Climate optimism has been a disaster. We need a new language – desperately, Guardian 21st Sept 2017 Ellie Mae O’Hagan
Trump making America Dangerous Again, with relentless dismantling of safety laws
MAKE AMERICA DANGEROUS AGAIN Trump is dismantling rules and laws protecting millions of Americans. Here are the most important. QUARTZ, BY Heather Timmons 22 Sept 17 Between the White House’s revolving-door staffing, president Donald Trump’s pugilistic approach to foreign and domestic policy, and Congress’s gridlock over almost everything, you might assume there’s not a whole lot being accomplished in Washington DC.
But in reality, the Trump administration is changing many of the nitty-gritty but vital things the federal government does that affect the quality of life of anyone living or working in the United States. As became clear during Trump’s first 100 days, the administration is systematically dismantling consumer, labor, and environmental protections, as well as de-funding studies that might make the case for new rules. In July it said that it plans to suspend, discontinue, or change 860 rules and regulations, many of which were proposed at the tail-end of Barack Obama’s presidency.
A new onslaught may be on the way. Yesterday (Sept. 21), Trump appointed a new head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC): Dana Baiocco, a lawyer who built her career on defending companies against lawsuits on asbestos deaths and airline crashes. The commission’s former head, Eliot Kaye, had refused to follow an early White House order to eliminate two regulations for every new one passed, because it “would be counter to our safety mission.” If Trump’s past appointees are an indicator, Baiocco, who starts her new job on Oct. 27, is less likely to have such qualms……..
As the changes pile up, we’re keeping track of what’s been rolled back and what seems in danger of being weakened or eliminated. Here are the most important changes so far.
Worker protections…..
Fair wages…….
Health and safety……..
Consumer protections…..
Environmental Protections…….
Polluting the air. In March, Trump repealed Obama’s “Clean Power Plan,” which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants. (He did this after naming coal industry-backed lawyers and talking heads to his cabinet.) The plan was crafted to prevent climate change, but it would also have prevented thousands of premature deaths due to air pollution, the EPA calculated, and prevented 90,000 asthma attacks a year.
Heating the planet. In June, Trump said he would pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement aimed at curbing global warming. While the change can’t go into effect until a day after the next presidential election, and the US will continue to fund the UN body that oversees it, America’s decision to leave triggered fears that other countries might follow suit. So far, though, the major economies have only reaffirmed the deal. https://qz.com/1072054/dismantling-the-rules-that-protect-americans-a-guide-to-the-trump-administrations-destruction-from-within/
$2 million settlement over over contract rigging at Hanford nuclear site
Whistleblower helps secure $2 million settlement over contract rigging at Hanford, Thomas Clouse , The Spokesman Review, Sept. 22, 2017 A whistleblower has been paid $470,000 out of a $2 million settlement after successfully challenging what she and government prosecutors say was a shell company at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
The subcontractor charged with setting up the shell company, Federal Engineers & Constructors, worked under the huge, three-headed joint venture Washington Closure Hanford (WCH), which between 2005 and 2016 received a multibillion-dollar contract from the U.S. Department of Energy to operate the site. The contract paid for cleanup following decades of plutonium production.
WCH was comprised of engineering powerhouses AECOM, Bechtel National and CH2M Hill, which were required as part of the contract to funnel a percentage of those funds to small, disadvantaged and women-owned businesses.
In 2009, Federal Engineers & Constructors awarded a $2 million contract to Sage Tec. Sage Tec, however, was owned by Laura Shikashio – the wife of former company vice president Larry Burdge. “Ms. Shikashio knowingly misrepresented Sage Tec to be a qualified disadvantaged small business in order to be eligible for” the contract, court records state.
Federal prosecutors wrote that Sage Tec should not have received the contract and instead “was a pass-through front company for FE&C, which performed substantially all of the work on WCH’s improperly awarded subcontracts,” court records state………
The $2 million represents only a portion of what could ultimately be paid out; the fraud case is ongoing. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/sep/22/whistleblower-helps-secure-2-million-settlement-ov/
Scana Corp slides, as criminal investigation begins into $21 billion nuclear power project failure
Scana Plunges to Lowest in Almost Two Years on Criminal Probe, Bloomberg, By
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Scana received federal subpoena related to canceled reactors
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Utility faces questions on how much customers will be billed
Scana Corp. slid to the lowest level in almost two years as the U.S. began a criminal investigation into the $21 billion nuclear power project in South Carolina that the utility owner abandoned two months ago.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in South Carolina is carrying out a grand jury probe that involves agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a Sept. 7 subpoena disclosed on Friday by Scana’s partner on the nuclear project, Santee Cooper, shows. The government asked for copies of correspondence, notes and reports related to the V.C. Summer nuclear plant, including a study engineering firm Bechtel Corp. drafted last year suggesting Scana was aware of challenges plaguing the project since early last year.
