Climate-denying politicians ‘not fit to lead’ – President Obama
President Barack Obama attacks climate change denying politicians as not being fit to lead, ABC Radio Will Ockenden reported this story on Tuesday, September 1, 2015 ELEANOR HALL: The president of the United States has issued a warning to other world leaders about the need to act urgently to reduce carbon emissions.
Barack Obama says climate change is happening faster than efforts to fix it and that any world leader unwilling to take the problem seriously is “not fit to lead”. The US president says, while there should be debate on the best way to address climate change, the science on global warming is settled and the time to act is now.
Will Ockenden reports.
WILL OCKENDEN: President Barack Obama says the world has reached a fork in the road on climate change.
One route is to continue on, without doing anything.
BARACK OBAMA: There’s not going to be a nation on this Earth that’s not impacted negatively. People will suffer. Economies will suffer. Entire nations will find themselves under severe, severe problems; more drought, more floods, rising sea levels, greater migration, more refugees, more scarcity, more conflict.
WILL OCKENDEN: The other, a global agreement to cut emissions.
BARACK OBAMA: The other path is to embrace the human ingenuity that can do something about it. The time to heed the critics and the cynics and the deniers is past. The time to plead ignorance is surely past.
Those who want to ignore the science, they are increasingly alone; they’re on their own shrinking island.
WILL OCKENDEN: President Obama’s comments were addressed at the opening of the GLACIER conference in Anchorage, Alaska.
GLACIER stands for Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience.
The comments come ahead of a key meeting, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is scheduled to be held in Paris in December…..http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4303846.htm
Russia slowly turning to its former interest in developing renewable energy
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Renewable Energy Rises in Russia: The Early Steps Huffington Post By Woodrow W. Clark II and Dimitri Elkin(*) Woodrow Clark Economist for environment and renewable energy
As renewable energy becomes more widespread, its “green” transformational impact can be seen in some of the most remote corners of the world. Here are two recent examples from Russia, a country not typically associated with the green energy industrial revolution. The EU countries, Asian nations and now China are all embarked on this green revolution. While the USA just started, Russia is moving ahead with its own green renewable energy industrial transformation………..
Russia’s image as an ecologically ignorant oil superpower is so well established that it may come as a surprise that during the Soviet period, Russia had many groundbreaking achievements in the renewable energy sector. For example, in the 1930s, USSR was the first nation in the world to construct utility-scale wind turbines. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union opened an ocean tidal electric plant and took the lead in building geothermal power plants. There are currently around 100 MW of geothermal power plants operating in Russia, and about 55 MW of more geothermal planned additional capacity in the near future.
Whatever progress the Soviet Union made with renewables, it was derailed by Russia’s economic upheaval during the post-Soviet period (1991-2014), when electricity production fell by one third, creating plenty of spare capacity. During the presidency of Boris Yeltsin (1991-2000) when the USSR transformed into a new Russia, and then the first two terms of Vladimir Putin (2000-2008), the Russian government was preoccupied with delivering economic growth without considering its impact on the environment through the exploiting and exporting of coal, oil and now natural gas………
Social attitudes are also changing. Russia, just like other BRIC nations and developing countries around the world, is seeing a burgeoning middle class who now worries about their environment. And with the recent declines of the cost of renewable power, including solar panels, these renewable energy systems now seems a feasible solution for many energy consumers in Russia.
With its diverse geographic area that stretches from Arctic Circle to the subtropics, Russia sees an especially compelling opportunity for on-site power from renewable energy that is distributed through the country in cities and communities…..
While many areas of Russia will probably remain dependent on gas and coal for the foreseeable future due to central plant energy distribution, there are plenty of communities like Oktyabrsky and Batagai in Russia where renewables make economic and environmental sense. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/woodrow-clark/renewable-energy-rises-in_b_8061382.html?ir=Australia
No to uranium mining – Virginia Beach City Council
Another no vote on uranium The Virginian-Pilot© September 1, 2015 The Virginia Beach City Council is set tonight to vote — again — on a resolution opposing uranium mining in Virginia.
