Future uninhabitable for Middle East, due to climate change?
Climate Change (I) Will the Middle East Become ‘Uninhabitable’? IPS, By Baher Kamal This is the first of a two-part series of reports focusing on the impact of climate change on the Middle East & North of Africa region, ahead of the signing ceremony of the Paris climate agreement, on 22 April 2016 in New York. Part II will address the dramatic issue of water scarcity in the region.
CAIRO, Apr 18 2016 (IPS) – This is not about any alarming header—it is the dramatic conclusion of several scientific studies about the on-going climate change impact on the Middle East region, particularly in the Gulf area. The examples are stark.
“Within this century, parts of the Persian Gulf region could be hit with unprecedented events of deadly heat as a result of climate change, according to a study of high-resolution climate models,” a recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) research warned.
The research–titled “Persian Gulf could experience deadly heat”, reveals details of a business-as-usual scenario for greenhouse gas emissions, but also shows that curbing emissions could forestall these “deadly temperature extremes.”
The study, which was published in detail ahead of the Paris climate summit in the journal Nature Climate Change, was conducted by Elfatih Eltahir, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, and Jeremy Pal PhD ’01 at Loyola Marymount University.
The authors conclude that conditions in the Persian Gulf region, including its shallow water and intense sun, make it “a specific regional hotspot where climate change, in absence of significant mitigation, is likely to severely impact human habitability in the future.”
Running high-resolution versions of standard climate models, Eltahir and Pal found that many major cities in the region could exceed a tipping point for human survival, even in shaded and well-ventilated spaces. Eltahir says this threshold “has, as far as we know … never been reported for any location on Earth.”……….
While global models predict sea levels rising from about 0.1 to 0.3 meters by the year 2050, and from about 0.1 to 0.9 meters by 2100, the World Bank says, for MENA, the social, economic, and ecological impacts are expected to be relatively higher compared to the rest of the world. Low-lying coastal areas in Tunisia, Qatar, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and specially Egypt are at particular risk.
Climate change also poses many challenges to the region’s cities, which represent hubs for economic, social, cultural and political activities. Rising sea level could affect 43 port cities—24 in the Middle East and 19 in North Africa, according to the World Bank study.
“In the case of Alexandria, Egypt, a 0.5 meter rise would leave more than 2 million people displaced, with 35 billion dollars in losses in land, property, and infrastructure, as well as incalculable losses of historic and cultural assets.”(TO BE CONTINUED) http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/04/will-the-middle-east-become-uninhabitable/
Indian navy announces test of 1st nuclear-propelled ballistic missile submarine
India tests 1st nuclear-propelled ballistic missile submarine RT.com 19 Apr, 2016 India’s first submarine capable of firing nuclear ballistic missiles, the INS Arihant, is undergoing sea acceptance trials and will be commissioned after their completion, the Navy has announced.
“INS Arihant is now undergoing sea acceptance trails as it had already passed several deep sea diving drills. The submarine will be commissioned after completing all the sea trials,” said H.C.S. Bisht, Vice Admiral of the Indian Navy. The 6,000-ton vessel is the first nuclear-powered submarine that can launch nuclear-capable missiles manufactured by India – the first nation to announce it has accomplished this feat after the five original nuclear powers…….https://www.rt.com/news/340146-arihant-nuclear-submarine-trial/
Nuclear Ruins Still Toxic Even After 30 Years – Chernobyl
Chernobyl Aftertaste: Nuclear Ruins Still Toxic Even After 30 Years, Nature World News. 19 Apr 16 Thirty years after what many has considered their worst nightmare, the effects of the Chernobyl explosion still live on. Many may have escaped from death but most of those who have been affected by the incident are still carrying the upshot of the trauma……..
He observed the higher amount of homocysteine, an amino acid linked to heart disease on 80 percent of teenagers. Serious hormonal level changes were also found in 45 percent of the children. Premature death is larger in the places near the explosion site which clearly shows the long-time toxic effect of Chernobyl on human health……..http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/20961/20160419/chernobyl-aftertaste-nuclear-ruins-still-toxic-even-after-30-years.htm
Nuclear war may be inevitable
The Inevitability of Nuclear War?
Nuclear war, absent an immediate, fundamental, worldwide change in attitude, could be weeks, months or years away.
MOYERS AND COMPANY, BY WINSLOW MYERS | APRIL 19, 2016 Nuclear war is coming. Our officials are currently increasing the chances of that.
