at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki at hundreds of
targets across the United States
unleashing radiation everywhere it’s
very easy to say well okay ducking and
covering over my desk it’s not gonna fix
this I get that and I’d be happy to say
there are what we might call diminished
returns and ducking and covering in such
a world but it’s not as stupid as it
looks
for its time it’s actually pretty good
advice and it’s time as the early 1950s
the Soviet Union had a very small
arsenal it had weapons that were of the
same caliber and explosive as the ones
that destroyed Hiroshima Nagasaki
they were deliverable by planes you
probably get warning of them coming if
we wanted to see what this meant though
and technical term is why they
recommended this you may at your own
leisure a visit a nuke map this is a
website where you can simulate
detonation of a nuclear weapon anywhere
and see you know roughly what the models
tell you the effects might be and so
I’ve simulated here just for traditions
sake a hiroshima bomb on Manhattan New
York is always the target of these sorts
of things and it draws a lot of rings
the Rings
of death at the very center ring the
yellow is the fireball that is an area
of immense pressure and immense heat if
that goes off on top of you you’re dead
I’m sorry there’s nothing you can do
about that that’s the like you’ve been
turned to glass that’s if you want to
think about people being vaporized in
there yeah sure you’ll be vaporized most
of the other places you want okay so we
write those couple blocks off outside of
their heavy blast damage even
skyscrapers are gonna be heavily damaged
even heavy concrete buildings are gonna
be damaged so that’s not a great area
for survival either but you’ll see
that’s actually quite limited relative
to the rest of the effects medium damage
you can barely see it it’s the gray just
inside of the green up there this is
enough to knock down a wooden house but
not knock down a concrete building this
is equivalent to a massive earthquake
for example or a tsunami or something
like that a hurricane or something along
those lines there’s also an area in
there where you’ll get high levels of
radioactivity if you’re out and about if
you’re inside you can reduce those
levels of radioactivity somewhat the
effects of that will depend on whether
you get medical care things of that
nature now further out you get an area
where if you’re within a line of sight
of the fire ball you can get
third-degree burns pretty bad but again
you have to be within the line of sight
to get those and lastly you have an area
of shown on here a very light blast
damage which we’re in and hoboken up
there where the major damage you’re
going to expect is breaking windows
maybe light things falling over so you
can look at this and say I don’t know
man this doesn’t look that survivable
I’m with you I understand that but think
about all the areas in here in which
your survival is actually somewhat
contingent on what you do so the idea of
duck and cover is not that you’re gonna
be under your desk or ducking down and
survive in that sort of central terrible
region a lot of people are gonna die if
this happens no matter what but if
you’re on the outside of that region and
a lot of people including Hoboken is on
the outside of that region doing
something simple like getting down or
getting behind and not being in exposed
to broken glass or the fireball itself
actually can make a difference and this
is why Duck and Cover shows here’s Tony
on his bike and he sees the flash and he
jumps down behind there again easy to
laugh at this but think about what
they’re trying to do here
they’re trying to create a response so
that you don’t have to think about it a
response that anybody can act upon we do
this all the time we train children to
do lots of things in response to
terrible possibilities the building
catching fire an earthquake if you live
in California a tornado if you’re in the
Midwest a tsunami if you’re in Japan an
active shooter if you live in the United
States we have lots and lots and lots of
training and we do these four things
that are risks in our world threats that
we have and so the question ask
ourselves is our nuclear threats part of
our world
and if it is why don’t we act like they
are we actually even have some evidence
that these kinds of things helped at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and in fact this
is where the government got a lot of the
data from as sort of unpleasant as that
can sound for talking about what kinds
of measures would save your life they
looked at the the rates of injury and
death from people who were inside a
building versus outside for people who
ducked down for people who stood next to
the window we have this amazing account
this was a survivors account of
Hiroshima they had been trained to
essentially Duck and Cover whenever they
saw a flash not because they’re worried
about atomic bombs nobody knew about
those yet but because that’s a good
thing to do if you have an explosion in
general so the weapon went off and he
ducked and covered the back of his head
and he survived no injuries now
obviously who is out of distance in
which that was survivable on the other
hand these people in the car there they
all died they didn’t Duck and Cover
so this is the kind of response the
government was trying to inculcate into
young people with the idea being that
you can’t teach old people that much
sorry old people but if you teach young
people about this it will actually
become part of their world today we’re
also worried about a threat that was not
as big of a deal in the 1950s became one
in the 60s which is residual radiation
nuclear fallout it’s called fallout
because it falls out of the mushroom
cloud as it blows around this is a
simulation that the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory did for a roughly
Hiroshima sized bomb going off in
Washington DC and you can see that
there’s an area there in the purple
where you have major major damage you’re
probably not going
survive a lot of that or if you do it’ll
be very lucky you have the big blue area
which is if you’re not next to a window
if you maybe get down your survivability
goes up quite a lot and then you have
this long plume of radiation which
you’re not going to be able to see or
detect or touch or anything like that
what the government worries about a lot
in this situation is that a bomb would
go off and people down around here would
say time to get out of here head for the
hills and they’d get in their car and
what’s gonna happen if you get in your
car and it really any day in the
Washington DC area or much or New York
area but certainly if a weapon has gone
off you’re gonna get into a traffic jam
it’s gonna be stuck your car offers you
no protection from radioactivity none
what they would like people to do is to
resist that instinct and they want to
teach people that they’ve tried to come
up with a new phrase whether it’s been
successful or not you know you can ask
that which is to replace the sort of
duck-and-cover approach which is very
simple get inside stay inside being an
inside a building is always better than
being outside a building and there are
certain buildings if you wanted to learn
more about it where if it’s made out of
concrete that’s better than being made
out of wood a basement is better than
the first floor if you’re in a big
building move to the center of the
building this puts a lot of space and
matter between you and the outside you
and the radioactivity they’ve done
simulations that have shown that if
people do the right thing the difference
in lives can range from the tens of
thousands to maybe even more hundreds of
thousands live saved and if people do
the wrong thing it’s the exact opposite
you’ve got what they call preventable
casualties people putting themselves in
harm’s way when they could have avoided
it nuclear weapons can seem so awful and
so terrifying they can blot out our
ability to think about them they can
seem like the worst possible outcome and
you don’t want to go any further
people get almost a blank spot in their
brain when it comes to talking about
these sorts of things and they just seem
like something you have no control over
so why worry about it we have found that
when people feel this way about the
weapons they check out
of thinking about the politics of them
they check out of thinking about maybe
they could have an influence on the
world and they check out and thinking
about preparations maybe there’s some
way to find some sort of compromise
between the overly saccharine versions
of the 1950s and 60s and which again you
read a magazine while ever the world
burns and the sort of terrifying
overwhelming nature could we find a way
to communicate about nuclear weapons
that would mix real truths so that
people don’t feel that you’re misleading
them but also give people enough
information that in the event and the
worst happening you actually could save
many lives one of the things I really
think is under appreciated about this
Cold War campaign though beyond the sort
of immediacy of saving the lives is the
way in which it made nuclear weapons
part of the sort of a threat landscape
that Americans had this is a little clip
of sound from the Duck and Cover it’s my
favorite clip just as an aside I always
remember the flash of an atomic bomb can
come at any time no matter where you may
be Sunday’s holidays vacation time we
must be ready every day all the time to
do the right thing if the atomic bomb
explodes no matter where you may be we
must be ready all of the time think
about how that threat feels to people at
this time in the United States today
people think about this mostly never and
then comes a crisis and we freaked out
which can be very dangerous by itself
and then we go back to zero again not
thinking about it I think that it would
be well-served for us to think about it
a little bit I don’t think it has to be
the number one list then there’s things
to think about but thinking it through
what would you really do envisioning
this as a sort of thing that could
actually occur and that you could
actually survive can give you a much
greater sense of agency and maybe even a
little bit more skin in the game should
we think about reinventing civil defense
I think that it’s worth serious
consideration in the 1980s especially at
the end of the Cold War
civil defense essentially went away in
the United States and the consequence of
that and the feeling that well we’ve
made it out of the woods was a whole
generation that stopped thinking about
nuclear weapons and I think that might
be as dangerous as anything else we’ve
been talking about today thank you very
much [Applause]
I’m sure is on the forefront of your
minds
how to survive a nuclear blast now if
you’re like most Americans that is not
on the forefront of your minds you do
not think about that very often and look
I get why there’s a lot of things to
worry about in our present world is
there not this is one extra horrible
thing we might want to add to the pile
perhaps you don’t think about it because
you think it’s just too awful to think
about perhaps you think it’s not likely
to happen maybe the treaties maybe the
agreements maybe all of the very sober
leaders we have in the international