The issue is still, thankfully and for all practical purposes, dead. Mining uranium is still illegal in the commonwealth. The General Assembly’s 1982 ban is still in place despite years of extensive lobbying by the company wanting to mine ore in Pittsylvania County.
But because Virginia Uranium Inc. has recently challenged the legality of the ban and asked the federal courts to force the state to treat uranium mining like any other mining process, Virginia Beach is making doubly sure everyone knows the city opposes lifting the ban.
The Roanoke River Basin Association, which is downstream from the Virginia Uranium site, does, too. As do the cities of Norfolk, Chesapeake, Roanoke and Danville. The mining site is less than 50 miles upstream of the John H. Kerr Reservoir, which provides 93 percent of Lake Gaston’s inflow — a source of drinking water for much of South Hampton Roads. If Kerr Reservoir were contaminated, then Lake Gaston would be as well……..http://hamptonroads.com/2015/08/another-no-vote-uranium
Oglala Sioux Tribe reject #uranium mine cultural survey
Oglala Sioux object to uranium mine cultural survey BY KERRI REMPP / CHADRON DAILY RECORD , 1 Sep 15, CRAWFORD — A full week of testimony on renewing Crow Butte Resources’ uranium mining license wrapped up last week with objections by the Lakota Nation to a planned cultural and archeological survey.
Crow Butte’s operating license expired in 2007, and it has been operating on a temporary license since then while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviewed its renewal application. The NRC granted the renewal last fall, but because the Oglala Sioux Tribe and 11 other people and organizations objected, the Atomic Safety Board scheduled its own hearings and will render a final decision at a later date.
Friday’s testimony concerned cultural and archeological surveys at the Crow Butte mine site near Crawford. The Oglala Sioux Tribe contended that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to include its members in discussions and did not allow for an adequate survey of the site…….
Testimony throughout the rest of the week focused mainly on water safety, both in the Nebraska Panhandle and on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Charmaine White Face testified for the Oglala Sioux and consolidated interveners that samples from five reservation wells taken in 2014 show, in her opinion, an unusual level of mined uranium and thorium, though she admitted she had no evidence that the contamination was caused by Crow Butte Resources. Likewise, Debra White Plume testified, “I have no evidence in terms of western science that the contamination is from Crow Butte Resources, but I know what I know.”
Additional testimony will be heard during a telephonic hearing at a later date. Crow Butte Resources Inc. is owned by Cameco Resources, America’s biggest uranium mining company, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/nebraska/oglala-sioux-object-to-uranium-mine-cultural-survey/article_2deb035c-8686-54b4-a6ce-587911b303bd.html
Australian uranium company Paladin suspends uneconomic project in Labrador
Aurora Energy suspending uranium exploration in Labrador, CBC News Company cites low prices for decision to mothball Labrador operation CBC News Sep 01, 2015 Aurora Energy has announced it is suspending uranium exploration in Labrador and is blaming lower commodity prices for the decision.
Ches Andersen, Aurora’s vice-president of Labrador affairs, said since there’s no mining underway, the parent company will mothball the Labrador operation…..
Aurora is a member of the Paladin Energy Ltd. Group of Companies, based in Australia.
Lifting of moratoriumThe issue of uranium mining in Labrador has been a divisive one.The Nunatsiavut government narrowly passed a controversial bill to put a moratorium on exploration in place in April 2008.
The decision to lift the moratorium was made unanimously late in 2011….http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/aurora-energy-suspending-uranium-exploration-in-labrador-1.3209939
#nuclear lobby using women to propagandise the idea of “Nuclear fixing climate change”
Women in Nuclear for Climate http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Women-in-Nuclear-for-Climate-0109151.html 01 September 2015 Women in Nuclear (WiN) has leant its support to a civil society campaign for nuclear energy to be recognised as a low-carbon option for fighting climate change.