I only write ominous op-ed pieces like this in the spirit of hoping I’m an inaccurate prophet. But I’m unable to avoid the difficult conclusion that nuclear war, absent an immediate, fundamental, worldwide change in attitude, is an inevitable part of our future. It could be weeks, months or years away. But it is coming. It could break out at any moment between India and Pakistan, the most likely scenario at present. Pakistan is deploying tactical nuclear weapons controlled by local commanders on the front lines in Kashmir, as if the near-miss of the Cuban crisis of 1962 had never happened. War could almost as likely start between NATO and Russia. It might begin with an accident, a misinterpretation of computer blips, a terrorist act, a careless or calculated overreach by a dictator or a troubled officer with access to sequestered codes. There are too many weapons of too many sizes connected by too many complex but imperfect electronic systems to too many fallible human beings.
If it happens, all our incremental steps toward a semblance of world order will disappear in a few minutes of unimaginable destruction, to be replaced by a barbaric chaos where medical facilities are overwhelmed and water and food supplies are contaminated. Those still alive at the periphery of the blasts will envy those annihilated at the center.
We have been gifted with the capacity to see. Instead, we are very close to doing ourselves in. We ignore the life-affirming realism of Jesus, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King Jr. in favor of the illusory “realism” of Kissinger, Cheney, Trump and Cruz. Millions on the planet continue to work their hearts out to wake people up to reasonable alternatives based in common interest and common sense.
May they prove my pessimism wrong. http://billmoyers.com/story/the-inevitability-of-nuclear-war/
Western Kenya’s solar minigrids – a rural electricity solution
A solar minigrid for 100 villages in Western Kenya, Clean Leap by DAVID KARIUKI Mar 19th 2016, Scalable solar mini grids will continue to play a major role in the rural electrification agenda in developing countries in the future. This will be fueled by the increased entry of private players into the field, and the change of regulations in respect to generation and supply of power from scalable mini grid solutions. These two are already being witnessed in Kenya. This year, Kenya is witnessing a major solar micro-grid project expected to demonstrate exactly how these power solutions can fit in rural electrification agenda now that the country is targeting 100% electricity access by 2030. The project is notable as it marks the first scalable community micro grid project since last year’s granting of the first utility concession for off-grid power supply…….
The extinction crisis in a warming world – video
How climate change is intensifying threats to nature — and what can be done …
The world is losing creatures at an accelerating rate: Species of frogs, lizards, fish and birds have all gone extinct as their habitats have been fragmented, degraded and destroyed by humans. Now, as the Earth grows warmer due to the burning of fossil fuels, the rapid disruption of the climate is placing even bigger stresses on species that are already struggling to survive.
http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2016/04/18/extinction-crisis-warming-world/82642298/ & http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/-8654598417117851837
USA energy firms – history of climate change denial from 1968
US firms knew about global warming in 1968 – what about Australia?, The Conversation, Marc Hudson, April 18, 2016 Earlier this month the satirical newspaper The Onion “reported” on the discovery in a Californian university’s archives of a dusty, yellowing report saying the time to act on climate change is now.
This week life imitated art, as it was revealed that there is indeed a decades-old report to be found in a Californian archive warning of climate impacts. The real report, as opposed to the satirical one, was written in 1968 by scientists at the Stanford Research Institute, who sent it to the American Petroleum Institute to warn of the possible impacts of carbon dioxide emissions.
That wasn’t even the start. A decade earlier, in 1959, a scientist working for oil giant Shell wrote in New Scientist about the idea of humans altering the climate, although he poured scorn on the idea.
By the early 1970s, the idea of the greenhouse effect was already in the air, if you’ll pardon the pun. It merited several pages in the Club of Rome’s landmark 1972 report, The Limits to Growth, and even got a mention in the dystopian classic 1973 film Soylent Green……..
The sceptics
Only now is the issue really coming home to roost for fossil fuel firms, such as the world’s biggest private coal miner Peabody Energy, which this week filed for bankruptcy in the United States.
Peabody’s recently retired chief executive Greg Boyce has always been combative on the subject of climate change. He told the World Energy Congress in 2010 that:
“The greatest crisis society confronts is not a future environmental crisis predicted by computer models but a human crisis today that is fully within our power to solve – with coal.”
