Like many other University of Oregon students born in a post-Cold War generation, Liz Vargas says that nuclear warfare was never part of the dialogue growing up.
When she took a 300-level political science course “Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism,” Vargas realized that the threat of nuclear war still looms today. For example, the United States and Russia, two of the world’s largest war powers, own more than 14,000 nuclear weapons alone, according to counts from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
“It made me feel like our generation didn’t have a voice in the movement, and made me want to be a part of it,” said Vargas. “It’s a problem that hasn’t gone away.”
Vargas is vice president of the University of Oregon chapter of Global Zero, an international organization that aims to eradicate all nuclear weapons from the earth by 2030.
Global Zero University of Oregon and the UO Bike Program will host a “Bike Around The Bomb” 13-mile bike ride on the morning of August 9. The outing will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan – a destructive act that took more than 129,000 lives.
“People all over the U.S. and internationally are concerned about the danger of nuclear weapons,” said Clara Schneid, the UO Bike Program coordinator and president of Global Zero’s UO chapter. “I think this is a great event to raise awareness and gather community members behind this initiative.”
Beginning at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 9, cyclists and activists alike from around Eugene will remember the destructive bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Brief speeches from local activists will start the event at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza (8th and Oak). Speakers include Susan Cundiff, Annette Rose and Pat Hoover.
Cundiff is a chair of Oregon WAND (Women’s Actions For New Directions), a pacifist and feminist group that supports nuclear disarmament. Rose is a community activist and member of CALC (Community Alliance of Lane County).
Hoover is also a member of Oregon WAND, and a victim of the nuclear contamination from the The Hanford Site, a nuclear energy production facility (now nonoperational) located along the Columbia River in Washington State.
Hoover, who will read a poem about the Nagasaki bombing before the “Bike Around the Bomb” ride begins, was exposed to some of the radioactive material released from the Hanford Site between the 1940s and ‘70s. The Hanford Site was the world’s first full-scale producer of plutonium, which was used in the atomic bomb that detonated over Nagasaki.
“[Hoover] feels very intimately connected to the social and environmental injustices that nuclear proliferation causes,” said Schneid. “There’s a lot of gusto behind her activism.”
The 13-mile bike ride will begin right at 11:02 a.m., the precise time that the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki exactly seventy years ago. The route starts at Wayne Morse Plaza, heads north to the Ruth Bascom Bike Path, east through Alton Baker Park, across the Autzen footbridge and toward the opposite side of Hendricks Park and then south through Amazon Park. It continues north up Charnelton Street and finishes back at the Wayne Morse Plaza.
From a satellite’s perspective, the course looks like the oblong-shaped destruction zone that the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. This resemblance was unintentional, Schneid said.
“I had no idea, but someone pointed that out to me,” Schneid said. “It’s curious that it worked out that way.”
The Eugene chapter of Global Zero was formed in March earlier this year. This will be its first event, but the fifth year that Global Zero has hosted “Bike Around The Bomb” rides.
“Bike Around the Bomb” will be taking place in 26 different events throughout five countries on August 9. Rides will be hosted in San Francisco, Seattle, WA; Washington, D.C.; Chicago, IL; New Orleans, LA; Philadelphia, PA; Islamabad, Pakistan; New Delhi, India; Berlin, Germany, and Platres, Cyprus.
“All over the country and all over the world, we’re all going to be biking in solidarity,” said Vargas. “It’s an amazing process.”
Those interested can RSVP for “Bike Around the Bomb” on the Facebook event page here.