In the spring of 1982 activists working for social justice, environmental preservation, and international peace organized a six-week peace vigil at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site, about 60 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada. In 1983 they repeated the vigil, calling it the 'Lenten Desert Experience'.This anarchist group of Christian organizers decided that the program had been successful enough to start an organization, which led to a faith-based aspect to the nuclear abolition movement. They named it 'Nevada Desert Experience' or NDE because of the work within the prayer-actions for peace that included learning to appreciate the Mojave and the Great BasinDeserts of North America. Organizers believed that appreciation of the beauty and power of the natural environment, coupled with a universal code of ethics organically leads humans to make a stand for peace and environmental justice.
Aims
The movement's immediate goal of ending nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site was met in 1992, when President George H. W. Bush signed a moratorium on underground nuclear weapons tests. The abolition movement, led by NDE and the Western Shoshone-based Shundahai Network were sparked back into action with the renewal of non-nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site in 1997. These "subcritical" bombs use fissile materials which do not reach the self-sustaining chain reaction of a typical nuclear bomb. The bombs are designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, whereby the data collected can be fed to computers to simulate full-scale nuclear explosions for the US National Security Agency and DOE. Their explosive yield is low, and small amounts of radiation may be released. Because each sub-critical experiment costs roughly and much time from the humans working within the nuclear weapons management industry, the tests indicate to nuclear abolition activists a strong continued interest in favor of nuclear weapons. Therefore, the NDE continues to work for deep ecological sensitivities and social peacemaking, with one goal being to clean up and contain the contamination created by 55 years of nuclear testing in Nevada and Western Shoshone country.
Protests
From 1986 through 1994, two years after the United States put a hold on full-scale nuclear weapons testing, 536 demonstrations were held at the Nevada Test Site involving 37,488 participants and 15,740 arrests, according to government records. In the fall of 1986, the Peace Caucus of the American Public Health Association organized a protest at the site with over 500 APHA members participating. Over 100 APHA members, along with Carl Sagan, Victor R. Sidel and H. Jack Geiger, were arrested. In January, 1987, the actor Martin Sheen and 71 other anti-nuclear protesters were arrested at the Nevada Test Site in a demonstration marking the 36th anniversary of the first nuclear test there. On February 5, 1987, more than 400 people were arrested, when they tried to enter the nation's nuclear proving grounds after nearly 2,000 demonstrators held a rally to protest nuclear weapons testing. Those arrested included the astronomer Carl Sagan, privacy advocate Phil Zimmermann, and the actors Kris Kristofferson, Martin Sheen, and Robert Blake. Five Democratic members of Congress attended the rally: Thomas J. Downey, Mike Lowry, Jim Bates, Leon E. Panetta and Barbara Boxer. April 2007 Martin Sheen among others were arrested.
Creech Air Force base protests against weaponized drones