arena will keep from doing it maybe you
think well if North Korea say shot a few
weapons in the air we’d be able to shoot
him out I regret to tell you that’s
probably not the case you maybe you
think oh terrorists would never be able
to smuggle a nuclear weapon or get the
material they’d get caught well it’s not
so clear that that’s the case either
what I really want to push back on
though is an attitude that I’ve seen for
a lot of people have where if I go to
them and say what would you do if a
nuclear weapon went off nearby say in
Manhattan and they’d say well I wouldn’t
have to do anything right I just be dead
which is morbid at the same time it’s
also a little reassuring right you don’t
have to think about it you don’t have to
worry it’s out of your control it’s out
of your hands I want to talk to you
today about why that’s not entirely true
fact and also why there might be some
very good reasons to start thinking
about this in a very serious and
practical way I talked to a lot of
experts in my job I talked to people who
study the past I talked to people who
study the present I talked to people who
are physicists I talked to people who
are former policymakers I sometimes talk
to present-day government bureaucrats
who speak under deep deep confidential
and I can tell you that one of the
things that is a recurrent recurrent
theme is that people who study nuclear
weapons today actually believe that at
the moment in the early 21st century we
may be more likely to have a nuclear
weapon be used in anger then during much
of the cold
now I want to say the consequences would
not be the same as the Cold War that’s
the only uplifting news I can provide
the weapons are not as large typically
as in the Cold War there’s actually
fewer of them today than there were say
in the 60s what they believe would be
more likely is say a single weapon going
off or maybe a couple weapons going on
so it’s not as world-ending as during
the Cold War but the chances might be
higher research by two of my colleagues
Kristin Karl and Ashley Lydell who are
working with me on this project has
found in a recent national survey they
did this survey in the last few months
that most Americans a substantial most
they’re about 70 percent had made little
to no effort in their own description in
thinking about what they might do in the
event of a nuclear bomb going off in
some way and most Americans also report
that despite lots of government attempts
to communicate along these lines despite
people like myself trying to communicate
among these lines that they have never
heard any information about what that
might be and this is in spite of the
fact that we live in a world where
nuclear issues are alive again for
better and worse right we have had the
emergence of a new nuclear State our
friends North Korea they have tested a
nuclear warhead that was about ten times
as energetic as the Hiroshima bomb
successfully and they have demonstrated
a missile capability that could reach
anywhere in the United States in about
20-30 minutes we also live in a world
where if a terrorists were able to get a
mass of nuclear fuel about this big they
would probably be able to assemble that
into a workable weapon and this is maybe
a few kilograms out of roughly thousand
tons of that material that exists
worldwide and sometimes in civilian
hands sometimes in military hands and we
also had this reminder last January in
which hundreds of thousands of Hawaiians
got a text message telling them that
there was an incoming ballistic missile
and quote this is not a drill and this
is a remark
reminder that we do still live in a
nuclear world that nuclear threats do
still exist and also that there’s a
great possibility of error in even these
very important and complex systems in
this case it later turned out it was
that the person who authorized this
message actually believed that it was
real it was not a technical error it was
a human error one little mistake and we
had about 40 minutes of terror as a
result people in the Cold War knew more
about nuclear weapons than they do today
and you might say well that’s natural
there were more nuclear threats more
nuclear weapons it’s not because it was
just in the air some of it was because
of deliberate education there was a
program known as civil defense that the
United States engaged with in the 1950s
and the idea behind civil defense is
pretty simple military defenses are if
the missile comes try to shoot the
missile or something along those lines
civil defence is what you and I do we’re
not in the military we’re just regular
people there the practices and behaviors
and steps we can take that might
increase our chances for survival in the
event of the worst if you’ve heard of
civil defense at all it’s probably
because you’ve heard of the film Duck
and Cover it’s the most famous
production it was one of the earliest
productions that was created in 1952 by
archer productions for the federal civil
defense administration it’s eight
minutes long it was made to be shown in
elementary school classrooms it centers
around a turtle named is Burt and Burt
the turtle is very alert when danger
confronts him he doesn’t get hurt
[Music]
and he got an alert the idea behind the
Duck and Cover film is simple get down
and cover yourself up
that’s what duck and cover means and
it’s very easy to laugh at this and
everyone I show the Duck and Cover film
too laughs and they laugh even if
they’ve never seen it before they laugh
even if they don’t know anything about
nuclear weapons they say well this can’t
be right
this can’t be real how was this gonna
help me really I can survive a nuclear
weapon by curling up in the corner and
