6 Ways Trump’s Denial of Science Has Delayed the Response to COVID-19 (and Climate Change)
6 Ways Trump’s Denial of Science Has Delayed the Response to COVID-19 (and Climate Change) https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19032020/denial-climate-change-coronavirus-donald-trump Misinformation, blame, wishful thinking and making up facts are favorite techniques. Katelyn Weisbrod, 20 Mar 20
Wishing Away the Science.
Coronavirus Feb. 28, 2020 “[Coronavirus is] going to disappear. One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview on CNN that the virus was likely here to stay, possibly for months.
Climate Change September 2015“I’m not a believer in global warming, I’m not a believer in man-made global warming. It could be warming and it’s gonna start to cool at some point.”
The scientific consensus is clear that global warming is happening and is a threat to the planet; The New York Times illustrates the basics of global warming and climate change here.
Misusing Scientific Data
Coronavirus Feb. 10, 2020 “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do—you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat—as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though.”
Some coronaviruses are seasonal. But scientists still don’t know whether the virus that causes COVID-19 will be. Findings of a recent study suggest that the virus is spreading most readily in cooler temperature zones, The Washington Post reports; however, the study does not conclude from that evidence that the virus will be significantly reduced in the summer.
Climate Change Nov. 11, 2019 “You know, I actually heard the other day, some pretty good politician. I’ve seen him around for a long time. Nice white hair. Everything is like central casting. You could put the guy in a movie. He was talking. I don’t know if he believes this—but he was a Democrat—he said, ‘We have 11 years.’ It’s the first time I’ve heard it; I heard 12. But now, see, it’s been a year, so now they think we have 11 years to live. I don’t know, folks. I think these people have gone totally loco.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report in 2018 that said global carbon emissions would need to be cut by 45 percent by 2030 to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius. This does not mean we have 11 years to live, as Trump asserted, but rather 11 years to shift energy production away from fossil fuels to keep warming within the goals of the Paris accord.
Making Stuff Up
Coronavirus March 6, 2020 “Anybody that needs a test can have a test. They are all set. They have them out there. In addition to that they are making millions more as we speak but as of right now and yesterday anybody that needs a test that is the important thing…”
Contrary to Trump’s assertion, patients and health care workers were complaining that they could not get access to coronavirus tests. A few days later, testifying to a House committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged tests were not yet widely available. “The idea of anybody getting it
easily the way people in other countries are doing it—we’re not set up for that,” he said.
Climate Change Sept. 4, 2019 In September, 2019, Trump showed the press an image of Dorian’s projected trajectory that had apparently been altered using a Sharpie to include Alabama in the path of the storm.
Earlier, Trump had tweeted that Alabama would probably be hit by Hurricane Dorian. The National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama, then contradicted the president with a tweet saying Alabama was not at risk. Trump used the altered image a few days later.
Blaming China
Coronavirus March 18, 2020 on Twitter “I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China—against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false!”
Trump has been urged to stop calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus,” a term he has used repeatedly and that some have called racist and dangerous. And many public health experts have criticized the administration’s lack of preparation and failure to act quickly when the virus was first recognized.
Climate Change Nov. 6, 2012 on Twitter
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
There is a widespread scientific consensus about the reality of human-driven global warming.
Blaming the Democrats
Coronavirus Feb. 28, 2020 “Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it … And this is their new hoax.”
By this time, the U.S. had confirmed 60 cases of coronavirus. The CDC had already warned the public to prepare for the virus to spread, assuring them that this was not a hoax.
Climate Change Sept. 11, 2019 “Over 100 Democrats have signed up to support the $100 trillion Green New Deal. That’s a beauty. No more cows. No more planes. I guess, no more people, right?”
A Washington Post fact check shows that the Green New Deal resolution supported by most Democrats did not include mention of halting air travel or doing away with cows.
Ignoring Expert Advice
Climate Change Nov. 26, 2018, Commenting to reporters on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report saying climate change would hurt the economy.
“I’ve seen it, I’ve read some of it, it’s fine. Yeah, I don’t believe it.”
The report, produced by climate experts and Trump’s own administration, said climate change would damage the economy.
Coronavirus March 13, 2020 during a press conference on the coronavirus. Trump is seen shaking hands with Walgreens president Richard Ashworth, despite CDC warnings that shaking hands can spread the virus and recommending elbow bumps instead.
Politicians exploit false conspiracy theory that the coronavirus is a bioweapon
Why do politicians keep breathing life into the false conspiracy theory that the coronavirus is a bioweapon? https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/why-do-politicians-keep-breathing-life-into-the-false-conspiracy-theory-that-the-coronavirus-is-a-bioweapon/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Newsletter03192020&utm_content=DisruptiveTech_PoliticiansConpiracyCoronavirus_03132020#
By Matt Field, John Krzyzaniak, March 19, 2020 Editor’s note: Don’t miss our special report, produced in collaboration with The New Yorker magazine, on the questionable safety of biological laboratories, “Hot Zone in the heartland?”
You’ve probably heard the rumor: The new coronavirus is a bioweapon. Some malicious country—perhaps the United States, maybe China, depending on who’s talking or tweeting—purposefully unleashed the virus that causes Covid-19 on the world. You might have also heard that the idea was widely dismissed by disease and defense experts. A good bioweapon, some note, wouldn’t spread as easily and indiscriminately as the new coronavirus does. But for political opportunists and conspiracy theorists, the rising number of Covid-19 infections, the growing ranks of the dead, and the mass disruptions to the daily rhythms of life have created fertile conspiratorial ground.
