Anti-nuclear organizations may oppose

uranium mining Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. Over 50 thousand tons of uranium were produced in 2019. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia were the top three uranium producers, respectively, and together account f ...

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

, and/or

nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...

. Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public

protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...

s and acts of

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". H ...

which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Some of the most influential groups in the anti-nuclear movement have had members who were elite scientists, including several Nobel Laureates and many nuclear physicists.

Types of organizations

Various types of organizations have identified themselves with the

anti-nuclear movement The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...

: *

direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...

groups, such as the

Clamshell Alliance The Clamshell Alliance is an anti-nuclear organization founded in 1976 to oppose the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. The alliance has been dormant for many years. The group was co-founded by Paul Gunter, ...

and

Shad Alliance The Shad Alliance was an active and influential anti-nuclear group which used non-violent, direct action methods in the late 1970s and 1980s. It grew out of the "alliance movement" started in New Hampshire by the Clamshell Alliance. The Shad Allian ...

; *

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scal ...

groups, such as

Friends of the Earth Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split wi ...

and

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

; *

consumer protection Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent business ...

groups, such as

Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...

Critical Mass In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fi ...

; *

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and sk ...

organizations, such as International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; and *

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

such as

European Free Alliance The European Free Alliance (EFA) is a European political party that consists of various regionalist, separatist and ethnic minority political parties in Europe. Member parties advocate either for full political independence and sovereignty, ...

. Some of the most influential groups in the anti-nuclear movement have had members who were elite scientists, including several Nobel Laureates and many nuclear physicists. In the United States, these scientists have belonged primarily to three groups: the

Union of Concerned Scientists The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists. Anne Kapuscinski, Professor of Environmenta ...

, the

Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who w ...

, and the

Committee for Nuclear Responsibility The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility was formed as a "political and educational organization to disseminate anti-nuclear views and information to the public". The goals of the organization were a moratorium on nuclear power and the commercializa ...

Activities

Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public

s and acts of

which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Other salient strategies have included lobbying, petitioning government authorities, influencing

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public ...

through referendum campaigns and involvement in elections. Anti-nuclear groups have also tried to influence policy implementation through litigation and by participating in licensing proceedings.

International organizations

The ATOM Project The ATOM Project (est. August 2012) is an international campaign by the Nazarbayev Center of Kazakhstan. The primary goal of the campaign is to build international support for the abolishment of nuclear testing. ATOM stands for "Abolish Testing. ...

, international nonprofit organization seeking entry into force of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the limitation of all nuclear arsenals. * European Nuclear Disarmament, held annual conventions in the 1980s involving thousands of anti-nuclear weapons activists mostly from Western Europe but also from Eastern Europe, the United States, and Australia. * Friends of the Earth International, a network of

environmental organization An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environmen ...

s in 77 countries. * Global Zero, international non-partisan group of 300

world leader This is a list of current heads of state and heads of government. In some cases, mainly in presidential systems, there is only one leader being both head of state and head of government. In other cases, mainly in semi-presidential and parli ...

s dedicated to achieving the elimination of nuclear weapons. * Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, international partnership of 83 nations. * Greenpeace International,

non-governmental A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

organizationUnited Nations, Department of Public Information, Non-Governmental Organizations
/ref> with offices in over 41 countries and headquarters in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

.Greenpeace International: Greenpeace worldwide
/ref> *

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (abbreviated to ICAN, pronounced ) is a global civil society coalition working to promote adherence to and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The camp ...

* International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility * International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, had affiliates in 41 nations in 1985, representing 135,000 physicians; IPPNW was awarded the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

Peace Education Prize in 1984 and the

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolo ...

in 1985. *

Nuclear Free World Policy The Nuclear Free World Policy is a commitment by a bloc of countries known as the New Agenda Coalition (NAC) to shape foreign policy around the goal of "the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again." The ...

* Nuclear Information and Resource Service * OPANAL * Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, global network of over 700 parliamentarians from more than 75 countries working to prevent nuclear proliferation. * Pax Christi International,

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

group which took a "sharply anti-nuclear stand".Lawrence S. Wittner (2009). ''Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement'', Stanford University Press, pp. 164-165. *

Ploughshares Fund Ploughshares Fund is a public grantmaking foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and to prevent conflicts that could lead to their use. Ploughshares Fund is a 501(c)(3) foundation that pools con ...

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats. It was f ...

Socialist International The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism. It consists mostly of socialist and labour-oriented political parties and organisation ...

