Sense About Science aka UK Science Media Centre lobbies for the pesticide companies in the European Union despite Brexit
Corporate funded lobby group Sense About Science aka the Science Media Centre is trying to get Europe to control pesticide lobbies agricultural science view now after its moderately successful campaign controlling the nuclear sciences (post Leveson Inquiry). Going to the Science Media Centre Website you can see all the corporations that donate to this lobbyist “charity” including big Agro, nuclear energy etc
Here is the latest in UK lobbying for corporate interests that gives a link to the Sense About Science “Charity” web site
http://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/opinion/trusting-science-in-an-age-of-truthiness/
More info on the Science Media Centre controlling the perception of health and environmental effects here with the help of the BBC amongst others;
https://nuclear-news.net/?s=Science+Media+Centre
And an article discusing some of the arguments about industries claims of “sound science”or Fiona Fox MD of the Science Media Centre`s claim of “the right science”
SNIP
“…
How sound is ‘sound science’?
While in itself far from perfect, the EU has a ‘farm to fork’ policy where each part of the food chain is monitored and – at least in some areas – applies the precautionary principle. The US system in contrast focuses only on the end product, which can only be regulated or banned when there is a scientific consensus on its danger or toxicity. Meanwhile, Europe’s precautionary principle enables intervention without waiting for the end of the scientific debate.
From tobacco to climate change, there is a long history of industry tactics to create doubt over the scientific evidence, paying studies to maintain this doubt alive in the media and attacking any unwanted evidence as ‘junk science’ as opposed to ‘sound science’. In a hard hitting column published in Nature, science writer Colin Macilwain says: “The term ‘sound science’ has become Orwellian double-speak for various forms of pro-business spin.”9
This is just as true in food regulation. With TTIP, industry is taking its fake notion of ‘sound science’ to stage an ongoing attack on the EU food safety system, implying that it is not science-based. ECPA and CropLife for instance attack the EU pesticide risk assessment, demanding “the inclusion of science-based risk assessment as the unified basis for pesticide regulation”.10 Indeed, US-negotiators are already pushing strongly for a separate article on “science-based risk assessment” in TTIP.11
In fact, while industry claims that current EU risk assessments are more demanding than is scientifically legitimate, environmental and public health organisations are saying the opposite: science is showing that risk assessments and safety studies – notably for pesticides and GMOs – should be strengthened also in Europe.12 …”
END SNIP
https://corporateeurope.org/international-trade/2014/07/ttip-lose-lose-deal-food-and-farming
BBC and Science Media Centre (SMC UK) are pro nuclear spruikers
the BBC Science team’s involvement in a shocking display of bad science during the commemorations of the 2011 disaster in 2016 March this year. Even though there was outrage in the scientific community at the Fukushima video, it was some months before the BBC quietly took down the video.
the public that saw the biased Fukushima video were unaware of the wrong and dangerous information that was given.
There are many other articles out there that show the BBC defending Geraldine Thomas (BBC Expert) after the complaints came in and rebuffs for that on fissionline magazine and this was also added pressure that forced the BBC to take the Fukushima video down. (Ed note: Geraldine Thomas is currently in Australia, extolling the benefits of the nuclear industry, and downplaying the health effects of ionising radiation) )
Sellafield – Contempt of Parliament – BBC News missed 
it. https://europeannewsweekly.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/sellafield-contempt-of-parliament-bbc-news-missed-it/by arclight2011part2 The nuclear industry supported press, in rebuffing the BBC Panorama teams claims of safety issues and lies to Parliament, we see some counters to the safety concerns but no response to the well documented evidence of the head of the Sellafield consortium lying to the Parliamentary committee and covering up the grave incident of plutonium release (and its cost) in November 2014.
Tony Price lies to Parliament (from Panorama Documentary) [on original]
The Spokesperson for Sellafield can be seen on the video acting a bit surprised at the questioning and revelations the Panorama reporter revealed. He just denied that any “spin” (ie lies) were said during the Parliamentary committee and that is the last word we have on this explosive revelation of criminality from the nuclear industry.
It is most surprising that the BBC News office did not pick this up as we see on the BBC web site they are fully aware of the issue of contempt of parliamentary procedure;
“….Examples of contempt include giving false evidence to a parliamentary committee, ….The Commons has the power to order anyone who has committed a contempt of Parliament to appear at the Bar of the House and to punish the offender…..”2008 BBC
Since that report was uncovered, the nuclear industry and their PR and government connections have swayed the public and eased their fears. The BBC and Science Media Centre (SMC UK) (Also called Sense About Science) was crucial to doing this and at the same time minimising the environmental and health impacts of the 2011 Fukushima disaster that had caused a huge drop in investor interest in nuclear projects.
So in the last 5 years the BBC has produced many supportive documentaries and educational materials favouring nuclear energy (Since the SMC UK started to receive large corporate funding) . In fact at the end of last year, the BBC science department was involved with promoting Sellafield and largely ignoring the many problems that existed there.
That was followed up by the BBC Science teams involvement in a shocking display of bad science during the commemorations of the 2011 disaster in 2016 March this year. Even though there was outrage in the scientific community at the Fukushima video, it was some months before the BBC quietly took down the video. Thereby, much of the public that saw the biased Fukushima video were unaware of the wrong and dangerous information that was given. Then just a couple of months ago a high profile visit to Sellafield by dignitaries was to underline the improvements and give Sellafield the all clear. Still other experts tried to combat the BBC and SMC UK PR management of all media regarding nuclear;
“The Ecologist, 12th August 2015 Dr David Lowry
Professor ‘Jim’ Al’Khalili’s ‘Inside Sellafield’ programme was a tour de force of pro-nuclear propaganda, writes David Lowry – understating the severity of accidents, concealing the role of the UK’s nuclear power stations in breeding military plutonium, and giving false reassurance over the unsolved problems of high level nuclear waste…”
The main thing for the BBC, government and nuclear industry was that the nuclear industry was still being perceived as above board and transparent. We saw a similar maneuver after the release of the Panorama Documentary on its You Tube site (Under BBC management orders?). The video was removed after just a few hours of being uploaded and after the link had been shared to an international social media audience. The video was put back up sometime later but after the interest had passed.
Although the media has largely ignored this story many experts have been commenting on the situation in Sellafield and there is a lot of well sourced data that bears the whistleblowers observations and claims (See source links below) . But it is the criminal manipulation of politicians during the Parliamentary committee process that demands our immediate attention. It undermines our Democracy.
Whilst discussing the issue of coverage, by the BBC, of the nuclear industry (with the exception of the excellent undercover investigative abilities of the BBC Panorama team) , I asked an experienced Science Media journalist and Author on how he viewed the BBC`s general coverage of nuclear matters over recent years and he had this to say;
“The BBC is guilty of a journalistic disgrace.” Karl Grossman, Professor of Journalism, State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, USA. [11th September 2016]
Meanwhile in the UK Paul Dorfman (Energy analyst spokesman for main stream UK media) said to me;
”Recent events reveal the ongoing national disgrace that is Sellafield, including the truly appalling state of the historic spent fuel ponds’….”
And Paul Dorfman was able to qualify his point through the excellent investigative work of the Panorama team. [11th September 2016]
In France an Energy systems engineer, well versed in La Hague (The French equivalent to Sellafield) and its impacts said this in response to a discussion on the Panorama revelations;
“….those plants, Sellafield and La Hague, would exterminate the whole world population in under 40 years, because there are tons of plutonium in Sellafield and tons in La Hague adding thousand times more than necessary to exterminate all animals through the world. The biggest aberration of history, the timing bomb for the global extinction, a potential aschimothusia .[“sacrifices” committed by force of a state ] …” Xavier Nast 11 September 2016
Marianne Birkby confirmed to me the ongoing “legacy” of dangerous safety practices at Sellafield;
“…The state of the Sellafield ponds is described by the BBC as an “historic legacy” but the “legacy” is ongoing with every reactor that continues to burn nuclear fuel whose waste is sent to Sellafield for reprocessing. . The now infamous photographs of the shocking state of the Sellafield ponds that were given to Radiation Free Lakeland by a brave whistleblower are not “historic.” Those shocking photographs are a graphic illustration of the continuing madness of nuclear power….” Marianne Birkby, Founder of Radiation Free Lakeland 11 September 2016
Sources for this article (Not already linked above)
The BBC Panorama You Tube documentary linkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ1i3HScYak
Dr Lowry http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.ie/2016/09/inside-sellafield-and-military.html?spref=tw
Dr Ian Fairlie response to the Panorama findings and historical summary on Sellafield here http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/bbc-panorama-programme-sellafield/
Critical scientific analysis of the BBC Science departments dangerous and insulting attempts of reporting on Fukushima (And the reason that the BBC had to take down the video, some months later. The comments on this video are enlightening and you can see both pro nuclear and anti nuclear people actually agreeing and making known their complaints to the BBC) – March 2016https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrgdAA5oiIA
Note from writer; There are many other articles out there that show the BBC defending Geraldine Thomas (BBC Expert) after the complaints came in and rebuffs for that on fissionline magazine and this was also added pressure that forced the BBC to take the Fukushima video down.. The whole story of BBC bias in Energy matters is too vast to cover here but I leave you with the above Key words and links (for the researcher) . The truth will out!! – Shaun McGee
The lies and distortions of James Conca and his Science Media Centre advisors concerning the health of the children of Fukushima
There is an unacknowledged tragedy occurring for the children in Japan.
