Avatars of Nuclear Situational Awareness

By Mary Beth Brangan, By James Heddle - EON

July 2025 is the 80^th anniversary of the detonation in New Mexico of the first atomic bomb, code named Trinity. August 2025 marks the 80^th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

July 2025 also saw the passing of two major teachers and colleagues in the nuclear free planet movement, whose work has inspired, catalyzed and informed the work of many others including our own.

We gratefully honor two of our movement’s important leaders, Joanna Macy and Daniel Hirsch. Though it's heartbreaking to lose them, we celebrate their impactful lives.

EON’s Mary Beth Brangan worked closely in the 1990’s with Joanna who synthesized principles of Buddhism, systems theory and deep ecology philosophy. MB was privileged to be in her Fire Circle and contributed to Joanna’s newsletter at the time. This was also when MB first worked with Joanna’s concept of ‘guardianship’ of the radioactive waste. This crucial concept is now embedded in SOS, The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy, our documentary that’s circling the globe. We’ve called it ‘rolling stewardship’ and updated it to include the technology needed to enact it.

Dan Hirsch founded and directed the Committee to Bridge the Gap (CBG), and served for many years as Director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Beginning in 1990, Mary Beth began working with Dan in the ultimately successful movement to stop the proposed Ward Valley radioactive waste dump that would have infiltrated the water supply of southern California, Phoenix, Tucson, and northern Mexico.

Dan remained an ally to the end of his life and generously contributed much to our SOS documentary, as well as making heroic efforts to deal with San Onofre, Diablo Canyon and Santa Susana – all serious nuclear issues in California.

We bless them both on their continuing journeys through the universe. May we cross paths with them again.

Here they are in their own words…

Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle co-direct EON, the Ecological Options Network.

The multi-award winning EON feature documentary SOS – The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy, was chosen as the opening film in the 13^th annual Global Nonviolent Film Festival, where it also received the Organizers’ Award for ‘BEST ACTUALITY SUBJECT – Feature Documentary’.

SOS has won awards in several other international festivals, and is available for viewing worldwide. The film was produced by Mary Beth Brangan and directed by Brangan, Heddle, and Morgan Peterson, who also served as editor. SOS is a trans-generational family co-creation of two senior filmmakers and a millennial mom with two young daughters.

For information, please visit the SOS website.