Scana declined on Friday to release the subpoena it had received or comment on the one Santee Cooper disclosed. Shares of the utility owner were down as much as 3.2 percent at $55.33 as of 2:46 p.m. New York time, the lowest since October 2015.
The federal probe and intensifying backlash from South Carolina legislators doesn’t bode well for Scana as the utility owner seeks to recoup billions of dollars it spent on the project from South Carolina’s utility customers. The company’s battle to recover costs may become a flash point in the debate over who should pay for nuclear power projects that have failed to be built across the U.S. in the past decade…….https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-22/a-failed-21-billion-u-s-nuclear-project-still-haunting-scana
Russia’s mysterious move to wind energy production in Africa, despite its claims about nuclear power
Nuclear agenda in Africa under spotlight, as Rosatom launches wind energy firm, fin 24, Matthew le Cordeur Cape Town – Russia’s nuclear agenda in Africa came under the spotlight this week, after Rosatom announced the launch of a major wind energy subsidiary.
Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm this month announced the formation a new wind energy subsidiary to manage 970 MW of new capacity being developed, but assured Fin24 this week that nuclear energy is still its core business. The firm, NovaWind, will start with a capital backing of about R255bn, according to Wind Power Monthly.
Rosatom is a frontrunner in South Africa’s stalled 9.6 GW nuclear new build programme, which many expect it will win. Various other countries in Africa have shown interest or signed deals for Rosatom’s nuclear reactors. Showing how serious it is about turning Africa into a nuclear energy powerhouse, the firm has an established office in Johannesburg.
With its focus on selling nuclear reactors in Africa, it is curious that the firm is moving into the wind sector, according to Russian environmental policy expert Vladimir Slivyak.
Slivyak, addressing a gathering in Cape Town this week, said he believes Rosatom is looking to increase its focus on the lucrative wind sector. His reasoning was the lack of money in Russia and the need to develop projects outside the country to bring in much-need revenue. With the West moving to wind energy, it made sense to develop this industry, Slivyak explained.
He said it was therefore concerning that Rosatom is pushing its “expensive” reactors to poor countries, which are sold on the notion that they will transform their economies, “like it did for the West”, Slivyak explained. “Why are those same Western countries now ditching nuclear?” he asked.
Slivyak, an anti-nuclear activist based in Moscow, is well known in South Africa for leaking Russia’s agreement with South Africa in 2014.
“It makes sense to move into the renewable energy field,” he said. “We can see that even the nuclear energy market is saying nuclear is bad. The Russian energy industry has started to advertise itself to fight climate change.
“Nuclear power cannot really save this climate change crisis,” he said. “You have to invest a lot of money and even if you do this, you get a small result. There are currently 450 nuclear reactors operating around the world and these were built in the last 50 to 60 years.
“If you take all the money in the world and build another 450 reactors, you would have to spend $4.5trn. This would only see an emission reduction of 6%, while solar and wind energy would see the emissions reduce to 0%,” he said.
“It takes 10 years to build one reactor and several months to build a solar or wind plant,” he said. “With nuclear, you have to invest today and wait 10 to 30 years. With renewables, you invest today, and in half a year you may already get your energy.
Slivyak, an anti-nuclear activist based in Moscow, is well known in South Africa for leaking Russia’s agreement with South Africa in 2014.
.“There is not much money going into nuclear,” he said. “This has been happening for last 15 years, so you can’t blame nuclear’s decline on accidents like Fukushima. It has been because of bad economics and a waste problem it can’t solve.
“If you pump all the money into nuclear, there will be no money for healthcare or education. Then maybe you will wait a few decades before the power station works. If you country goes for nuclear, you will be stuck with it for 100 years.”………
“There is not much money going into nuclear,” he said. “This has been happening for last 15 years, so you can’t blame nuclear’s decline on accidents like Fukushima. It has been because of bad economics and a waste problem it can’t solve.
“If you pump all the money into nuclear, there will be no money for healthcare or education. Then maybe you will wait a few decades before the power station works. If you country goes for nuclear, you will be stuck with it for 100 years.”
Sellafield chairman resigns after only half of his 3 year tenure in nuclear decommissioning firm
Sellafield chairman to step down, The Mail, 22 September 2017
THE boss of a nuclear decommissioning site will be stepping down from his role later this month, sparking a search for his replacement.
Tony Fountain will exchange his role as chair at Sellafield after completing only half of his three year tenure in the plant’s hot seat, in favour of the international company Essar Oil.
Mr Fountain first took up the role in April last year when Sellafield Ltd became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), taking the management of the site away from international consortium Nuclear Management Partners.
Nigel Smith, a senior independent Non-Executive Director with Sellafield Ltd, will cover the role in the interim until a replacement is found by the NDA…..http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/millom/The-search-begins-for-Sellafields-new-chair-bd0712fa-774a-4beb-8678-43354a273f6a-ds
AUDIO: S.C. Governor’s Advisory Board Advises Against DOE Nuclear Plan
The S.C. Governor’s Advisory Board has advised against a proposal by the DOE to pursue a new nuclear plan.
The motivation of climate denial groups
Climate deniers want to protect the status quo that made them rich
Sceptics prefer to reject regulations to combat global warming and remain indifferent to the havoc it will wreak on future generations , Guardian, John Gibbons, 22 Sept 17 From my vantage point outside the glass doors, the sea of grey hair and balding pates had the appearance of a golf society event or an active retirement group. Instead, it was the inaugural meeting of Ireland’s first climate denial group, the self-styled Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) in Dublin in May. All media were barred from attending.
Its guest speaker was the retired physicist and noted US climate contrarian, Richard Lindzen. His jeremiad against the “narrative of hysteria” on climate change was lapped up by an audience largely composed of male engineers and meteorologists – mostly retired. This demographic profile of attendees at climate denier meetings has been replicated in London, Washington and elsewhere.
How many people in the room had children or indeed grandchildren, I wondered. Could an audience of experienced, intelligent people really be this blithely indifferent to the devastating impacts that unmitigated climate change will wreak on the world their progeny must inhabit? These same ageing contrarians doubtless insure their homes, put on their seatbelts, check smoke alarms and fret about cholesterol levels.
Why then, when it comes to assessing the greatest threat the world has ever faced and when presented with the most overwhelming scientific consensus on any issue in the modern era, does this caution desert them? Are they prepared quite literally to bet their children’s lives on the faux optimism being peddled by contrarians?
“We have been repeatedly asked: ‘Don’t you want to leave a better Earth for your grandchildren,’” quipped the comedian and talk show host John Oliver. “And we’ve all collectively responded: ‘Ah, fuck ’em!’” This would be a lot funnier were it not so close to the bone.
Climate Change (Abbreviated): Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Short-termism and self-interest is part of the answer. A 2012 study in Nature Climate Change presented evidence of “how remarkably well-equipped ordinary individuals are to discern which stances towards scientific information secure their personal interests”.
This is surely only half the explanation. A 2007 study by Kahan et al on risk perception identified “atypically high levels of technological and environmental risk acceptance among white males”. An earlier paper teased out a similar point: “Perhaps white males see less risk in the world because they create, manage, control and benefit from so much of it.” Others, who have not enjoyed such an armchair ride in life, report far higher levels of risk aversion…….
Facing up to climate change also means confronting the uncomfortable reality that the growth-based economic and political models on which we depend may be built on sand. In some, especially the “winners” in the current economic system, this realisation can trigger an angry backlash.
This at last began to make sense of these elderly engineers crowding into hotel rooms to engage in the pleasant and no doubt emotionally rewarding group delusion of imagining climate change to be some vast liberal hoax.
In truth, the arguments hawked around by elderly white male climate deniers like Fred Singer, William Happer and Nigel Lawson among others are intellectually threadbare, pockmarked with contradictions and offer little more than a cherry-picked parody of how science actually operates. Yet this is catnip for those who choose to be deceived.
