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Scientists must tell the truth on our consumerist, ecology-killing Ponzi culture

Scientists must not sugarcoat the overwhelming challenges ahead. Instead, they should tell it like it is. Anything else is at best misleading, and at worst potentially lethal for the human enterprise.

Worried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp , The Conversation, Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University. Daniel T. Blumstein, Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, Paul Ehrlich, President, Center for Conservation Biology, Bing Professor of Population Studies, January 13, 2021

Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood.

The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now.

The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades. The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own………

academics tend to specialise in one discipline, which means they’re in many cases unfamiliar with the complex system in which planetary-scale problems — and their potential solutions — exist.

What’s more, positive change can be impeded by governments rejecting or ignoring scientific advice, and ignorance of human behaviour by both technical experts and policymakers.

More broadly, the human optimism bias – thinking bad things are more likely to befall others than yourself – means many people underestimate the environmental crisis.

Numbers don’t lie

Our research also reviewed the current state of the global environment. While the problems are too numerous to cover in full here, they include:…………

A bad situation only getting worse

The human population has reached 7.8 billion – double what it was in 1970 – and is set to reach about 10 billion by 2050. More people equals more food insecurity, soil degradation, plastic pollution and biodiversity loss.

High population densities make pandemics more likely. They also drive overcrowding, unemployment, housing shortages and deteriorating infrastructure, and can spark conflicts leading to insurrections, terrorism, and war.

Essentially, humans have created an ecological Ponzi scheme. Consumption, as a percentage of Earth’s capacity to regenerate itself, has grown from 73% in 1960 to more than 170% today.

High-consuming countries like Australia, Canada and the US use multiple units of fossil-fuel energy to produce one energy unit of food. Energy consumption will therefore increase in the near future, especially as the global middle class grows.

Then there’s climate change. Humanity has already exceeded global warming of 1°C this century, and will almost assuredly exceed 1.5 °C between 2030 and 2052. Even if all nations party to the Paris Agreement ratify their commitments, warming would still reach between 2.6°C and 3.1°C by 2100.

The danger of political impotence

Our paper found global policymaking falls far short of addressing these existential threats. Securing Earth’s future requires prudent, long-term decisions. However this is impeded by short-term interests, and an economic system that concentrates wealth among a few individuals.

Right-wing populist leaders with anti-environment agendas are on the rise, and in many countries, environmental protest groups have been labelled “terrorists”. Environmentalism has become weaponised as a political ideology, rather than properly viewed as a universal mode of self-preservation.

Financed disinformation campaigns against climate action and forest protection, for example, protect short-term profits and claim meaningful environmental action is too costly – while ignoring the broader cost of not acting. By and large, it appears unlikely business investments will shift at sufficient scale to avoid environmental catastrophe.

Changing course

Fundamental change is required to avoid this ghastly future. Specifically, we and many others suggest:

abolishing the goal of perpetual economic growth………..

Don’t look away………

Scientists must not sugarcoat the overwhelming challenges ahead. Instead, they should tell it like it is. Anything else is at best misleading, and at worst potentially lethal for the human enterprise. https://theconversation.com/worried-about-earths-future-well-the-outlook-is-worse-than-even-scientists-can-grasp-153091

January 14, 2021 Posted by Christina MacPherson | 2 WORLD, climate change, culture and arts, environment | Leave a comment

Uranium Film Festival 2020 – a huge success under difficult circumstances

Uranium Film Festival 2020 – a huge success under difficult circumstances https://www.icbuw.eu/uranium-film-festival-2020-a-huge-success-under-difficult-circumstances/

(Manfred Mohr)5. Dezember 2020 The Berlin event marked the tenth anniversary of the International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF). The fact that it took place at all in the times of Corona and that there was such a great response from the public, as well as high-quality content was a huge success that one could not have expected. ICBUW was there from the beginning as we were „promoted“ to be co-organizer this year and were even more involved than before, also in the form of the ICBUW team (Eliah Buchholz, Ilia Kukin, Arina Shpanova).

ICBUW spokesman Prof. Manfred Mohr opened – alongside IUFF producer Jutta Wunderlich – the Berlin festival and proceeded to the opening film “Vom Sinn des Ganzen” (English: „Of the sense of the whole“), which had its world premiere at the festival. This was followed by a conversation about the film, which focused on the researcher Hans-Peter Dürr. Among other things, there was a question of whether our new, younger generation is ready to replace the older one (the one of e.g.Biegert and Mohr) in peace and disarmament matters. The answer was affirmative…

There was another moderation from the side of ICBUW for the film „The Beginning of the End of Nuclear Weapons“. An intensive conversation developed with the present producer Tony Robinson, ICAN, and IPPNW representatives. Among other things, it concerned whether there is – in addition to or in connection with the Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty – an international law ban on the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. This could be derived from customary international law, as expressed in the 1996 International Court of Justice opinion on nuclear weapons.

As expected, a highlight of the festival was the performance and discussion of the film “Balentes”, which was awarded as the best documentary film. It led to an exciting, stimulating panel discussion with the director Lisa Camillo and the Sardinian ICBUW friend Pitzente Bianco. The central issue was whether and in what way the specific, culturally and traditionally shaped commitment of the Sardinian population to the protection of the island’s homeland must be strengthened through external structures and networking. ICBUW spokesman Mohr pointed out the potential of UN human rights complaints procedures for protecting depleted uranium and environmental victims.