covering my head what are the odds that
that’s true and this is not reinforced
if you look at what we have as evidence
of what nuclear weapons do I don’t see
any schoolyard desks preserved amongst
the rubble there with people happily
underneath them it can be very easy to
look at this civil defense material and
say well none of this is of any value
and if you factor in stuff that happens
in the later Cold War we’re talking
about thousands of weapons weapons that
have hundreds to thousands of times more
explosive power than the weapons at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki at hundreds of
targets across the United States
unleashing radiation everywhere it’s
very easy to say well okay ducking and
covering over my desk it’s not gonna fix
this I get that and I’d be happy to say
there are what we might call diminished
returns and ducking and covering in such
a world but it’s not as stupid as it
looks
for its time it’s actually pretty good
advice and it’s time as the early 1950s
the Soviet Union had a very small
arsenal it had weapons that were of the
same caliber and explosive as the ones
that destroyed Hiroshima Nagasaki
they were deliverable by planes you
probably get warning of them coming if
we wanted to see what this meant though
and technical term is why they
recommended this you may at your own
leisure a visit a nuke map this is a
website where you can simulate
detonation of a nuclear weapon anywhere
and see you know roughly what the models
tell you the effects might be and so
I’ve simulated here just for traditions
sake a hiroshima bomb on Manhattan New
York is always the target of these sorts
of things and it draws a lot of rings
the Rings
of death at the very center ring the
yellow is the fireball that is an area
of immense pressure and immense heat if
that goes off on top of you you’re dead
I’m sorry there’s nothing you can do
about that that’s the like you’ve been
turned to glass that’s if you want to
think about people being vaporized in
there yeah sure you’ll be vaporized most
of the other places you want okay so we
write those couple blocks off outside of
their heavy blast damage even
skyscrapers are gonna be heavily damaged
even heavy concrete buildings are gonna
be damaged so that’s not a great area
for survival either but you’ll see
that’s actually quite limited relative
to the rest of the effects medium damage
you can barely see it it’s the gray just
inside of the green up there this is
enough to knock down a wooden house but
not knock down a concrete building this
is equivalent to a massive earthquake
for example or a tsunami or something
like that a hurricane or something along
those lines there’s also an area in
there where you’ll get high levels of
radioactivity if you’re out and about if
you’re inside you can reduce those
levels of radioactivity somewhat the
effects of that will depend on whether
you get medical care things of that
nature now further out you get an area
where if you’re within a line of sight
of the fire ball you can get
third-degree burns pretty bad but again
you have to be within the line of sight
to get those and lastly you have an area
of shown on here a very light blast
damage which we’re in and hoboken up
there where the major damage you’re
going to expect is breaking windows
maybe light things falling over so you
can look at this and say I don’t know
man this doesn’t look that survivable
I’m with you I understand that but think
about all the areas in here in which
your survival is actually somewhat
contingent on what you do so the idea of
duck and cover is not that you’re gonna
be under your desk or ducking down and
survive in that sort of central terrible
region a lot of people are gonna die if
this happens no matter what but if
you’re on the outside of that region and
a lot of people including Hoboken is on
the outside of that region doing
something simple like getting down or
getting behind and not being in exposed
to broken glass or the fireball itself
actually can make a difference and this
is why Duck and Cover shows here’s Tony
on his bike and he sees the flash and he
jumps down behind there again easy to
laugh at this but think about what
they’re trying to do here
they’re trying to create a response so
that you don’t have to think about it a
response that anybody can act upon we do
this all the time we train children to
do lots of things in response to
terrible possibilities the building
catching fire an earthquake if you live
in California a tornado if you’re in the
Midwest a tsunami if you’re in Japan an
active shooter if you live in the United
States we have lots and lots and lots of
training and we do these four things
that are risks in our world threats that
we have and so the question ask
ourselves is our nuclear threats part of
our world
and if it is why don’t we act like they
are we actually even have some evidence
that these kinds of things helped at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and in fact this
is where the government got a lot of the
data from as sort of unpleasant as that
can sound for talking about what kinds
of measures would save your life they
looked at the the rates of injury and
death from people who were inside a
building versus outside for people who
ducked down for people who stood next to
the window we have this amazing account
this was a survivors account of
Hiroshima they had been trained to
essentially Duck and Cover whenever they
saw a flash not because they’re worried
about atomic bombs nobody knew about
those yet but because that’s a good
thing to do if you have an explosion in
general so the weapon went off and he
ducked and covered the back of his head