I think that you and your ilk are some of the most despicable human beings on the planet, willing to prostitute your intellectual abilities to mislead the public in support of an industry of death. Yet even I with such strident rhetoric don’t actually think the intention behind your rhetoric is to see thousands of children struggling with the agony of trying to survive thyroid cancer.
“Although some sporadic tumors unrelated to radiation may be included among our patients, the shortest latency period for both benign and malignant tumors was 1 year as occurred in 3 patients, whereas the longest time was 69 and 58 years, respectively (Fig. 1).” (Latency Period of Thyroid Neoplasia After Radiation Exposure
Shoichi Kikuchi, MD, PhD, et al. Department of Surgery, UCSF Affiliated Hospitals, San Francisco, CA. Journal List nAnn Surg v.239(4); Apr 2004 PMC1356259, full text at Link
{{{ Study Protocol for the Fukushima Health Management Survey – Thyroid Ultrasound Examination (TUE) Program
by Shunichi Yamashita, released online August 25, 2012
Note: Testing of the FY 2011 Cohort was actually performed in late 2011 through 2013. So claims that it is impossible for the FY 2011 Cohort results to be related to Fukushima is a misrepresentation of the actual data.
What were the results of those biopsies?
All of the figures I’ve given were drawn from the Thyroid Ultrasound Examination, FHMS http://www.fmu.ac.jp/radiationhealth/results/media/15-2_Thyroid_Ultrasound_Examination.pdf
Let’s return for a moment to Mr. Conca’s article.
Bald
Faced
Liar
Science Media Centres quietly go along with Australia’s Tony Abbott
Arclight 1 April 14 Australia and the UK covered up Fukushima using the Science Media centres with a small group of UK and Australian hand picked scientists..
The Science media centre (SMC) in the UK makes the BBC put on 1 of the 99 per cent who think there is a problem, with 1 climate denier from the remaimng 1 percent..
The UK government tells the SMC to manage the news..
The SMC is pro fracking and pro GMO too!
basically pro big buisness…
I think you were to kind with Cameron Christine.. The UK is managing climate change by saying it will be too far into the future to have any immediate effects. even after the weird weather and flooding we have been having in the UK over the winter. Also, they are commissioning some weather modification studies and has asked the SMC to deal with it.. So no articles on weather modification..
The SMC is funded and supported by petroleum, nuclear, pharma, BBC and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC UK) etc etc
follow the money! The SMC did
Great comments! I hope the refrigeration is solar!!
A plea for justice from CFR victims! Silenced by the UK Science Media Centre?
Allied NATO Government is hiding millions of
infectious NON HIV AIDS cases (like mine) under the “Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome (CFS)” ICD-code.
– Dr. Lorraine Day was on Joyce Riley’s military show THE POWER HOUR (9/12):”…HIV-Negative AIDS cases falsely reported and treated as CFS cases may be one of the biggest cover-ups we have seen.”
– In 1992 “…Newsweek made an even more shocking
announcement: …CFS patients who had the same immune system deficiencies as the NON-HIV AIDS cases…”
– Dr. Judy Mikovits stated on In Short Order (11/12) about CFS & Myalgic Encephalopathy (ME): “…consider this as NON HIV AIDS.”
– Neenyah Ostrom’s book “America’s Biggest Cover-up: 50
More Things…CFS & Its Link To AIDS” cites: “Some CFS
Patients May Be Non-HIV AIDS Cases.”
– NON HIV AIDS has been censored from mainstream media since 1992 (i.e., suspiciously, the same year that the *very mysterious* Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) presented).
Will GWS, CFS or AIDS ever make any progress unless we acknowledge these horrific facts?
My case goes up through the NIH, CDC, White House, WHO, to the UN. I testified federally in Washington-DC, and am published 16 times on 4 continents (including PEOPLE’S VOICE, FROM THE TRENCHES WORLD REPORT, & FUSE MAGAZINE).
E.g.,
www.ukprogressive.co.uk/the-aids-like-disease-seldom-mentioned/article20891.html
I hope that you will support this humanitarian issue, and
spread-the-news too (e.g., write a story, add to your e*Newsletter and/or
post
on Facebook/Twitter).
In the fight for humanity,
k
My life with NON HIV AIDS (including my federal testimony):
w ww.cfsstraighttalk.blogspot.c o m
Or simply google “NON HIV AIDS”
On the Science media centre so far,,
More to come on this sordid bit of informational control!!
Some of the research to date thats been posted up can be found here for the budding investigator!!
Fukushima cover up special – Science Media Centre UK DOES the BBC, in fact, DOES the whole country!!
FIONA FOX`S BOAT RACE
( Means FACE for non english speaking non cockney rhyming slang types)
Posted by Arclight2011part2
posted on nuclear-news.net
26 September 2013
The title says it all
But heres some of my research into these blighters .. its cluttered and unsorted but it will give you an idea of just how big a con this organisation is.. A registered charity working for the corporate PR machine.. Stunning! more to come in the next few days..
i have put a few things in the comments section of this article as well… there is a big problem with ME groups who resent what the SMC has done to their cause as well.. you can google that stuff or wait for me to get to that section of SMC science suppression campaign..
Science media: Centre of attention USA
Fiona Fox and her Science Media Centre are determined to improve Britain’s press. Now the model is spreading around the world.
Ewen Callaway
10 July 2013
“..Regardless, the SMC model is now spreading around the world, with the latest franchise slated to open in the United States around 2016. The centres are all run independently, but they abide by a unified charter crafted by Fox.
This means that Fox is about to take her message to a much wider audience. “I think there are problems with her reach,” says Connie St Louis, director of the science-journalism course at City University London and one of Fox’s loudest critics. “She’s becoming one of the most powerful people in science.”…”
“…That is a message that Fox has honed well since establishing the SMC in London in 2002. The centre’s aim is to get scientific voices into media coverage and policy debates …”
“… “Our philosophy is we’ll get the media to DO science better when scientists DO the media better,” says Fox. …”
http://www.nature.com/news/science-media-centre-of-attention-1.13362
Nature also funded the SMC UK :0
The role in the Fukushima cover up of the BBC in supporting corrupt Science Media Centres!
At the dawn of the 21st century in a little room in the UK an idea was hatched to provide media with scientists.. this 2 woman enterprise was to be funded by Monsanto and 80 odd other organisations.. The founder and director of this service was the brainchild of Fiona Fox.
guess which is Fionna?
This is the bbc`s Rebecca Morelle who knows one of the above or maybe both?
Does this guy have the hots for Fionna or Rebecca?
The connections to the BBC and other outlets in the UK gives the UK Science media an unparalleled power to manipulate the scientific argument.
Journalism would usually be looking from the outside of the science community as a check balance to fraud, incompetence or just plain mistakes.. A trained science journalist would assimilate the technical data and make a report based on unbiased oversight (depending on which newspapers they come from ).
Fionna Fox and the UK SMC decided that this oversight was getting in the way of her preferred scientists and has had many campaigns to sideline any other independent scientists or researchers.
Not content with fully corrupting UK science discussion especially on the BBC (who she has deep connections with ), as well as other main stream outlets. Fionna decided to open another in Australia.. Killing off some good critical thinking journalists and news outlets with the help of the likes Ashursts legal corporation (A UK headquartered corporation, currently trying to silence an Australian blogger – Christina Macpherson from http://www.nuclear-news.net ), therby, silencing the last of the independent voice in Australia (nearly)
Then came the Fukushima tragedy.. Fionna Fox then came swinging into action with her nuclear contacts to counter the truth of the situation in japan along side the likes of PR corporations like WPP (PR conglomerate and think tank and employer of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson ). She opened the pre crime division of the SMC Japan to counter “illegal rumour”, though this branch of her SMC empire was to fail only a year later as some truth escaped her “science blockade” .
As most people are aware by now that there are some serious deceptions going on concerning the Japanese nuclear disaster and Fionna has been quoted as supporting the nuclear Science Media Centre lobby who says “no health implications as the dose was to low”. this SMC in Japan was supported by the Australian SMC and was further enhanced by the UK SMC “experts.. The problem occurred as the news of the thyroid cancers in Fukushima began their steady upward rise.. The Japan SMC was abandoned and now lies idle as far as its public presence is concerned. However Geraldine Thomas (imperial College Uni. and Chernobyl Tissue bank)was recently quoted once again saying ther is no health effects and that the sudden rash of thyroids cancers are not proved to be from radiation. And this is good balanced science? So, maybe Fionna still has a contract in Japan or the Empire of SMC has left licking its wounds in this case. Proving the adage that ” THE TRUTH CAN HURT”
Still supporting the Japanese in an open way is good old BBC favourite, Geraldine Thomas and the small cohort of UK nuclear advisors giving an outdated and simplistic approach to explaining nuclear events such as Fukushima.
The SMC`s and the chosen ones of the science community will not allow other points of view concerning the dose arguments that are raging across the planet. They also spread rumours to usurp any faults in their corporate backed view of radiation risk assessments. A good example of this is attacks on the likes of independent researcher and scientist Prof. Chris Busby, or even attacking a huge research paper such as the New York Academy of Science (NYAS) released “http://www.globalresearch.ca/chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment/17571“
The NYAS book review was taken up by the BBC and their SMC friends and a rumour was spread that the book (a research of Chernobyl of staggering importance to the dose argument) was flawed and not reliable. This was an outright lie perpetrated by science “experts” from the BBC then onto the rest of the media. Dr Yablakovs book will NOT be seen in any of the 3 UNSCEAR meetings set for October 2013. No balanced research allowed there.
