For the second event in our new Speaker Series, the Atomic Photographers Guild welcomed Bo Jacobs, Professor Emeritus of History at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima City University and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales.
In “The Pacific as a Fallout Sink in the Cold War”, Bo explores how multiple nuclear weapon states used the Pacific Ocean as a fallout sink. Aware of the massive radioactive clouds yielded by thermonuclear weapons, the three NATO nuclear powers all chose to conduct their tests on Pacific atolls and islands. Rhetorically framed as an empty space, the Pacific Ocean would be utilized as a sink to absorb vast clouds of fallout particles. In this talk, Bo examines the where, what, and why of this history. The talk is followed by a 15 minute Q+A.