The Covid-19 bioweapon conspiracy theory has not only failed to be debunked; it even seems to be getting a second wind, and prominent politicians from countries around the world are embracing it. “For a while, it seemed the pushback on the bioweapons narrative from the Washington Post and Foreign Policy was effective,” biodefense researcher Filippa Lentzos said. “But in recent days, the narrative seems to be coming back with a vengeance.” Current and former government officials, including former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao, and US Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas have given credence to some version of the theory in the last month.
In the United States, Cotton isn’t fully letting up on his suggestion last month that the virus was a Chinese military creation. In a Fox News interview in February, he appeared to suggest just that, before walking back the idea, sort of. (In a series of tweets, he said the bioweapon theory was just one of several hypotheses.) Bioweapon or not, Cotton still believes someone is responsible for the pandemic, someone Chinese. In a statement Thursday announcing that he’d be temporarily closing his Senate office, he called the virus the “Wuhan coronavirus” five times, vowing, “We will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world.” In a later clarifying tweet, he said that, yes, he meant China.
A March 12 article in Britain’s Express tabloid added fuel to fire, reporting that University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle, who helped draft the legislation that implemented the Biological Weapons Convention in the United States, had identified a “smoking gun” that showed the coronavirus was a bioweapon leaked from a Chinese research lab near Wuhan, the city where the outbreak originated. Boyle reportedly based his theory on a paper on ScienceDirect that noted a “gain-of-function” in the virus that makes it better than other coronaviruses at spreading among humans. But as the Express itself notes in a correction, the research paper Boyle cited does not speculate on what caused the gain-of-function in the virus. “It was therefore incorrect when our article claimed ‘the paper suggested Covid-19 has been tampered with,’” the correction notes.
That didn’t stop Manish Tewari, a prominent Indian parliamentarian and spokesperson for the Indian National Congress, the country’s leading opposition party, from re-tweeting the Express article to his more than 380,000 followers, adding his own highly charged twist: the disease outbreak is a terrorist act.
“CoronaVirus is a bioweapon that went [rogue] or that was made to go [rogue]. It is an act of terror,” Tewari tweeted on March 12. “International investigation conducted either under auspices of ICJ or ICC is necessary to unearth the truth & bring focus back on eradicating Biological Weapons.”
Lentzos worries that the parade of prominent figures promoting the bioweapons conspiracy theory could weaken the global taboo against possessing bioweapons—making biological weapon research appear to be widespread. “It’s being pushed at senior political levels, most prominently from Iran, but also from Russia and to some extents China,” she said. “It’s important we call this out. We can’t afford to have it seem like states have bioweapons and are getting away with it, or even that states would want to pursue these sorts of weapons. It significantly degrades the taboo against biological weapons.”
In early March, Iran had over 3,500 confirmed cases spanning all 31 of its provinces, and Iranian officials began jumping on the bioweapons conspiracy bandwagon. Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said that the Covid-19 outbreak was “perhaps a bioterror attack” carried out by the United States. The following day, a conservative Iranian lawmaker repeated the claim, telling an Iranian state-run news outlet that the virus had been intentionally spread throughout Iran and China and proposing an independent bioterror defense organization.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president who seems unable to resist a good opportunity to propagate falsehoods (even Al-Qaida once asked him to stop making things up), also got in on the coronavirus conspiracy action. In an open letter to the UN secretary-general, he wrote that it was clear that the virus was “produced in laboratories … by the warfare stock houses of biologic war belonging to world hegemonic powers.”
Naturally, it didn’t take long for these conspiracies to percolate to the top. On March 12, Iran’s supreme leader issued an edict endorsing the idea that “this incident might be a biological attack” and creating a “health and treatment headquarters” within the armed forces to help control the spread of the virus.
The Chinese government, meanwhile, the bogymen in Cotton’s telling, has at least one prominent conspiracy-monger in its ranks. On March 12, Zhao, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, demanded answers from the US government by tweeting, “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”
The new coronavirus is thought to have jumped from animals to people, but researchers still haven’t pinned down which species to blame. The pangolin, an ant-eating animal prized for its meat and scales in China, is one candidate, according to an article in Nature. But scientists haven’t found a close-enough genetic match between viruses found in pangolins and those found in humans to reach a definitive conclusion
And so the source of Covid-19 remains ambiguous, and, like a certain US senator from Arkansas, conspiracy theories thrive on ambiguity.
“We ought to be transparent with the American people about all this,” Cotton said last month to defend his controversial musings. “Maybe some of these so-called experts think they know better. I don’t. And they really don’t either.”
Nuclear Power Plants: Tritium is a lot more hazardous than they say
tests for statistical significance have been misused in epidemiological studies on cancers near nuclear facilities. These in the past have often concluded that such effects do not occur or they downplayed any effects which did occur. In fact, copious evidence exists throughout the world – over 60 studies – of raised cancer levels near NPPs.
Most (>75%) of these studies found cancer increases but because they were small, their findings were often dismissed as not statistically significant. In other words, they were chucked in the bin marked “not significant” without further consideration.