Below are some links and quotes. There is also some critiques of the SMC and Fionna Fox. Also, there is links to the impact of SMC`s on science journalism (and its not a good effect)
More on the BBC as i connect the dots. I will be posting more on the above issues in detail in the near future.
Here are some of my preliminary findings on the dodgy global Science Media Centres/Centers
https://nuclear-news.net/2013/07/11/fukushima-science-media-centres-and-their-part-in-corrupting-truth/Japanese part translated
Fukushima – Science Media Centres and their part in corrupting truth. 福島－科学Ｍｅｄｉａセンターとその腐敗してしまった真実について
I dont know why i would want to connect Ashursts with Imperial college University.. hmmm??? watch for the rabbit hole here https://nuclear-news.net/?s=imperial+college+university 🙂
And heres the connection
Ashurst advises Imperial College London of Science, Technology and Medicine on £140 million rights issue and placing of warrants
Ashurst is advising Imperial College London of Science, Technology and Medicine as a major shareholder of Imperial Innovations Group on a £140 million rights issue and issue of warrants by Imperial Innovations Group. Imperial College London of Science, Technology and Medicine was issued with warrants to subscribe for new convertible shares in consideration of the undertaking not to take up rights under the rights issue.
J.P. Morgan Cazenove placed the whole of the warrants allocated to the College with Invesco, another major shareholder of Imperial Innovations Group plc.
The Ashurst team was led by corporate partner Anthony Clare, assisted by associate Karin Kirschner.
Mayer Brown International LLP advised Imperial Innovations Group plc and Macfarlanes LLP advised J.P. Morgan Cazenove.
Hey!! Christina, I think Ashurst are being paid by someone to nobble your blog!! 😦
And this from a survivor from the Australian Thought Crime Purge, a dedicated independent science journalist cutie called Christina MacPherson 🙂 makes some relevant points.
https://nuclear-news.net/2013/07/26/sloppy-science-writing-in-australias-media/
And finally some of the links and articles that inspired me to put together this article.. sorry about the clutter but i am too busy to tweak.. please feel free to change, reblog or disseminate in any way.. i am a great believer in free crowd sourced news, so feel free to improve, correct or copy… The public is being fooled by the science and its up to us bloggers to unfool the public.. imo.. Arclight2011
Media blackouts and the health risks of GM food exposed
September 17th, 2013
The Mail, Telegraph and Financial Times were the only papers to publish the story in their print editions. According to our source, who wished to remain anonymous, the BBC had two programmes lined up to cover the study on the day it went public but mysteriously pulled the broadcasts.
Fiona Fox, chief executive of the pro-GM Science Media Centre (SMC), which receives funding from biotech companies including Monsanto, publicly claimed credit for killing media coverage of Séralini’s work in the UK.1 The SMC enjoys an exceptionally cosy relationship with the broadcaster: it has pocketed cash from BBC Worldwide and BBC staff are on both its advisory board and board of trustees. Fox has her own BBC blog.
http://gmoseralini.org/media-blackouts-and-the-health-risks-of-gm-food-exposed/
17 June 2013
By Sandy Starr
Appeared in BioNews 709
The director of the Science Media Centre (SMC), a charity that seeks to improve public trust in science, has been awarded an OBE. Fiona Fox, who has been given the award for services to science, founded the SMC in 2002 following a House of Lords report that called for better communication between scientists and the media.
http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_313767.asp
and another version of the OBE story
Genocide-denying director of the SMC awarded an OBE
More rabbit hole past this point…… you have been warned…
Fukushima – Science Media Centres and their part in corrupting truth. 福島－科学Ｍｅｄｉａセンターとその腐敗してしまった真実について
Fukushima – Science Media Centres and their part in corrupting truth. 福島－科学Ｍｅｄｉａセンターとその腐敗してしまった真実について
“they could rely on the supply of press releases from the Australian SMC so that their general reporters could write the science news”.
“一般のレポーターたちが科学ニュース記事をかけるぐらい十分な情報がオーストラリアSMCからの広報から得られるため、だという。”
“Science PR was increasing and independent science journalism was decreasing.”
“科学の報道発表は増えてきているが、独立した科学ジャーナリストが減っている。”
https://nuclear-news.net/2013/07/11/fukushima-science-media-centres-and-their-part-in-corrupting-truth/
(Editor’s note)
Science Media Centre of Japan has been inactive since 12/3/13. Last article on Fukushima disaster was June 2012.
Fukushima – Science Media Centres and their part in corrupting truth..
Posted by nuclear-news.net
11 July 2013
By arclight2011part2
I would like to bring to your attention the mechanism by which science journalism is being undermined.. It may explain George Monbiot`s conversion to the nuclear industry among other things. This mechanism is the Science Media Centers of the world and the nuclear industry driven PR machine
There is growing evidence that the existence of SMCs is also encouraging news organizations to downgrade science reporters. Recently the newspaper The Australian sacked its science reporter, Leigh Dayton. The reason she was given by the editors was..
“they could rely on the supply of press releases from the Australian SMC so that their general reporters could write the science news”. [Ed: Leigh Dayton denies having said this and we are currently endeavouring to check with the author of the Columbia Journalism Review paper as to the veracity or otherwise of the above statement.]
A large empirical study carried out recently by Andy Williams of Cardiff University, UK also confirmed that..
Science PR was increasing and independent science journalism was decreasing.
Fiona Fox and Connie St. Louis http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/science_media_centers_the_pres.php?page=4
In the UK for some time the independent scientist has been squeezed out of the media and a more pro- industry message is being given to journalists/media outlets, who do not have such a good grip of the full impact of a nuclear disaster.
The UK security services such as MI5 and MI6 have been targeting effective independent scientists and researchers such as Chris Busby, Richard Bramhall and John Large because of their negative reporting on certain aspects of the nuclear industry. the most vicious of which was directed at Chris Busby during the UK nuclear test veterans case where he was replaced with Prof Paddy Regan at the last minute who promptly lost the rest of the cases for the veterans. Richard Bramhall had his email blocked and John Larges web site was hacked.This is just a quick sample of security services interference and a book could be wrote on this subject alone.
With this as a backdrop to the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster and the way that it was handled by the media and PR companies. The SMC model was used to get a grip of the information. NGO`s such as CRIIRAD and ACRO did mange some testing of the environment but their role was limited by agreement, by the Japanese government. This can be seen in the way that Greenpeace was warned away very publicly from testing the surrounding waters to the Daichi nuclear site.
Any other scientists such as Chris Busby were stopped from setting up a laboratory to monitor the contamination efficiently and indeed in the case of Chris Busby, a smear campaign was begun by media outlets around the world. Other Japanese independent scientists and health professionals (with experience of Chernobyl) were sidelined by the press and academic worlds.
The Japanese government stopped a genetic test (a simple blood sample) that could tell if the person had damage from ionising radiation. This test needs to be done within three years (earlier for more accurate results) but the Japanese government has blocked it to mitigate the costs to the Insurance and nuclear industries. The Japanese government released only this year that they could not use this test because there needs to be a moral issues debate (the problem of finding illegitamate children was given as a reason why the tests were not done). The only reason that the Japanese government released that statement was because a Scientist had told everyone about the test on an NHK news broadcast (without consulting with the Japanese SMC)
At Fukushima, no physical health effects of radiation have been observed among the general public and effects on workers have been far lower than those at Chernobyl. The INES was meant to aid public understanding of nuclear safety but has, in fact, made it more confused. The INES should be substantially modified or scrapped.
Dr Don Higson http://smc-japan.org/eng/archives/1434
Dr Higson feels he can give advise on health effects though he was wrong on that point but continues to say that the INES should be scrapped even though there is comparable if not more health issue effects being reported even though the Japanese health system is tightly controlled by the government. This shows how the system can be corrupted with bad science and bad viewpoints with no stop checks along the way.. This statement is the last post on the Japanese SMC site with no retraction of the inaccuracies and ommissions..
In fact the combined use of SMC`s throughout the globe has hugely helped the nuclear industry out and got Tepco and others out of paying huge compensation to those effected worst by the disaster. To prove a point on the use of the Japanese SMC to mitigate this disaster and nothing else, we can see that the last entry into the Japanese SMC was in 09/03/2012 . With no mention of the dire results of the Thyroid checks that had been carried out on 150,000 children out of approx 350,000 children who may have been hit by the initial plumes (This is denied in the world of the SMC stating not enough evidence)
A common theme is to concentrate on the psychological aspects of the disaster and make that the main concern. With some blatant lies of course…
On the Fukushima site today:The four damaged reactors are in a stable cold shutdown state, cooled by water circulated through a treatment plant. Site clean-up, including removal of radioactive rubble, continues. A mid and long-term roadmap for the decommissioning of units 1-4 was issued in December 2011. Phase 1 prepares for the removal of spent fuel from the cooling ponds to commence by 2013. Phase 2 prepares for the removal of fuel debris from the reactor core to commence within 10 years. The final phase completes the decommissioning of the reactors in 30-40 years.There are still over 100,000 people evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture. In the areas within the 20km evacuation zone with an annual radiation dose of <20mSv/year, it is expected that people will be allowed to return in March 2012. For higher radiation areas, remediation is required before restrictions are lifted by perhaps 2014.Tony Irwin 2012 http://smc-japan.org/eng/archives/1441
Maybe one way for the SMCs to improve their service during such crises would be to ask the scientists offering comments to also make conflict of interest disclosures. It may, in fact, not be a bad idea to do that with all SMC activities.
