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281- Artist in Japan has something to say!

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Link to Image source https://www.facebook.com/MichekoGalerie?fref=photo

April 3, 2015 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Corium news, Letters from Japan – Steam venting at Fukushima nuclear reactor site with no end in sight?

http://aozorawomitumete.blog137.fc2.com/blog-entry-978.html

3 April 2015

Aozora Japanese Resistance

Videos on link

Screenshot from 2015-04-03 13:32:38

Plant Chief: Centuries may pass… The chief of the Fukushima nuclear power station has admitted that the technology needed to decommission three melted-down reactors does not exist, and he has no idea how it will be developed and conceded that the stated goal of decommissioning the plant by 2051 may be imposable .
Naohiro Masuda, president of Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Company:

We have no idea about the debris. We don’t know its shape or strength. We have to remove it remotely from 30 meters above, but we don’t have that kind of technology, it simply doesn’t exist… We still don’t know whether it’s possible to fill the reactor containers with water. We’ve found some cracks and holes in the three damaged container vessels, but we don’t know if we found them all. If it turns out there are other holes, we might have to look for some other way to remove the debris.
2051!!  The chief of TEPCO should accept to build the sarcophagus into “both of the aboveground and underground of nuclear reactor building” to start right cooling method to cool the nuclear fuel rods by Chisso. TEPCO should change the method quickly.
The intellectual opinion of Jer Licciardello is right.

Jer Licciardello knows details of the information of Fukushima nuclear power plant better than Japanese citizens. Because Japanese Government conceals the actual situation of the radioactive contamination, and because neither most newspaper publishers nor TV criticizes Prime Minister Abe, the Japanese citizens do not look reality of radioactive contamination.If TEPCO prepares the sarcophagus into “both of the aboveground and underground of nuclear reactor building” to start right cooling method to cool the nuclear fuel rods by Chisso, Japan can prevent underground phreatic explosion and radioactive contamination.If underground phreatic explosion happens, all is the end.
The magnitude of this situation requires a global response for it increasingly becomes a global problem. Instead of remaining silent not to be asked the maker responsibility of GE, the Western countries may use the Japanese Self-Defense Forces as the charm against bullets to avoid the bullets of the wrong invading wars.
The use of right of collective self-defense becomes dangerous anytime. Japan should work hard to stop radioactive contamination faithfully. Japan will have to pay for this.

Doctor Arnie Gundersen, December 2013 already mentioned:

“I’ve been saying this for 30 months now. The solution is not to pump water out of the containment, but to prevent the water from going in. What we need is an underground wall. Just like the sarcophagus covers the top of Chernobyl, we need an underground sarcophagus to prevent the groundwater from entering Fukushima reactors. I think once that’s accomplished, there’s no need to decommission these power plants and turn them back to the ground they are in. And the reason for that is that exposure to young, brave Japanese workers is going to be way to high for almost 100 years… The Japanese government doesn’t want that to happen because they want their population to think that this is a solvable problem. It isn’t.”

TEPCO has ignored this suggestion of Doctor Arnie Gundersen about an underground sarcophagus to prevent the groundwater from entering Fukushima reactors for more than 1 year.
Can you understand? If underground phreatic explosion happens, all is the end.
Steam is already going up from the basement in Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Aozora Japanese Resistance

April 3, 2015 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Plea for retired journalists to return and save Japans press freedoms in the face of censorship and control!

imageImage source ; http://www.stripes.com/news/legal-experts-worry-japan-s-secrecy-law-may-silence-journalists-1.257943

“Those journalists that used to stand by the side of someone crying,

now stand by those in power.”

Hidetoshi Kiyotake 2015

Summarised by Shaun McGee

Posted to Nuclear-news.net

posted 3 April 2015

Video Published on 2 Apr 2015 by the FCCJ

Featuring;

Minoru Tanaka: Investigative Journalist
Hidetoshi Kiyotake: Investigative Journalist and Author

Comments from the Chairman of the press committee
The reason for the Press freedom Award in Japan is because of the fact that in 2010 Japan was 11th in the rankings for press freedom according to Reporters Without Borders. Japan now has a position of 61st (just behind South Korea and far behind Croatia) out of 180 countries.

The State Secrets Act of 2013 makes nuclear power and relations with the USA taboo for journalists. Journalist freedoms are being eroded to stop embarrassing details from being made public. The governments and Corporations also have been directly influencing Broadcasters and Journalists.

Japanese Media are more fearful and are more wimpy than ever before.