The end phase of the festival, which the ICBUW special event on October 18 in Marienstrasse 19/20 belonged to, was marked by the award-winning film “Valley of the Gods” by Lech Majewski. In his short closing speech as well as in his festival greeting, the ICBUW spokesman expressed the hope that the IUFF will continue: „… It is essential in its bringing together of the public, artists and civil society actors concerning existing, unsolved humanity issues. We’ll stick with it in any case.“

December 10, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | culture and arts, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

Britain, and other countries, got nuclear weapons for reasons of status and pride

We’re nuclear because of the kudos, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18818883.letters-nuclear-kudos/ Ian W Thomson, Lenzie. 23 Oct 20 DAVID Crawford asks a question about why the UK Government allows a large element of UK tax revenue to be spent with the US facilities to support the UK nuclear weapon submarine resource. He answers his question by saying “money”, because the UK itself is a substantial supplier of weapons

I believe that there is more to it than he suggests. The Labour Government at the end of the Second World War could have decided not to have nuclear weapons. It initially took the option to have them largely because of status and pride. Ernest Bevin, then the Foreign Secretary, stated: “We’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it.” The costs of maintaining that status have become more and more expensive over the years, which has led to the UK becoming more and more reliant upon the US for technical support at a cost. The theory must be that it is better to have a nuclear deterrent sort of independent rather than not have such deterrent at all.

I also believe that status still has a large part to play in the UK’s position today, albeit we are far removed from the circumstances prevailing at the end of the Second World War. It is interesting that all five permanent members of the UN Security Council are nuclear powers: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US. The UK, no doubt, places great value upon that status and is likely to regard being a nuclear power as helping to sustain it. The original idea was that the five would progressively disarm in exchange for other states not acquiring nuclear weapon facilities. That idea has gone well, hasn’t it? Look at India and Pakistan and the likelihood of some others.

October 27, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | culture and arts, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Culture and pride – Britain’s unnecessary attachment to nuclear weapons

THE NUCLEAR TREATY dividing the World, Byline Times, Stephen Colegrave, 21 October 2020 “……….. Problem for Brexit Britain In the UK, our predilection for nuclear arms is cultural as much as political.

Brexit Britain is clinging on to its belief that it can regain and retain its place at the centre of the world. But the irony is that many of the nations that it wants to trade with as it turns its back on Europe are in the Nuclear Weapon Free Zones and have been part of developing and signing the treaty banning nuclear weapons.

The Brexiters’ love of patriotic militarism with navy ships and flags spearheading trade missions are likely to have the opposite effect than expected. These nuclear-free nations might be no match for the military might of NATO and the other nuclear powers but they do have complete control of their own trade.

“The ground is moving under the UK’s feet,” says Ben Donaldson, head of campaigns at the United Nations Association. “Whether or not the UK supports the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the impact will be felt. The treaty is popular with states the UK is looking to strike trade deals with and the UK is finding itself increasingly diplomatically isolated on this issue. A large majority of countries have made it clear they have lived in fear of nuclear fallout for too long and want action. As well as being immoral, the UK’s current position of variously ignoring and attacking the treaty and its supporters is unsustainable and damages its influence on the world stage.”

Government Gives Arms Industry Extra Tens of Millions of Pounds During COVID-19 Pandemic

Joshua Stein

As the fiftieth nation prepares to sign the treaty, there is hope that the nations with nuclear weapons themselves are finding it harder to justify themselves to their own populations.

There have been concerns about US President Donald Trump pressing the red button in the same way he presses ‘tweet’. Even in Britain there is a backlash. Although there are not protests on the streets like at the height of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), more and more councils are signing up to be nuclear-free zones, such as Manchester City Council. In America, the whole state of California, which has the fourth largest GDP in the world, has gone down this route. Increasingly, financial institutions are divesting in companies that are part of the supply chain and manufacturing nuclear weapons in an initiative called Wall of Fame.

Hopefully this treaty will start to call time on the nuclear weapon nations and their allies ignoring the moral and ethical case for a ban, when an increasingly large part of the world wants nothing to do with these dangerous and potentially powerless ‘deterrents’.
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/21/the-nuclear-treaty-dividing-the-world/

October 22, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | culture and arts, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Racism in nuclear bomb testing, bombing of Japanese people, and nuclear waste dumping

Langston Hughes voiced the opinion that until racial injustice on home ground in the United States ceases, “it is going to be very hard for some Americans not to think the easiest way to settle the problems of Asia is simply dropping an atom bomb on colored heads there.”[25] While his statement was made in 1953, near the eighth anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, it remains equally relevant today, as we approach the 75th anniversary

Memorial Days: the racial underpinnings of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings , Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Elaine Scarry, Elaine Scarry is the author of Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing between Democracy and Doom and The Body in Pain: the Making and Unmaking of the World. She is Cabot Profess… By Elaine Scarry, August 3, 2020

This past Memorial Day, a Minneapolis police officer knelt on the throat of an African-American, George Floyd, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Seventy-five years ago, an American pilot dropped an atomic bomb on the civilian population of Hiroshima. Worlds apart in time, space, and scale, the two events share three key features. Each was an act of state violence. Each was an act carried out against a defenseless opponent. Each was an act of naked racism. ……….