The Hazards of Tritium, Dr Ian Fairlie, March 13, 2020
Summary
Nuclear facilities emit very large amounts of tritium, 3H, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Much evidence from cell/animal studies and radiation biology theory indicates that tritium is more hazardous than gamma rays and most X-rays. However the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) continues to underestimate tritium’s hazard by recommending a radiation weighting factor (wR) of unity for tritium’s beta particle emissions. Tritium’s exceptionally high molecular exchange rate with hydrogen atoms on adjacent molecules makes it extremely mobile in the environment. This plus the fact that the most common form of tritium is water, ie radioactive water, means that, when tritium is emitted from nuclear facilities, it rapidly contaminates all biota in adjacent areas. Tritium binds with organic matter to form organically bound tritium (OBT) with long residence times in tissues and organs making it more radiotoxic than tritiated water (HTO). Epidemiology studies indicate increases in cancers and congenital malformations near nuclear facilities. It is recommended that nuclear operators and scientists should be properly informed about tritium’s hazards; that tritium’s safety factors should be strengthened; and that a hazard scheme for common radionuclides be established. Continue reading
Doctors again call on Australian govt about Julian Assange’s precarious health, risk of coronavirus
Almost 200 medical doctors say Julian Assange’s health is at increased risk from coronavirus, https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-news/2020/03/18/almost-200-medical-doctors-say-julian-assanges-health-is-at-increased-risk-from-coronavirus/ John McEvoy 18th March 2020 On 18 March, almost 200 medical doctors wrote to Australian foreign minister Marise Payne to warn that Julian Assange’s health is at increased risk from the new coronavirus.
“Mr Assange could die in prison”
This is the latest in a number of letters sent by Doctors for Assange to express concern over the WikiLeaks publisher’s deteriorating health.
On 22 November, the group signed an open letter addressed to UK home secretary Priti Patel, saying: “we have real concerns, on the evidence currently available, that Mr Assange could die in prison”.
In a follow-up letter published on 4 December, the doctors wrote:
When the UK, as a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council, repeatedly ignores not only the serious warnings of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, but also its unequivocal investigative and remedial obligations under international and human rights law, the credibility of the UK’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law is fatally undermined.
Fertile breeding grounds”
The latest letter, signed by medical doctors from countries including the UK, Australia, Sweden, and the US, was written in light of the recent coronavirus pandemic.
The letter reads:
We wrote to you on December 15 2019 that Julian Assange’s life is at risk due to nearly a decade of human rights abuse including arbitrary detention, psychological torture and medical neglect. Now, with the president of the Prison Governor’s Association warning that prisons provide “fertile breeding grounds” for coronavirus, Julian Assange’s life and health are at heightened risk due to his arbitrary detention during this global pandemic. That threat will only grow as the coronavirus spreads. …
We therefore stand by our previous calls for the Australian Government to urgently intervene to protect the life, health and human rights of its citizen Julian Assange, before it is too late, whether due to coronavirus or any number of catastrophic health outcomes.
Coronavirus is the latest threat to Assange’s life, adding onto years of arbitrary punishment and psychological torture.
Dr Ian Fairlea on Epidemiological Evidence of Cancer Risks
The Hazards of Tritium,https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/the-hazards-of-tritium/ , Dr Ian Fairlie, March 13, 2020 “……….Epidemiological Evidence of Risks Because of methodological limitations, epidemiology studies are a blunt tool for discovering whether adverse effects result from radiation exposures. These limitations include:
- under-ascertainment, …
- strict data requirements….
- confounding factors: the true causes of morbidity or mortality can be uncertain due to confounding factors such as socio-economic status and competing causes of death.
- bias: ……
- poor signal to noise…..
- uncertain doses:……
- wide confidence intervals……
The Abuse of Statistical Significance Tests
Murky links between the nuclear and coal lobbies in South Africa
Anatomy of a lobby: How, and why, coal and nuclear interests are converging https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/anatomy-of-a-lobby-how-and-why-coal-and-nuclear-interests-are-converging-20200315, Sarah Evans
While in South Africa, there is little proof of such an organised, funded campaign being conducted by the coal industry itself, a motley crew of intersecting interests has coalesced around common policy goals: Attempting to stop government’s policy of introducing renewable energy onto the national grid by purchasing power from Independent Power Producers (IPPs), and pushing a narrative that says that Eskom needs to keep buying coal, and that the life of its ageing power stations needs to be extended.
The narrative is also centred around the idea that government must once again pursue a large nuclear building programme, once favoured by former president Jacob Zuma, but since shelved by the Cyril Ramaphosa administration.
Many of the anti-IPP lobbyists are strongly sympathetic to the former president.
The is despite the release of the Integrated Resource Plan last year – the country’s energy roadmap – which seeks to phase out coal, gradually, over the coming decades, increase the use of renewable energy onto the grid, with a reduced role for nuclear energy.
Lobbying efforts by the industry itself have cropped up all over the world as governments are pressured to radically reduce their reliance on burning fossil fuels.
The Guardian reported last year that such a campaign had been launched on a global scale by mining giant Glencore.
But in South Africa, the campaign has taken on the face of a coalition of forces, more than an organised and well-funded propaganda effort, as far as we know.