For instance the story of the Education ministers links to the Yakuza has been grossly under reported and there are other scandals not reported also.

The Freedom of the Press Awards will be formally announced on the 3rd May 2015 (World Press Day)
There will be one Award for investigative journalism and another award for non journalism but have contributed to Freedom of information causes.
The prizes are to confer due recognition that is supportive of Open Society, Free Speech and democratic accountability.

Minora Tanaka(Investigative journalist also on the judging panel for the Award)
Tanaka San has been investigating a range of subjects over the years including issues surrounding the nuclear energy industry.
Tanaka San begins outlining a problem called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against journalists getting too near the truth and these defamation cases have had a chilling effect on journalism. Even if the case is withdrawn because it is a weak case it could be years before that happens and by then time , money and stress will have taken their toll.
Added to the fact that the imposition of the Orwellian State Secrets Act of 2013, Journalism in Japan is in dire straights.
Tanaka San finishes of his statement by exclaiming;
“I am Kenji” (In reference to the recently murdered journalist)

Hidetoshi Kiyotake (Investigative journalist and author)
Currently he has six lawsuits on the go and has 2 of them due in court next week (SLAPPs). Whilst not attending court Kiyotake San likes to do some journalism research and writing. He also leaves time for the freedom of the press issues also. He worked for the Yomuri Shimbun for many years as a financial analyst and has held managerial positions. In 2011 he was dismissed from his post and is now an independent journalist. He one a non fiction prize last year.
He quotes as an example his research into the Sony corporation where he reported on the use of “Isolation Rooms” being used as a punishment for employees.
He then goes onto say that reporting on government and corporate scandals and stories is getting harder and harder all the time, whilst the number of investigative journalists are going down.
It would appear that journalists have become numb to the big changes within these media corporations.
As an example he states that a story of 10,000 or 20,000 people being sacked is not a shock to them anymore.
There have been many job loses also in the media and that also would have been frowned on in the recent past in Japan.
Kiyotake San goes onto ask the question if Japan uses a managerial style that takes into account human dignity and long term perspective as it once did?
As an example he relates a story in the past where a Japanese CEO of Sony asks the CEO of GE on what might be the best managerial style. The CEO of GE announced that if a worker wakes up and is upbeat and positive about his oncoming work day than the right managerial style has been used.

“Those that used to stand by the side of someone crying now stand by those in power.”

Kiyotake San then went on to explain his hopes for the future.

He calls for retired investigative journalists to leave retirement and to come back to the job of reporting and to find some platform in the media or on the internet to publish their articles.

He also calls for working journalists to research topics and publish on other formats to increase competition and improve the quality of reporting and the oversight of government and corporations.

He finishes by asking journalists to not be content with being in a closed club but to go out and publish as independent journalists as well.

Questions and answers on the source video

UPDATE

Edited version by missmilkytheclown1 on YouTube for easy listening

April 3, 2015 Posted by | Japan, media | 4 Comments

Cumbria is the April Fool in this Nuclear Waste Scandal

Posted on by

https://mariannewildart.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/nuclear-waste-scandal-daily-mail-letter-april-1-15.jpg

Shockingly the Daily Mail is the ONLY paper to expose this – and even that with a somewhat neutered letter on the Letters Page…the original sent to all press is below

Nuclear Waste Scandal

In the last gasp of Parliament before the election, something momentous
and awful happened but who knew?

Who knew that our government had asked MPs to vote to make nuclear waste
dumps Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects? There was no debate
or even vote in the lobbies of the Commons, voting was done by filling in
a form. MPs voted 277 votes to 33 to dump democracy. Big NGO’s and the
press have played their part by their silence.

The normal checks and balances of democracy are wiped away by undemocratic
NSIP. Normal rules of planning protections are voided by NSIP. There would
be no public inquiry and no meaningful scrutiny or debate from full
council meetings.

The fig leaf of “positive test of public support” (still to be decided
upon by government!) would be followed by the final decision being made by
the Secretary of State.

There is a predetermined government agenda to “implement geological
disposal.” The UK government (in England only!) has signed up to
“implement geological disposal” and realistically only nuclear compliant
Cumbria is in the frame as nuclear patsy.

If our grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ had gone along with the dumping of
heat generating radioactive wastes deep under Cumbria would I now be
sitting at a desk in Cumbria drinking a glass of water and writing about
it? Many scientists and geologists have good reason to think not. They
have good reason to think that geological ‘disposal’ does not work.