Self-defense was not an option for any one of the 300,000 civilian inhabitants of the city of Hiroshima, nor for any one of the 250,000 civilians in Nagasaki three days later. We know from John Hersey’s classic Hiroshima that as day dawned on that August morning, the city was full of courageous undertakings meant to increase the town’s collective capacity for self-defense against conventional warfare, such as the clearing of fire lanes by hundreds of young school girls, many of whom would instantly vanish in the 6,000° C temperature of the initial flash, and others of whom, more distant from the center, would retain their lives but lose their faces.[2] The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki initiated an era in which—for the first time on Earth and now continuing for seven and a half decades—humankind collectively and summarily lost the right self-defense. No one on Earth—or almost no one on Earth[3]—has the means to outlive a blast that is four times the heat of the sun or withstand the hurricane winds and raging fires that follow………

Centuries of political philosophers have asked, “What kind of political arrangements will create a noble and generous people?” Surely such arrangements cannot be ones where a handful of men control the means for destroying at will everyone on Earth from whom the means of self-defense have been eliminated……..

When Americans first learned that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been collectively vaporized in less time than it takes for the heart to beat, many cheered. But not all. Black poet Langston Hughes at once recognized the moral depravity of executing 100,000 people and discerned racism as the phenomenon that had licensed the depravity: “How come we did not try them [atomic bombs] on Germany… . They just did not want to use them on white folks.”[4] Although the building of the weapon was completed only after Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, Japan had been designated the target on September 18, 1944, and training for the mission had already been initiated in that same month.[5] Black journalist George Schuyler wrote: “The atom bomb puts the Anglo-Saxons definitely on top where they will remain for decades”; the country, in its “racial arrogance,” has “achieved the supreme triumph of being able to slaughter whole cities at a time.”[6]

Still within the first year (and still before John Hersey had begun to awaken Americans to the horrible aversiveness of the injuries), novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston denounced the US president as a “butcher” and scorned the public’s silent compliance, asking, “Is it that we are so devoted to a ‘good Massa’ that we feel we ought not to even protest such crimes?”[7] Silence—whether practiced by whites or people of color—was, she saw, a cowardly act of moral enslavement to a white supremacist. Continue reading →

August 4, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | 2 WORLD, culture and arts, history, indigenous issues, Reference, social effects, wastes, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Russian Orthodox Church just might cease its blessing of nuclear weapons

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH MAY STOP BLESSING NUCLEAR WEAPONS https://futurism.com/the-byte/russian-orthodox-blessing-nuclear-weapons JULY 10TH 19__DAN ROBITZSKI

A faction of clergy within the Russian Orthodox Church wants to end the eyebrow-raising practice of blessing the country’s nuclear missiles.

First of all, yes: Russian priests currently sprinkle holy water on nuclear missiles as part of an old tradition in which Orthodox priests bless soldiers and their weapons, reports Religion News Service. But that may change, as some priests feel that intercontinental ballistic missiles belong in a different category from individual firearms.

Faith Militant

The Russian military and the Russian Orthodox church have long worked hand in hand, according to RNS, framing many of the country’s military conflicts as holy wars. The nuclear arsenal even has its own patron saint — RNS reports that St. Seraphim’s remains were found in a Russian town that housed several nuclear facilities.

As such, the push to stop blessing nukes faces strong opposition among members of the clergy, such as the high-ranking priest Vsevolod Chaplin, who referred to the country’s nukes as “guardian angels.”

“Only nuclear weapons protect Russia from enslavement by the West,” Chaplin once said, per RNS.

Changing Hearts

One priest, Dmitry Tsorionov, parted from the more militant aspects of the Orthodox Church after seeing men willingly sign up to fight Russia’s wars “under the banner of Christ,” he told RNS. Now he wants to see less warmongering among the clergy.

“It was not uncommon to see how church functionaries openly flirted with these toxic ideas,” he told RNS. “It was only then that I finally realized what the blessing of military hardware leads to.”

February 6, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | culture and arts, Religion and ethics, Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The age of the individual must end – our world depends on it

The costs of a culture focused on an illusory idea of personal autonomy are making us ill and heating our planet. But a new age may be dawning, Guardian, Tom Oliver, Mon 20 Jan 2020 Last month, as I travelled to see family for a very mild Christmas in the UK, I thought about the bushfires simultaneously raging across Australia. They are just one example from a long series of extreme weather events in 2019, including cyclones in India and Bangladesh that displaced more than three million people, Cyclone Idai, which killed more than 1,000 people in southern Africa, floods that displaced tens of thousands of people in Iran, and entire townships laid to waste by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. The year ended with reports of record rates of Arctic ice melt that, through positive feedback effects, are likely to intensify climate heating and impact the future of humanity.

In the face of global catastrophe, it’s hard not to feel daunted. What can I, an individual, do to address such a crisis? Understanding that my daily actions are partly responsible for climate change, I feel a gnawing sense of sense of individual guilt……..

Developing human minds are like sponges and ours were submerged in ever more individualistic language. Phrases such as “unique”, “personal”, “self”, “me” and “mine” were used with increasing frequency in lyrics, TV shows and books. This immersion took its toll: analysis of data from almost 80 countries shows how the majority have shown marked increases in individualistic attitudes over recent decades.

Having a strong sense of self can be useful, but excessive individualism has its costs. The more we see ourselves as discrete entities, the more likely we are to feel isolated and lonely and to show “selfish” behaviours. As a consequence, rates of anxiety and depression are rising across the world, while the climate and biodiversity crises deepen ever further.