To the one side of the anti-IPP coalition are some unions, some obscure pro-Zuma lobby groups, coal truckers and disgruntled individuals such as former acting Eskom CEO Matshela Koko.
This campaign has played out in the mainstream media, but seems to have the most traction on social media.
The campaign reached Eskom’s physical doors last week when the EFF entered the fray on the side of the lobbyists. The party took its message to the power utility in the form of a protest, flanked by nuclear energy industry lobbyists like Adil Nchabaleng of pro-Zuma lobby group Transform RSA.
On the other side of the campaign is the coal industry itself, which appears to be in the initial stages of an advocacy campaign.
Transform RSA teamed up with Numsa and the Coal Truckers Association in 2018 in a failed court bid to stop the signing of IPP agreements – a case that Nchabaleng tried to link to a break-in at his home where his housekeeper was tied up and held at gunpoint.
He is also a Member of Parliament, representing the African People’s Convention.
Transform RSA’s politics were made clear when, also in early 2018, it threatened to take legal action against the ANC’s leadership if they moved against former president Jacob Zuma by discussing his recall at a meeting.
On the social media front, the South African Energy Forum (SAEF_ZA) has been actively opposing IPPs, and has advocated for more nuclear energy in South Africa’s energy mix in a “People’s IRP” released on behalf of itself and sister organisations last year.
Another vocal advocate of nuclear energy, and of abandoning the IPP project, is Khandani Msibi, who heads up Numsa’s investment arm.
The SAEF’s members are all APC party members, with the exception of one Ronald Mumyai. His social media accounts show that he is a former EFF member, supporter of Zuma, and homophobe, although the homophobic tweet in question has since been deleted.
Another obscure entity that appears only to exist online is the Anti-Poverty Forum, which, when it is not laying complaints with the Public Protector over IPPs, spends its days campaigning against Zuma’s nemesis, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.
The forum is fronted by ANC Brian Bunting branch member Phapano Phasha, also formerly associated with the Gupta’s failed television station ANN7, who laid a complaint against Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan with the ANC’s integrity commission last year.
Coal industry advocacy
As for the industry itself, it seems clear that many players feel coal is unfairly under attack, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence of its contribution to climate change.
At a gathering of coal industry leaders in Cape Town in February, Minerals Council South Africa (MCSA) senior economist Bongani Motsa said there was a need for a “strong coal advocacy group” to lobby for the industry, against what it views as an onslaught from the “renewables lobby”.
Motsa likened the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) to an abusive spouse that was unkind to the industry, in spite of its willingness to invest in “clean coal” technologies.
Motsa did not provide any details as to what this would look like.
In February 2018, when heated talks over the IRP were ongoing behind closed doors at Nedlac, the MSCA released a document titled “Coal Strategy 2018” in which it outlined plans to counter the narrative around coal.
The plan’s executive summary states: “The Chamber of Mines Coal Leadership Forum, consisting of coal executives, commissioned a report to determine what needs to be done to increase the profile of the coal mining industry in the face of seemingly ineluctable negative public opinion around the use of coal in industrial processes. Negative views on coal and its impact on the environment have resulted in a precipitous decline in the use of coal by the major economies of the world…”
The plan decried the introduction of strict laws to protect the environment that would stifle the coal industry, and implied that the industry’s contribution to the economy and jobs needed to be punted in public.
For now, the links between the pro-coal, anti-IPP actors are murky. But what is clear is that their interests align around policy and political goals, and it remains to be seen whether they carry enough weight to have real impact on either front.
South Africa’s Eskom nuclear troubles – the outcome of years of corruption
 Eskom’s ailing Koeberg nuclear plant a result of years of corruption https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/eskom-koeberg-nuclear-plant-corruption/ What Eskom continues to do to this country should be viewed as a human rights violation, says Safcei. by Andrea Chothia, 2020-03-12
The Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (Safcei) said that Eskom needs to be more realistic about the country’s precarious energy situation and consider whether pushing the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station past its sell-by date is worth risking an energy catastrophe.
Koeberg’s electricity unit 1 has only been up and running for a matter of weeks after it was closed for essential repairs. But after coming back into service in January, it has only returned to cause more problems. About 930 MW of power has been taken off the national grid because of its breakdown.
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Nuclear Agency employee accused of illegally storing radioactive waste at his home
Jakarta. An employee of the National Nuclear Energy Agency, or Batan, was named suspect for illegally storing radioactive waste at his home in Batan Indah housing complex in South Tangerang, Banten, police have said.
The news came a month after nuclear authorities launched decontamination operation at the housing complex, followed by criminal investigation by the National Police.
The cleanup, that took weeks to complete, was called after the Batan and the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency (Bapeten) detected radiation in the area. Around 100 drums of soil and grass containing radioactive substance have been removed from the area.
The suspect, identified by initials S.M., is accused of storing radioactive substance called Cesium-137 and dumping toxic waste at the housing complex, National Police’s special crimes director Brig. Gen. Agung Budijono said on Friday.
“We named S.M. as suspect after we conducted the crime scene investigation,” Agung told Jakarta Globe’s sister publication Beritasatu.com.
“At least 26 witnesses, including Batan and Bapeten officials, have been questioned by the police and it was learned that S.M. has no license for storing and processing radioactive waste,” he said.