Keeping heat generating nuclear wastes isolated from the biosphere is the
biggest challenge for mankind. The ruthless undemocratic push for
“implementation of geological disposal” is however a means to make ever
more nuclear wastes (useful only for weapons) by falsely promising “a
final solution.” “The final solution” of geological dumping of heat
generating nuclear wastes is now officially open for all manner of
corruption and can now be forced on Cumbria …but who knew?

Yours sincerely,

Marianne Birkby
On behalf of Radiation Free Lakeland

April 3, 2015 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Landmark agreement in nuclear deal between Iran and the West

diplomacy-not-bombsflag-IranWorld powers agree ‘historic’ nuclear deal  http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2015/04/03/eu–iran-hail-nuclear-talks-breakthrough.html Iran and world powers have agreed on the framework of a potentially historic deal aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear drive after marathon talks in Switzerland.

t marks a major breakthrough in a 12-year stand-off between Iran and the West, which has long feared Tehran wants to build a nuclear bomb. US President Barack Obama welcomed the ‘historic understanding’ with Iran but cautioned more work needed to be done. ‘If Iran cheats, the world will know it,’ he said in a televised address from the White House on Thursday.

After eight days of talks that sometimes went through the night, Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear program in return for the lifting of punishing sanctions, said EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

The main outlines agreed at the negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne now have to be finalised in a highly complex agreement by June 30.

-US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed a ‘big day’, saying on Twitter that the global powers and Iran ‘now have parameters to resolve major issues on nuclear program. Back to work soon on a final deal’.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the drafting of a full agreement would begin immediately with the aim of completing it by the June 30 deadline. Iranian media said the deal will include Iran slashing by two-thirds, to 6000 from 19,000, the number of centrifuges, which can make fuel for nuclear power but also the core of a nuclear bomb.

Mogherini said the United States and the EU will lift all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran once the UN atomic agency has verified that Tehran has stuck to the ground-breaking deal. Mogherini, in a joint press statement with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, also said that the design of a new reactor will be changed so that no weapons-grade plutonium can be produced.

The Fordo facility, built deep into a mountain, will remain open but will not be used for enrichment but for research and development.

The so-called P5+1 group – the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia plus Germany – hope that the deal will make it virtually impossible for Iran to make nuclear weapons under the guise of its civilian program. France warned that the sanctions could be reimposed if Tehran does not fully keep its side of the bargain.The office of President Francois Hollande said in a statement that Paris would watch closely to ensure a ‘credible’ and ‘verifiable’ final agreement that prevents Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

April 3, 2015 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

The Nuclear Power Agenda to block climate action, stop renewable energy, and subsidize old reactors.

Nuclear Economics Nuclear Information and Resource Service….…….September 11, 2014. Killing the Competition. The Nuclear Power Agenda to block climate action, stop renewable energy, and subsidize old reactors. Major new report by NIRS’ Executive Director Tim Judson details how major utilities and nuclear power companies have begun a campaign to rig energy markets, climate regulations, and clean energy programs to prevent the advance of renewable energy.

text-Nuclear-MattersUsing a deceptive public relations campaign and heavily-funded front groups like Nuclear Matters, Third Way, and C2ES, corporations including Exelon and Entergy have tried to drum up fears of a national energy crisis stemming from the closure of several aging, uncompetitive nuclear plants and the advance of renewable energy. While touting the need to “preserve” nuclear power, nuclear interests have covered up the actual reforms they are seeking and their implications for the U.S.’s energy future. 

Audio recording (mp3 file) of press conference release of the report featuring Tim Judson, Dr. Mark Cooper, Vermont Law School, Institute for Energy and the Environment; Tyson Slocum, energy program director, Public Citizen; Deb Katz, executive director, Citizens Awareness Network (New England); David Kraft, executive director, Nuclear Energy Information Service (Illinois); Jessica Azulay, program director, Alliance for a Green Economy (New York).”…..http://www.nirs.org/neconomics/neconomicshome.htm

April 3, 2015 Posted by | spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

Appeal in Marshall Islands case against USA

justiceMarshall Islands Will Appeal in Nuclear Case Against US http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/marshall-islands-appeal-nuclear-case-us-30067766 UNITED NATIONS — Apr 2, 2015, By CARA ANNA Associated Press The tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is persisting with an unprecedented lawsuit demanding that the United States meet its obligations toward getting rid of its nuclear weapons. It filed notice Thursday that it will appeal a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the case. Continue reading

April 3, 2015 Posted by | Legal, OCEANIA | Leave a comment

UK’s Hinkley nuclear plant developments stalled as financial negotiations drag on

UK subsidyHinkley Point C nuclear project workers face layoff , Guardian 2 Apr 15 Up to 400 constructors at site of new nuclear power station could be laid off as preparation work comes to end before final investment decision by owner EDF. As many as 400 workers at the site of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point face being laid off while the French owners of the project decide whether to make an investment in the £16bn project.

