In this episode, Christina De La Rocha talks to Dr Hélène Jacot Des Combes, Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation Advisor to the National Disaster Management Office of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. They discuss sea level rise, infrastructure that can adapt to climate change, and land reclamation and protection. Dr Des Combes speaks passionately about reparations (for decades of colonialism, the US’s testing of atomic weapons on the atolls of the Marshall Islands, forced relocation of the Marshallese people, climate injustice, and much more) and advocates for the Marshallese peoples’ right to their own lands.

You can read more about the Marshall Islands' unique position at the forefront of sea level rise at PacificaRisa.org. For further reading, check out the Republic of the Marshall Islands' Climate Change website here, you can read up on the Government of the Marshall Islands' Adaptation Communication (Dec 2020) here, and the World Bank's page on the Marshall Islands has some informative visuals.

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Don’t forget the first victims when you go see Oppenheimer this opening weekend. Unforgivable not to include them in the narrative.

We love us some Nolan and Cillian but this is also a story that should never have taken place.

For further reading:

This is what happens when the US government goes nuclear-crazy during the Cold War and mines a shit ton of uranium. Lambs born with three legs and no eyes, and human stillbirths and agonizing deformities for those that survive. For decades it was referred to as a Navajo-specific hereditary illness. No one made the link to the mines and the drinking water.

First air-dropped Soviet atomic bomb test (Joe 3) Semipalatinsk Test Site USSR 1951

Just saw Oppenheimer and I was a bit disappointed with how they portrayed Truman. He came across pretty poorly IMO. It was only one scene but I wondered what you thought.

I understand your disappointment and it certainly wasn't a very in-depth portrayal of Truman, but according to the book that the movie was largely based on -- American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) -- the meeting that Oppenheimer had with President Truman went down pretty much as depicted in the film.

As Bird and Sherwin write in American Prometheus:

(O)n October 25, 1945, Oppenheimer was ushered into the Oval Office. President Truman was naturally curious to meet the celebrated physicist, whom he knew by reputation to be an eloquent and charismatic figure. After being introduced by Secretary [of War Robert P.] Patterson, the only other individual in the room, the three men sat down. By one account, Truman opened the conversation by asking for Oppenheimer's help in getting Congress to pass the May-Johnson bill, giving the Army permanent control over atomic energy. "The first thing is to define the national problem," Truman said, "then the international." Oppenheimer let an uncomfortably long silence pass and then said, haltingly, "Perhaps it would be best first to define the international problem." He meant, of course, that the first imperative was to stop the spread of these weapons by placing international controls over all atomic technology. At one point in their conversation, Truman suddenly asked him to guess when the Russians would develop their own atomic bomb. When Oppie replied that he did not know, Truman confidently said he knew the answer: "Never." For Oppenheimer, such foolishness was proof of Truman's limitations. The "incomprehension it showed just knocked the heart out of him," recalled Willie Higinbotham. As for Truman, a man who compensated for his insecurities with calculated displays of decisiveness, Oppenheimer seemed maddeningly tentative, obscure -- and cheerless. Finally, sensing that the President was not comprehending the deadly urgency of his message, Oppenheimer nervously wrung his hands and uttered another of those regrettable remarks that he characteristically made under pressure. "Mr. President," he said quietly, "I feel I have blood on my hands." The comment angered Truman. He later informed David Lilienthal, "I told him the blood was on my hands -- to let me worry about that." But over the years, Truman embellished the story. By one account, he replied, "Never mind, it'll all come out in the wash." In yet another version, he pulled his handkerchief from his breast pocket and offered it to Oppenheimer, saying, "Well, here, would you like to wipe your hands?" An awkward silence followed this exchange, and then Truman stood up to signal that the meeting was over. The two men shook hands, and Truman reportedly said, "Don't worry, we're going to work something out, and you're going to help us." Afterwards, the President was heard to mutter, "Blood on his hands, dammit, he hasn't half as much blood on his hands as I have. You just don't go around bellyaching about it." He later told [Secretary of State] Dean Acheson, "I don't want to see that son-of-a-bitch in this office ever again." Even in May 1946, the encounter still vivid in his mind, he wrote Acheson and described Oppenheimer as a "cry-baby scientist" who had come to "my office some five or six months ago and spent most of his time wringing his hands and telling me they had blood on them because of the discovery of atomic energy."

Digital painting study of Encelade, a French nuclear test in the South Pacific.

truly don’t understand anyone of the opinion that oppenheimer is u.s. military propaganda the whole fucking point was that the international arms race has had, and will continue to have, dire consequences for humanity… oppenheimer and all the other scientists at los alamos were explicitly shown to be grappling with insurmountable feelings of remorse because of what they had done… i’m sorry where are we seeing war propaganda? just because a movie is ABOUT war does not mean that it PROMOTES war jfc

Bomb at Bikini

Upshot–Knothole Grable tactical nuclear weapons test - 1953.

… do with this you like…

Via NY TIMES

“Then the heat hit you and that was just as if somebody my size had actually caught fire then walked through me.” - Douglas Hern

essek would have thrived and died during the age of arcanum/the calamity... I don't know if he would have tried to escape or if it turned into a sunk cost fallacy situation but either way I think he would have fallen with aeor. but instead. he's alive a thousand years and change into the future, picking through its ashes and obsessing over what must have been commonplace trinkets for them. the vibes the thematics

Do they like science

Engineering sortaaa counts as science. Auto’s energy levels goes through the roof when she does that