Yet times are changing. In the last decade, we may have seen individualism peak. ……..

the new science of social networks shows how we are linked together so closely that ideas, behaviours and preferences flow between us in a way that makes it unclear where one mind ends and another begins. …….https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/16/the-age-of-the-individual-must-end-tom-oliver-the-self-delusion

January 21, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | 2 WORLD, culture and arts | Leave a comment

10th International Uranium Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro, May 2020

Marcia Gomes de Oliveira shared a link. 2 Nov 19

Next year, May 2020, we’re celebrating the 10th birthday of the International Uranium Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro.

These filmmakers and producers have already agreed to come to Rio 2020: Peter Kaufmann (Australia), Kim Mavromatis (Australia), Laura Pires (Brazil), Angelo Lima (Brazil), Miguel Silveira (USA/Brazil), Cris Uberman (France), Marcus Schwenzel (Germany), Rainer Ludwigs (Germany), Michael von Hohenberg (Germany), Peter Anthony (Denmark), Michael Madson (Denmark), Lise Autogena (Denmark), Masako Sakata (Japan), Maurizio Torrealta (Italy), Alessandro Tesei (Italy), Amudhan R.P. (India), Tamotsu Matsubara (Japan), Tamiyoshi Tachibana (Japan), Tineke Van Veen (Netherlands), Mafalda Gameiro (Portugal), James Ramsay Cameron (Scotland), José Herrera Plaza (Spain), Marko Kattilakoski (Sweden), Edgar Hagen (Switzerland),Tetyana Chernyavska (Ukraine), Brittany Prater (USA), Ian Thomas Ash (Japan/USA).

Rio’s 10th International Uranium Film Festival is scheduled for May 21st to 31st. Do not miss it!

November 2, 2019 Posted by Christina MacPherson | 2 WORLD, culture and arts, media, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

The dangers of Chernobyl nuclear site being turned into a tourism mecca

The grounds remain coated with plutonium, cesium, strontium and americium — radionuclides (atoms that emit radiation) that could pose potentially serious health risks to those who touch or ingest them. Some areas are more radioactive, and therefore more dangerous, than others.

“Even though the accident occurred over 33 years ago it remains one of the most radiologically contaminated places on earth.”

Chernobyl tourists should avoid plant life, and especially the depths of the forests.

Those areas were not cleaned in the aftermath of the disaster and remain highly contaminated by radiation. Research has showed that the fungus, moss and mushrooms growing there are radioactive. Eating or drinking from the area is not safe.

Those who stay on the paved pathways, which officials cleaned, are much less likely to absorb harmful toxins.

Ukraine wants Chernobyl to be a tourist trap. But scientists warn: Don’t kick up dust. https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2019/07/12/ukraine-wants-chernobyl-be-tourist-trap-scientists-warn-dont-kick-up-dust/?utm_term=.5e82b547ceaf By Katie Mettler, July 12 2019

The tourists first started flocking to Chernobyl nearly 10 years ago, when fans of the video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. wanted to see firsthand the nuclear wasteland they’d visited in virtual reality.

Next came those whose curiosity piqued when in 2016 the giant steel dome known as the New Safe Confinement was slid over the sarcophagus encasing nuclear reactor number four, which exploded in April 1986, spewed radiation across Europe and forced hundreds of thousands to flee from their homes.

Then in May, HBO’s “Chernobyl” miniseries aired, and tourism companies reported a 30 to 40 percent uptick in visitors to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, abandoned and eerily frozen in time.

Now the Ukrainian government — capitalizing on the macabre intrigue — has announced that Chernobyl will become an official tourist site, complete with routes, waterways, checkpoints and a “green corridor” that will place it on the map with other “dark tourism” destinations.

“We must give this territory of Ukraine a new life,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a visit to Chernobyl this week. “Until now, Chernobyl was a negative part of Ukraine’s brand. It’s time to change it.”

Zelensky, who was inaugurated in May, signed a decree July 10 to kickstart the Chernobyl Development Strategy, which the president hopes will bring order to the 19-mile Exclusion Zone that has become a hotbed for corruption, trespassing and theft. At the nuclear facility and in the nearby town of Pripyat, wildlife has returned and now roams freely. Flora and fauna grow up around decaying homes, playgrounds and an amusement park. Letters, dinner tables and baby dolls remain where their owners abandoned them 33 years ago.

Radioactive dust still coats it all.

“Chernobyl is a unique place on the planet where nature revives after a global man-made disaster, where there is a real ‘ghost town,’” Zelensky said during his visit. “We have to show this place to the world: scientists, ecologists, historians, tourists.”

Though exploiting a historical space like Chernobyl could infuse Ukraine’s economy with tourism dollars and motivate developers to revive the sleepy towns surrounding the “dead zone,” there are significant downsides, experts say.

[Thanks to HBO, more tourists are flocking to the eerie Chernobyl nuclear disaster site]

“Chernobyl was the worst nuclear accident in human history,” said Jim Beasley, an associate professor at the University of Georgia who has been studying wildlife in the Exclusion Zone since 2012. “Even though the accident occurred over 33 years ago it remains one of the most radiologically contaminated places on earth.”