EDF has almost completed the project’s preparatory earthworks, drainage, welfare facilities and roadworks, but is yet to decide on the investment to mark the beginning of the construction the plant in Somerset.

The company said a decision would be reached in the coming months, and it has already launched a 45-day redundancies consultation, said the unions…….

It is the first new new nuclear plant in the UK in decades and is scheduled to start producing electricity in 2023. EDF, however, is still negotiating with UK authorities about government debt guarantees for the project, along with decommissioning costs and other details.

It is also negotiating with two Chinese utilities about their role in Hinkley Point and possible future UK nuclear projects with EDF……http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/02/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-project-workers-face-layoff-power-station-investment-edf

April 3, 2015 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | 1 Comment

Threats of a nuclear showdown, Russia’s Vladimir Putin tells NATO to back off

Vladimir Putin threatens NUCLEAR showdown over the West’s interference in Ukraine Express UK 2 Apr 15  VLADIMIR Putin has warned Nato to back off from interfering with Crimea or face a NUCLEAR response. By ROB VIRTUE Apr 2, 2015 In a secret meeting with Washington officials, Russia said it was looking at a range of actions over the threat of the West supplying weapons to Ukraine.

They also threatened civil disturbance by Russian nationals in the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who are feeling increasingly threatened by their powerfulneighbour.

A report of last month’s meeting, seen by The Times newspaper, said attempts by Nato to return the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine would be met “forcefully including through the use of nuclear force”.

And it said the supply of weapons to Kiev would be seen as “further encroachment by Nato to the Russian border”.

Russia would hope slowly to entice those Russian populations towards Russia without giving Nato a pretext to deploy troops

The report of the meeting

Putin’s generals at the high-level gathering in Germany told the Americans they spoke with the approval of their president……http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/56

April 3, 2015 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

A risky precedent – if ratepayers bail out Ginna nuclear plant

nukes-hungryFlag-USABailout of nuclear power plant would set bad precedent, Times Union By David O. Carpenter, March 30, 2015 The New York state Public Service Commissionand the Cuomo administration will soon decide whether ratepayers can be forced to bail out Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power plant operator, and its Ginna nuclear plant, one of the world’s oldest commercial reactors, built near Rochester in 1969. A bailout would set a costly, dangerous precedent with state and national implications.

Across New York and the U.S., as older nuclear plants age, their operating costs are rising while prices for electricity from competing sources are falling, making many of them uneconomical, including a third of Exelon’s fleet. So they seek shelter from market forces that increasingly favor cleaner, cheaper alternatives, including wind and solar.

Ginna is an important test case. It lost $100 million in the last three years. So Exelon negotiated a new purchase agreement withRochester Gas & Electric worth $735 million — $165 million above the market price for electricity — passing on its losses to customers by raising their rates.

Exelon threatens that without a bailout, it will close Ginna and other uneconomical reactors, undermining electricity supply. Supply fears are overblown — Ginna could be phased out and its power replaced more cost-effectively, including by improving substations and transmission lines. The PSC may be more worried about losing Ginna’s 600 jobs (though there would be hundreds of decommissioning jobs if the reactor shut down).

Meanwhile, many oppose the bailout. Physicians for Social Responsibility’s New York chapter opposes it because of growing public health and safety risks as Ginna ages. New York utilities and power producers oppose it because it violates established procedure for shuttering plants. A group of 60 large industrial, commercial and institutional energy consumers oppose it because it would distort electricity markets and trigger “potentially staggering” rate hikes. Alliance for a Green Economy opposes unjustly forcing consumers to subsidize Exelon and its obsolete reactor, which would also pre-empt better energy alternatives. It wants Ginna’s losses borne by RG&E, not ratepayers, and swift, orderly decommissioning.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s administration opposes a Ginna bailout as bad precedent for other troubled plants, which might try to hold his city’s residents hostage to closure threats. For example, what if the aging, leaking Indian Point nuclear plant, which should be decommissioned, followed suit and demanded to be propped up through extortionate rate hikes?