It is, however, deeply unfair to tar all elderly white men as reckless and egotistical; notable exceptions include the celebrated naturalist David Attenborough……
A century after elderly military leaders cheerfully sent millions of young men from the trenches to their slaughter in the first world war, the defiant mood of today’s climate deniers is best captured by the stirring words of Blackadder’s General Melchett: “If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through!” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/22/climate-deniers-protect-status-quo-that-made-them-rich
Media letting us down, ignoring the full seriousness of climate change
When will humans be horrified by climate change? When the media give it the coverage it deserves LA Times, Grace Bertalot, 22 Sept 17 We hear a variety of explanations for the American public’s lack of real alarm about climate change: The science requires a fair amount of explanation; the enormity of the effects will become indisputable only at some future date; and economic interests and ideological momentum keep society moving along well-worn paths. (“Why the wiring of our brains makes it hard to stop climate change,” Opinion, Sept. 17)
But we are homo sapiens, the “clever humans” whose technology has transformed our planet. Are we really incapable of recognizing an existential threat and moving quickly enough to avert catastrophe?
Against all the forces that encourage confusion, indecision, and delay, one institution bears the ultimate responsibility for educating the public and sounding the alarm: the media. However, reporting on climate remains lamentably uneven and incomplete.
Every reputable news venue should be providing ongoing coverage of climate science, its implications for our way of life, and a thorough discussion of the pathways out of our predicament.
Pam Brennan, Blaming inaction regarding climate change on human heuristics is a great way to kick the can of responsibility down the road to the next generation. It’s what the baby boomer generation did when faced with evidence of a big hole in the ozone and its threat to human viability in the eighties.
Wait. No, they didn’t. They enacted legislation in cooperation with global countries to regulate the industry responsible for the offending imbalance in the global atmospheric equilibrium. It was the Montreal Protocol, and it worked.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-le-climate-change-brains-media-20170922-story.html
More delay for Britain’s Hinkley nuclear project,as labour dispute worsens
Guardian 21st Sept 2017, The UK’s first new nuclear power plant for 20 years could be delayed
again, after trade unions for construction staff working on the £20bn
Hinkley Point C project announced a ballot for strike action in a dispute
over pay. More than 95% of members balloted by GMB and Unite rejected a pay
increase offered by the French energy company EDF and its contractor Bylor
after months of discussions. Any extension of the labour dispute risks
further time and cost overruns for Europe’s largest construction project,
which is already behind schedule and over budget.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/21/hinkley-point-c-fresh-strike-threat-over-pay-dispute-delays
Despite regulations, drones continue to fly above France’s nuclear power stations
Greenpeace France 20th Sept 2017, Theoretically, in France, the overflight of nuclear power plants is subject
to very strict regulations. For certain sites, it is prohibited within a
five-kilometer and 1000-meter-high perimeter around the sites, and is
punishable by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
This regulation has not however prevented dozens of overflights since 2013. And
this without ever the officials are found: the state and EDF seem unable to
cope.
Between September and November 2014 alone, more than 30 overflights
were recorded over 14 nuclear power plants operated by EDF. Some events are
more worrying than others: on 19 October 2014, four sites (Bugey,
Gravelines, Chooz, Nogent-sur-Seine) were flown simultaneously, suggesting
that this was a coordinated operation. In January 2015, two drones flew
over the Nogent-sur-Seine power plant, located less than 100 kilometers
from Paris.
https://www.greenpeace.fr/survols-de-centrales-nucleaires-saga-continue/
Optimism about climate change is not serving us well
The extreme weather of the past months is a game-changer: surely now the world is ready to talk about climate change as a civilisation-collapsing catastrophe. A lot of work has been done since to understand why climate change is so
uniquely paralysing, most prominently by George Marshall, author of the
book Don’t Even Think About It.
uniquely paralysing, most prominently by George Marshall, author of the
book Don’t Even Think About It.
Marshall describes climate change as “a perfect and undetectable crime everyone contributes to but for which no one
has a motive”. Climate change is both too near and too far for us to be
able to internalise: too near because we make it worse with every minute
act of our daily lives; too far because until now it has been something
that affects foreign people in foreign countries, or future versions of
ourselves that we can only conceive of ephemerally.
has a motive”. Climate change is both too near and too far for us to be
able to internalise: too near because we make it worse with every minute
act of our daily lives; too far because until now it has been something
that affects foreign people in foreign countries, or future versions of
ourselves that we can only conceive of ephemerally.