The suspect is alleged to have run illegal decontamination services for money at his home. He is charged under the 1997 law on nuclear energy, which carries a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment.
His position at Batan was not disclosed.
A joint investigation involving Batan, Bapeten and police was formed last month after radiation was detected and nine resident had to undergo medical examination for fear of exposure to Cesium-137, which may pose serious risks to human health including cancer and death.
Nuclear agencies ban companies who hold license to use Cesium-137 from storing or managing radioactive waste themselves. They must send it to Batan’s Center for Radioactive Waste Technology in South Tangerang.
The Batan facility is located around 45 kilometers from the housing complex.
Hypocrisy: new commitments to Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) include push for nuclear power
While reaffirming their “commitment to the NPT in all its aspects”, the five Foreign Ministers say: “The NPT has provided the essential foundation for international efforts to stem the looming threat – then and now – that nuclear weapons would proliferate across the globe. In so doing, it has served the interests of all its Parties.”
The five Foreign Ministers are: Wang Yi, State Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of China; Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, France; Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia; Dominic Raab, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of Britain and Northern Ireland; Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State of the U.S.
The Foreign Ministers adds: “We also celebrate the astonishingly diverse benefits of the peaceful uses of the atom, whether for electricity, medicine, agriculture, or industry. We reiterate our strong support for broadening access to the benefits of nuclear energy and its applications for peaceful purpose. This boon to humanity thrives because the NPT, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime built around the Treaty, has helped provide confidence that nuclear programs are and will remain entirely peaceful.” ……https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/3376-five-nuclear-weapon-states-pledge-commitment-to-npt
The lies about nuclear waste dumping in Scotland – from U.S. nuclear submarines
We were lied to in the past about dumping of nuclear waste https://www.thenational.scot/politics/18295704.lied-past-dumping-nuclear-waste/
By Iain Ramsay, Greenock & Inverclyde 11 Mar 20, QUITE a few years back, when I was a local SNP candidate here in Inverclyde, the local small boat owners and fishermen’s association approached me with their worries and problems, which resulted in me taking up the cudgels on their behalf.One of their spokesmen, who had a prawn fishing boat, was the late Brian Penny, who explained the problem and gave me the astounding fact that all the sea life had died in the Holy Loch.
The obvious cause of this was the USA nuclear submarine base of Polaris submarines, which must be discharging or dumping nuclear waste into the loch. With the help of the Greenock Telegraph we made a complaint to the far-off powers in Westminster who (according to them) sent a naval investigation team and took samples of sand, and water from the Loch, and assuring all concerned, that there was no need for any worry, as their tests had shown that the Loch was clean and no contamination was found.
So who was to be believed, our local men who worked the river, or the boffins from the Anglo/Brit Navy? It was their expert word against our on-the-spot working fishermen. The result was that, as usual, nothing happened, until long after the USA navy left, the commander of the Holy Loch base retired and confessed to dumping tons of radio active waste into the loch.
Along with this admission was his statement that the base would have been illegal in America, as such nuclear bases have got to be more than 20 miles from the nearest town.This Holy Loch base was bang in the middle of the river Clyde, and only two miles from Greenock, the second-largest town in Scotland.
This confession by this former USA commander made the Royal Navy tests a total lie. No such tests were made. Proof of the pudding resulted in a permanently based dredger, working for well over a year on the very spot where the American commander’s mother ship was moored. I hope since that panic clean-up, sea life may have made a comeback, although some types of nuclear waste are a danger for a hundred years or more. I hope the USA were back charged for this long and hazardous clean-up, or did we taxpayers foot that bill also?
This doesn’t end the story of contamination, and if anything is only the beginning of a long line of attacks on our fragile environment. The English-flag-flying Royal Navy have taken over where the Yankees left off. Just across the river we have a nuclear submarine base, which not only admits to discharging radioactive waste from Faslane into the Gairloch but announces that this will increase by 50% when the new nuclear subs arrive.
The fact is, the only enemy attack we have to thole right now is from this highly dangerous Cobalt-60 and Tritium cocktail, a GIFT from the Royal Navy. However if you look up GIFT in a German dictionary, it means poison or venom. There are no contingency plans for our children’s health, when only less than two miles away we have a unique seawater swimming pool in Gourock which will eventually filter this contamination through, to be shared by all.
No, to Mr Donald Doull, the base commander, don’t install that new pipeline which will spew out this dangerous filth into our beloved Clyde. Rather fill your navy tankers with the effluent, and sail it down to the River Thames, when opposite the Westminster Parliament discharge this contaminated water into the river. Let’s see how long the Londoners would tolerate such muck spreading on their patch. You will find the English are not as gullible as to accept your stupid comment that this waste is of an acceptable radioactive level. Acceptable by whom, may I ask?
Dr Chris Busby exposes the facts on Cancer in US Navy Nuclear Powered Ships
Cancer in US Navy Nuclear Powered Ships https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/06/cancer-in-us-navy-nuclear-powered-ships/ by CHRIS BUSBY Here is a good one. In 2011, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was about 100km off the coast of Japan at the time of the Tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima reactor explosions. It was directed by the US government to ride to the rescue in what was later called Operation Tomodachi (friendship)–to provide assistance to the victims of the floods. What no-one on board was told was that the reactors had exploded and a plume of highly radioactive material was blowing east from the site into the path of the vessel. Of course, when this arrived, all the radiation monitors on the boat started screaming, and the planes and helicopters that had flown the rescue sorties were contaminated.
