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Nuclear and climate news – to 23 September

It’s been an important week for the world’s climate. Today, the world’s leaders meet in New York for a Climate Action Summit. The United Nations is trying to pressure the world into faster action on climate change.  On Friday, millions, led by children demonstrated in cities around the world, for action, for abandoning fossil fuels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXXAkt2492c. I was at the Melbourne protest, and I have never seen a rally so massive, paralysing the central business district.  So many children! It’s their future.

Some good news – The ozone layer is repairing – international co-operation pays off.

Nature is being exterminated: the Climate Strikes are just the beginning of our fight back. Climate Emergency – ‘We’re losing the race’. From space, the human impact on the Amazon is clearly visible. The good, the bad and the ugly: the nations leading and failing on climate action.

The health impacts of climate change.

Rising temperatures, rising seas – the growing climate change menace to nuclear power.

The catastrophe that would be a “limited nuclear war“. Dramatic rise in the risk of a US-Russia nuclear war, which would kill mega millions.

The ‘advanced’ nuclear power sector is dystopian.

ANTARCTICA. Surface melting causes Antarctic glaciers to slip faster towards the ocean.

USA. Investigative journalism – Humboldt Bay – a case study in how not to involve the community in cleanup of a dead nuclear reactor nuclear.

RUSSIA. New nuclear weapons that could make continents uninhabitable.

IRAQ. Iraqi children with congenital disabilities caused by depleted uranium.

CANADA. Canada’s Conservative and Liberal politicians in the service of the nuclear lobby, not the Canadian people. Ontario’s secretive role in helping Trump to nuclear weaponise Space.

UK. Ever cheaper wind energy a big threat to UK’s nuclear white elephants. Strong environmental case to scrap Bradwell B new nuclear build.  Opposition in Suffolk to Sizewell nuclear plan, which hugely threatens wildlife. Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) see Revenue Asset Base (RAB) financial model as a danger to UK’s public purse.   More robots needed to clean up nuclear trash at Sellafield UK.

JAPAN. Despite previous warnings, and findings, court finds Tepco executives not guilty after Fukushima nuclear disaster. Japan is  lying about the Fukushima nuclear disaster as it promotes the 2020 Olympic Games. Japan says Dumping Fukushima’s Radioactive Water Into Pacific Ocean Is ‘Only Option. Japan’s Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi hopes son will push for abandonment of nuclear power.

FRANCE. Faulty parts found in a number of France’s nuclear reactors. Iodine tablets for 2.2 million people in France.

AUSTRALIA. In Australia, millions unite in 40 organisations to say NO to nuclear power.

ISRAEL. Israel’s duplicity about its nuclear weapons.

TURKEY. Turkey’s Foreign Minister explains hurdles in Turkey’s path to nuclear weapons.

INDONESIA. Nuclear lobby’s keen propaganda campaign in Indonesia.

NORWAY. Nuclear freighter’s Arctic voyage sparks fear in Norway.

September 23, 2019 Posted by | Christina's notes | 2 Comments

Nature is being exterminated. The Climate Strikes are just the beginning of our fight back.

This isn’t extinction, it’s extermination: the people killing nature know what they’re doing, The climate strike must be a beginning and not an end. Warming won’t be stopped by symbolism, Guardian,   @Jeff_Sparrow, 21 Sep 2019  “………. an international rebellion led by the young against generations of betrayal. We know that, as far back as the late 50s, researchers for the oil industry understood the effects of carbon on the atmosphere but did nothing about it.

In 1988 George HW Bush promised on the campaign trail to fight climate change. “I am an environmentalist,” he declared. “Those who think we are powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect are forgetting about the White House effect.”

There was, of course, no White House effect.

In 1997 the world’s leaders signed the Kyoto protocol, with Bill Clinton declaring “a commitment from our generation to act in the interests of future generations”. More emissions have been released since that agreement than in all of previous history.

How petty, how small, how childish do those politicians with the temerity to attack Greta Thunberg look! She speaks for science, idealism and hope; they embody an ignorance or cynicism so deep as to constitute depravity.

The ecological disaster that confronts us today extends way beyond climate. Some scientists speak of the “sixth extinction event” – but, as Justin McBrien argued, that phrase isn’t accurate.

We might less euphemistically discuss a “first extermination event”. Nature is not dying so much as being killed, by people who know perfectly well what they’re doing.

The need for protests could not be more urgent – and, at last, they’re happening. The global strike provides a perfect antidote to the despair so many of us have felt for so long.

There’s a nightmarishness to the isolated experience of climate change: a sense of paralysis and horror at a world sleepwalking into disaster. By coming together on the streets, we shake that off, and we grasp something of our collective strength.

In day-to-day life, there are few sections of society more powerless than schoolchildren. And yet, despite teachers and parents and politicians, they’ve spurred a movement that’s growing in almost every nation.

If they can do that, what else could be possible? What might the rest of us do, if we all act together?

Fairly obviously, the strike must be a beginning and not an end. This is not an issue where you can express your disapproval in a single rally and then go back to your daily life.

Atmospheric physics doesn’t care if we’re tired of marching or we feel that “done our bit”. Warming won’t be stopped by symbolism or fervent hopes: we need, as, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change argues, “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”.

That’s no small task, especially given the vested interests in the status quo. It would be foolish not to expect difficult times ahead……… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2019/sep/20/this-isnt-extinction-its-extermination-the-people-killing-nature-know-what-theyre-doing?CMP=share_btn_tw

September 23, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | 1 Comment