GORDON EDWARDS
Gordon is cofounder and president of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility; consultant on nuclear issues to governmental and non-governmental organizations plus First Nations.
He also co-founded with A Grothendieck of “Survival”, a inter-professional movement of scientists and non-scientists to explore solutions to the evolutionary crisis of survival brought about by science and technology, threatening 4 billion years of evolution of life. He is also the Editor of Survival magazine, with subscribers in 13 countries, an organ of Survival movement.
Achievements:
Moratorium on nuclear reactors in Quebec. Moratorium on uranium mining in British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Quebec. Ending the indirect use of Canadian nuclear fuel in US nuclear weapons program.
Obtaining compensation for military man with multiple cancers from Chalk River cleanup following 1958 reactor accident.
Developing realistic lung cancer estimates for non-occupational radon exposures.
Preventing a high-level radioactive waste repository in Northeast USA. Stopping a planned shipment of 1600 tonnes of radioactive metal through the Great Lakes and on to Sweden. Articulation of alternative perspectives for public understanding of nuclear waste issues
Recognitions:
Nuclear Free Future Award, Window Rock, Arizona; Rosalie Bertell Lifetime Achievement Award; YMCA Peacemaker Medallion; named one of 150 Canadian Peacemakers.
Initiatives:
1. Working to have Canada sign the UN Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons.
2. Urging Canada to challenge and change NATO’s policies re. first use
of nuclear weapons.
3. Promoting Rolling Stewardship as an alternative to abandonment of
radioactive waste.
4. Raising social awareness of the dangers of production of
weapons-usable nuclear materials.
5. Educating politicians & public ref war as the #1 threat to
survival and #1 waste of resources.
Background:
B.S. U of Toronto, Gold medal in Math & Physics; M.S. in Math, U of Chicago, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship; M.A. in English Literature, U of Chicago; Ph.D. in mathematics, Queen’s University, thesis disproving a conjecture of Grothendieck’s