I was alerted by Pink Tentacle of this animated map of nuclear explosions from 1945-1998. I couldn’t keep my eyes away and it is very disheartening.

The end tally is very terrifying, to make an understatement. Not only are the majority of explosions by the United States, but they are IN the United States, southwest to exact. As Chief Raymond Yowell of the western Shoshone wrote,

“The radiation has Shoshone, Ute, Navajo, Hopi, Paiute, Havasupai, Hualapai and other downwind communities to suffer from cancer, thyroid diseases and birth defects. We are now the most bombed nation in the world.”

Again, hit home during a 1978 congressional hearing of the Atomic Energy Commission’s operational records,

“The greatest irony of our atmospheric nuclear testing program is that the only victims of United Arms since WWII have been our own people.”

(Both quotes are as quoted in the fascinating book Violent Environments by Nancy Lee Peluso and Michael Watts)