In 2014, following all the publicity about the cancers, a number of US Senators and important people were asking pertinent questions—the Navy had to do something to answer the accusations that the Fukushima radiation was killing those who sailed on Operation Tomodachi. They panicked. A big report was prepared by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), entitled: Final Report to the Congressional Defense Committees in Response to the Joint Explanatory Statement Accompanying the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014, page 90, “Radiation Exposure” [2]. Never use one word when ten will do
What I discuss in the paper to explain the result is my usual argument about how the radiation protection legislation is wildly incorrect when dealing with internal contamination from radionuclides. The legal limits in USA and the West are based on the comparison of cancers in those exposed to acute external gamma ray doses to the Japanese A-Bomb populations and cannot apply to internal exposures to substances which target DNA (Uranium, Strontium-90) or which provide huge local ionisation to some living cells but nothing at all to others (DU particles, reactor discharge particles).
Nuclear workers work outside at a nuclear site where the discharges get dispersed. Nuclear sailors live in a tin box that also contains the reactors. Nuclear worker studies are based on data that is provided by the nuclear industry to show there are no cancers. The DTRA study had to show more cancers in order to swamp the Ronald Reagan sailors’ cancers. But to do this, they brought out their Queen. And it was taken
Notes.
1) https://www.courthousenews.com/us-sailors-face-grim-diagnoses-after-fukushima-mission/
3) https://seer.cancer.gov/data/
4) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07357907.2020.1731526?journalCode=icnv20
5) https://www.genetics.org/content/204/4/1627
6) https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.1070
7) https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.1070
Dr Chris Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Riskand the author of Uranium and Health – The Health Effects of Exposure to Uranium and Uranium Weapons Fallout (Documents of the ECRR 2010 No 2, Brussels, 2010). For details and current CV see chrisbusbyexposed.org. For accounts of his work see greenaudit.org, llrc.org and nuclearjustice.org.
Deceit and Dark Money -Ohio’s nuclear subsidy saga
Dark money dominated Ohio’s nuclear subsidy saga ENERGY NEWS NETWORK, Kathiann M. Kowalski, March 5, 2020
FirstEnergy Solutions paid nearly $2 million to at least one group, but 
most other data remains hidden.
After-the-fact filings show that FirstEnergy’s generation subsidiary paid nearly $2 million to Generation Now, one of the special interest groups that orchestrated ads, political donations and other efforts behind Ohio’s nuclear and coal bailout.
But legal loopholes make it harder to find out the total spent and who else was behind xenophobic advertising, dueling voter petitions, alleged intimidation and other claims of foul play. And none of those actions fully disclosed who was behind them.
The scant public filings that are available show additional connections to FirstEnergy Solutions (now Energy Harbor), as well as the law firm of an outspoken legislator who has long fought the state’s clean energy standard, and others with high-level political influence.
House Bill 6 gutted Ohio’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards while putting ratepayers on the hook for nearly $1 billion in subsidies for nuclear power plants, plus an additional amount for aging coal plants. Multiple groups spent heavily to promote HB 6 and prevent a referendum on the law following its passage.
In some cases, nonprofit and for-profit organizations funded each other or shared the same spokesperson. Groups active in the HB 6 campaign also had links to some of the same lobbyists and consultants who acted for companies that stood to benefit from HB 6, or unions with workers at their plants. But only limited amounts of funding could be traced.
ON ORIGINAL – INTRIGUING INTERACTIVE DIAGRAM HERE _ shows interrelationships of individuals and groups Continue reading
Big Oil Big Soda and plastically polluted Planet Earth
“They really sold people on the idea that plastics can be recycled because there’s a fraction of them that are,”..“It’s fraudulent. When you drill down into plastics recycling, you realize it’s a myth.” …… “Recycling delays, rather than avoids, final disposal,” the Science authors write. And most plastics persist for centuries. …….
We are all guinea pigs in this experiment, as plastics accumulate in the food web, appearing in seafood, table salt, and ironically even in bottled water. Many plastics are mixed with a toxic brew of colorants, flame retardants, and plasticizers.
PLANET PLASTIC, How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades, Rolling Stone, By TIM DICKINSON, MARCH 3, 2020
Every human on Earth is ingesting nearly 2,000 particles of plastic a week. These tiny pieces enter our unwitting bodies from tap water, food, and even the air, according to an alarming academic study sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, dosing us with five grams of plastics, many cut with chemicals linked to cancers, hormone disruption, and developmental delays. Since the paper’s publication last year, Sen. Tom Udall, a plain-spoken New Mexico Democrat with a fondness for white cowboy hats and turquoise bolo ties, has been trumpeting the risk: “We are consuming a credit card’s worth of plastic each week,” Udall says. At events with constituents, he will brandish a Visa from his wallet and declare, “You’re eating this, folks!”
With new legislation, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020, Udall is attempting to marshal Washington into a confrontation with the plastics industry, and to force companies that profit from plastics to take accountability for the waste they create. …….