At the organisation’s global annual conference in Vienna last week, WiN president and vice president, Se-Moon Park and Dominique Moillot, put their names to a declaration asserting that every country should have access to the widest possible portfolio of low-carbon technologies – including nuclear power – in order to reduce emissions and meet energy goals.
WiN requested that the UNFCCC “recognise nuclear energy as a low-carbon energy option”, in its protocols, and include it in its climate funding mechanisms, “as is the case for all other low-carbon energy sources”. The organisation pledged to bring this to the attention of the conference to take place in Paris in December.
By pledging support for the Nuclear for Climate movement on behalf of its 25,000 members, WiN joined the European Nuclear Society Young Generation Network and 39 other associations of nuclear scientists, engineers and professionals, including the French Nuclear Energy Society which leads the campaign. WiN’s global membership means that individual nuclear experts from more than 102 countries are now in support of Nuclear for Climate.
Key Democrat votes now ensure success in the Iran nuclear deal
Iran nuclear deal poised to go ahead after key Democratic votes secured, Guardian, Dan Roberts Sabrina Siddiqui , 2 Sept 15, Senators Bob Casey and Chris Coons, regarded as swing votes, voice support for deal as Obama approaches number of needed to withstand Republican blockade. The Iranian nuclear deal is poised to clear remaining political hurdles in Washington after key Senate Democrats indicated there was now enough support in Congress for Barack Obama to withstand any Republican-led effort to block it.
Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, regarded as a critical swing vote, became the 32nd Democrat to declare his support on Tuesday for the deal, which will ease sanctions on Iran in exchange for steps aimed at preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon.
“I believe that this is better for our security and better for Israel’s security, without a doubt, short term and long term,” Casey said in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer……..
The avalanche of Democrats coming out to support Obama’s decision on the deal in recent days raises the prospect that Republicans may fail to pass a vote of disapproval at all.
Sixty senators would be needed bring debate to a close and pass the motion of disapproval in the first place, so if 41 Democrats come out in favour, the president will not have to use the veto at all. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/01/iran-nuclear-deal-poised-final-hurdle-democrat
Military Industrial Complex responsible for huge greenhouse gas emissions
Change the Military-Industrial Complex, not the Climate, America’s Program By Alfredo Acedo | 31 / August / 2015 This year, the governments of the world will meet in Paris for the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21). Their goal will be to try to come to a binding universal agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They will negotiate a new protocol—the Paris Protocol—this time obligatory for all nations. And just like in the debates leading up to it, during the meetings of COP21, two incompatible positions will be represented:
To keep doing business with the climate crisis, without substantially reducing emissions nor questioning the dominant economic and social model, at the risk of changing the climate dangerously and irreversibly past the border of the oft-cited 2 degrees Celsius…or to change the system.
The first position will be dominant at the COP21, represented by the governments aligned with Washington and corporations. The second will be defended by social movements and civil organizations around the world, through massive demonstrations and representatives who will attend the alternative space of the People’s Summit, also in Paris. The People’s Summit will be surrounded by the geopolitical-military interests of the United States that revolve around oil..
The United States government, after historically staying on the sidelines of the international agreements to reduce emissions, now intends to lead the process. But President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, the recent US domestic policy proposal regarding climate change that was announced as “the biggest step yet to combat climate change” leading up to the Paris Summit, has proved to be the mountain in labor: a mouse that will try to limit carbon emissions from coal power plants (truly anachronistic beasts), by 32 percent in comparison with 2005, over the next 15 years.[1] A government that makes such ineffectual efforts domestically will offer only ineffectual leadership to the international effort to stop climate change.
If the new standards for energy production put forward in President Obama’s Clean Power Plan (which have unleashed the hysteria of the Republican right), many plants will be forced to close. However, these plants should have closed years ago; by virtue of not being subject to regulation, they have been able to contaminate with impunity and have continued operating for double their life expectancy.