These are all good reasons to say “no” to bailing out Ginna and other aging nuclear plants that might seek to follow in its wake…….. http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-opinion/article/Bailout-of-nuclear-power-plant-would-set-bad-6168217.php

April 3, 2015 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

France struggles to save its financially strapped nuclear company AREVA

plants-downFrance Renews Push for Nuclear Shake Up Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron urges stronger cooperation between the state-controlled businesses. By  INTI LANDAURO April 2, 2015  PARIS—The French government has turned up the heat on the country’s biggest nuclear-power companies to restructure the industry to help stem multibillion-euro losses at state-controlled equipment maker Areva SA.

Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron has asked Eléctricité de France SA–the operator of France’s fleet of nuclear power stations which provide most of the country’s electricity—to come to the rescue of Areva by deepening their industrial and possibly financial ties.

EDF and Areva, which are both majority-owned by the French state, have to cooperate better over the construction of areva-medusa1nuclear reactors and tendering for international business, Mr. Macron said on Thursday. He said that he has asked both companies to make proposals in the coming weeks………

Changing international attitudes to nuclear power, notably after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, have complicated the task for the French government by crimping demand for new business at Areva………

For now, Areva is working on a plan to sell assets, cut costs, reduce capital expenditure and start talks with unions over possible job cuts after posting a €4.8 billion ($5.4 billion) net loss in 2014, the fourth loss in as many years.

The company faces major hurdles with its contract to build a reactor in Finland, which has suffered a series of delays and cost overruns, and has also made a poor investment in uranium mining,……..http://www.wsj.com/articles/french-government-pushes-areva-edf-to-make-tie-up-proposal-1427961063

April 3, 2015 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics | Leave a comment

Nuclear Power Plants continuously emit Carbon 14 to the environment

The worldwide nuclear power operational experience gives evidence that 14C is continuously released to environment from Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), is key radionuclide of NSRs for LILW disposal, forms significant fraction of irradiated graphite radionuclide inventory, retains in the spent nuclear fuel and consequently will be disposed of in geological repositories for long-lived high activity waste in the form of spent fuel or radioactive waste arising from spent fuel reprocessing. In this sense, we can consider 14C as one of the most powerful environmental tracers of nuclear fuel cycle.
highly-recommendedCarbon-14 in Terrestrial and Aquatic Environment of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant:Sources of Production, Releases and Dose Estimates Jonas Mazeika Nature Research Centre Vilnius University Lithuania
1. Introduction The development history of nuclear power in world already has over passed the limit of 50 years. This time span was sufficiently long for many nuclear reactors to complete their operation stage and to enter the decommissioning stage. The Ignalina NPP (INPP), Lithuania, is one of them. Its operation history only lasted for 26 years for different reasons but mainly the political ones. The INPP consists of two RBMK-1500 reactor units, Unit 1 and Unit 2 (Almenas et al., 1998). The ‘‘1500’’ refers to the designed electrical power in units of MW. Its designed thermal rating is 4800 MW. The nominal thermal power is 4250 MW, and the nominal electrical power is 1300 MW. The RBMK is a graphite-moderated boiling water channel-type reactor with the principle of electricity generation the same as for boiling water reactors (BWRs). The Ignalina NPP is located in the north-eastern part of Lithuania……..
The routine monitoring of radiation in environment of NPPs often does not include some important nuclides, namely carbon-14 (14C), which have or may have significant contribution to effective dose of human exposure in the whole nuclear fuel cycle. ……….

Continue reading

April 3, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, Reference | 1 Comment

New coal plants being cancelled twice as fast as ones being built

For Every New Coal Plant Being Built, Two Are Being Cancelled, Clean Technica,  March 21st, 2015 Originally published on The Carbon Brief. By Sophie Yeo

The global coal boom has started to slow, a new  report says, as more plans for new power plants are now being shelved than completed.

The number of cancelled coal projects across the world has outstripped those completed at a rate of two to one since 2010, according to Sierra Club and CoalSwarm – two campaign groups that have tracked the progress of 3,900 intended plants since 1 January 2010.

The findings update a 2012 report by the World Resources Institute, which estimated that 1,199 new coal-fired power plants, with a total capacity of 1,401 gigawatts, were in the pipeline for construction.

