Pre-Release Screening & Discussion: NUCLEAR NOW

The Harvard University Center for the Environment & the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability invite you for a pre-release film screening of Nuclear Now, followed by a discussion featuring Oliver Stone, Director and Co-Writer; Joshua S. Goldstein, Co-Writer; and Richard Lester, Japan Steel Industry Professor and Associate Provost, MIT. The panel will be moderated by Dan Schrag, Director, Harvard University Center for the Environment, with opening remarks by Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University. 

As fossil fuels continue to cook the planet, the world is finally being forced to confront the influence of large oil companies and tactics that have enriched a small group of corporations and individuals for generations. Beneath our feet, Uranium atoms in the Earth’s crust hold incredibly concentrated energy. Science unlocked this energy in the mid-20th century, first for bombs and then to power submarines. The United States led the effort to generate electricity from this new source. Yet, in the mid-20th century, as societies began the transition to nuclear power and away from fossil fuels, a long-term PR campaign to scare the public began, funded in part by coal and oil interests. This campaign would sow fear about harmless low-level radiation and create confusion between nuclear weapons and nuclear power. 

With unprecedented access to the nuclear industry in France, Russia, and the United States, iconic director Oliver Stone explores the possibility for the global community to overcome challenges like climate change and reach a brighter future through the power of nuclear energy—an option that may become a vital way to ensure our continued survival sooner than we think.

OLIVER STONE | DIRECTOR & CO-WRITER
A fixture within the industry for almost 40 years, Oliver Stone is a director, screenwriter, producer and best-selling author. Stone won his first Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express (1978) and won his second and third as Best Director for Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) respectively. Other notable projects include Wall Street (1987), JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), W. (2008), Savages (2012) and 2016′s Snowden, along with the screenplay for Brian De Palma’s 1983 film Scarface, which went on to become one of the most iconic films in history.

JOSHUA S. GOLDSTEIN | CO-WRITER 
Professor Joshua S. Goldstein is an award-winning scholar of international relations who has written and spoken widely on war and society, including war's effects on gender, economics, and psychological trauma, and on peace and diplomacy. His book War and Gender won the International Studies Association's "Book of the Decade" award. Goldstein is co-author (with Jon C. Pevehouse) of the widely used textbook International Relations. His new book, A Bright Future (with Staffan Qvist) is on international responses to climate change, especially Sweden's success in rapid decarbonization using nuclear power. Goldstein's book Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide (2011) was the Conflict Research Society's "Book of the Year" in 2013. Goldstein's book The Wounds Within (2015), co-authored with a psychotherapist, explores veterans and PTSD. Prior books include The Real Price of War (2004), Three-Way Street: Strategic Reciprocity in World Politics (1990; with John R. Freeman) and Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age (1988). Goldstein has published articles in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, American Political Science Review, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and International Studies Quarterly, among others, and Op-Ed pieces in The New York Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. Goldstein has won a MacArthur Foundation Individual Research and Writing Grant, the International Studies Association's Karl Deutsch Award for Research, and the American Political Science Association's Victoria Schuck Award, among others, and is listed in Who's Who in America.

RICHARD LESTER | Department of Nuclear Science & Engineering, MIT
Richard Lester is the Japan Steel Industry Professor and Associate Provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he oversees the international activities of the Institute. From 2009 to 2015, he served as head of MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. He is the founding director and faculty chair of the MIT Industrial Performance Center. Professor Lester’s research focuses on innovation strategy and management, applied most recently to the problem of deep decarbonization of the energy sector. He is also widely known for his research on nuclear technology innovation, management, and control. Dr. Lester holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College and a PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT. He is the author or co-author of eight books, including Unlocking Energy Innovation: How America Can Build a Low-Cost, Low-Carbon Energy System, and The Productive Edge: A New Strategy for Economic Growth. From 2015 to 2019, he served as chair of the National Academies’ Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy.

Opening remarks by STEVEN PINKER | Department of Psychology, Harvard University
Steven Pinker is an experimental cognitive psychologist and a popular writer on language, mind, and human nature. A native of Montreal, he earned his bachelor’s degree at McGill University in 1976, his PhD from Harvard in 1979, and taught at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT before returning to Harvard in 2003. Pinker’s research on vision, language, and social relations has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. He has also received eight honorary doctorates, several teaching awards at MIT and Harvard, and numerous prizes for his books The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and The Sense of Style. He is Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and often writes for The New York Times, Time, and other publications. He has been named Humanist of the Year, Foreign Policy’s "100 Global Thinkers,” and Time magazine’s "100 Most Influential People in the World Today.”

Moderated by DAN SCHRAG | Harvard University Center for the Environment
Daniel Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, and the director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. His primary appointment is in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, with additional appointments in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he co-directs the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2000 and served from 2009 to 2017 on President Obama’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST), contributing to many reports to the President including energy technology and national energy policy, agricultural preparedness, climate change, and STEM education.

Open to university ID holders only. For more information about the film, visit https://www.nuclearnowfilm.com/.