Its now-retired chief lobbyist Fred Palmer, in a 1997 documentary, happily and emphatically states:
“Every time you turn your car on and you burn fossil fuels and you put CO₂ in the air, you are doing the work of the Lord.”………
The fallout
The New York attorney-general’s office is now demanding answers from Exxon over its response to the climate warnings of half-a-century ago.
Meanwhile, the attorney-general of the US Virgin Islands has subpoenaed the US think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a long-time ally of the fossil fuel industry, over its campaign to cast doubt on climate science.
While it is both interesting and frustrating to learn that the very companies that have worked hardest to obfuscate climate science actually knew about it before the wider public did, that knowledge doesn’t help us figure out how to deliver the sorts of deep emissions cuts that are needed now. We need to keep our eyes on the increasingly unlikely and battered prize of a habitable planet. https://theconversation.com/us-firms-knew-about-global-warming-in-1968-what-about-australia-57878
Japan’s ‘press club’ system, government pressure criticised by U.N. rapporteur on freedom of expression
U.N. rapporteur on freedom of expression slams Japan’s ‘press club’ system, government pressure, Japan Times BY SHUSUKE MURAI STAFF WRITER 19 Apr 16 After a week of conducting interviews, a United Nations expert on freedom of expression concluded Tuesday that Japan’s media independence is being jeopardized by government pressure, however inconspicuous it may be.
David Kaye, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, also said the organizational structure of the media industry in Japan has undermined journalists’ ability to counter such pressure.
“The theoretical possibility of government regulation and organization … combined cause media freedom to suffer; media independence to suffer,” Kaye told a news conference Tuesday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo.
It was his first official news conference since his original visit in December was postponed at the request of the Foreign Ministry because it was “unable to arrange meetings” with officials at that time.
Kaye pointed out there is “serious concern” about the ability of journalists to independently report on sensitive issues such as nuclear power due to the pressure exerted when the government flexes its regulatory muscles.
In February, communications minister Sanae Takaichi ominously noted that under the Broadcast Act the government can legally suspend the licenses of TV stations and networks if their programming is found to contain political bias.
Although government officials insist the remark was simply a factual statement about the law, the existence of the policy itself may reasonably be perceived as a threat to media freedom in Japan, Kaye said.
“I think this is a significant problem that the Broadcast Act allows for regulation by the government of the media,” he said, adding the law should be amended to prevent the state from being in a position to adjudicate what constitutes “bias.”
Meanwhile, Kaye also pointed out that the kisha club system in Japan — media associations formed around certain groups and government organizations through which reporters are granted access — should be abolished to regain media independence……….
The full report on Kaye’s investigation will be published in 2017 to be submitted to the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/19/national/u-n-rapporteur-freedom-expression-slams-japans-press-club-system-government-pressure/#.VxbkGtR97Gh
NASA will no longer mess with climate change denialists on Facebook
NASA on climate change: Official Facebook account smacks down dissenters, news.com.au APRIL 19, 2016 WHEN it comes to climate change, don’t mess with NASA.
The space agency has shut down climate changers in the best possible way in an ongoing Facebook discussion.
The agency, which has a NASA Climate Change Facebook page, is used to dealing with sceptics and deniers.
But one comment made last week saw the agency pounce and the comments have kept flowing since, coming faster than melting ice.
It all started after a post by the science guy Bill Nye who was talking about a climate change denier refusing his $20,000 bet that the planet will keep getting hotter.
But the thread was quickly hijacked by climate deniers.
Facebook user Fer Morales argued NASA confirmed fossil fuels were actually cooling the planet, but the agency jumped straight on it, firing back: “Do not misrepresent NASA. Fossil fuels are not cooling the planet.”……..http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/nasa-on-climate-change-official-facebook-account-smacks-down-dissenters/news-story/25219d16e4478ce851046d22b1620b63
New radwaste plan is another “con” from DOE
Likely transport routes and amounts of radwaste that would be sent to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, if that proposal should be resurrected.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has a new generation of leadership; “larger than life” John Kotek is promoting nuclear energy via selling a “durable solution” to the problem of deadly radioactive waste that is the direct result of generating electric power from the heat of fission. Without a perceived solution to handling this existential problem, promotion of more nuclear energy usually falls on deaf ears. After all, wastes that will be a hazard to all life on Earth over the next million years, even when contained, do pose a threat. And the DOE’s track record on radioactive waste, exemplified by the failed Yucca Mountain project, hardly inspires confidence.