New figures suggest that, by 2014, this had shrunk by 23% to a proposed 1,083 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity. The report puts this down to citizen opposition, competition from renewables, new policy initiatives and political scandals putting a freeze on the highly polluting projects………

Stranded assets

The current rate of coal project cancellations is already causing a headache for investors in the industry, Ted Nace, one of the report’s authors, tells Carbon Brief:

“The clearest example right now is in coal mining stocks like Peabody, Arch, and Alpha Natural Resources. Arch’s stock, for example, hit $75 per share in 2008 and now sells for 88 cents per share. An individual or an institutional investor that invested $75,000 in Arch stock in 2008 would have lost over $74,000 in the past seven years.”

The decline in the European and US coal fired capacity growth has been taking place for over a decade, but mining companies had hoped that exports to China and other Pacific Rim nations would help to make up the difference.

This has not happened. China’s coal consumption  fell by 2.9% in 2014, while the use of existing coal plants dropped to 54% – a 35-year low.

Meanwhile, new renewable energy capacity exceeded new coal capacity in China for the first time in 2013, and then again in 2014 – although coal  remains the dominant source of Chinese electricity.

The rate at which projects are being shelved in India has also had an impact on connected projects overseas, explains Nace:

“With capacity growth stalling in India, numerous overseas mega-projects such as mines, railroads, and terminals designed to increase imports of coal to India are now on turning into white elephants.”……..

The rate at which coal plants are being cancelled is an improvement upon previous estimates on the future growth of the industry.

But with international efforts targeted towards keeping global warming to below two degrees, the news that there is still 1,083 gigawatts of coal capacity in the pipeline is little cause for celebration. http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/21/for-every-new-coal-plant-being-built-two-are-being-cancelled/

April 3, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, climate change | Leave a comment

Anglican bishops speak out – call for divestment from fossil fuels

global-warming1Anglican bishops’ letter urging fossil fuel divestment Seventeen bishops and archbishops tell Anglican church investments in fossil fuel companies incompatible with a just and sustainable future Guardian 31 Mar 15“……..In different ways each of our own dioceses are deeply impacted by climate injustice and environmental degradation. We accept the evidence of science concerning the contribution of human activity to the climate crisis and the disproportionate role played by fossil-fuel based economies. Although climate scientists have for many years warned of the consequences of inaction there is an alarming lack of global agreement about the way forward.
We believe that the problem is spiritual as well as economic, scientific and political, because the roadblock to effective action relates to basic existential issues of how human life is framed and valued: including the competing moral claims of present and future generations, human versus non-human interests, and how the lifestyle of wealthy countries is to be balanced against the basic needs of the developing world. For this reason the Church must urgently find its collective moral voice……..
We believe that the voices of Indigenous peoples, whose relationship with creation remains integral to their spirituality and relationship with God, is of central importance to ongoing ministry on climate justice. …….
We were painfully aware that women frequently bear a disproportionate burden of climate change largely because they make up the majority of the world’s poor and are often more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources threatened by climate change. The voices and contributions of women are therefore essential in responding to climate change.

There is a compelling need to listen to the voices of our youth who will inherit the challenges and catastrophes we fail to address and pre-empt. We believe we must be reconciled to Creation and to one another and that there is an urgency to this call. We believe the issue of climate change is a moral issue at its heart……….

We will develop and distribute educational resources for everyone (adults, youth and children) on climate change, climate justice, and the ethical and practical principles of sustainable living in global and local contexts……..

We encourage Anglicans everywhere to:……….

Implement energy conservation measures in church buildings and moving to renewable energy sources as quickly as possible…….

We call upon political, economic, social and religious leaders in our various constituencies to address the climate change crisis as the most urgent moral issue of our day. We urge them to:

· Work with all possible commitment and speed toward fair, ambitious, accountable and binding climate change agreements at national and international levels.

· Develop policies that genuinely assist environmental and climate refugees and promote mechanisms of intergovernmental co-operation that ensure their human rights, safety and resettlement………

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/30/anglican-bishops-letter-urging-fossil-fuel-divesmen

April 3, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Shipping incident results in higher NRC oversight for Vogtle nuclear power plant

Nuclear Regulatory Commission increases oversight for Plant Vogtle following shipping incident, Augusta Chronicle By Meg Mirshak Staff Writer April 1 2015 The oversight includes an additional inspection at the commercial power plant near Waynesboro, Ga. about 26 miles southeast of Augusta, according to a NRC news release…….The violation had “low-to-moderate safety significance,” and it posed a risk to the public because of concerns the closure system on the type of cask used could fail if involved in an accident during shipping, according to the letter. …….http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2015-03-31/nuclear-regulatory-commission-increases-oversight-plant-vogtle-following

April 3, 2015 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment