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 and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. It is headquartered on the CU-Boulder campus.