It is also too massive.
The truth is if we don’t take action on climate change now, the food
shortages, mass migration and political turmoil it will cause could see the
collapse of civilisation in our lifetimes. Which of us can live with that
knowledge? It’s not surprising, then, that some years ago climate
activists switched to a message of optimism.
The truth is if we don’t take action on climate change now, the food
shortages, mass migration and political turmoil it will cause could see the
collapse of civilisation in our lifetimes. Which of us can live with that
knowledge? It’s not surprising, then, that some years ago climate
activists switched to a message of optimism.
But the message of optimism
has done is create a giant canyon between the reality of climate change and
most people’s perception of it. An optimistic message has led to
complacency – “people are saying it’s doable so it will probably be
fine” – and championing success stories has convinced people that the
pathetic, threadbare action taken by governments so far is sufficient.
has done is create a giant canyon between the reality of climate change and
most people’s perception of it. An optimistic message has led to
complacency – “people are saying it’s doable so it will probably be
fine” – and championing success stories has convinced people that the
pathetic, threadbare action taken by governments so far is sufficient.
I’ve lost count of the sheer number of politically engaged, conscientious
people I’ve met who have simply no idea how high the stakes are. Could
the language of emergency work? It has never been tried with as much
meteorological evidence as we have now, and we’ve never had a target as
clear and unanimous as the one agreed in Paris.
people I’ve met who have simply no idea how high the stakes are. Could
the language of emergency work? It has never been tried with as much
meteorological evidence as we have now, and we’ve never had a target as
clear and unanimous as the one agreed in Paris.
The one thing I know is
that the events of the last few months have changed the game, and this is
the moment to start debating a new way to talk about climate change. It may
be that if the time for a mass movement is not now, there won’t be one.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/21/climate-optimism-disaster-extreme-weather-catastrophe
that the events of the last few months have changed the game, and this is
the moment to start debating a new way to talk about climate change. It may
be that if the time for a mass movement is not now, there won’t be one.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/21/climate-optimism-disaster-extreme-weather-catastrophe
Explosion at electrical facility near nuclear power station
Daily Record 21st Sept 2017 Emergency services raced to Hunterston power station after reports of an
explosion at the Ayrshire electricity-generating facility. Fire crews
rushed to the site near the nuclear plant on Thursday afternoon.
No one has been hurt in the incident and there was no danger to the public. Locals in
the area took to Twitter to report hearing a loud bang following a
component failure in a substation at the Western Link site. The incident
took place at the converter plant operated by Scottish Power next to the
Hunterston B nuclear facility.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/breaking-news-explosion-hunterston-nuclear-11214982
Half-way to Catastrophe — Global Hothouse Extinction to be Triggered by or Before 2100 Without Rapid Emissions Cuts
Over recent years, concern about a coming hothouse mass extinction set off by human carbon emissions has been on the rise. Studies of Earth’s deep history reveal that at least 4 out of the 5 major mass extinctions occurred during both hothouse periods and during times when atmospheric and oceanic carbon spiked to much higher than normal ranges. Now a new scientific study reveals that we are have already emitted 50 percent of the carbon needed to set off such a major global catastrophe.
Fossil Fuel Burning = Race Toward a 6th Mass Extinction
The primary driver of these events is rising atmospheric CO2 levels — often caused in the past by the emergence of masses of volcanoes or large flood basalt provinces (LIP in image below). In the case of the worst mass extinction — the Permian — the Siberian flood basalts were thought to have injected magma…
View original post 855 more words
September 22 Energy News
Science and Technology:
¶ Anthropogenic climate warming could lead to temperatures of the water in some parts of the world exceeding the survival limits of their fish species, according to research from the University of Washington. Water temperatures in the tropical parts of the oceans are already nearing the upper temperature range for many fish living there. [CleanTechnica]
Fish at a coral reef
World:
¶ Conservative Chilean presidential candidate Sebastian Piñera, who leads in the polls for upcoming elections, pledged to move the country toward a fully renewable electricity grid by 2040. Piñera, who was Chile’s president from 2010 to 2014, would seek to build on investments his country has made in wind and solar energy. [Thomson Reuters Foundation]
¶ Defying the policy uncertainty that has held back utility-scale solar across most of the rest of Australia, renewables investment is gathering pace in Queensland, a region…
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1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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