The Nuclear-Free Future Award celebrates the achievements and facilitates with money prizes people, organizations and communities who are leading the struggle to keep our planet livable for the sake of the coming generations by ending the Nuclear Age.
In the following video from cca. 2001, Laurie Anderson is greeting the recipients of the Nuclear-Free Future Award and recalling the end of the world...
"A long time ago, I'd hitchhiked to the Magnetic North Pole. It took me two months to get there, and there I was camping out by myself and suddenly the sky opened up - green veils, purple veils - it was the northern lights. But I'd only seen pictures of the northern lights, I had never seen the real northern lights. So I was frightened and amazed, and I thought "there's been a nuclear war and I'm the only survivor".
For two days, before I left when a little plane came to pick me up, I was convinced that this had happened. And it was very frightening two days because I was able then to really imagine a world that had been destroyed, and, of course, I was greatly relieved when the plane came, but it didn't change, this vision that I had... because I think that in order to prevent events, whether it's a nuclear war, an explosion, or a malfunction, that it's important to be able to imagine that with its full ramifications, in order to prevent it, and to understand the real amount of devastation.
So, this is why I think that what [those involved with the Nuclear-Free Future Award] are doing here is an amazing and very important event that can change the course of life in our world."
