The A1 Verse: The most nuclear bunker
By Thomas Gaulkin | August 1, 2022
Illustration by Thomas Gaulkin / apokusay (Vectorstock)
Every so often, a story published on the front page of the New York Times is so well written, meaningful, and appropriate to the Bulletin’s concerns that small snippets of it, properly chosen and arranged, produce something more than journalism, something that approaches … poetry. That blessed coincidence occurred August 1, 2022.
We suspect it’ll occur again.
RUSSIANS USING A NUCLEAR PLANT AS THEIR SHIELD
(from the original by Andrew E. Kramer)
In Russia’s war,
a nuclear fortress,
a gigantic nuclear power
firing from cover,
rockets Ukraine
cannot return.
On the line—
water reactors,
radioactive waste,
and Russia,
hiding there.
Together, we make the world safer.
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Keywords: Russia, The A1 Verse, Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia, nuclear shield, poetry
Topics: Nuclear Risk, Special Topics
Thomas Gaulkin
Thomas Gaulkin is multimedia editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Prior to joining the Bulletin in 2018, he spent the... Read More
Our planet has become small, with the weight of humanity pressing it down. The opportunity waits before us to take the step up, out of the muck and mud we create by trampling everything in sight. Or we can succumb, and sink down until it covers our noses. It’s even money at best as it now stands.
You give it even money. You are an optimist. I figure 80/20 towards destruction.