The battle pits Udall and his allies in Congress against some of the most powerful corporate interests on the planet, including the oil majors and chemical giants that produce the building blocks for our modern plastic world — think Exxon, Dow, and Shell — and consumer giants like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Unilever that package their products in the stuff. Big Plastic isn’t a single entity. It’s more like a corporate supergroup: Big Oil meets Big Soda — with a puff of Big Tobacco, responsible for trillions of plastic cigarette butts in the environment every year. And it combines the lobbying and public-relations might of all three………
Massive quantities of this forever material are spilling into the oceans — the equivalent of a dump-truck load every minute. Plastic is also fouling our mountains, our farmland, and spiraling into an unmitigatable environmental disaster. John Hocevar is a marine biologist who leads the Oceans Campaign for Greenpeace, and spearheaded the group’s response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Increasingly, his work has centered on plastics. “This is a much bigger problem than ‘just’ an ocean issue, or even a pollution issue,” he says. “We’ve found plastic everywhere we’ve ever looked. It’s in the Arctic and the Antarctic and in the middle of the Pacific. It’s in the Pyrenees and in the Rockies. It’s settling out of the air. It’s raining down on us.”
More than half the plastic now on Earth has been created since 2002, and plastic pollution is on pace to double by 2030. At its root, the global plastics crisis is a product of our addiction to fossil fuels. The private profit and public harm of the oil industry is well understood: Oil is refined and distributed to consumers, who benefit from gasoline’s short, useful lifespan in a combustion engine, leaving behind atmospheric pollution for generations. But this same pattern — and this same tragedy of the commons — is playing out with another gift of the oil-and-gas giants, whose drilling draws up the petroleum precursors for plastics. These are refined in industrial complexes and manufactured into bottles, bags, containers, textiles, and toys for consumers who benefit from their transient use — before throwing them away. Continue reading
Dark nuclear-lobby money effects political changes in Ohio, and where next?
Support for HB 6 comes from beyond the state and reaches into some top levels of national politics.
The forces that passed Ohio’s subsidy law are poised for further action to shore up utilities and protect fossil fuel interests.
Dark money helped shift leadership in the General Assembly.Dark money dominated Ohio’s nuclear subsidy saga ENERGY NEWS NETWORK, Kathiann M. Kowalski, March 5, 2020 “…………..Dark money groups such as Generation Now and the Growth & Opportunity PAC spent roughly $1 million in the 2018 election cycle. That election replaced Kasich with Mike DeWine as governor.
Other groups were also active, sometimes popping up for just a few months. At least one group launched a $100,000 negative ad campaign against an Ohio representative running in a congressional primary after she opposed subsidies for FirstEnergy.
The 2018 election also led to a leadership shift in the Ohio House of Representatives. Larry Householder, R-Glenford, the new speaker, proved to be a major force shepherding HB 6 through the General Assembly, even to the point of holding up a budget agreement last summer until the subsidy bill passed.
Dark money efforts while the bill was pending included advertising, coordination of bill testimony, and blocking a referendum effort that would have let voters reject HB 6 this November. Groups’ actions sparked critics to complain about misleading ads, alleged harassment of signature collectors, buyouts of petition workers, and even alleged assault.
At the end of the day, someone paid big money” for all those efforts, Hill said. “They didn’t do that [as] an un-self-interested contribution to a public policy debate.”
Groups’ efforts overlapped and linked with each other from before 2017 through the present.
Public reports reflect partial funding and cross-transfers among organizations whose backers remain secret.
Generation Now formed in 2017 as a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. That code section covers a broad range of civic and “social welfare” organizations. An IRS filing identified its president/secretary as JPL & Associates, rather than a specific individual.
Generation Now gave $1,050,000 to the Growth & Opportunity PAC in 2018, which in turn ran ads and took other steps to support candidates who would favor Householder’s selection as House speaker, preparing the way for the subsidy bill. In 2019, Generation Now continued to spend money for pro-HB 6 ads and to discourage voters from signing referendum petitions. The total amount of its spending is not yet known.
Neither Generation Now spokesperson Curt Steiner nor Jeff Longstreth, a principal at JPL & Associates, responded to questions about the organization’s funding and its activities.
Unions reported giving $840,000 to Generation Now in 2018 and 2019. Generation Now also got money from other 501(c)(4) organizations, according to IRS filings. A group called Empowering Ohio’s Economy gave $100,000 to Generation Now in 2017 and another $50,000 for advocacy in 2018. That group also gave $200,000 for public advocacy to the Coalition for Growth & Opportunity in 2017, which in turn gave $59,000 to Generation Now over the course of 2017 to 2018.
The Coalition for Growth & Opportunity has also donated money to the Growth & Opportunity PAC. And it paid roughly $103,000 in 2018 for services from Communications Counsel, Inc., a public relations firm that has represented many Republicans in Ohio politics. Mark Weaver, a principal in the firm, is also an attorney with the Isaac Wiles law firm in Columbus. Other lawyers there filed incorporation papers and serve as registered agents for Ohioans for Energy Security. That group was formed on July 30, a week after Gov. DeWine signed HB 6.
When asked about that organization, Weaver said the law firm “represent[s] a wide range of political action committees and non-profit organizations” that have free speech rights and that its lawyers “follow the law and ethical rules in every respect.” He did not answer questions about the group’s funding.