and he survived no injuries now
obviously who is out of distance in
which that was survivable on the other
hand these people in the car there they
all died they didn’t Duck and Cover
so this is the kind of response the
government was trying to inculcate into
young people with the idea being that
you can’t teach old people that much
sorry old people but if you teach young
people about this it will actually
become part of their world today we’re
also worried about a threat that was not
as big of a deal in the 1950s became one
in the 60s which is residual radiation
nuclear fallout it’s called fallout
because it falls out of the mushroom
cloud as it blows around this is a
simulation that the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory did for a roughly
Hiroshima sized bomb going off in
Washington DC and you can see that
there’s an area there in the purple
where you have major major damage you’re
probably not going
survive a lot of that or if you do it’ll
be very lucky you have the big blue area
which is if you’re not next to a window
if you maybe get down your survivability
goes up quite a lot and then you have
this long plume of radiation which
you’re not going to be able to see or
detect or touch or anything like that
what the government worries about a lot
in this situation is that a bomb would
go off and people down around here would
say time to get out of here head for the
hills and they’d get in their car and
what’s gonna happen if you get in your
car and it really any day in the
Washington DC area or much or New York
area but certainly if a weapon has gone
off you’re gonna get into a traffic jam
it’s gonna be stuck your car offers you
no protection from radioactivity none
what they would like people to do is to
resist that instinct and they want to
teach people that they’ve tried to come
up with a new phrase whether it’s been
successful or not you know you can ask
that which is to replace the sort of
duck-and-cover approach which is very
simple get inside stay inside being an
inside a building is always better than
being outside a building and there are
certain buildings if you wanted to learn
more about it where if it’s made out of
concrete that’s better than being made
out of wood a basement is better than
the first floor if you’re in a big
building move to the center of the
building this puts a lot of space and
matter between you and the outside you
and the radioactivity they’ve done
simulations that have shown that if
people do the right thing the difference
in lives can range from the tens of
thousands to maybe even more hundreds of
thousands live saved and if people do
the wrong thing it’s the exact opposite
you’ve got what they call preventable
casualties people putting themselves in
harm’s way when they could have avoided
it nuclear weapons can seem so awful and
so terrifying they can blot out our
ability to think about them they can
seem like the worst possible outcome and
you don’t want to go any further
people get almost a blank spot in their
brain when it comes to talking about
these sorts of things and they just seem
like something you have no control over
so why worry about it we have found that
when people feel this way about the
weapons they check out
of thinking about the politics of them
they check out of thinking about maybe
they could have an influence on the
world and they check out and thinking
about preparations maybe there’s some
way to find some sort of compromise
between the overly saccharine versions
of the 1950s and 60s and which again you
read a magazine while ever the world
burns and the sort of terrifying
overwhelming nature could we find a way
to communicate about nuclear weapons
that would mix real truths so that
people don’t feel that you’re misleading
them but also give people enough
information that in the event and the
worst happening you actually could save
many lives one of the things I really
think is under appreciated about this
Cold War campaign though beyond the sort
of immediacy of saving the lives is the
way in which it made nuclear weapons
part of the sort of a threat landscape
that Americans had this is a little clip
of sound from the Duck and Cover it’s my
favorite clip just as an aside I always
remember the flash of an atomic bomb can
come at any time no matter where you may
be Sunday’s holidays vacation time we
must be ready every day all the time to
do the right thing if the atomic bomb
explodes no matter where you may be we
must be ready all of the time think
about how that threat feels to people at
this time in the United States today
people think about this mostly never and
then comes a crisis and we freaked out
which can be very dangerous by itself
and then we go back to zero again not
thinking about it I think that it would
be well-served for us to think about it
a little bit I don’t think it has to be
the number one list then there’s things
to think about but thinking it through
what would you really do envisioning
this as a sort of thing that could
actually occur and that you could
actually survive can give you a much
greater sense of agency and maybe even a
little bit more skin in the game should
we think about reinventing civil defense
I think that it’s worth serious
consideration in the 1980s especially at
the end of the Cold War
civil defense essentially went away in
the United States and the consequence of
that and the feeling that well we’ve
made it out of the woods was a whole
generation that stopped thinking about
nuclear weapons and I think that might
be as dangerous as anything else we’ve
been talking about today thank you very
much [Applause]
Please follow and like us: