nuclear-news

Climate and Nuclear Threats – this week’s news

Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

NUCLEAR.  It is generally acknowledged that the risk of nuclear war is greater right now than it was at the height of the Cold War, and that includes the risk of a nuclear war started by accident.  Some “nuclear umbrella” States feel trapped by their nuclear weapons protection.

CLIMATE. It is also becoming acknowledged that the tipping point is approaching, might even be upon us already. Unprecedented pace of global climate change – NASA. $8.8 Trillion Climate Tab left for next generation, if climate “business as usual”.

Governments, media, the public still see these issues in terms of “national interest”, but haven’t made that necessary leap of understanding that demands a global  collaborative approach. Pope Francis gets it. So do those most sober and deliberative of scientists – geologists. At the  International Geological Congress in Cape Town, on 29th August, an official expert group recommended that a new geological epoch be defined – the Anthropocene epoch.  Human impact on Earth is so profound that the most recent epoch, the 12,000 year Holocene, must give way to an epoch defined by nuclear tests, environmental pollution, and changing climate. The most appropriate commencement marker would be the spread of radioactive elements from the nuclear bomb tests beginning in 1950s.

CLIMATE.

• Catholic churches and other religions taking action against climate change, switching to green energy.
• 30 megacity  leaders join forces to urge for climate change action at the G20 in China.
• Polarisation on climate change is now worse than ever in America.
•  Climate change is affecting the marine ecosystem – krill disappearing from Antarctic waters.
• China’s glaciers– the “third pole” are losing ice mass.

NUCLEAR. An awful lot in the media about marketing of nuclear reactors, especially to South Asia. China’s aggressive nuclear marketing is causing it some problems.

UK. PM Theresa May to be pressured at G20, by China, to approve Hinkley nuclear power project. Chinese build nuclear project at Bradwell, Essex, UK might be postponed. Great danger in air transport of nuclear wastes: anger in Aberdeen.

JAPAN. 

Fukushima:

• Typhoons cause ‘ice wall’ to melt at Fukushima nuclear plant. Underground Ice Wall is Japan’s gamble to contain Fukushima’s irradiated water.
• Public Cost of Fukushima Cleanup Tops $628 Billion and Is Expected to Climb.  
• Problems persist at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear reactors.
• Niigata prefecture governor Hirohiko Izumida not seeking re-election: new hope for restarting Fukushima nuclear plant.
•  Radioactive Boar Are Thriving And Causing Havoc Near The Fukushima Power Plant.< Japan Extends Reactor Lifetimes for First Time Since Fukushima. Japan considers scrapping fast-breeder reactor as costs mount.

USA.  Legal challenges to New York nuclear power subsidies.  Watts Bar nuclear reactors shut down indefinitely, following transformer fire. Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant to shut down permanently on October 24.

NORTH KOREA‘s  grandiose plans for ‘nuclear backpack’ squad, and giant submarine.

SOUTH KOREA  worried about North Korea, plans its own Missile Defense System

PHILIPPINES   bishop, climate movement, oppose revival of mothballed nuclear plant

ISRAEL under pressure from UN to ratify nuclear test ban treaty.

September 4, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes