Season 3, Episode 3: Oppenheimer and Nuclear Anxiety

Climate Change and Happiness

image credit | Oscar Ävalos

Season 3, Episode 3: Oppenheimer and Nuclear-Anxiety

Thomas and Panu reflected on the recent Oppenheimer film, and how cold war-era fear and anxiety about global nuclear armageddon compares with contemporary fear and anxiety about the threats global climate change poses to society and the livability on our planet. Thomas spoke to the challenge of weighing the benefits of nuclear power as a strategy to help combat the climate crisis against the environmental dangers, ongoing dangers of nuclear conflict, and the still toxic legacy of radioactive waste from the construction of atomic weapons. Panu reflected on various forms of anxiety and other feelings these dilemmas inspire in us, including the “anxiety of responsibility” we feel about making decisions about them.

Links

• Oppenheimer Christopher Nolan 2023 Universal.

• The Day after Trinity John Else 1981 Oppenheimer documentary

• Atomic Cafe Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty 1982 Cold war newsreel documentary

  Trailer and Full Movie

• 1950’s Baby Tooth Survey and Early Campaigns to Raise Awareness about Dangers of Over Ground Atomic Bomb Testing in the US

• On the History of Nuclear Testing

• ‘The Psychic Toll of the Nuclear Age’ Essay by Robert Jay Lifton, The New York Times, (1982, Sept 26)

• Robert Jay Lifton on COVID and Death Anxiety

• Panu Pihkala 2018‘Death, the Environment, and Theology’. Dialog 57, 287–94

Transcript

[The Climate Change and Happiness Transcript is on holiday.]