Thursday, January 4, 2024: 2:10 PM
Golden Gate 4 (Hilton Union Square)
In the 1980s, as best practices for the disposal of nuclear waste remained an open question, the Argentine government launched a project to build an underground repository for nuclear waste near the small town of Gastre in Patagonia. From the perspective of Gastre’s leadership and many of the town’s 300 residents, the nuclear waste repository presented a rare opportunity for economic progress, as officials from the Argentine Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEA) promised the project would bring new roads, housing, and residents, and could stop the exodus of young people who had long been forced to leave home in search of work. But after the transition to democracy, as Argentine civil society began to engage more with environmental issues, the proposed nuclear waste dump galvanized environmentalists. My paper examines the regional, national, and international mobilization against the “nuclear cemetery” that ensued. Environmentalists from larger neighboring town in Patagonia were the first to sound the alarm and soon, anti-nuclear activists from Cordoba and Buenos Aires joined in, seizing the nuclear dump in Chubut as a wedge issue for building a broader case against Argentina’s nuclear energy industry. The coalition of folks united against the nuclear dump grew further still when Greenpeace International opened that organization’s first office in “the South” – in Buenos Aires in the mid-1980s – and Argentine activists eager to raise international awareness convinced their North Atlantic counterparts to join in opposition to the dump. The power dynamics between these regional, national, and international allies were delicate, particularly given the Argentine nuclear industry’s status as a major source of economic nationalism and international prestige. Moving between these scales, I attempt a broader reflection on the complicated politics of the environment during this pivotal moment in the rise of global environmental consciousness.