More than 30 people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, and officials are still debating the full extent of the longterm death toll in Ukraine and nearby countries where people grew sick with cancer and other illnesses.

The World Health Organization estimates total cancer deaths at 9,000, far less than a Belarusian study that put the death toll at 115,000, reported Reuters.

Today, radiation levels inside the Exclusion Zone vary widely from location to location, said Dr. T. Steen, who teaches microbiology and immunology at Georgetown’s School of Medicine and oversees radiation research in organisms at nuclear disaster sites. Because of that, she advises anyone visiting to be educated and cautious while inside the Exclusion Zone, and to limit time spent there.

“The longer you’re exposed, the more that future impact is,” she said.

She advises visitors to the Exclusion Zone to wear clothes and shoes they are comfortable throwing away. If they’re going to be touching or disturbing anything, she recommends a mask and gloves. Most importantly, Steen says, Chernobyl tourists should avoid plant life, and especially the depths of the forests.

Those who stay on the paved pathways, which officials cleaned, are much less likely to absorb harmful toxins.

Generally speaking, Chernobyl can be safe, Steen said, “but it depends on how people behave.”

And so far, the accounts of tourists behaving badly are abundant.

Timothy Mousseau, a biologist and University of South Carolina professor, has been studying the ecological and evolutionary consequences of radioactive contaminants on wildlife and organisms at Chernobyl for 20 years. He just recently returned from his annual, month-long trip to the Exclusion Zone and said he was shocked to see 250 tourists in street clothes wandering Pripyat.

Some hopped in bumper cars at the abandoned amusement park there to take selfies.

“Part of the reason people don’t think twice about it is because there is this highly organized tourism operation,” Mousseau said. “A lot of people don’t give it a second thought.”

He is concerned that the government’s tourism campaign could only make that worse.

“The negative aspects that are being completely ignored are the health and safety issues of bringing this many people, exposing this many people to what is a small risk, albeit a significant risk, to this kind of contamination,” Mousseau said. “The more traffic there is, the most dust there is, and the dust here is contaminated.”

[We’re in the age of the overtourist. You can avoid being one of them.]

But Mousseau’s worries, and the anxieties of his colleagues, extend beyond health factors.

For decades, biologists, ecologists and medical researchers have been studying the mostly undisturbed expanse that is the Exclusion Zone. They’ve studied DNA mutations in plants and insects, birds and fish. As larger mammals, like moose, wolves and fox, have slowly re-occupied the surrounding forests, biologists have searched for clues about the ways short-term and long-term radiation exposure have altered their health.

Scientifically, there is no place on earth like Chernobyl. Beasley, who studies wolves there, calls it a “living laboratory.” An influx of humans — especially reckless ones — could destroy it.

“This is really the only accessible place on the planet where this kind of research can be conducted at a scale both spatial and temporal that allows for important scientific discovery,” Mousseau said. “Given increased use of radiation in technology and medicine, in going to Mars and space, we need to know more about radiation and its effects on biology and organisms.”

“And Chernobyl provides a unique laboratory to do this kind of research,” he said.

Tourism’s negative footprint in the Exclusion Zone is not theoretical, either.

They are leaving behind trash, rummaging through abandoned homes and buildings and, in Mousseau’s experience, stealing his research equipment. Cameras he has hidden in the depths of the most radioactive parts of the zone to capture the wildlife he studies have been vandalized or gone missing, he said.

It’s something that absolutely astounds me,” he said.

Theoretically, more government oversight at Chernobyl could help curb this kind of interference, especially if a financial investment in the zone will help preserve the ghost town there and bring in more guards and checkpoints to patrol who comes and goes.

None of that will prevent tourists from disturbing Chernobyl’s spirit.

“I think it is important to not lose sight of the fact that Chernobyl represents an area of tremendous human suffering,” Beasley said, “as hundreds of thousands of people were forever displaced from their homes or otherwise impacted by the accident.”

July 15, 2019 Posted by Christina MacPherson | culture and arts, environment, Reference, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Claims of bullying and sexual harassment rock Sellafield nuclear facility

Daily Mail 26th April 2019 , Exposed: Britain’s largest nuclear power plant Sellafield is rocked by claims of bullying and sexual harassment with female staff ‘routinely
propositioned by male bosses’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6965179/Exposed-Britains-largest-nuclear-power-plant-rocked-claims-bullying-sexual-harassment.html

July 4, 2019 Posted by Christina MacPherson | culture and arts, UK | Leave a comment

Chilling similarity between out-dated nuclear weapons policies and world of Game of Thrones

Nuclear weapons are archaic weapons that promote an outdated global order rooted in inequality and oppressive patriarchy. Which is another way of saying: our world isn’t that dissimilar to the world of Game of Thrones. The destruction that happened in King’s Landing could happen here, too. My hope is that the fictional blaze witnessed by the Game of Thrones viewership (43 million people!) will serve as a warning, and will spark denuclearization action.

What ‘Game of Thrones’ Taught Us About Nuclear Devastation https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-game-of-thrones-taught-us-about-nuclear-devastation?ref=scroll

The destruction that happened in King’s Landing can happen in our world, too, writes Beatrice Fihn, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

Beatrice Fihn, 05.17.19 “Atomic bombs are primarily a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities.”

