INTRODUCTION

Though many of us care strongly about the world in which we live, we somehow feel we are unable to participate in or influence the course of nuclear events. Our reluctance to come to grips with the urgency of this problem may be understandable and certainly human but ultimately unacceptable as a course of action. For in the case of things nuclear — whether bomb arsenals, new weaponry, radioactive contamination, or orbiting battle stations — there quite literally may not be too many more tomorrows to put and push things aside. The fact remains we have a very real and very big problem on our hands, and the nuclear clock keeps right on ticking.

In quantum physics there is a concept known as morphic resonance: the idea that once something has taken form, it is much easier for it to take form again; that similar energetic links will resonate with other links more and more rapidly. Our potential human connectivity is greater now than ever before, especially because of computers and the Internet, and utterly unique in the history of humankind—just as nuclear weapons represent an utterly new capacity for destruction. While all possibilities may exist in potentiality, only some become real. It is up to us to choose which of these potentialities we want to realize in the world: destruction or a paradigmatic shift to something other. It is my belief that once we reach a certain critical human mass, we will create a morphic resonance that will have powerful reverberations globally. The answer to the outcome of nuclear weapons resides as much within the human heart as the solutions to these problems do within the human mind. How this intent resonates with others hopefully will gain momentum in the coming years. We Americans in particular bear a unique responsibility in this regard because we are the ones who initiated our planet into the nuclear age.

One Bomb Away is the result of my commitment to strike a chord I hope will resonate with others. It is an educational tool, covering a broad spectrum of issues and general information about our nuclear world, in the hope of contributing in some way toward change. Chapter One presents our current situation vis-à-vis nuclear weapons and some of the psychological and economic issues that we need to address. Chapter Two offers a broad overview of our system of defense, while Chapter Three presents the many different ways nuclear events could occur. Chapter Four provides a variety of infor­mation about nuclear power and radioactive waste, and Chapter Five discusses some of the ramifications of living in a nuclear world on our young. Finally, Chapter Six focuses on some major themes before us and what we as citizens can do to face this challenge.

I offer One Bomb Away in the belief that we can build a world without nuclear weapons and the machinery to make and deliver them. I offer it in the conviction that we possess the opportunity to choose a different way. I offer it in the belief that we can build a world based upon the power of humanity and hope rather than that of suspicion and fear.

Maurine Doerken
Fall, 2002