Beyond nice-sounding phrases (“we are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and the last generation that can do something about it”), the Plan’s diagnostic element, which corresponds to scientific consensus, does little more than underline the huge gap between the seriousness of the issue, which Obama admits, and the insufficient measures that the Plan contains. It does not look at the contaminating industry as a whole, and it does not take back the administration’s actions that led to fracking and gave a green light to Shell for Arctic drilling.
The Pentagon and Petroleum
Obama used a meeting with the Pentagon to argue that climate change presents national security risks, but he would never even consider including the armed forces in his emissions reduction plan.
The military-industrial complex that holds power in the world is the principle levee holding back the currents that are trying to limit and eventually do away with our civilization’s addiction to fossil fuels.
What is the institution that consumes the most petroleum in the world? The Yankee army.[2] Who guarantees the continued hegemony of the global system led by oil companies (and others)? The Yankee army.
This is why the transition to clean and renewable energy sources is so difficult. …….
There is no time to wait for renewable energy to achieve the density that the military industrial complex requires. The change needs to take place in the short term—in the current decade, let’s say—and this means reducing not only emissions but also energy consumption itself, and radically transforming our transportation systems, production and consumption.
Background Changes
The climate crisis obligates us to make deep changes in the development model, the capitalist system and in civilization itself. In order to avoid the worst climate effects, it is urgent that we abandon the logic of infinite growth (unviable in a finite world), that we reduce consumption of energy and that we accelerate the transition to clean and renewable sources.
But it is also necessary to do away with poverty. Close to one billion people in the planet go to sleep every day near the limits of survival. If there is something that characterizes the global capitalist world—in addition to planetary militarization—it is the enormous gap between rich and poor, which has grown tremendously in the last 30 years. Militarism and poverty are two sides of the same coin. It is estimated that with close to 5% of current military spending, extreme poverty could be eradicated.[6]
A new model of development, one that would correct the deviations that have brought humanity to a dead end, should be based on economic solidarity, food sovereignty and Good Living. The economy should produce wellbeing for all without destroying the environment. The society would create harmony to the extent that all benefits would have an equal impact, without exploiting workers, discriminating against women, or violating social rights and individual guarantees.
This crisis demands that we put a stop to free-market globalization and simultaneously end militarism, two very expensive elements of the current dominant system. http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/16005
Governor urges Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to act on safety
Baker Urges Plymouth Nuclear Plant Owners To Correct Safety Problems September 3, 2015
By WBUR NEWSROOM Gov. Charlie Baker is urging the operators of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to take action after federal inspectors announced they would be increasing oversight of the plant due to safety violations.
In a letter Thursday to Entergy Nuclear Operations, Baker expressed concern that the company hadn’t taken action to address the causes of several unplanned shutdowns at the Plymouth plant dating back to 2013.
He urged Entergy to “perform an appropriate root cause analysis of the shutdowns and to complete all necessary repairs and corrective actions.”……..http://www.wbur.org/2015/09/03/baker-pilgrim-nuclear
US Government Intervened in False Claims Lawsuit Against Fluor Companies
“JUSTICE NEWS
Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, November 8, 2012
US Government Intervenes in False Claims Lawsuit Against Fluor Companies
The government has intervened in a lawsuit against Fluor Hanford Inc. and its parent company, Fluor Corporation (collectively Fluor), in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, the Justice Department announced today. Fluor Hanford, Inc. is a subsidiary of Fluor Corporation, a Texas-based corporation that provides a wide variety of services to government and private customers. The False Claims Act lawsuit was originally filed by whistleblower Loydene Rambo, a former employee of Fluor.
