It is not enough to abolish nuclear weapons to prevent war. For lasting peace we need to change our lives. Toupadakis made headlines when he resigned from US weapons labs. Now he walks back to the village where he was born.
Producer: Maria Gilardin Uploaded by: Maria Gilardin
Farewell to America Andreas Toupadakis The Greek chemist made headlines for a few days in early 2000 when he resigned from the nuclear weapons program at Lawrence Livermore Lab and proudly joined the peace movement. Never before had a nuclear scientist resigned at the height of his career.
In his public speeches he tried to convey the image of the institution he left: A huge, well funded laboratory filled with scientists dedicated solely to inventing ever more sophisticated weapons capable of ending life on Earth. That he had actually handled nuclear weapons added significance to his passion and sense of urgency. When, in addition, he began to encourage people to recognize the need, not only to campaign against nuclear weapons but to also radically change their own lives, his audiences began dwindling.
This interview with Andreas Toupadakis was recorded two days before his return to a village near Rethymno on the island of Crete where he was born. He will live again the simple life of his parents, engage locally, and tend the trees that his grandmother planted for him when he was a boy. If we want to abolish the weapons of war, he says, we also need to deal with the causes of conflict that are embedded in our high-speed lives of excessive consumption.
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