, world body of social democratic parties. * Sōka Gakkai, a peace-orientated

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

organisation, which held anti-nuclear exhibitions in Japanese cities during the late 1970s, and gathered 10 million signatures on petitions calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.Lawrence S. Wittner (2009). ''Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement'', Stanford University Press, p. 128.Lawrence S. Wittner (2009). ''Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement'', Stanford University Press, p. 125. *

The Ribbon International The Ribbon International is a United Nations non-governmental organization that created a large decorated cloth promoting nuclear disarmament and care and protection of the earth. In an event held on August 4, 1985, panels were connected in an l ...

, United Nations Non-Governmental Organization promoting

nuclear disarmament Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space * Nuclea ...

. *

United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs The UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) (french: Bureau des affaires du désarmement) is an Office of the United Nations Secretariat established in January 1998 as the Department for Disarmament Affairs, part of United Nations Secretary-Gen ...

* World Disarmament Campaign * World Information Service on Energy, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands *

World Union for Protection of Life The World Union for Protection of Life (German: ''Weltbund zum Schutz des Lebens'', French: ''Union Mondiale pour la Protection de la Vie'', Russian: Всемирный союз для защиты жизни) is an international non-profit organ ...

World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the W ...

(WWF), calls for a complete phase-out of nuclear energy.

List of other organizations

Many of these groups are listed at "Protest movements against nuclear energy" in Wolfgang Rudig (1990). ''Anti-nuclear Movements: A World Survey of Opposition to Nuclear Energy'', Longman, pp. 381–403. *

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) is a network of local, regional and national organizations working collaboratively on issues of nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup. Many of the local groups live downwind and downstream of the ...

Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility is a non-profit, anti-nuclear, public interest organization founded in 2005, and based in San Luis Obispo, California. It is focused on public citizen activism and public participation with regard to the Diablo Ca ...

Arms Control Association The Arms Control Association is a United States-based nonpartisan membership organization founded in 1971, with the self-stated mission of "promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies." The group publishes th ...

Australian Conservation Foundation The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) is Australia's national environmental organisation, launched in 1965 in response to a proposal by the World Wide Fund for Nature for a more co-ordinated approach to sustainability. One high-profil ...

Bellona Foundation The Bellona Foundation is an international environmental NGO headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with branches in Europe and North America. Founded in 1986 by Frederic Hauge and Rune Haaland as a direct action protest group to curb Norway's oil and ...

* Campaign Against Nuclear Energy *

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuc ...

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (NZ) Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (NZ) was co-founded in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1959 with the help of Elsie Locke and Mary Woodward. Mabel Hetherington, who belonged to an earlier generation of peace activists from England, was largely respon ...

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility Canada has an active anti-nuclear movement, which includes major campaigning organisations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Over 300 public interest groups across Canada have endorsed the mandate of the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP). Som ...

Canadian Voice of Women for Peace Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, also known as the Voice of Women or VOW, is a Canadian anti-nuclear pacifist organization that was formed in 1960. The organization was created in response to an article in which Lotta Dempsey, a journalist for th ...

* Christian CND * Citizens' Nuclear Information Center *

* Coalition for Nuclear Power Postponement *

Committee for Non-Violent Action The Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA) was an American anti-war group, formed in 1957 to resist the US government's program of nuclear weapons testing. It was one of the first organizations to employ nonviolent direct action to protest again ...

Committee for a Nuclear Free Island The Committee for a Nuclear Free Island was an anti-nuclear group based in Staten Island, New York in the 1980s. In the summer of 1983, the United States Navy announced it was seeking an East Coast location for a Surface Action Group. One of the s ...

Council for a Livable World Council for a Livable World is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to eliminating the U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons. Its stated aim is for "progressive national security policies and helping elect congressional c ...

Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) is a non-political, non-profit organisation, located in Barrow-in-Furness, which since 1980 has campaigned against all aspects of the operation of Sellafield Sellafield is a large multi-f ...

* Don't Make a Wave Committee * Earthlife Africa * East Coast Solidarity for Anti-Nuke Group * Economists for Peace and Security *

Energy Fair Energy Fair in the United Kingdom is a group of six people leading a campaign that claims that the nuclear power industry receives unfair subsidies, consisting of: * Dörte Fouquet, senior partner of the law firm Becker Büttner Held (BBH) and Dire ...

* Energy Probe * European Nuclear Disarmament * Friends of the Earth (EWNI) *

Friends of the Earth Scotland ' Friends of the Earth Scotland (FoE Scotland) is a Scottish charity and an independent member of the Friends of the Earth International network of 73 environmental organisations. It is one of the 30 national organisations that Friends of the Ea ...

Global Security Institute The Global Security Institute (GSI) is a largely private (though partly bipartisan), non-governmental international organization with a mission to eliminate nuclear weapons through international cooperation and security. It aims to influence nat ...

* Greenpeace Aotearoa New Zealand * Greenpeace Australia Pacific *

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) is an anti-nuclear organization which focuses on the environmental safety of nuclear weapons production, ozone layer depletion, and other issues relating to energy. IEER publishes a var ...

