In the 20th century, the Western Shoshone Nation's homelands began to suffer from nuclear weapons testing conducted by the U.S.A. & the U.K. A few peacemakers came out in the 1950s to challenge the nuclear testing, and a few more in the 1970s. People of faith gathered for the first "Lenten Desert Experience" at the Nevada Test Site in 1982 to witness against ongoing nuclear violence. Soon the resisters were calling their movement "Nevada Desert Experience" (NDE). The name also refers to an organized activist group (the one sponsoring this website) which continues to conduct spiritually-based events near the Nevada National Security Site (the NNSS/NTS) in support of peace and nuclear abolition. NDE celebrates the power of God's creation, analyzes the tragedy of the nuclear weapons industry, and calls for ending the destruction and repairing the damage. 60 miles from the expanding city of Las Vegas, also receives shipments of "low-level" nuclear waste.

Context of NDE and Nuclear Abolition in the Nuclear Age

NDE...What’s in a Name?

Nevada Desert Experience...If you didn’t know what our focus is, what would you imagine it to be? The name fits, but doesn’t mention anything about the organization’s main focus: stopping nuclear weapons testing and development. But it has been our name for three decades, so what’s the problem? Maybe there isn’t one, but for three years now some members of the staff and Council have suggested changing the name for better clarity, transparency of purpose and ease of understanding by people new to us. Other voices have argued that the name has served us well, and that with a name change comes the risk of losing contact with supporters. Also, keeping connected to an organization’s historic roots is so important, that changing the name could harm our work and effectiveness.

We recognize that our name has emotional and historical significance to many people. We recognize that new people discover NDE and our work every year. We want to communicate our purpose, goals and work in a swift way through our name. We know that changing our name will cause confusion for some folks. We know that changing our name costs time, energy and money.

We decided to turn to Desert Voices readers. There are four choices to consider. Note that the first option is to keep our name as it has been. Please cast a vote prior to 21 September 2011, the fall equinox, to let our staffers know:

We have four choices for NDE's name. Please note that the first option is to keep our name as is (change nothing about our official name).

a) Nevada Desert Experience

b) Nevada Desert Experience and Peace Witness

c) Nevada Desert Peace Experience

d) Nevada Desert Peace Witness

The Reasons Behind the Name
"Nevada Desert Experience"

In 1983 when faith-based nuclear abolitionists formed themselves into Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) for the second annual Lenten Desert Experience, the name for the organization made sense. These founders and the participants in the NDE events were coming from far-away urban and other non-desert places to experience the desert both in its beauty and in its ongoing tragedy. Nevada's Great Basin and Mojave Deserts are known for nuclear weapons testing, yet an experience of the natural environment and its greatness was a peaceful inspiration to the activists to protect this place--this huge stretch of wilderness which had been home to Paiute and Shoshone people since time immemorial.

The Experience of this Nevada Desert was one which the pilgrims carried back to their urban and otherwise foreign homes where they could spread the word about the nuclear devastation in Nevada, and motivate others to work for peace and protection of our sacred desert area, as part of the efforts to stop nuclear testing at the NNSS/NTS, and to abolish nuclear weapons globally. NDE has continued to organize retreats and direct actions for peace at the NNSS/NTS and elsewhere for 30 years now. We have a strong base of support in California, and people from around the planet still come annually on pilgrimages to the Nevada Desert to celebrate and try to protect the natural desert environment and to conduct public witness actions for the sake of peace and nuclear abolition. In the past five years we have had a particularly stronger position as being locally based in Nevada (in contrast to some prior years where we kept office space in California). This heightened local focus allows for more community organizing and a broader range of issues to which we pay attention in Southern Nevada.

NDE achieves its primary goal of stopping nuclear testing in a small way every time nuclear testing is halted for extended periods of time. We have continued our prayerful actions during periods of cease-fire (up to five years sometimes) for nuclear bomb experimental explosions. We are not a watch-dog group against nuclear testing, we are an event-based group working in a spiritual realm, conducting rituals for peace and focused mostly on the moral, ethical, and spiritual problems of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)s. Our public witness events have become an important spiritual discipline for people of various religions. People of conscience want to continue standing for peace at this environmentally devastated location for its historical significance, and because the NNSS continues its potential to resume conducting violent activities in the future. No full-scale self-sustaining chain reaction nuclear detonations have been conducted since 1992. Yet the money keeps flowing into the American nuclear experiment of this huge industry based on WMDs at the NNSS/NTS. So NDE continues to honor the wild spirit of the lovely desert, and our NDE focus has expanded to address threats to peace beyond strictly "nuclear weapons testing".

The history of humans abusing the desert (physically with toxic pollution and spiritually through disrespect) has continued through drone warfare practiced at Creech Air Force Base next to the Nevada National Security Site. The Nellis Air Force Base and other institutions in Southern Nevada are environmentally devastating and aggressively promoting warfare and oppression of poor folks around the world. These early 21st century developments in desert abuse and war-mongering have led to the contemporary self-examination of NDE by NDE Council members and participants. What is the most important work for a Nevada-based environmentalist, anti-nuclear peace group to do? How does the group represent itself in its literature and in other formal ways? What's the appropriate name for such a group? NDE's Council has been addressing this question of our name for a few years, and we have decided to put it to the test of our membership.

We recognize that our name has emotional and historical significance to many people. We recognize that new people discover NDE and our work every year. We want to communicate our purpose, goals and work in a swift way through our name. We know that changing our name will cause confusion for some folks. We know that changing our name costs time, energy and money organizationally. What do you think we should do?

Context of The Nuclear Age and Nuclear Abolition