Between 1999 and 2008, Fluor had a prime contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) to provide a wide variety of security, maintenance and operational services at the DOE’s Hanford Nuclear Site in southeastern Washington State. As part of its contract, Fluor was responsible for managing and…
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U.S. Department of Energy Sued Over Hanford Nuclear Site Worker Health and Safety Failures
News Release from the State of Washington’s Attorney General’s Office:
“AG SUES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OVER HANFORD WORKER SAFETY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Sep 2 2015
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) alleging that hazardous tank vapors at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, pose a serious risk to workers at the site.
“For years, Washington workers have been exposed to noxious fumes and chemical vapors as they clean up the federal government’s nuclear site at Hanford,” Ferguson said. “Enough is enough. The health risks are real, and the state is taking action today to ensure the federal government protects these workers now and in the future.”
The 586-square-mile Hanford nuclear site located on the Columbia River in Eastern Washington was used to produce plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program from 1943 to 1987.
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‘Political rhetoric, not science’: Greenpeace slams IAEA Fukushima report
On Monday, IAEA said that despite uncertainties about the radiation doses incurred by children immediately after the accident, “an increase in childhood thyroid cancer attributable to the accident is unlikely.”
READ MORE: Child cancers ‘attributable’ to Fukushima disaster ‘unlikely’ to increase – IAEA
On Tuesday, Greenpeace slammed the conclusions of the UN body as being ‘political rhetoric’.
“Nobody knows how much radiation citizens were exposed to in the immediate days following the disaster. If you don’t know the doses, then you can’t conclude there won’t be any consequences. To say otherwise is political rhetoric, not science,” said Kendra Ulrich, senior global energy campaigner with Greenpeace Japan.
Part of the reason why no solid data is available regarding the potential exposure of the civilian population, as IAEA notes, resulted from the chaos and unpreparedness of the authorities to deal with and document the radiological impact of the March 2011 industrial disaster. Besides security
and design “weaknesses” at the nuclear facility, IAEA also noted the government’s failure to swiftly and uniformly distribute stable iodine to block radiological effects in humans.
Greenpeace notes that those were evident failures on behalf of both Tepco and Tokyo, and remains certain that there is no safe level of radiation exposure following a nuclear disaster.
Meanwhile, Japanese media reported that yet another youth has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, bringing the total number of young victims to 104, out of the 385,000 Fukushima Prefecture non-adult residents at the time of the accident.
At the same time, the prefectural government committee investigating the issue said that “as of now, it is unlikely for the thyroid cancers found in Fukushima Prefecture to have been caused by the nuclear power plant accident,” Asahi News quotes.
Greenpeace blames IAEA for being complicit in covering up the truth about the potential harm posed by Fukushima fallout.
“The IAEA report actively supports the Abe government’s and the global nuclear industry’s agenda to make it appear that things can return to normal after a nuclear disaster,” Ulrich said. She accused Tokyo of giving the green light for Fukushima residents to return home, despite the risk of further nuclear exposure.
The organization also criticized the government’s move to restart nuclear power plants in the country. Last month, the Japanese government approved the program, which would let evacuees temporarily return to their homes for up to three months. The program is a step towards lifting the evacuation order and encouraging people to go back to their former residencies.
“But there is nothing normal about the lifestyle and exposure rates that the victims are being asked to return to,” Ulrich continued. “To intentionally subject nuclear victims to raised radiation levels is unjustified, particularly when we have the tragic reminder of Chernobyl where we saw increased rates of cancers more than five years after the crisis.”
The environmental NGO claims that its July investigation registered radioactive contamination levels in Fukushima prefecture at such a “high level” that it would be “impossible” for people to return.
Tokyo plans to lift the evacuation order by spring 2017 for many parts of the evacuation area stretching to a 20-kilometer radius around the Fukushima plant in addition to other zones that had high levels of radiation. Currently about 79,000 people from 10 localities remain evacuated.
Source: RT
http://www.rt.com/news/314053-greenpeace-criticises-iaea-fukushima/
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