* International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War *

Koeberg Alert The Koeberg Alert alliance is an anti-nuclear activist organisation which emerged from an earlier pressure group in Cape Town called "Stop Koeberg" in 1983. Both were intended to halt construction of the first nuclear power station in South Afri ...

Labour CND Labour CND (Lab CND) is a 'Specialist Section' of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, specifically relating to CND-supporting members the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. History Labour CND was established in 1979 and exists to this day. High-pro ...

* Legambiente * MEDACT * Musicians United for Safe Energy *

Natural Resources Defense Council The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bo ...

Nevada Desert Experience Nevada Desert Experience is a name for the movement to stop U.S. nuclear weapons testing that came into use in the middle 1980s. It is also the name of an anti-nuclear organization which continues to create public events to question the morality ...

* Nevada Semipalatinsk * New England Coalition * No Nukes group * No to Nuclear Weapons * One Less Nuclear Power Plant * Nuclear Age Peace Foundation *Nuclear Consulting Group *

Nuclear Control Institute The Nuclear Control Institute is a research and advocacy center for preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. The non-profit organization was founded by Paul Leventhal in 1981. It went under a reorganization in 2003 to make it a web ...

* Nuclear Disarmament Party *

Nuclear Threat Initiative The Nuclear Threat Initiative, generally referred to as NTI, is a non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C. The American foreign policy think tank was founded in 2001 by former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and describes itself as a "nonprofi ...

* NukeWatch * Operation Gandhi * Peace Action *

Peace Boat is a global non-government organization headquartered in Japan established for the purpose of raising awareness and building connections internationally among groups that work for peace, human rights, environmental protection and sustainable dev ...

Peace Organisation of Australia The Peace Organisation of Australia was a non-profit and non-religious organisation based in Melbourne, Australia which was active from 2005 to 2009. Its stated objective was the promotion of world peace through education. The organisation was est ...

* Pembina Institute *

People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy The People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy is an anti-nuclear power group in Tamil Nadu, India, founded by S. P. Udayakumar. Since September 2011 the aim of the group is to close the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant site and to preserve the largely ...

* Performers and Artists for Nuclear Disarmament * Physicians for Social Responsibility * Plowshares Movement * Public Citizen Energy Program * Rocky Flats Truth Force *

Sayonara Nuclear Power Plants is an anti-nuclear organization and campaign in Japan.Sayonara-nukes.org
Accessed: December 27, 2013. Tr ...

* Scientists against Nuclear Arms *

Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Scottish CND) is the Scottish representative body of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The Scottish CND campaigns for the abolition of British nuclear weapons to contribute to the global el ...

* Seeds of hope *

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who b ...

* Sortir du nucléaire (Canada) * Sortir du nucléaire (France) *

Stop Rokkasho The is a nuclear reprocessing plant with an annual capacity of 800 tons of uranium or 8 tons of plutonium. It is owned by Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL) and is part of the Rokkasho complex located in the village of Rokkasho in northeast Aomo ...

* The Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice *

The Wilderness Society (Australia) The Wilderness Society is an Australian, community-based, not-for-profit non-governmental environmental advocacy organisation. Its vision is to "transform Australia into a society that protects, respects and connects with the natural world that ...

Top Level Group The Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation (TLG) is a cross-party parliamentary group in the United Kingdom, whose primary focus is the advancement of the nuclear disarmament and non-proli ...

Trident Ploughshares Trident Ploughshares (originally named Trident Ploughshares 2000) is an activist anti-nuclear weapons group, founded in 1998 with the aim of ''" beating swords into ploughshares"'' (taken from the Book of Isaiah). This is specifically by attempting ...

* Two Futures Project *

White House Peace Vigil The White House Peace Vigil is an anti-nuclear weapons peace vigil started by William Thomas in 1981. Thomas believed it to be the longest running uninterrupted anti-war protest in U.S. history. After Thomas's death in 2009, it was maintained ...

* Women from Fukushima Against Nukes *

Women Strike for Peace Women Strike for Peace (WSP, also known as Women for Peace) was a women's peace activist group in the United States. In 1961, nearing the height of the Cold War, around 50,000 women marched in 60 cities around the United States to demonstrate a ...

* Women's Action for New Directions (WAND) previously called Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament, forerunner organization: Women's Party for Survival *

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...

World Nuclear Industry Status Report ''The World Nuclear Industry Status Report'' is a yearly report on the nuclear power industry. It is produced by Mycle Schneider, an anti-nuclear activist and a founding member of WISE-Paris, which he directed from 1983 to 2003. 2019 Report The ...

References

{{Anti-war Lists of organizations

Types of organizations

Activities

International organizations

List of other organizations

See also

References