Nuclear Testing
Nuclear weapons have been around since World War 2. When the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, Imperial Japan. That was the only time nuclear weapons were used in warfare. However, that doesn’t mean that was the only time nuclear weapons had been used. Most of the world’s nuclear weapons have been used in nuclear testing, not in warfare. Nuclear testing is a very controversial topic; people have strong opinions on both sides. For a country to become a nuclear power, it must first test nuclear weapons. Many people who support testing nuclear weapons say ‘ It is essential for national security and deterrence.’ Nuclear weapons cause quite a lot of suffering and harm that can’t be seen at first glance, especially nuclear testing. I am going to tell you all about everything, from the first immediate effects to the long-lasting ones. Because this is a serious problem that the international community has to pay attention to.
Okay, so first let’s see which are the countries that hold nuclear weapons because if they hold nuclear weapons, they might have done nuclear tests. There are 8 countries that have confirmed the fact that they have nuclear weapons. These countries are Russia, China, Pakistan, India, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States of America. And yes you are probably thinking “Wait a second aren’t there 9 countries who hold nuclear weapons, what about Israel?” Well, we’re talking about nuclear tests here, I did some digging online, and I couldn’t find any concrete evidence that Israel has conducted nuclear tests. The country is saying, “We are not confirming that we have nuclear weapons but we are also not confirming that we don’t have nuclear weapons.” So that’s why I didn’t include them. Anyways, all these 8 countries have nuclear weapons. Now, about Russia, it’s important to note that there’s no evidence that they have conducted nuclear tests because they signed the Threshold Ban Treaty and they say that since they have not conducted nuclear tests. The USA claims that Russia is still secretly testing nuclear weapons; there is not much information or evidence. But what we do know is that the Soviet Union, the big empire Russia was part of, did do nuclear tests. Over 4 decades the USSR had conducted 715 nuclear tests. Many of the Soviet nuclear tests took place at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan and the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya in the Russian part of the USSR. Both these tests had long-lasting effects on the environment, these tests were very unsafely conducted. This leads to devastating effects on the environment. Especially in Kazakhstan, where they work on nuclear tests almost every day in the same unsafe way. There was an elevated amount of radiation in the area. The heat and the radiation cause many plants and animals to die. Some even had a life–threatening mutations, which caused them to either have disabilities for life or die a very long and painful death. Whereas the nuclear test that took place in Novaya Zemlya was very powerful. While it was mostly uninhabited. Many types of penguins, krill, fish, and plants used to live there. But that nuclear test wiped that out. It destroyed an ecosystem completely, taking the lives of innocents.
Now let us look at America. America has conducted around 1,054 nuclear tests in total. But out of all those tests, the most public test is the Bikini Atoll nuclear test. The US wanted to try out their nuclear test on a small island. The island had a thriving ecosystem. There were plants, krill, sharks, fish, cranes, octopuses, and many more. Well, that was before the nuclear test. The explosion alone almost obliterated the small island and temperatures increased at alarming rates killing much of the wildlife. Then, radiation caused the animals to have diseases like cancer. That killed the rest of the surviving wildlife. The island is still radioactive today, you cannot visit it! It’s officially closed to the public, if you go there you might die. Just for wanting to conduct some nuclear tests, they not only took the lives of innocent beings but also destroyed an entire ecosystem!
It’s easy to feel hopeless and give up in such situations but the truth is that we can make a difference too. Take the United Nations for example, they have been able to create treaties for which many countries including today’s countries that hold nuclear weapons to reduce their nuclear weapons and for them to pledge that they will never ever conduct nuclear tests again. The UN exemplifies how such great feats can be easily achieved. South Africa, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan had nukes but they gave them up and did not conduct any nuclear tests with them. These are just 2 examples of how we have made such great strides to stop nuclear testing. Also for countries that have to test nuclear weapons, you can just do it inside computers. Even today we have a lot of computing. In the future when we develop the quantum computer we can do nuclear tests on computers with zero risk. This is a solution that can be used for nations that need to develop nukes for national security. Even though the fight against nuclear testing is not going to be easy, I believe that one day, we will be conducting nuclear tests only on computers and no innocent being or ecosystem will have to suffer for our nuclear testing needs.