As a for-profit entity, Ohioans for Energy Security doesn’t have to report its funding sources or spending. The group’s print and video ads featured a debunked Chinese conspiracy claim. The group also took part in some blocking activities related to the referendum, such as working to hire or otherwise “buy out” workers who had been hired to collect signatures from voters.
An affidavit filed in federal court in October provides a copy of a form contract for one of those proposed buyouts. The contracting party is shown as Ohioans for Energy Security. However, it said, any notices for Ohioans for Energy Security should go to Generation Now, care of Jeff Longstreth in Columbus.
Additional blocking efforts included the circulation of rival petitions, arranged by Ohioans for Energy Security. Those petitions had no binding value. Yet they looked enough like the real thing to cause some confusion, said critics, such as Hill.
“Under the shroud of disclosure loopholes, corporations can outright lie to voters without any accountability,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “This is particularly concerning about complex issues like Ohio’s energy policy, which ultimately will affect Ohioans economically and environmentally for years to come.”
Yet another group, Protect Ohio Clean Energy Jobs, bought Facebook ads urging people to remove their names from referendum petitions. Its treasurer, Alex Thomas, also played a coordinating role for the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance. The alliance’s website says it’s a “coalition of Ohio community leaders and organizations” and is “powered by FirstEnergy Solutions.” The spokesperson, Carlo LoParo, also acted as spokesperson and president for Ohioans for Energy Security.
LoParo did not answer questions about funding for either Ohioans for Energy Security or the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance.
FirstEnergy Solutions is connected to dark money groups through its spending and through several consultants and lobbyists.
Even before the July 2019 wire payment from FirstEnergy Solutions to Generation Now, its lobbyists, Matt Borges and Alex Thomas, then with Roetzel Consulting Services, worked behind the scenes for passage of HB 6. During that time, Thomas helped get organizations to sign on to a June 12 letter to the Ohio Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee in support of HB 6. Committee records show that letter as coming from the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance.
Other FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyists and consultants coordinated efforts on HB 6. Among other things, materials in the FirstEnergy Solutions bankruptcy case reflected payments to help get the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance underway. A former FirstEnergy external affairs director, Murphy Montler, who is now deceased, was a consultant for FirstEnergy Solutions. He provided local public officials linked to the alliance with drafts of their testimony on HB 6.
Labor unions that provided funds to Generation Now also appear to have members who work at the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants. The political education arm of International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18 gave $250,000 in 2018 and another $105,000 through November 2019. The AFL-CIO also ran anti-referendum ads in 2019. And an AFL-CIO affiliate gave $250,000 to Generation Now in 2018.
Meanwhile, employee “contests” at the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants recruited workers as part of the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance’s “employee ambassador” program. FirstEnergy Solutions employees appeared in a pro-HB 6 ad presented by the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance.
At least two employees at FirstEnergy Solutions’ nuclear plants are also in a video ad from Ohioans for Energy Security. “Don’t sign the petition to allow China to control Ohio’s power,” the ad’s voiceover announcer said.
FirstEnergy Solutions’ spokesperson declined to answer questions about the company’s relationship with the nonprofits.
Law firm links also factor prominently in activities linked to HB 6.
Australia’s former foreign minister calls on Australian govt to intervene to release Julian Assange
As anger mounts over Assange’s persecution, former foreign minister Carr calls for moral appeals to Australian government, WSWS, By Richard Phillips, 6 March 2020
Popular opposition to the ongoing imprisonment and state persecution of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is increasing following last week’s extradition hearing in Britain. The four-day show trial, which blatantly violated Assange’s basic legal rights and subjected him to even more psychological torture, has deeply shocked many people and intensified the determination of those fighting for Assange’s release.
Addressing a public meeting last week in the New South Wales (NSW) parliament, Bob Carr, a former federal foreign minister and state Labor premier from 1995–2005, denounced the bogus espionage charges against Assange and warned that if extradited to the US, he would die.
Carr and other speakers, including Assange’s Australian lawyer Greg Barns and former SBS television journalist Mary Kostakidis, insisted, however, that those defending Assange should concentrate on lobbying state and federal MPs.
This orientation, they suggested, would pressure the Liberal-National Coalition government and Foreign Minister Marisa Payne to ask Washington to release the WikiLeaks publisher.
Carr called for Payne to have a “friendly chat” with Mike Pompeo, the former CIA chief and current US Secretary of State, and offered some talking points…….
Carr said nothing about Pompeo’s threatening denunciations of WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service,” his visit to Sydney last August when he demanded greater Australian involvement in Washington’s aggressive confrontations with Beijing and Iran, or his role as former CIA chief.
As for Payne, she rejected any defence of Assange, declaring in the Senate a day earlier that the WikiLeaks publisher would receive a fair trial and disparaging UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer’s reports on the decade-long persecution of Assange.
Carr’s opposition to the US-led vendetta against Assange, which he first voiced in May, appears to constitute a remarkable political turn around. Eight years ago, as foreign minister in the Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard—from early 2012 to September 2013—Carr, like other federal Labor MPs and the party as a whole, was virulently hostile to Assange…….
The demonisation of Assange by Australia’s political establishment and the corporate media, which is part and parcel of its commitment to the US alliance, has not convinced tens of thousands of ordinary Australians. Important layers of workers, young people, students and middle-class people have taken up Assange’s defence as part of a growing international movement. …… https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/06/carr-m06.html
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