Susannah Eliott, Peter Griffin, and Kate Kelland http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/science_media_centers_the_pres_1.php?page=4
I just wanted to introduce you to this side of the science “debate” and how the science is corrupted and biased without independent scientist to keep a check and balance. I was surprised to see the Australian SMC coming out in strength to ignore the plight of the children of Fukushima and save the nuclear industry from a well deserved collapse.
Here is an article i posted last year that might be relevent
Not to mention the extreme decades long MOX contracts that were signed that will force the Japanese government to re start the reactors.. imo [Arclight2011part2]
Wade Allison tries to push #nuclear power on #Ireland #Fukushima #Chernobyl #ScienceMediaCentre
That world leaders are recognising climate change and have responded with a move towards renewable energy sources should be viewed as positive.
A reduction in carbon emissions, to meet the Paris agreement’s goals, by relying on the nuclear industry, is an abysmal trade-off, considering its disastrous environmental record.
Radioactive waste is a byproduct of the nuclear industry. As you correctly indicate, (Wade Allison, Irish Examiner, June 25) nuclear processes are part of nature, but these natural processes resist being hurried.
Waste takes years to decay. Plutonium has a half-life of about 24,000 years. Where does this not-so-natural waste go?
Low-level waste from hospitals is incinerated before land burial. Waste from reactor decommissioning is deposited in geological repositories.
Waste from nuclear reactors is highly radioactive, often hot, and must be stored in a controlled environment.
At the Sellafield site in the UK, where the stockpiling of nuclear waste has been plagued with leaks, spent nuclear fuel is imported and reprocessed (recycled).
Waste arising from this is highly radioactive, must be encased in glass, and be regularly monitored.
Even with best practice management, monitoring this waste will continue for indefinite years and costs will rise as the stockpiles grow.
A common practice in the nuclear industry is the dumping of low-level nuclear waste into the sea. It is claimed by Greenpeace that the spent-fuel reprocessing plant at La Hague, in northern France, dumps “1m litres of liquid radioactive waste per day” into the ocean. The long-term impact of such dumping remains to be seen.
While population displacement to facilitate hydroelectric schemes is unfortunate, relocation because of radioactive fallout is a tragedy.
The Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 scattered 400 times more radioactive material into the Earth’s atmosphere than did the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The Chernobyl exclusion zone, measuring 2,600sq km (1,004sq miles), is one of the most contaminated areas in the world.
It is larger than Co Wexford, where, in the late 1970s, the Irish government abandoned plans to develop a nuclear plant at Carnsore Point, following opposition and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US, in 1979. The latter’s clean-up operation lasted 12 years and cost $1bn. By 2014, the price for decommissioning at Sellafield had reached £70bn.
However, a nuclear waste clean-up is a contradiction in terms. Contaminated material is simply moved to someone else’s backyard.
The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan, in 2011, is an ongoing disaster. In February, 2017, six years post-nuclear meltdown, it was reported that radiation levels at the plant were at “unimaginable levels”, following the discovery of new fuel leaks.
Professor Allison asserts that “Nuclear is for life”. Yes, it is. As he is so keen to embrace it, would he be happy take home a share of the industry’s waste?
Allison’s argument that we “must move beyond radiation phobia and accept more relaxed, evidence-based nuclear regulations” is a tall order, considering industry revelations, like the falsification of quality assurance data at Sellafield’s Mox Demonstration facility in 1999.
Undeniably, energy security comes at a cost. For nuclear energy, this is a very long-term mortgage, as both fuel and waste stockpiles create their own health-and-security risks.
There is no denying the contribution that radiation has made to medicine, but physicist Marie Curie, who did pioneering work on radioactivity, died from prolonged exposure to it.
Nuclear energy may look clean, but it is not. The spectre of artificial radioactivity from the nuclear industry looms large in our atmosphere.
Ireland has no room for stockpiles of nuclear waste, nor for the mishaps that have plagued the nuclear industry. Why jeopardise a lucrative tourism industry (€5bn a year) or our food-and-drinks industry (€12bn a year) by poisoning our landscape?
It’s not surprising that countries are refusing to invest in new nuclear plants, apart from those kowtowing to lobbyists with vested interests. Contrary to Wade Allison’s report, nuclear power seems unlikely to be popular tomorrow, given the legacy of waste it bestows on future generations.
Aidan J Collins MA
Brookville Park
Malahide Road
Artane
Dublin 5
Source of article; https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/readers-blog-nuclear-energy-is-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-853590.html
(Note from Arclight2011 – More information from this blog on Prof Wade Allison https://nuclear-news.net/?s=Wade+Allison )
AND
The Economist: Oxford Professor Says OK to Raise Annual Dose Limit by 1000 Times for the Japanese, But the Reporter Reluctant to Inhale
Dr. Wade Allison is professor emeritus of physics (particle physics) at Oxford University. The event that the Economist’s reporter refers to in the article must be the talk given at American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) on October 3, where the professor, along with another researcher, presented the strong case that the radiation exposure below 100 millisieverts per year was not a problem, if one only gets rid of the unreasonable fear of radiation. He also says the current food regulation, evacuation regulation are “unreasonable” and should be relaxed significantly.
Here’s the screen capture of a page from his presentation slides he used in the ACCJ talk:
Arevamirpal wrote: “Why did the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan invite Professor Allison? What was the purpose? Does anyone know?”
That’s the good question!
I did look in this Allison’s biography.
He’s not a genetician, didn’t work on DNA, he is not a physician either, nor a statistician… His research field is neutrinos (what are these particules?, where are they coming from the sun?, how fast they are, etc.) It’s very theorical physic. Nothing to do with radiations and their effect on human health.
So, this so-called “expert” in nothing of an expert when it’s come to radiations and human health.
So why did he take an interest for this topic?
If you have a look on this page, where he presents his firsts results on neutrinos, you can see who are his sponsors (because you can’t work on neutrinos with only a computer, a microscope and a few tests tubes; it’s costs a lot of big money):
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Ontario Power Generation, Agra-Monenco/Canatom Limited, CVD Manufacturing Inc.
All these companies are in nuclear power.So, you take the money, and you have to be grateful. You come in Japan (interesting that it’s the chamber of commerce who organized the conference) and you say what your sponsors want you to say. (may be they did the slides).
As you are a scientist, in physics, and from Oxford on top of that, your titles will impress M. Everyman, and the lie has a chance to be swallowed.But if Mr Allison is an expert in neutrinos, he is nothing but a fraud when discussing human health and radiations.
The question is: has this man something like a conscience, or neutrinos and money did eat all was left of it?
The science-based case for excluding nuclear power from the EU taxonomy
Not green and not sustainable, The science-based case for excluding nuclear power from the EU taxonomy, Beyond Nuclear, 15 Jan 2022,
A statement by Dawn Slevin, Dr. Erik Laes, Paolo Masoni, Jochen Krimphoff, Fabrizio Varriale, Andrea Di Turi, Dr. Ulrich Ofterdinger, Dr. Dolores Byrne, Dr. Petra Kuenkel, Ursula Hartenberger, Kosha Joubert, Dr. Paul Dorfman, Anders Wijkman, Prof. Petra, Seibert, Rebecca Harms, Joseph Kobor, Michel Lee, Dr. Stuart Parkinson, and Dr. Ian Fairlie
One of the most influential policy initiatives of the European Commission in the past years has been the “EU Taxonomy”, essentially a shopping list of investments that may be considered environmentally sustainable across six environmental objectives
To be deemed EU Taxonomy aligned, the activity must demonstrate a substantial contribution to one environmental objective, such as climate change mitigation, whilst causing no significant harm to the remaining five environmental objectives (climate change adaptation, sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, transition to a circular economy, pollution prevention and control, and protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems).
All eligible activities are required to comply with technical screening criteria (TSC) for ‘substantial contribution’ and ‘do no significant harm’ and to demonstrate that social safeguards are in place. The EU Taxonomy provides a common language for sustainability reporting, a foundation for green bond reporting and much more. It is intended to be used by international financial markets participants whose products are sold within the EU in order to evaluate the sustainability of their underlying investments.
The use of the EU Taxonomy is furthermore compulsory for the EU and member states when introducing requirements and standards regarding environmental sustainability of financial products, such as an EU ecolabel for investment products or an EU Green Bond Standard. It will also apply to 37% of activities earmarked as ‘climate-friendly’ financed by the EU COVID-19 recovery funding. Its science-based approach is designed to give confidence to a wide range of international stakeholders that environmental claims are not greenwashing.
The question whether nuclear fission energy complies with the ‘do no significant harm’ (DNSH) criteria of the EU Taxonomy was the focus of the Technical Expert Group (TEG) DNSH assessment on nuclear fission technologies which recommended to the Commission that nuclear should not be included in the EU Taxonomy of environmentally sustainable activities.
Taking into account the significant financial implications of adopting the TEG recommendations, it became the starting point of intense behind-door lobbying. France led a coalition of 10 EU Member States arguing that nuclear fission as well as gas-fired power plants should be included in the Taxonomy. Together with Finland (Olkiluoto-3), France is at present the only EU country constructing a new nuclear power plant (Flamanville-3).
The Finnish and French construction sites were meant to be the industrial demonstration of an evolutionary nuclear technology (the “European Pressurised water Reactor” or EPR). Olkiluoto-3 was meant to start generating power in 2009, followed by Flamanville-3 in 2012. Instead, the projects turned out to have multiple engineering difficulties and financial constraints that resulted in significant delays culminating in missed deadlines for various production start dates and tripling unit cost.
Nevertheless, in October 2021 president Macron announced that France will continue to invest heavily in the construction of EPR ‘light’ versions, next to research into small modular reactor (SMR) technology. Following consultation with Member States, the Commission charged its former nuclear Joint Research Centre (JRC) to draft another technical report in 2020 – the “Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the ‘do no significant harm’ criteria of Regulation (EU) 2020/852”. This report was reviewed by two sets of experts, the Group of Experts on radiation protection and waste management under Article 31 of the Euratom Treaty (having no specific competences in sustainability impact assessment other than impacts incurred by radiation) and the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks on environmental impacts (Sheer).
While the Sheer group pointed out some omissions, the Article 31 Group of Experts, unsurprisingly supported the conclusions of the JRC. Nevertheless, a minority report opposed the lack of integration of economic and environmental aspects, as put forward by the Rio principles for Sustainable Development.
The JRC, supported by the Art. 31 experts, concluded amongst others that: “…deep geological repositories are considered, at the state of today’s knowledge, appropriate and safe means of isolating spent fuel and other high-level waste (HLW) from the biosphere for very long timescales and the necessary technologies are now available;” “..the standards of environmental control needed to protect the members of the public are likely to be sufficient to ensure that other species are not put at risk;” “… the requirements in the [EU Taxonomy] TSC regarding protection of humans and the environment from harmful effects of ionising radiation are automatically satisfied in the EU if a licence can be issued.”
Notwithstanding the findings of the JRC and the Article 31 Group of Experts, members of the TEG DNSH maintain our position that nuclear fission energy should not be included in the EU Taxonomy of environmentally sustainable activities. We the TEG DNSH members observe that the above JRC/Article 31 Group of experts’ statements and conclusions drawn thereof cannot be fully based on scientific evidence as deep geological disposal of high-level nuclear waste entails the need for adequate quality assurance and control of waste form compatibility, as well as for monitoring of health impacts and preservation of knowledge and memory for possibly thousands of years. It also requires operational demonstration of disposal within Europe.
The fact that according to the current technical state of knowledge there is no alternative to deep geological disposal as a ‘solution’ for the nuclear waste problem does not take away from its ethically problematic character. Moreover the independent scientific evidence which the TEG presented to the European Commission, shows evidence of adverse impacts to the natural environment arising from the many processes involved in the nuclear power lifecycle (from uranium mining to waste disposal) that are operational today.
Therefore, we maintain our recommendation to the European Commission that nuclear fission energy has no place on the EU Taxonomy of sustainable activities, whether or not it is licensed. It is furthermore our view that the proponents of nuclear energy have guided the interpretation of scientific knowledge and the framing of sustainability assessment in order to use the EU Taxonomy to place a ‘scientific’ stamp on what is primarily a political position on nuclear fission energy aiming to satisfy the few EU member states that wish to promote the associated technologies.
Does the present generation of nuclear fission power plants ‘do no significant harm’? ………
The Taxonomy architecture is not designed to cater for such risks that carry an intergenerational impact lasting for thousands of years, making it an unsuitable instrument to decide on the sustainable nature of nuclear power. ………..
Other concerns with regard to DNSH criteria ……………………………..
Should nuclear fission power be included in the taxonomy as a transition activity? ……………………………………..
Further issues of justice beyond the DNSH criteria …………………….
The Way Forward .
Controlling nuclear technologies, investments, and practices requires a high level of technical expertise, which emphasizes the need for expert structures which are independent of the nuclear industry and can therefore better safeguard the common good at international, European and national levels.
The nuclear industry is currently self-regulating with oversight provided by the IAEA (with a mandate to promote the peaceful applications of nuclear technology), EURATOM framing and international committees such as UNSCEAR depending too much on international diplomacy (which recently cast doubt on the health effects of exposure to low levels of radiation).
We highlight the need for an independent international agency requiring revision of the EURATOM treaty as well in order to be able to review nuclear power issues with a focus on society’s need of sustainable development above nuclear sectoral interests, in terms of safeguarding public and environmental health, economic and energy security and general issues of justice.
The proposed inclusion of nuclear fission energy in the EU Taxonomy will channel much needed capital away from proven sustainable energy sources, create more long-term operational and waste management risks and adverse environmental and social impacts that will undermine the principles and technical screening criteria of the EU Taxonomy and crucially, undermine Europe’s credibility and standing amongst its own citizens and international peers.
Instead of giving the nuclear industry a new financial injection for solutions of the past such as the large scale EPR, the EU should focus on pressing issues such as looking for common solutions to the existing HLW problem in EU Member States (and internationally) and taking up a strong regulatory position on nuclear safety and peaceful developments in nuclear technology.
It is the responsibility of Euratom to demonstrate a real European collaboration in solving the technical as well as the environmental and economic challenges related to HLW management (emergency management, harmonised safety and QA/QC criteria for waste forms, insurances).
The signatories of this letter understand the need of the nuclear industry to receive ongoing regulatory support to ensure that their current operations, management of waste, and decommissioning are authorized and carried out in a safe manner. We therefore encourage the JRC and EU Institutions to extend and harmonise their support and strategic direction of the nuclear industry in the new energy transition paradigm, but we state categorically that the proposed inclusion of nuclear fission energy on the EU Taxonomy of environmentally sustainable activities is contrary to the TEGs recommendation to the European Commission.
The above is the content of a Statement of Concern sent by the EU Taxonomy subgroup DNSH TEG members and expert supporters to the Commission on December 21, 2021. The statement can also be downloaded in PDF format. https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72759838/posts/3774941784
The EU Taxonomy is designed to identify which activities are green: it’s about science, not promoting business
the EU Sustainable Taxonomy’s design is aimed at defining which economic activities are green – not which economic sectors are needed for the transition to a net-zero by 2050 economy
Decision-makers cannot let economic questions on energy security and cost thwart the scientific integrity of the EU Sustainable Taxonomy and still have an opportunity to save the credibility of the EU’s sustainable finance policy framework. It is now up to them to take responsibility
How to save the scientific integrity of the EU’s green finance taxonomy, By Elise Attal and Jan Vandermosten, 29 Oct 21 Decision-makers cannot let economic questions on energy security and cost thwart the scientific integrity of the EU Sustainable Taxonomy, write Elise Attal and Jan Vandermosten.
Elise Attal is Head of EU Policy at the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), a United Nations-supported international network of investors. Jan Vandermosten is a Senior Policy Analyst at PRI
It is crunch time for the EU Sustainable Taxonomy; a classification framework developed to help investors direct capital towards sustainable economic activities.
Member states and industry are heavily lobbying to include gas-fired electricity and nuclear energy within the definition of sustainable activities for climate mitigation.
While these sectors may be needed in the short-term to secure energy supply, their inclusion would fundamentally undermine the scientific integrity of the EU Sustainable Taxonomy – the bedrock on which the entire credibility of the EU sustainable finance framework relies.
Policymakers and industry should consider the risks of tarnishing investor confidence in this carefully designed and sophisticated framework aimed at providing long-term certainty.
The EU Sustainable Taxonomy regulation delineates an economic activity as sustainable if it “substantially contributes” to one out of six environmental objectives while at the same time “doing no significant harm” to any of the other five objectives. Screening criteria, based on best performance thresholds and life-cycle analysis, for instance, are under development for each environmental objective by an independent expert group, the Sustainable Finance Platform.
The Platform’s assessment relies on conclusive scientific evidence and – in the case of the climate change objective under the EU Taxonomy – whether the economic activities contribute to the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. First screening criteria for climate change mitigation and adaptation were adopted by the European Commission in April. Still, a decision on gas-fired power and nuclear was postponed at that time.
The inclusion of gas-fired electricity would seriously compromise the EU Sustainable Taxonomy’s ability to act as an independently and scientifically designed tool for guiding investment into environmentally sustainable activities in line with the EU’s goal of reducing emissions by 55% by 2030.
Research on net-zero by 2050 pathways for the energy sector, including the recent IEA World Energy Outlook, stresses that there is no remaining carbon budget for new gas investments and that existing gas-fired power plants will have to be phased out by 2035 in the OECD and 2040 globally.
The current EU Sustainable Taxonomy screening criteria for climate mitigation state that power generation from different technology sources can only make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation within an emissions threshold of 100g CO2e/ kWh. Most existing gas production today would even fall above the ‘significant harm’ threshold for climate change mitigation, which has been set at 270g CO2e/kWh.
The merits of including nuclear energy in the EU Sustainable Taxonomy are also debatable.
Nuclear energy’s potential substantial contribution to climate mitigation objectives is clear, but important questions remain over its ability to meet the “do no significant harm” criteria with regards to other environmental objectives. A report by the Joint Research Centre that was commissioned to inform a decision on this matter has been criticised (e.g. SCHEER, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Austrian Institute of Ecology) for not sufficiently addressing risks related to the storage of nuclear waste, severe incidents and nuclear proliferation.
Proponents of the inclusion of gas-fired electricity and nuclear energy in the EU Sustainable Taxonomy will argue that these economic activities have a role to play in the energy transition.
This argument is beside the point: the EU Sustainable Taxonomy’s design is aimed at defining which economic activities are green – not which economic sectors are needed for the transition to a net-zero by 2050 economy……..
Decision-makers cannot let economic questions on energy security and cost thwart the scientific integrity of the EU Sustainable Taxonomy and still have an opportunity to save the credibility of the EU’s sustainable finance policy framework. It is now up to them to take responsibility. https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/opinion/how-to-save-the-scientific-integrity-of-the-eus-green-finance-taxonomy/
Murdoch’s news media hasn’t seen the light on climate – they’re just updating their tactics —
Is News Corp really seeing the light on climate? More likely it’s pivoting to a modern style of greenwashing and delay, just like Morrison. .