Famed physicist Leo Szilard wrote those words in 1945, entreating President Harry Truman to give Japan a chance to surrender before using the nuclear weapons Szilard had been instrumental in developing. His words rang in my head as Tyrion tried and failed to convince Daenerys to spare the surrendering King’s Landing from her dragon’s fire in the latest Game of Thrones episode, “The Bells.”

There is a significant difference between weapons of war and nuclear weapons. The former target their opponent’s military force. The latter yield absolute and indiscriminate power to kill civilians. Harry Truman admitted that nuclear weapons were created for the destruction of cities when he said, “You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses.”

In the first seven seasons of Game of Thrones, Daenerys’s dragons have been a veiled threat. They were a plot device; their purpose was to transform Daenerys from meek girl to strong queen. But that changed Sunday night. On Sunday night, viewers around the country saw the full power of a dragon’s destructive force as it breathed fire onto a city.

A modern nuclear weapon would also, essentially, breathe fire: it would cause a fireball burning 10,000 times stronger than the surface of the sun, incinerating everyone and everything within nearly a mile. That heat would cause third-degree burns in a radius of 50 square miles and the shock wave would flatten most buildings within 10 miles of ground zero. In Nagasaki, ground temperatures reached 7,000°F and radioactive rain poured down. 70 percent of all buildings were razed in Hiroshima including 42 out of the city’s 45 hospitals. These facts have led the UN and ICRC to state that in the event of a nuclear bombing, no help is coming.

It’s worth noting that although Trump has been criticized for spending large sums on new nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Modernization Program was actually started by the Obama administration, with support from both secretaries of state, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and it’s unlikely a Hillary Clinton presidency would look much different on the issue of nuclear weapons than a Trump one.

Although she is a (fictional) woman, Daenerys could burn a city to the ground. Although she is a woman, Hillary Clinton could support the Nuclear Modernization Program. Women aren’t inherently pacifist; more women in power will not be enough. It is important to get rid of the corrupting power of nuclear weapons instead of relying on our leaders to use them responsibly.

And yet, ironically, abolishing nuclear weapons is a feminist issue, because nuclear fallout disproportionately affects women. Women in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had nearly double the risk of developing and dying from solid cancer due to ionizing radiation exposure. Girls are considerably more likely than boys to develop thyroid cancer from nuclear fallout. Pregnant women exposed to nuclear radiation face a greater likelihood of delivering children with physical malformations and stillbirths, leading to increased maternal mortality. And the list goes on.

I am reminded of another TV event: the 1983 TV Movie The Day After. Over 100 million people in nearly 40 million households tuned in for the 2-hour film, and most stuck around for a 90-minute conversation about the film hosted by Ted Koppel. The movie’s unflinching account of the horrific aftermath of nuclear war was the topic of conversation around the water cooler for every American and even found its way into President Reagan’s diary.

TV has the power to move the world—for good or ill. Ronald Reagan sent a telegram to Nicholas Meyer, the director of The Day After, as he signed the 1987 INF Treaty with the Soviet Union. The telegram read: “Don’t think your movie didn’t have any part of this because it did.”

It can feel insensitive or even flippant to compare the real deaths and destruction of nuclear war with a fictional dragon razing a fictional city. However, like The Day After, Game of Thrones has transcended TV to become a cultural touchstone—a world we all gather in once a week and debate endlessly after. “The Bells” was a gift to those of us who work for disarmament and give all our energy to avoiding war. Millions saw a glimpse of the horror of war in a way they could understand and were primed to receive.

Let’s hope our leaders were watching. Let’s hope they saw Arya Stark walking through the crumbled buildings and charred bodies. Let’s hope they saw the look on her face. That look wasn’t feigned; the actress Maisie Williams described shooting the painfully long sequence as “sickening even to the strongest person.” The horror Williams felt would be familiar to anyone exposed to the reality of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the suffering of those at nuclear test sites.

We cannot wait until nuclear weapons are used again to eliminate them; by then it will be too late. We need creative voices to remind us of the hidden humanitarian disaster of nuclear weapons so we can act now.

As Daenerys and Drogon transformed into the “destroyer of worlds,” I recalled something I often say to those who argue that there are good and bad nuclear-armed states: the weapons are the problem, not the leaders. Like dragons, they are destructive power that no one person should hold over humanity. If Daenerys wasn’t able to use her dragons responsibly, then nobody can. It was not the Targaryen bloodline that was cursed, it was the dragons that corroded their humanity. Luckily, unlike dragons, nuclear weapons are not magical, they are just weapons and we can dismantle them. We must.

We already have a plan to eliminate our dragons. 122 states voted in favor of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the UN in 2017. 23 states have already ratified the treaty and it will become international law once 50 do. When asked why they supported the treaty, the diplomats and leaders all said the same thing: they were compelled to sign after learning about the ruthless devastation that nuclear weapons cause. A real hero doesn’t unleash a dragon. A real hero picks up a pen. The truly radical action is just that: a signature.

In our world and in the world of Game of Thrones, there are characters in the shadows, negotiating behind the scenes for a peace that will save innocent lives. That’s what bravery looks like. Those are the heroes we need. Rest in Peace, Lord Varys.

Beatrice Fihn is the Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2017.

May 18, 2019 Posted by Christina MacPherson | culture and arts, media | Leave a comment

What the planet needs from men

Brisbane Times, by Elizabeth Farrelly, 15 Feb 19…………women aren’t the only victims. Nature too bears the brunt. The world is being shoved off a cliff not by masculinity’s strength but by its terrifying fragility.Fragile masculinity is fear pressurised into rage; fear of losing control – of liberated femininity, of mysterious nature, of a world bucking its traces, of chaos. The anger is a desperate attempt to reinstate that control, illusory as it may always have been.

We [in Australia] have just endured a series of 40-plus days across much of the country, last month was the hottest on record. We joke. Thirty-six is the new normal, haha. I gaze with cold-envy at Antarctica, minus 29. But see this for what it is. This is the will-to-dominance: fragile masculinity in action.

Tasmania incinerates. River systems shrink to nothing. Fish die in their millions. In Queensland up to half a million head of cattle lie rotting in the mud. In the Northern Territory, the soil itself has begun to ignite and thermometers melt in bare ground. On Tuesday, ploughing-induced dust storms obscured Parliament House. Globally, we’re witnessing catastrophic insect extinction, the start of the sixth mass extinction in the planet’s history. The evidence is insurmountable.

Yet we continue to beat nature into submission, as if striving to make the world hotter and weather events more extreme. Other countries reduce emissions. Germany pledges to close its remaining coal-fired power plants in 30 years. Australia could match that. Both UNSW and the CSIRO with Energy Networks Australia argue that renewables could easily supply most or all of our future energy needs. Instead, we become the developed world’s only deforestation hotspot, expected to clear-fell a further 3 million hectares in 15 years.

The Darling Basin Royal Commission finds “gross maladministration” and “negligence” in our governments’ wilful ignorance of climate change. Even the courts, bless them, have started to disallow coal mines for their climate impact. Yet the government response is, well, nothing, actually. Minister Littleproud mentions “learnings” from the Darling but still our noble leaders favour irrigators, build motorways, approve new mines, deny climate science and ease the path to public subsidies for one the biggest coal mines on earth as though it’s all fine.

It’s not fine. This is domestic violence. This planet is our home and they thrash around in it yelling, intimidating, wrecking the joint. Like violent husbands they get all remorseful and beg forgiveness only to do it all again. Why? Because we’ve always thrashed nature, and nature has always coped. As a bloke once said to me: “You don’t want me to shout and get possessive? But I’ve always treated women like this.”

Stoically, the planet has housed and nourished us, tolerated us. But it can’t last. A dominance relationship is never sustainable, human-to-human or human-to-nature. Winning? To win this battle is to lose. The era of collaboration is here………….

It’s when people “stitch their self-worth to being all-powerful” that things go bad. An equal-status relationship – with a partner or with nature – requires listening, empathy, the antidote to shame.

We talk as though “traditional masculinity” were the enemy, as though we want men to evolve into something more like women. But that’s wrong.

What we need is not faux-women but nobler, more confident men. The man-heroes of the future, if we’re to have one, won’t be the brutes and sociopaths. They won’t be the cruel and the thoughtless, the boat-stoppers and coal-brandishers. They’ll be those who hold power but refuse to exploit it, renowned as much for their kindness as their exploits. Literally, gentlemen.

Male anger is leading us over a cliff. If men can find the strength to be truly vulnerable, they deserve to lead. If not, if they persist in this fragile rage, it’ll be up to Rosie the Riveter to save the day. Why? Because there is no spare room to sleep in. https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/what-the-planet-needs-from-men-20190214-p50xrq.html

February 16, 2019 Posted by Christina MacPherson | AUSTRALIA, culture and arts | Leave a comment

Time to jolt people out of their apathy about danger of nuclear war

It’s Time to Face Up to Our Nuclear Reality

The made-for-TV movie The Day After had an enormous impact on America’s national conversation about nuclear weapons in 1983. Resuming that conversation today is essential, and the movie holds some lessons about what that would take. The Nation, By Dawn Stover– 14 Dec 18 This article originally appeared as part of a special section on The Day After at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists “…….The television movie The Day After depicted a full-scale nuclear war and its impacts on people living in and around Kansas City.

It became something of a community project in picturesque Lawrence, 40 miles west of Kansas City, where much of the movie was filmed. Thousands of local residents—including students and faculty from the University of Kansas—were recruited as extras for the movie; about 65 of the 80 speaking parts were cast locally. The use of locals was intentional, because the moviemakers wanted to show the grim consequences of a nuclear war for real Middle Americans, living in the real middle of the country. By the time the movie ends, almost all of the main characters are dead or dying.

ABC broadcast The Day After on November 20, 1983, with no commercial breaks during the final hour. More than 100 million people saw it—nearly two-thirds of the total viewing audience. It remains one of the most-watched television programs of all time. Brandon Stoddard, then-president of ABC’s motion picture division, called it “the most important movie we’ve ever done.” The Washington Post later described it as “a profound TV moment.” It was arguably the most effective public-service announcement in history.

It was also a turning point for foreign policy. Thirty-five years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a nuclear arms race that had taken them to the brink of war. The Day After was a piercing wake-up shriek, not just for the general public but also for then-President Ronald Reagan. Shortly after he saw the film, Reagan gave a speech saying that he, too, had a dream: that nuclear weapons would be “banished from the face of the Earth.” A few years later, Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the first agreement that provided for the elimination of an entire category of nuclear weapons. By the late 1990s, American and Russian leaders had created a stable, treaty-based arms-control infrastructure and expected it to continue improving over time.