So Kotek has a new plan: volunteers. He wants states and communities to “consent” to storing nuclear waste in their jurisdictions…
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Nuclear Waste Contractors Under US Gov Investigation; Given $13.7 Million Bonus for “Very Good” Ops; “Excellent” Tank Management But Alarm Just Went Off Indicating Increased Tank Seepage of Rad Waste
The current Hanford contractor, WRPS, LLC, for the leaky Hanford radioactive waste tanks is a consortium comprised of AECOM (due to recent purchase of URS), EnergySolutions (owned by Energy Capital Partners – mostly former Goldman Sachs investment bankers led by Doug Kimmelman), and French Government owned AREVA, which would be bankrupt if it weren’t French State owned. If AREVA knows so much then why did the US take French HEU (highly enriched uranium) or HEU waste off the hands of the French? Why didn’t the French take Swiss HEU waste or Swiss plutonium? Why, instead, was it dumped on America?
The State of Washington, Dept of Ecology, Explains: “The alarm indicates an increase in waste seeping from the primary tank into the space between the primary and secondary tank, known as the annulus.” Read the rest here: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/leaking-hanford-nuclear-waste-tanks/
Hanford Contractors Under US Government investigation
In an SEC Quarterly…
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Leaking Hanford Nuclear Waste Tanks
This was actually top news in the early 1990s and there were worries about how quickly the contamination would reach the Columbia River and how to block it. It was such top news that even those of us with heads in the sand recall it. Since the US government hires contractors that apparently don’t know what they are doing, why is it importing foreign HEU and plutonium nuclear waste? The current Hanford contractor for the leaky tanks is a consortium comprised of AECOM (due to recent purchase of URS), EnergySolutions (owned by Energy Capital Partners – mostly former Goldman Sachs investment bankers led by Doug Kimmelman), and French state owned AREVA, which would be bankrupt if it weren’t French State owned. If AREVA knows so much then why did the US take French HEU (highly enriched uranium) or HEU waste off the hands of the French? Why didn’t the French…
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April 19 Energy News
World:
¶ To avoid reduced values of existing renewable production, Norway does not plan to introduce new targets under its green certificate program, which will be ended by 2021. Norway’s green certificates scheme is operated jointly with Sweden and was introduced in 2012. [SeeNews Renewables]
Wind farm in Norway. Author: John Christian Fjellestad.
License: Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic
¶ An Enel subsidiary has started building the Cristalândia wind farm in Brazil. It will have a capacity of 90 MW and should go into service in the second half of 2017. It will be able to generate more than 350 GWh per year, enough to meet the needs of 170,000 Brazilian households. [Your Renewable News]
¶ A plan to transform Australia’s energy use to 100% renewables was published by GetUp! and SolarCitizens on Tuesday after a modelling study commissioned by the groups suggested such a transition…
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Holtec Refused to Make Costs Available to US Gov; Continues to Suck Taxpayer Money
As US attorneys noted:
“Holtec should not be able to use a highly regulated and publicly funded industry to make profits, but to refuse to provide information about the cask business when the information it possesses about cask costs are an integral part of the damages claimed by the plaintiff in this case. When faced with damages of the magnitude of those being claimed by ComEd, it is imperative that we determine the reasonableness of these claims against the Federal Treasury.” “COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. No. 98-621C Judge Hewitt UNITED STATES, Defendant, Case 1:98-cv-00621-ECH , Document 288 , Filed 03/12/2004“, Page 6 of 9 http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=14565388&z=24a65e24
What is Holtec hiding? Cheap costs with huge profits?
Holtec Spent Fuel Canisters-Casks at Diablo Canyon
Each US Nuclear power station will require around 4 spent fuel canisters-casks per year. Holtec sells them for around $1 million each, sometimes more…
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April 18 Energy News
Opinion:
¶ From talk to action: Signs of progress since the Paris climate talks • In December, 196 countries adopted the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. Since then, concrete steps have been made and examples of substantial progress that took place in 2015 are now coming to light. [GreenBiz]
Concrete results of the COP21 Paris are materializing.
Science and Technology:
¶ Researchers at the University of Bath have developed a fuel cell that can generate electricity from urine. Urine passes through the device, prompting a reaction within the bacteria which generates electricity which can then be stored or used to power electrical devices. [Bath Chronicle]
¶ The world can wean itself from fossil fuels in as few as ten years, with effort. Europe moved from wood to coal in Europe in 96 to 160 years, electricity took 47 to 69 years to become mainstream. But Ontario…
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1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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