What might reasonably seem like a surprising change of heart in News Corp’s stance on climate is actually a long-term tactical shift that has been occurring for at least a few years. Whatever policies they failed to destroy through their earlier campaigns, they will try and reframe through racist, nationalistic, technocratic and pro-business frames.
Whatever policies they can delay or destroy, they’ll simply keep running scare campaigns about, insisting that ‘the balance isn’t right’, and that the threat of climate action is greater than climate change, as they always have (in Australia, News Corp’s partnerships with Google and Facebook mean these campaigns to destabilise climate action are growing more powerful and more harmful every day). When the next federal election comes around, the “COSTS OF NET ZERO” scare campaigns will ramp up in Australia as they are in the UK, and News Corp will be at the forefront, pleading that acting too fast will cause catastrophe. Absolutely mark my damn words: this is what will happen.
Net zero by 2050 isn’t enough. We’ll know that the denialism has truly ended when organisations like News Corp treat the IPCC’s latest report like it’s real.
Delay is the main game
There are many substantial recent examples of this. A good one was the severe blackouts that spread across Texas in February this year, which were immediately blamed on wind power failures, alongside easily debunked claims that snows and ice were blocking solar panels and freezing up wind turbines in Texas and around the world.
This isn’t climate change denial: it’s “mitigation denial“. That is, a move away from denying the problem exists and towards decrying its solutions as utterly unacceptable. An important part of this performance is pretending to have a moment of having seen the light, but then continuing to commit the same acts of delay as before.
News Corp hasn’t seen the light on climate – they’re just updating their tactics, https://reneweconomy.com.au/news-corp-hasnt-seen-the-light-on-climate-theyre-just-updating-their-tactics/, 5 Sept 21, Have you heard the good news? One of the key institutions holding back climate action in Australia – Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation – is suddenly on Team Climate Action! Today, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that the company’s Australian outlets are set to launch a campaign urging “the world’s leading economies” to embrace a target of net zero emissions by 2050; to be fronted by columnist Joe Hildebrand. The details aren’t out yet, but I contend that we can comfortably predict what it will look like.
It will be a centrist, pro-business approach to climate action. It will make a show of dismissing the “hysterics” of climate activists, while urging governments, including Australia’s, to set distant, meaningless and non-binding climate targets. It won’t allow any room for emissions reductions in line with the 1.5C goals or the Paris agreement; no short-term meaningful targets or actions such as those highlighted in the IEA’s recent ‘net zero’ report. It won’t argue for a coal phase-out by 2030, or the end of all new coal, gas and oil mines in Australia, or a ban on combustion engine sales by 2030-2035; all vital actions if Australia is to align with any net zero target.
It’ll champion controversial technologies like CCS and fossil hydrogen. It’ll highlight personal responsibility: tree planting, recycling and electric vehicle purchases. It will not propose or argue in favour of any new policies; at least none that might reduce the burning of fossil fuels.
How can we know all this before we’ve seen the actual campaign? It’s easy – let me explain.
Done with denial
Here’s a remarkable statistic for you. In the month of August this year, global media coverage of climate saw its highest volume since the December 2009 Copenhagen climate meetings. That’s partly down to the release of the IPCC’s AR6 Working Group one report into climate change, six years in the making.
That report reiterated something extremely important: every single tonne of carbon dioxide does damage. Actions must be immediate and aggressive to align with the most ambitious pathways. Delay is deadly.
No media coverage records for Australia: coverage of climate change has dropped almost entirely off the radar relative to the high volumes of late 2019 and early 2020 (partly driven by the Black Summer bushfires).
During the Black summer bushfires of 2019-20, I did a few interviews about Australia with baffled and perplexed international reporters. “What is going on over there? Why did the people elect such a climate laggard?”. A key part of my response was to pin blame on Australia’s media industry. Mostly on News Corp, which dominates the country’s uniquely concentrated media landscape, and which is notorious for its heavily politicised climate views. In fact, a recent study quantified this in historical terms, analysing media coverage within Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia for its climate science accuracy.
By a comfortable margin, News Corp’s Daily Telegraph and the Courier Mail scored the second and fourth worst among every media outlet analysed between 2005 and 2019 (The Australian wasn’t included in the analysis). Australia has, in general, seen the least accurate climate science coverage from 2013 onwards, despite a general rising trend in scientific accuracy over the past decade. For a decade and a half, News Corp lied about climate science with the blatant aim of protecting the revenue streams of the fossil fuel industry, and protecting its political allies.
This is important as a historical study, but today, it’s increasingly irrelevant. As the study points out, the accuracy of climate science has essentially plateaued in media coverage, with outright denial consigned to the dustbin.
The authors highlights that “the terrain of climate debates has shifted in recent years away from strict denial of the scientific consensus on human causes of climate change toward ‘discourses of delay’ that focus on undermining support for specific policies meant to address climate change”. The fundamental goal is the same – staving off action – but the way it manifests is very different.
Delay is the main game
There are many substantial recent examples of this. A good one was the severe blackouts that spread across Texas in February this year, which were immediately blamed on wind power failures, alongside easily debunked claims that snows and ice were blocking solar panels and freezing up wind turbines in Texas and around the world.
This isn’t climate change denial: it’s “mitigation denial“. That is, a move away from denying the problem exists and towards decrying its solutions as utterly unacceptable. An important part of this performance is pretending to have a moment of having seen the light, but then continuing to commit the same acts of delay as before.
Murdoch’s The Sun, in the UK, did precisely this. In October 2020, The Sun launched a ‘Green Team‘ campaign that focused on ‘individual responsibility’ in the lead-up to COP26, to be held in Glasgow at the end of this year. It wasn’t long until they were celebrating their own victory in freezing fossil fuel taxes.
how it started how it’s going pic.twitter.com/p1ZVOnOKmX— Zach Boren (@zdboren) March 3, 2021
The UK’s Daily Express, another hyper-conservative outlet that ‘saw the light’, continues to publish articles attacking climate activism and, more significantly, framing climate action in an explicitly “eco nationalist” way, as UK writer Sam Knights highlights in this article in Novara media. He says,
“Make no mistake: these newspapers are not your friends. They are not your allies. Their politics are not in any way ecological. They are deeply racist, reactionary, right-wing publications. Their sudden interest in climate change is not to be celebrated – it is a terrifying indication of things to come:”
Last week, @GreenpeaceUK, @WWF, @nationaltrust, and @friends_earth signed up to the “green crusade” of the Daily Express. Just ten days later, the rightwing newspaper has already run two articles attacking Greta Thunberg… Surely these charities will now withdraw their support? pic.twitter.com/Xz5NcjLu8N
— Sam Knights (@samjknights) February 18, 2021
It’s notable that these examples seem to manifest in the UK, and less so in similar anglophone countries like Canada or the US or New Zealand. Those are led by centre-left parties and politicians, but the UK’s conservative embrace of climate action is surely a model that Australia’s PM Scott Morrison pines to replicate. Sure, the UK certainly is miles ahead of Australia in terms of climate action – but there remains a very significant gap between Boris Johnson’s climate policies and where the country actually needs to be to align with the carbon budget that its independent climate advisor body has laid out.
A technocratic, rich white country with a government more concerned with optics than doing what needs to be done to protect people from being hurt by fossil fuels. Morrison’s obviously inspired by the UK, but Australia’s conservative media outlets are increasingly inspired, too.
Net zero by sometime after I retire, please
This is all coming to a head at COP26. George Brandis, Australia’s attorney general, who once declared that “coal is very good for humanity indeed”, is now High Commissioner for Australia to the UK, and has significantly ramped up the broader greenwashing exercise that the government has been enacting over the latter half of last year and most of this one. As I wrote in RenewEconomy, that means creative accounting, dodgy charts and deceptive framing, all designed to paper over Australia’s significant failure to reign in emissions.
Morrison will almost certainly set a net zero by 2050 target before COP26, but it’ll be packaged with a collection of loop holes that allow for rising emissions in the short term. It is dawning on the government just as it is dawning on News Corp: the best way to protect the fossil fuel industry today is not to deny the science, but to pretend to accept it. This is not the end of climate denial. It’s evolution from a common ancestor.
That this effort will be lead by Joe Hildebrand is telling enough. His previous work on climate change does exactly what a centre-right campaign like this would be best at – decrying both sides as ‘hysterical’ while failing to propose anything meaningful or substantial.
This @Joe_Hildebrand piece is a near-perfect example of what I mean when I say that this is more about reassurance and excuses than it is about persuasion.
This is about figuring how to be internally okay with their own antagonism towards climate action.https://t.co/TLiiIVY2ih pic.twitter.com/k1HIoxUFIR
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) October 6, 2019
We can also see hints of what a conservative climate message looks like in a previous editorial from the more progressive News Corp outlet, NT News, which – of course – continues to host syndicated climate denial from the Sky News Australia channel. Ditto for News dot com.
This is News Corp’s northern territory outlet.
Note the ‘affordable’ – a reference to the conservative meme that decarbonisation is bad because it’s too expensive.
Even in accepting the need for action, they need to throw in messaging from previous fossil fuel advocacy. https://t.co/HifYmyX2R3
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) January 15, 2020
What might reasonably seem like a surprising change of heart in News Corp’s stance on climate is actually a long-term tactical shift that has been occurring for at least a few years. Whatever policies they failed to destroy through their earlier campaigns, they will try and reframe through racist, nationalistic, technocratic and pro-business frames.
