‘A Hard Rain’ exposes hidden agendas behind latest push to go nuclear

‘A Hard Rain’ exposes hidden agendas behind latest push to go nuclear SOUTHSHORENOW 
10 feb 09 A film not to be missed will be presented at Movie Night at the Centre by the South Shore Chapter of the Council of Canadians on February 20. Entitled “A Hard Rain,” the documentary explores the “other side” of the nuclear debate. An Australian film directed by David Bradbury, it was twice nominated for an Academy Award.
Governments and most mainstream media are promoting nuclear power as an attractive alternative to fossil fuels – the magic fix that will save us from global warming. Nuclear power has taken on a clean and green spin from the low point 20 years ago of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
Traversing five countries – China, France, UK, Japan and Australia – Mr. Bradbury takes a close look at the global nuclear industry in its entirety. From the mining of uranium to the nuclear power plant to the radioactive waste and weapons manufacturing, “A Hard Rain” exposes the hidden agendas behind this latest push to go nuclear. Included are interviews with some of the world’s top scientists and environmentalists.
Also, by looking at the experience of various countries that have gone nuclear, “A Hard Rain” debunks some of the myths of the nuclear industry – that nuclear is safe, cheap, healthy and green with little chance of another Chernobyl happening.

If you want vital and factual information to debate intelligently the issue of going nuclear and counter the myths that the nuclear and pro-uranium mining lobby has so successfully implanted in the media and our governments, then this documentary is definitely a must-see.

‘A Hard Rain’ exposes hidden agendas behind latest push to go nuclear

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radioactive

February 10, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

The Faustian Bargain

The Faustian Bargain
WebDiary 13 Jan 09 Dr Andrew Glikson is an earth and paleo-climate research scientist at the Australian National University. This is his second article for Webdiary (the first was Dangerous climate change: Lessons from the recent history of the atmosphere). References for this article can be found here.THE FAUSTIAN BARGAINHow a carbon-emitting atom-splitting species threatens to turn a planet into a radioactive3 to 6 degrees c high sea level world The sensitivity of the Earth’s atmosphere to anthropogenic carbon gases has been underestimated. As the orgy of burning carbon products of 400 million of biological evolution continues unabated, pushed by business, advertisers and consumption-promoting governments, global warming proceeds at a pace faster than projected by the IPCC (Houghton et al., 2001; Rahmstorf, 2007), tracking toward likely climate tipping points. The science fiction-like specter of global warming precludes many from discriminating between the climate and the weather. A well financed denial syndrome frustrates 11th hour attempts at mitigation. Governments, caught between the climate and fossil fuel interests, debate woefully inadequate carbon emission targets (Garnaut, 2008) unlikely to stabilize the rise of temperature, migration of climate zones, sea level and storm intensities (Anderson and Bowes, 2008). Politicians don’t get it, failing to understand they cannot argue with the atmosphere and the oceans. Only a global strategy aimed at immediate deep cuts of carbon gas emissions, innovation of technology for CO2-sequestration and down-draw to levels below 350 ppm (Hansen et al., 2008), albedo enhancement over polar regions and fast tracked reforestation campaigns may be capable of mitigating the worst consequences of runaway global warming. As times goes on, in an increasingly stressed world, the possibility of a nuclear conflagration of hair-trigger missile fleets, by accident or design, becomes a probability. Hapeless populations are faced with a non-choice between a greenhouse summer and/or a nuclear winter. Will the powers to be, always willing to use $trillions to bomb peasants in remote corners of the globe (in the name of freedom and democracy), or rescue corrupt bankers, be willing to take all the measures needed to protect the young, future generations and nature?…………….
………The denial syndrome

For the last 20 years or so, through numerous public presentations, articles published in economic and social journals (but rarely in the peer-reviewed scientific literature), extensive media exposure and intense political lobbying, so-called climate change “skeptics”, many of whom affiliated with right-wing groups and fossil fuel corporations, have attempted, continue to deny the reality of climate change, or interpret global warming in terms of natural processes, or claim it is beneficial.

Climate “skeptics”, more suitably referred to as denialists, attempt to advance their cause in two principal ways: (1) present outdated or imaginary technical arguments; (2) claim conspiracy on the part of climate science research organizations and climate scientists, to whom the often refer in derogatory ad-hominem terms.

Using terms such as “alarmism”, denialists do not appear to recognize the professional and ethical responsibility of scientists to alert society to dangers, whether of natural or anthropogenic origin, such as looming epidemics, ultraviolet and cosmic radiation, smoking-related cancer, ozone depletion or the climate impasse.

The Faustian Bargain | Webdiary – Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

January 13, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

The Punch: Time to stop this nuclear nonsense

Time to stop this nuclear nonsense

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By Joseph Adeyeye

The Punch  10 Jan 2009

Import-dependent economies are certain to face the problems imported goods caused in their countries of origin. This paradigm is the prism through which I see the recent argument in some quarters that nuclear power plants are the solution to this country’s electricity crisis. This specious agenda, which died shortly after its birth during the Murtala-Obasanjo regime, but resurrected during the Obasanjo administration, is now gaining ground in the Yar‘Adua years.

However, someone needs to tell our rulers that building a nuclear power plant isn‘t the same as buying Made-in-China satellites. It is trite logic that a country that has problems keeping militants away from its pipelines; burglars and arsonists away from its government offices; and armed robbers away from governors’ convoys would certainly have problems keeping terrorists away from its nuclear reactors.

While working on a story on Nigeria’s nuclear agenda three years ago, the only place where I found a measure of support for the project was a government agency. The consensus among all the other scientists and civil society activists that I interviewed was that Nigeria, given her insecurity, porous borders, poor disaster management record and a sundry of other ills, had no business with nuclear plants.

The Punch: Time to stop this nuclear nonsense

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radioactive

January 12, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

State report backs nuclear power as clean energy

State report backs nuclear power as clean energy

By CHRISTINE STAPLETON

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Florida’s energy future should be “clean” – not just “renewable” – and include nuclear power as a source of green energy, according to recommendations from the staff of utility regulators released Wednesday.

The 111-page report is the latest step in the debate over whether power companies can count new nuclear power toward their obligation to generate renewable energy…………………………. The report follows months of lobbying by Florida Power & Light – the state’s largest utility and producer of nuclear power – to persuade regulators to create a “Clean Energy Portfolio Standard” rather than a “Renewable Portfolio Standard.” Florida statues do not include nuclear power in the definition of “renewable” energy. FPL generates no renewable energy in Florida………………..Including nuclear power in the green energy mix “could make it easier” for investor-owned utilities, such as FPL, to meet an earlier deadline to go green.

State report backs nuclear power as clean energy

January 1, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment