Time Zero

On the final episode of Time Zero, we visit the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, a continent-wide monument to the advent of the nuclearized world. 
You'll hear from several familiar voices, including photographer Richard Misrach; folk historian Sarah Fox; anthropologist Joseph Masco; archaeologist Rosemary Joyce; sculptor Rose B Simpson; choreographer Yvonne Montoya; activist Joni Arends; and Dr. Myrriah Gómez, author of Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos. 
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In the second half of A Doomsday Gap, we continue to dive into nuclear deterrence and mutual assured destruction, unpacking how atomic anxiety underscored the Space Race, suburban architecture, UFO sightings, billionaire behavior, and even.. lithography? 
New York-based performance artist Michael Smith walks us through his snack bar that turns into a government approved fallout shelter. Alex Boeschenstein, an interdisciplinary printmaker and photographer in Austin, Texas, explains the Southwestern Uncanny and introduces listeners to the podcast's first feline guest, Cow Boss. And artists Cara Despain and Trevor Paglen both return to talk about why there never was, and never wil be, a civilian space program. 
Next week is our final episode. Thanks for listening. 
Learn more, make a donation, or find a text-based version of today's program at: timezeropod.com.

Nuclear deterrence is the concept that the mere possession of nuclear weapons, particularly by rival states, prevents their use. The only way to avoid the end of the world, we are told, is to stockpile enough weapons to end the world, several times over. This schizophrenic worldview has turned the United States into a nuclear death cult. 
In this first half of A Doomsday Gap, we'll cover the arc of the deterrence mindset, from Truman's early stockpiling, to Reagan's interstellar force field fantasies, to Obama's atomic cash infusion, to Trump's recent announcement of the military contractor bonanaza known as the Golden Dome. We also look at Broken Arrows, nuclear weapons accidents that do not lead to nuclear conflict. The US military admits to 32 such incidences, though journalist Eric Schlosser uncovered hundreds more. 
Detroit-based artist Shanna Merola unpacks her collage series Nuclear Winter; Archbishop John C Wester returns to outline Catholic Church's anti-nuclear pivot; and artist and geographer Trevor Paglen talks us through the the violence of banal imagery. 
Learn more, make a donation, or find a text-based version of today's program at: timezeropod.com.

How do we prevent future generations from excavating the most dangerous material we have ever produced? Across the planet, there are hundreds of thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel that will be radioactive for—at the very least—tens of thousands of years. Some people have suggested launching it into outer space. Others have proposed sinking it into the ocean. The current solution, though, is to bury it underground.
On the purported precipice of a "nuclear renaissance," the United States still has no plan whatsoever for managing our 90,000 existing tons of high-level nuclear waste. An underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has completely stalled, and our existing deep geological repository, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, is only meant to secure transuranic waste from the weapons industry, not spent nuclear fuel. Finland thinks they've solved the conundrum with Onkalo, an underground tomb carved into their coastal bedrock. But can we trust countries like the United States or Russia to build such a facility, and not cut corners? 
In this installment of Time Zero, you'll meet Rosemary A Joyce, an anthropologist, archaeologist, and author of "The Future of Nuclear Waste: What Art and Archaeology Can Tell Us about Securing the World's Most Hazardous Material" (2020). By looking at the nuclear waste problem through the lenses of deep time, the American land art movement, and a critique of cultural heritage common sense, Rosemary illuminates the detrimental assumptions and wicked problems that plague the nuclear industry. 
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In 2015, an inaccessible art exhibition opened inside the radioactive Fukushima exclusion zone in Japan. Its organizers, a collective called Don't Follow the Wind, entered the zone dozens of times over multiple years, working with displaced local residents and a roster of international artists to secretly install site-specific artworks across an area that is categorically uninhabitable. The show will open to the public when the zone is deemed safe for reentry. That could be in three years, or 30 years, or 30,000 years. 
Widespread adoption of nuclear power will make future Fukushimas inevitable. It will also require enormous amounts of new uranium mining. For tech billionaires, these are small prices to pay to cover what they claim are going to be enormous demands on data centers—demands they're already blaming on you, for using ChatGPT to make shopping lists. 
In this second installment of Neon Green Energy, you'll hear from several familiar voices, including photographer Abbey Hepner, whose experiences volunteering in the cleanup efforts in Japan led to a project about "nuclear mascots." You'll also hear from people involved with Don't Follow the Wind: curator Jason Waite, interdisciplinary artist Kentarō Ikegami, and artist and geographer Trevor Paglen. Greenpeace nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie also returns to explain why, after 70 years of operation, nuclear reactors have proved themselves "irrelevant" in the quest for net zero. 
Learn more, make a donation, or find a text-based version of today's program at: timezeropod.com.