Now, however, a long era of nuclear restraint appears to be nearing an end. Tensions between the United States and Russia have risen to levels not seen in decades. . Alleging treaty violations by Russia, the White House has announced plans to withdraw from the INF Treaty. Both countries are moving forward with the enormously expensive refurbishment of old and development of new nuclear weapons—a process euphemized as “nuclear modernization.” Leaders on both sides have made inflammatory statements, and no serious negotiations have taken place in recent years.

There are striking parallels between the security situations today and 35 years ago, with one major discordance: Today, nuclear weapons are seldom a front-burner concern, largely being forgotten, underestimated, or ignored by the American public. The United States desperately needs a fresh national conversation about the born-again nuclear-arms race—a conversation loud enough to catch the attention of the White House and the Kremlin and lead to resumed dialogue. A look back at The Day After and the role played by ordinary citizens in a small Midwestern city shows how the risk of nuclear war took center stage in 1983, and what it would take for that to happen again in 2018.

[Article goes on to detail the story]……

It is no coincidence that nuclear war begins in The Day After with a gradually escalating conflict in Europe. In one scene, viewers hear a Soviet official mention the “coordinated movement of the Pershing II launchers.”

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987 resolved that conflict, banning all ground-launched and air-launched nuclear and conventional missiles (and their launchers) with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, or 310 to 3,420 miles. However, Trump said in October that he plans to withdraw from the treaty, and on December 4 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would withdraw in 60 days if Russia continues its alleged non-compliance. Gorbachev and Shultz, in a Washington Post op-ed published that day, warned that “[a]bandoning the INF Treaty would be a step toward a new arms race, undermining strategic stability and increasing the threat of miscalculation or technical failure leading to an immensely destructive war.”………

A BRIGHT TOMORROW?

In one scene in The Day After, a pregnant woman who has taken shelter in the Lawrence hospital along with fallout victims tells her doctor that her overdue baby doesn’t want to be born. You’re holding back hope, he says.

“Hope for what?” she asks. “We knew the score. We knew all about bombs. We knew all about fallout. We knew this could happen for 40 years. Nobody was interested.”

It won’t be long before another 40 years have passed. Americans have not yet perished in a nuclear war or its aftermath, but a new arms race is beginning and the potential for an intentional or accidental nuclear war seems to be rising…….. https://www.thenation.com/article/nuclear-weapons-bulletin-atomic-scientists/

December 15, 2018 Posted by Christina MacPherson | culture and arts, media, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

Here’s an example of the uncritical journalistic hype over the nuclear lobby’s new filmic advertisement

(Low on facts – high on uncritical enthusiasm)

A new documentary puts fresh, young faces on the old debate over nuclear power, Grist , By Nathanael Johnson on Oct 18, 2018“…….. David Schumacher’s new documentary, The New Fire,…. profiles young people working to invent better versions of nuclear power plants. There’s the couple with a simple reactor design who started the company, Oklo. And there’s the Bill Gates-backed TerraPower. …..the movie serves up hope and enthusiasm……..

I discovered these young people starting companies to build nuclear reactors. It was so audacious. They were so

heroic and charming and just completely iconoclastic. They shattered the standard image of nuclear engineers……

I’ve had people come up to me and say this has totally changed my mind. At the Philadelphia Environmental Film Festival, this couple approached me and said, “We started a chapter of the Sierra Club downwind of Three-Mile Island.” These are folks who would have been young adults at the time [1978, when the Three Mile Island plant had a partial meltdown]. “So we’ve been very anti-nuclear, but this film really changed our minds.” ……

October 20, 2018 Posted by Christina MacPherson | 2 WORLD, culture and arts, media, spinbuster | 1 Comment

The dubious nuclear politics of of Fallout video games,

The ambivalent nuclear politics of Fallout video games, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Cameron Hunter, October 17, 2018 The late French filmmaker, François Truffaut, once claimed “There’s no such thing as an anti-war film”—referring to the adventure and thrill of combat, the (usually) clear-cut heroes and villains, and the opportunity for the film-maker to indulge in spectacular pyrotechnics and loud, cinema-shaking explosions of sound. And the loudest and most impressive explosion of all is the nuclear mushroom cloud.

The same may be proving to be true of video games—perhaps even more so.

Just like war movies, video games have frequently exploited the exciting and dramatic aspects of war. Yet, unlike movie-goers, gamers do not passively consume their media; instead, they make choices and influence the narrative. The result is a medium that trades heavily on visceral, simulated experience. And what could be more visceral than up-close and personal exposure to a nuclear strike?

Trading heavily on its nuclear theme, the Fallout video game series has so far teetered between satirizing the Bomb, and reveling in its power. But now it may be toppling over that fine line.

These games are almost certainly the most well-known (and well-loved) media that deal with nuclear weapons today. Fallout must therefore be taken seriously as an influence on the real-world politics and culture of nuclear weapons in the 21st century.

…..As the series has progressed, the developers have given the player more and more access to their own nuclear weapons. A franchise that began by mocking nuclear technologies now appears to be actively encouraging nuclear use by the players in the brand-new Fallout 76.

…….. perhaps most important of all, these sanitized representations risk teaching a misleading version of humanity’s nuclear predicament to a massive audience. https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/the-ambivalent-nuclear-politics-of-fallout-video-games/

October 20, 2018 Posted by Christina MacPherson | 2 WORLD, culture and arts | Leave a comment

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