Climate change damage can be limited by carbon cuts: study, SMH,
January 14, 2013 – The world could avoid much of the damaging effects of climate change this century if greenhouse gas emissions are curbed more sharply, research shows.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is the first comprehensive assessment of the benefits of cutting emissions to keep the global temperature rise to within 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, a level which scientists say would avoid the worst effects of climate change.
It found 20 to 65 per cent of the adverse impacts by the end of this century could be avoided.
“Our research clearly identifies the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions – less severe impacts on flooding and crops are two areas of particular benefit,” said Nigel Arnell, director of the University of Reading’s Walker Institute, which led the study…….
The latest research involved scientists from British institutions including the University of Reading, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, as well as Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
It examined a range of emissions-cut scenarios and their impact on factors including flooding, drought, water availability and crop productivity. The strictest scenario kept global temperature rise to 2 degrees C with emissions peaking in 2016 and declining by 5 per cent a year to 2050.
Flooding
Adverse effects such as declining crop productivity and exposure to river flooding could be reduced by 40 to 65 per cent by 2100 if warming is limited to 2 degrees, the study said.
Global average sea level rise could be reduced to 30cm (12 inches) by 2100, compared to 47-55cm (18-22 inches) if no action to cut emissions is taken, it said.
Some adverse climate impacts could also be delayed by many decades. The global productivity of spring wheat could drop by 20 per cent by the 2050s, but the fall in yield could be delayed until 2100 if strict emissions curbs were enforced.
“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions won’t avoid the impacts of climate change altogether of course, but our research shows it will buy time to make things like buildings, transport systems and agriculture more resilient to climate change,” Arnell said.
About 190 nations are aiming to sign a deal by 2015 which will legally bind countries to make ambitious emissions cuts but it will not come into force until 2020.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-damage-can-be-limited-by-carbon-cuts-study-20130114-2covq.html#ixzz2I5FN3mll
Antinuclear
Paladin, Malawi given 14 days to renegotiate uranium deal, by Charles Kufa, Nyasa Times, 14 Jan 13, Malawi’s opposition Peoples Transformation Party (Petra) has added its voice to the concerns raised by African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) that the government of Malawi had made a bad choice of project given the absence of transparency and accountability in the deal.
PETRA president Kamuzo Chibambo tol d reporters in Blantyre on Monday that his party has given Paladin and President Joyce Banda’s administration 14 days to explain why the uranium mining deal can’t be renegotiated for the benefit of Malawians……
He demanded that the government should renegotiate for at least a 40% stake and selling rights in the next 14 days…..
He also asked the government to tell measures it has put in place to avoid pollution seeping into Lake Malawi…..
A representative of the CSOs Moses…
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January 15, 2013
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“…In closing, the collective said, it “intends to pursue reform within the DoJ and other government agencies to prevent the kind of unnecessary harassment that Aaron Swartz was victim to. Some of the brightest men and women in the fields of information technology and security are being targeted by agencies that lack a basic understanding of the so-called crimes they are accusing people of.”…”
Published: 15 January, 2013, 02:14
RT
A federal court in Massachusetts has dismissed the hacking case against Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on January 11 while facing decades behind bars and a $1 million fine.
A federal court in Massachusetts has dismissed the hacking case against Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on January 11 while facing decades behind bars and a $1 million fine.
The dismissal follows an investigation into Swartz’s involvement in the theft of content held in JSTOR, a digital journal archive used by universities and other research institutions. Swartz, who resided in New York City at the time of his death, had accessed JSTOR through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s library, which is why the case was being heard in that state.
Though JSTOR decided not to press charges – even urging the US government to drop the case – MIT went ahead with a civil case. As a result, Swartz faced serious legal consequences, which observers believe led to his suicide last week.
According to a Huffington Post report, Swartz’s defense team suspected federal attorneys were using Swartz as an example to show how serious they could be with online crime cases.
US attorney Stephen Heymann pursued Swartz because the case “was going to receive press and he was going to be a tough guy and read his name in the newspaper,” Elliot Peters, Swartz’s lawyer, said.
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January 15, 2013
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Published: 14 January, 2013, 22:32
James Corbett
RT
A US defense report has called for contingency planning to neutralize a vast Chinese tunnel network with both “conventional and nuclear forces.” James Corbett told RT the “Underground Great Wall” scare is being used to mask US nuclear ambitions.
Orders for the Commander of the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to submit a report on means of nullifying China’s underground tunnel network were outlined in the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed by President Barack Obama on January 2.
The NDAA-directed report will further seek to identify knowledge gaps regarding China’s nuclear weapons programs, a request which was likely spurred by a controversial 2011 study out of Georgetown University entitled “Strategic Implications of China’s Underground Great Wall.”
The researchers claimed that China’s Second Artillery Corps, a secretive branch of the country’s military tasked with protecting and deploying its ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, had dug some 3,000 miles of tunnels which currently housed up to 3,000 nuclear warheads – ten times US intelligence estimates.
The report drew a firestorm of criticism via its unconventional Internet-based research methods, which relied on Google Earth, blogs, military journals and even a fictional television program about Chinese artillery soldiers, to reach its conclusions.
But the questionable conclusions of the Georgetown report and Washington’s drive to more properly assess China’s military capability, are more reflective of Washington’s own ‘nuclear strategy’ than Beijing’s ambitions, James Corbett, editor of the Japanese-based Corbett Report news website, argues.
RT: The U.S. government is operating on the assumption that there are three thousand kilometers worth of tunnels crisscrossing China. Is that something you’d find believable?
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January 15, 2013
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At 2:37 PM on January 14, a cooperative company worker who had finished work fell in the parking lot in front of Units 5-6 Service Building as his foot got stuck in the snow when he was trying to get into his car. Since a bone fracture on the left brachial region was suspected as a result of medical examination at Units 5-6 medical room, an ambulance was called at 3:04 PM on the same day. The injured worker was transported to Tomioka Fire Department by our emergency vehicle and then transferred onto an ambulance to be transported to Fukushima Accident Hospital. It was confirmed that no radioactive material was attached on his body.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2013/1224160_5130.html
Basic health and safety.. clear the snow!
January 15, 2013
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“…In November 2011 it signed a deal with Russian state-owned nuclear agency Rosatom to build a nuclear plant in the northwestern town of Rooppur which will have two 1,000 megawatt reactors at a cost of up to $2 billion each….”
Bangladesh
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will sign defence and nuclear energy deals worth $1.5 billion during a three-day visit to Russia which begins on Monday, the government announced. Hasina flew out the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Monday at the head of a 54-member delegation to Moscow where she is expected to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin at his Kremlin offices on Tuesday.
Cartoon courtesy of theepochtimes.com
Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told reporters a total of nine accords would be signed during the trip, including a $500 million credit agreement to help fund construction of Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant.
Moni also said Bangladesh would use Russian government credit to enable it to buy a range of defence equipment. “The amount of the defence purchase deals that are going to be signed is one billion dollars,” she told reporters in comments broadcast on Bangladeshi television.
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“…At the time of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy, Argentina was engaged in
discussions about training Iranian scientists at Argentina’s nuclear facility, and,
through 1993, it delivered promised shipments of low-enriched uranium for Iran’s
nuclear program….”
Graph coutesy of eia.gov
By: AFP | January 15, 2013
ABU DHABI – The UAE and Argentina signed on Monday an agreement to cooperate in the field of peaceful nuclear energy during a visit by President Cristina Kirchner, the state news agency WAM reported. The memorandum of understanding was signed by Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan and his Argentine counterpart Hector Timerman, WAM said. Kirchner and UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan attended the signing ceremony after discussions on bilateral cooperation between their countries, WAM said. The UAE announced in mid-July that it would begin building two of four nuclear power plants in partnership with a SKorean consortium, as part of plans to produce power from 2017.
Despite being a major oil exporter, the UAE has opted for nuclear, seeing it as a proven, environmentally promising and commercially competitive source of electricity, upon which it relies to produce all of its drinking water via desalination.
With the four plants scheduled to be operating by 2020, the UAE hopes that nuclear energy can provide up to a quarter of its electricity needs, which are forecast to soar to 40 gigawatts from 15.5 currently.
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/15-Jan-2013/uae-argentina-sign-civil-nuclear-pact
‘Corruption’ arrests in South Korea
12 July 2012
“…Prosecutors have arrested 22 people as they investigate alleged widespread corruption surrounding Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power’s (KHNP’s) procurement processes…”
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_KHNP_corruption_arrests_1206121.html
Nuclear Threat in the Eastern Mediterranean
The Case Against Turkey’s Akkuyu Nuclear Plant
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“….Christian and Buddhist clergy, as well as laypersons, told the 87 conferees from Asia, Europe and North America of their struggle to support families and communities, to cope with the disaster themselves and to challenge the official disaster response. Conference participants resolved to initiate discussions in faith communities about “civilian and military uses of nuclear energy”, and to develop plans of action “including lifestyle changes”…”
Posted on January 15, 2013 by ecumenical
The everyday effects of radiation borne by survivors of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan add up today to an involuntary experiment with public health, community life and environmental affairs.
