Episode 315

It’s been 80 years since the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war - events that altered the course of history. The consequences of the widespread destruction, deaths and nuclear fallout are still being dealt with today.

On 6th August 1945, a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan, and three days later Nagasaki was also bombed. Tens of thousands of people were killed. Since then, many nuclear tests have been carried out. Despite efforts to clean up the fallout, a big threat looms… climate change. Not only does the changing climate risk dredging up old nuclear waste, worsening extreme weather events could even damage current nuclear facilities too.

There’s also a lasting legacy felt by those who survived the bombs and their descendants, not just in Japan, but South Korea, too. The human cost doesn’t stop there. We hear about the communities who first mined the uranium needed for the bombs in the 1920s and 30s - as well as the health consequences for those living near nuclear test sites.

Annie Jacobsen, author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, adds her thoughts on the current threat of nuclear war - and how nuclear technology has become even more destructive.

It wasn’t just people who survived the bombs - there are trees that made it through too.

Seeds have been gathered from these survivor trees and we learn how one of them is being grown in the Wakehurst botanical garden.

Chapters:

(01:32) Nuclear waste and the threat of rising seas

(11:31) Atomic bomb survivors

(24:35) Annie Jacobsen on the knife-edge of danger

(27:40) The trees that survived the bombs

Hosted by Rowan Hooper and Madeleine Cuff, with guests Jeremy Hsu, Michael Gerrard, MG Sheftall, Annie Jacobsen and Elinor Breman.

To read more about these stories, visit https://www.newscientist.com/

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