Whatever policies they can delay or destroy, they’ll simply keep running scare campaigns about, insisting that ‘the balance isn’t right’, and that the threat of climate action is greater than the threat of climate change, as they always have (in Australia, News Corp’s partnerships with Google and Facebook mean these campaigns to destabilise climate action are growing more powerful and more harmful every day). When the next federal election comes around, the “COSTS OF NET ZERO” scare campaigns will ramp up in Australia as they are in the UK, and News Corp will be at the forefront, pleading that acting too fast will cause catastrophe. Absolutely mark my damn words: this is what will happen.
Net zero by 2050 isn’t enough. We’ll know that the denialism has truly ended when organisations like News Corp treat the IPCC’s latest report like it’s real. That is, when they acknowledge that every additional unit of greenhouse gases causes harm to life on Earth, and that actions to stop their release must be as fast as possible. That climate change is an emergency that requires rapid action to wind down the fossil fuel industry in a just and equitable way, and that its replacement must be grown to full size with just as much passion and urgency.
This campaign won’t look anything like that. We know what it will look like – and it won’t be anything surprising at all.
How the science of radiation protection was subverted to protect nuclear bombs and nuclear power
From Richard Bramhall
Low Level Radiation Campaign
This article was originally written for Radioactive Times in 2008. I didn’t set out to write the whole history of radiation protection – just to highlight the turning point when the bogus concept of absorbed dose was foisted on the world.
The nonsense of Absorbed Dose
Absorbed doses of ionising radiation are defined as an average of the energy that is transferred into large volumes of body tissue. This approach is valid for considering external exposures, like X-rays or natural gamma (cosmic rays) but not for situations where radioactive substances inside the body irradiate microscopic volume of tissue selectively. Particles of Uranium and Plutonium are examples; the range of their alpha emissions is so tiny that all the energy is concentrated into a few hundred cells. Some call this kind of situation “pinpoint radiation”. Using absorbed dose to assess the potential health damage is like a doctor examining a child whose skin is covered with small red marks.
Now look, Mrs. Smith, I’m a doctor and I’m telling you even if your lodger does stub out his cigarette on little Nelly’s tummy there’s no problem because she absorbs very little energy from it. You give her a far bigger dose when you put in her a nice warm bath.
The trick was pulled in the depths of World War 2, subverting the science of radiation protection in order to protect the Manhattan Project and the A-bomb; it has served to protect the nuclear industry ever since.
Radium autopsies and internal risk standards
Until the 1920s the main focus of radiation protection was external X-rays, but the Radium dial painters’ scandal made it obvious that internal effects needed specific investigation. This led to new standards determined by looking at the actual effects of radium in the dissected tissues of people.
Radium is produced by the radioactive decay of natural Uranium. Its own radioactive decay emits alpha particles. Unlike X-rays and gamma rays, alphas have very little penetrating power so they are only hazardous once they’re inside the body. Even then they don’t travel far but the downside is that all their energy is deposited in a very small volume of cells.
From the earliest years of the 20th century luminous Radium paint was applied to the faces of clocks, watches and compasses to make them glow in the dark. World War 1 boosted demand and through the following decades hundreds of girls and women were employed to paint dials and pointers with various brands of paint – Undark, Luna and Marvelite. They would routinely put the tips of their paint brushes between their lips to obtain a fine point for the trickier numerals. By 1923 it was clear that the Radium they thus ingested was causing dreadful, agonising and frequently fatal illnesses.
Radium mostly lodges in bone, so the diseases affected the blood-forming function of the women’s bone marrow, leading to anaemia. Those with higher body burdens had ulcers and their bones were weakened to the point where vertebrae collapsed and legs would break spontaneously. The first deaths directly attributed to Radium Necrosis came in 1925. The inventor of the Undark brand died like his workers, his bone marrow destroyed and his hands, mouth and jaw bones eaten away. Court cases, compensation payments and improved workplace practices followed (a ban on licking brushes was the first) but for a decade and a half there were no mandatory exposure limits.
By 1941 America was once more tooling up for industrialised warfare and the government was ordering large numbers of luminized instruments. By that time the global total of Radium extracted from the earth’s crust was only 1.5 kilograms but, already, the deaths of more than a hundred people were attributable to its processing and use. Officials insisted that safety standards be devised, including a tolerance limit for internal Radium. A committee of the National Bureau of Standards looked to a post mortem study of Radium dial painters and people who had been exposed to Radium through medical treatments. They saw that there were detectable injuries in all the bodies which contained a total of 1.2 micrograms of Radium but no injuries were discernible in those containing 0.5 micrograms or less. The committee settled on 0.1 micrograms as a cut-off. The history books show they knew this was a highly subjective stab in the dark.
Since Radium decays to Radon gas officials were able to use Radon as an indicator for metering. From then on, Radium workers were required to breathe into an ion chamber which detected the radioactive decays of Radon and its own daughter, Polonium. An immediate change of occupation was recommended as soon as the level indicated that a worker’s body contained more than 0.1 micrograms of Radium.
Plutonium takes centre stage
World War 2 was midwife to the principle of nuclear fission, a completely novel substance – Plutonium – and the possibility of a Plutonium-powered bomb. The Manhattan Project was set up to make Plutonium for the bomb in secret and in near total ignorance of its effects on health. It was known to be an alpha emitter so, for expediency, the standards for Radium were extended to Plutonium, modified by animal experiments comparing the effects of the two substances.
All this – both the Radium standard and the Plutonium standard derived from it – was primitive science which had no way of detecting subtle lesions and cancers which may take decades to appear. The discovery of the double helix structure of DNA was still a decade away and for another 50 years no-one suspected the existence of epigenetic effects (genomic instability and the bystander effect). So the safety standards were unlikely to reflect long-term health effects but they did have the huge philosophical advantage of being rooted in reality; the Radium researchers had followed the essentially scientific principle of looking for a relationship between cause and effect. Maybe this was because they were medical practitioners, campaigners for workers’ rights and newspapers eager for the human interest angle on any story. Maybe their investigation enjoyed some liberty because the dial painting industry was owned privately, rather than by any government, and because at that time the fate of the “free” world did not seem to hang on the outcome.
Exit Medicine, stage left; Enter Health Physics, stage right
By 1944 everything had changed. Plutonium was being produced in significant amounts and any potential it might have to kill its own workforce now affected a top-level policy funded by a bottomless budget with the imperative of building the bomb before Stalin could. More crucially for the scientific principles of radiological safety, physicians were no longer in charge, but physicists.
The agent of change was a British physicist, Herbert Parker, head of radiation protection at the Manhattan Project. His earlier career in British hospitals had made him familiar with X-rays and a kind of therapy that used Radium as an external source, confining it in tubes and placing it carefully to irradiate cancerous tissues. (This medical application had been tried as early as 1904, only six years after Radium was discovered. In marked contrast to the dial painters’ problems, it didn’t involve Radium becoming inextricably mingled with a patient’s bones.) Parker had a physics-based view; radiation was a single phenomenon, whether it came from an X-ray machine or a speck of Plutonium. As with light, where the physicist isn’t too interested in whether the source is a light bulb or the sun, Parker was concerned with how much energy the radiation delivered to the tissue of interest. The language here is of ergs, from the Greek for work. It is defined in dynes, the Greek for force; the units are physical – movement, velocity, grammes of mass, centimetres of length, seconds of time.
Parker was one of the first to call himself a Health Physicist. In his world there was no call for a bedside manner.
The internal/external Switcheroo: Act 1
Using his physicist’s approach, Parker shifted the focus from direct investigation of the effects of specific substances onto a new concept – radiation dose – which he could apply to radiation from any source and all sources, providing a way to assess workers’ total exposure to all the novel nuclides the Manhattan Project was now creating. He defined a unit of dose in ergs per gramme of tissue and called it the Roentgen Equivalent Physical, or rep. Its very name betrays the mindset; Wilhelm Roentgen was the discoverer of X-rays (for a long time they were called Roentgen rays). The source of X-rays is always outside the body, so we can see the understanding of dose, and hence risk, was now to be based on an external paradigm.
The first limit for Plutonium in the body based on Parker’s dose model was set at 0.01 reps per day, a quantity which exactly matched the energy deposition from the old tolerance limit of 0.1 microgramme of Radium. No change there then. What did change was that instead of the empirical scientific inquiry based on actual tissue damage and instead of the tentative subjectivity of the 1941 Standards Bureau Committee’s decision on a Radium level, the new model gave an impression of mathematical precision, certainty and universal applicability. This was the new, square-jawed and confident nuclear era where bombs of unimaginable power would biff the Red Menace into oblivion and unlimited atomic energy would fuel everything in a world of peace and plenty.
Internal/external Switcheroo: Act 2
Any risk model needs two types of data – for exposure and for effect. Unfortunately, there were no reliable data even for X-rays despite 50 years’ experience. There was too much variability in the machines and the conditions in which they were used; doses were largely unknowable and many of the long-term effects had yet to emerge. But after 1945 the surviving people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provided the authorities with a fresh opportunity. Funded and controlled by America, data on the survivors’ health was gathered (as it still is) in what have become known as the Life Span Studies or LSS.