An ecumenical conference, called to listen to local residents, found that last year’s chain reaction of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear calamity has generated a “live” human tragedy, across a province, with no end in sight.
The Geiger counters that priests and parishioners pull out of their pockets like cellphones made the local anxieties and fears real for their visitors. “I cannot tell my children that there will be something good if they live,” one mother told a Buddhist priest. “A middle-aged man committed suicide in the temporary housing. Tomorrow it might be me.” The priest, Rev. Daiki Nakashita, told her story to the Inter-Religious Conference on Nuclear Issues organized by the National Christian Council in Japan in December 2012.
“The figure is surprising when we check the radiation around the house,” another woman told Nakashita. “My husband wants to have children, but I think we cannot raise children in Fukushima anymore.” The science in play is not fiction. Children are growing up forbidden to play outdoors, young women worry that no one will want to marry them, a mother tests her rice harvest to see if she can share it with her children, families are paying off loans on radioactive homes they will never use. These are the kind of stories heard every day at a parish radiation information centre in Aizu Wakamatsu, Japan.
The center is one of many signs that citizens are not receiving full and reliable information about risks to their health. They blame government and power companyofficials, starting with the haphazard evacuation plans that exposed many to radiation when the disaster began.
Tohoku HELP, an ecumenical project which includes the United Church of Christ in Japan, runs food radiation measurement centres in disaster-stricken communities. Besides testing food and farm produce, the project also measures radiation levels in breast milk and urine, a service not readily available to many residents. Counsellors and chaplains are available to assist the people who come in for testing.
“We cannot get correct information about exposure to radiation…but, if we say so, then we are the ones criticized by others who want to believe that Fukushima is safe,” one survivor said. “The most serious issues are divorce, suicide, domestic violence and violence in general. Radiation damaged not only our bodies, but also the relationships in our families and communities,” said another survivor.
The conference concluded that “there is no safe use of nuclear power, no safe level of exposure to radiation, and no compatibility between nuclear power, life and peace.” Speakers noted that the official fumbling is reminiscent of other nuclear disasters, like Chernobyl, and that the health risks and the stigma suffered by survivors are reminders of Hiroshima.
Hoping for a nuclear-free world
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“…Masahiro Saito, a chicken farmer who has seen a 20 percent loss in his turnover, feels less unlucky than his cereal and vegetable-growing neighbours, some of whom have had to pack up for good.
“At the peak of the radiation in March 2011, I recorded 5 becquerels of radioactive caesium per kilogramme on my chickens,” said Saito — well below the government limit.
Like most of his counterparts, he has raised his animals on American corn, which explains why he and other farmers have suffered less than others in the region….”
by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) Jan 14, 2013
Seed Daily
Mayumi Kurasawa’s seaweed company saw seven of its factories swept away by Japan’s 2011 tsunami. Nearly two years later, sales continueto be eroded by consumer fears over nuclear contamination.
“Our seaweed is checked every day, and I guarantee you that it’s safe,” she told AFP during a recent visit to Tokyo to promote the company she works for, Kawashu. “But we are selling two-thirds less than before Fukushima.”
Like many farmers in the Tohoku region in northeast Japan, Kurasawa is struggling to sell her produce to a wary population that remains unconvinced by reassurances of food safety.
The problem is the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in the region’s south, where reactors went into meltdown after cooling systems were swamped by the March 11, 2011 tsunami.
The reactors spewed radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
Despite the Kawashu company’s production sites being 300 kilometres (185 miles) away from the nuclear plant, in Iwate Prefecture, it is struggling to sell its “wakame” seaweed.
“Many clients prefer produce from South Korea or from China over us. They think it’s safer,” said Kurasawa.
Previously lauded for their quality, Tohuku products from wasabi, mushrooms, fruit and cereals to salmon and sake (rice wine) are now regarded with suspicion by many Japanese customers as a consequence of Fukushima.
Sales for Tohoku’s products have dropped 60 to 70 percent on average against pre-accident levels.
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January 15, 2013
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