A full analysis of the flaws in the LSS is beyond me. As far as studying internal radioactivity is concerned the flaw is fatal; the control population providing the base-line of expected rates of disease, to be compared with disease in the exposed population, was recruited from the bombed cities themselves – they had either been outside the city when the bomb fell, or in some other way were shielded from the flash of the explosion. The “exposed” population consisted of people who had been in the open and so received a large dose of external gamma rays. But both groups ingested and inhaled just as much fallout as each other, so the LSS are totally silent on internal radiation. The only difference between them was the external irradiation. LSS nevertheless is the basis of radiation protection standards all over the world to this day for both external and internal.
Internal/external Switcheroo: Act 3
The LSS were not begun until 1950 (another flaw, obviously, because by then many of the most susceptible people had died) but already, in 1948, America’s Atomic Energy Commission had pressed the National Council for Radiation Protection (NCRP) to develop safety standards for the growing nuclear industry. An especial concern was the quantity of novel elements which, being alpha emitters, would present internal hazards. Separate sub-committees addressed internal and external radiation. The external sub-committee completed its work quite quickly but the other was slowed down by the many complexities of internal contamination. The problem is that physicists don’t have much clue about where radioactive elements go once they are inside the body, how long they stay there or what biological damage they’re doing. Impatient with the delays, NCRP’s Executive closed down the internal committee in 1951 and stretched the report of the external committee to cover internal radiation. Karl Z. Morgan, chair of the internal radioactivity sub-committee, refused to agree that internal could be dealt with like external. For the rest of his life he was a critic of official radiological protection bodies –
I feel like a father who is ashamed of his children.
Internal/external Switcheroo: Act 4
In 1950, American influence revived the International X-ray and Radium Protection Committee (IXRPC), which had been dormant during the war. In fact only two of its members were still alive and one of those was an American who was Chairman of the American NCRP. But needs must, and an international body would probably look more credible than a unilateral American one, so IXRPC was reborn as the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). In reality ICRP was just an overseas branch of the NCRP and in 1953 it adopted the NCRP report wholesale.
Epilogue
An epilogue is a short speech at the end of a play. In the case of this drama it’s hard to be brief. I’ll give two snapshots – one is global, the other is a family tragedy.
Chernobyl
In 1986 the accident at Chernobyl spread fallout round the whole planet and millions of people inhaled and ingested it. Thousands of published reports from Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, Greece, Germany, Britain, and even as far west as the Californian coast show a wide range of post-accident health effects not predicted by ICRP’s model. In 2007 ICRP adopted new Recommendations in which there is a single reference to one study of Chernobyl. It’s a paper on thyroid cancer. They cite it for the sole purpose of establishing that it’s so hard to be sure what doses the patients had got from the fallout that the accident can tell us nothing useful. ICRP clings so hard to the dogma of dose that they are willing to rob the human race of the chance to learn about the results of the worst ever reactor accident (I wrote this before Fukushima).
Malcolm Pattinson
This is one among millions of similar stories, but enough detailed information has leaked out to let us learn from it.
In May 2007 The Guardian (linked here or here) and The Times carried reports of a Cumbrian woman’s shock at finding out what had happened to her father 36 years earlier.
Angela Christie’s father, Malcolm Pattinson, died of leukaemia in 1971. He was 36 years old and he worked at Sellafield. Or he had worked there; the Times reported that by the time he died he had been off work for 18 months because his wife feared for his health. As soon as he was dead his employers made frantic efforts to obtain organs and bones from his body. The local coroner, doctors and solicitors were involved but the family was neither consulted nor informed. In 1979, after a long battle during which the employers admitted liability, an out-of-court settlement brought Mr. Pattinson’s widow and daughters compensation payments variously reported as £52000 and £67000.
All this happened when Malcolm’s daughter Angela was in her teens. She grew up and went to work at Sellafield like her father. She married and had three children of her own. Then she read in a newspaper that her father had been one of many men in the industry whose organs had been harvested for radiological research. She asked for the legal papers and received several boxes full.
They’re quite shocking, which may indicate why Mr Pattinson’s employers were so interested in snatching his body parts. His liver contained 673 times as much Plutonium as the average for a sample of Cumbrians who had not worked in the nuclear industry and his lungs had well over 7000 times as much. His liver had 53 times the amount of Plutonium found in the most contaminated of the nuclear workers in other reports and his lungs had 42 times as much. Mr. Pattinson’s body burden was far greater than any other worker data I have seen. I conclude that he had either been involved in an accident or had been working in an unacceptably dirty environment. Either would be a scandal, but the far wider scandal is that the industry and the government would not see even those monstrous levels as a likely cause of his death.
From the data published in the Guardian I calculated the radiation dose Mr. Pattinson received from his body burden of Plutonium. Using the same methods as the ICRP I worked out the annual dose at 26 milliSieverts. That’s about ten times the usual (bogus) yardstick of natural background but it would have been nothing very remarkable in the early 1970s. Even today, when standards are more cautious, employers would still not be breaking the law by exposing a worker to such a dose so long as it wasn’t for more than one year in five.
ICRP’s risk estimates would not predict that a 26mSv dose would cause Mr. Pattinson’s leukaemia, in just the same way as they do not predict the cluster of childhood leukaemia at Seascale, next door to Sellafield — the doses are far too low. According to ICRP, if Mr. Pattinson was going to die of any cancer, the chance that it would be caused by the Plutonium in his body was only 1.3 in a 1000.
To the person in the street the idea that fatal leukaemia in a young man is 770 times more likely to be caused by bad luck, bad genes, bad diet, smoking, a virus or an act of God than by the acts of an employer who contaminated him heavily with a bone-seeking, alpha-emitting radionuclide may seem insane. It is insane. It is insane in the way Dr. Strangelove was insane; the logic is impeccable but the theoretical premises are wrong. The good news is that growing numbers of scientists are recognising that ICRP is in error. These include Jack Valentin, the man who recently retired as ICRP’s Scientific Secretary.
Richard Bramhall
Low Level Radiation Campaign
Source: http://www.llrc.org/switcheroo.htm
Lonnie Clark and Shaun McGee on nuclear media reporting in a Post Truth society
I was interviewed by Lonnie Clark from UCTV, Age of Fission on Science media Journalism in a post truth society of click-bait and emotive science based news. I explain how bloggers and amateur journalists, using well sourced data can make a change to the narrative often given out in a PR guided news cycle and make a difference.
We discuss tactics for activists and I comment on how and what caused me to get into Science based Journalism after the BP Gulf oil and Fukushima disasters.
In the Interview I explain how 2 nuclear related stories that the Main Stream “Post Truth” Media have failed to report on correctly. In fact the reportage of these stories is the complete opposite of the facts!
Interview on this You tube channel 56.00 mins;
Misunderstanding science papers and corporate spin
The first article we discussed was from ScienceDaily.com who reported on an anniversary of Chernobyl that wildlife was thriving and in fact that wildlife was adapting to radiation (often called the Hormesis). In my report we showed how wrong they were by just simply contacting the author of the science paper (Prof T. Mousseau ) and posting his reply that clarified his study that was so badly reported on ScienceDaily and their story was picked up by many news outlets;
How to Spin a radioactive bird during Chernobyl remembrance day using Google and Sciencedaily.com
SNIP
“Hopefully there will be some more comprehensive coverage of this latest
paper that includes some discussion of the broader picture that includes
the context for how such “positive” responses have evolved and how they
are not unexpected given the intensity of “unnatural” selection (i.e.
Negative effects) imposed by the radioactive contaminants in the area.”
END SNIP
And indeed, a couple of years later Prof T. Mousseau clarified this further by explaining that the antioxidants that were utilised by the small group of birds would stop them evolving in such a scenario as Global warming here in this audio interview and article;
Life after Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear disasters with Prof. T. Mousseau
SNIP
His earlier study on birds with Black pigment showed that some resilience in a small amount of bird species was due to them using antioxidants to protect from genetic damage but at some cost. This might limit the lower antioxidant levels left in these birds might cause problems for them to find mates and deal with environmental changes (such as climate change)
“Organisms can use these antioxidants to the mutational load OR use it to advertise to a mate or defend itself against some other diseases but there is this ultimate trade off that limits the success in one way or another”
Thermal regulation might be another factor due to this imbalance he said.
END SNIP
Link to the 2016 interview with Prof Mousseau here;
Professor Tsude and his thyroid study attacked but facts clarified
The second article I discussed was concerning the issue of Thyroid Cancers in Fukushima Prefecture.This came about as I was arguing in the comments section of Japan today with three Nuclear Health Physicists whether or not radiation was causing the increasing and statistically significant increases in Childrens Thyroid cancers. Eventually they came up with a number of problems with the meta-analysis done by Prof. Tsude, so I contacted the Professor with an email and the points they had made and he quickly contacted me back to refute their claims of innacuracys. In the interview I describe how this occurred and also how such questioning would shorten the peer review process, thus, helping the victims of the disaster from biased viewpoints that would delay the nuclear accident victims getting the proper support and compensation they deserves. Here is the article I did documenting that;
SNIP
[EDITORS NOTE; Prof. G Thomas did not contact Prof Toshihide Tsude
but made her claim that she cast doubt on the study? [Sam McGill said on Japan Times comments (link below) “…In any case, Gerry Thomas – who doesn’t work for the Science Media Centre – isn’t a nuclear engineer anyway. She focuses on health and radiation. So you’ve got that criticism wrong too. And it’s not just Gerry Thomas who’s cast doubt on Tsuda’s study…..]]
END SNIP
Confirming the Toshihide Tsuda Thyroid study findings in Fukushima – Answering the nuclear lobby’s questions!
The video clips are from my interview with Lonnie on the you tube video are from the first Sherlock Holmes 1920`s silent movie and part of a Babe Ruth 1920`s silent movie.
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