RICHLAND, Benton County — Bill Evans Jr. worked on the front lines of the Hanford cleanup. He supervised crews tasked with dismantling tanks, uncoupling pipes and painting over surfaces to stanch the spread of radioactive particles inside some of the most hazardous buildings at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site.
To keep themselves safe, they donned full-body protective suits, sometimes two. Battery-charged respirators hung by their sides, circulating filtered air through breathing tubes and into hoods.
In May 2016, seven years into his Hanford career, Evans had a seizure on his lunch break that left him dazed. It was the first of many that forced him to stop working. Since then, repeated seizures have overtaken his life, resulting in falls that dislocated his jaw, fractured his spine and sent him crashing through a glass pane that gashed his head and required 30 stitches.
Evans, 45, is convinced that the sudden onset of his illness was linked to his job. Last year, he got a surprising clue about what might have gone wrong. A document from his old employer, slipped to him by a colleague, stated that a respirator cartridge Evans frequently used had a bad seal caused by changes made to the gear at Hanford, and possibly exposed him to radioactive and chemical contamination.
“I was floored, surprised and angry,” Evans said. “Because I trusted that equipment. That equipment was my lifeline.”
Evans was one of an estimated 560 workers at the Plutonium Finishing Plant between 2012 and October 2016 who wore respirator gear that may have leaked, according to documents obtained by The Seattle Times. The project contractor, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company, told workers on the job site about the safety lapse, which was also detailed in a November 2016 letter to be placed in affected workers’ medical files.
But the contractor did not directly reach out to workers, like Evans, who had already left the job, according to a spokesman for CH2M Hill. The letter ended up in the files of only 150.
Trump can’t help himself. He is missing his chance to live out “America First.”
In January or February, he could have convened world leaders, determined a plan to stop the coronavirus, and shown what American power can really do with all of the pomp and circumstance of summit stages and Fox News backdrops. He could have made the world grateful for his leadership.
Even now, as the world stays home FaceTiming with family, Trump could convene a video conference of world leaders, sitting in Washington’s big chair in the middle of the virtual table, directing help, aid, relief, supplies, NATO militaries and the narrative. He could have even liberals and TV pundits praising him as the global leader he believes himself to be.
The coronavirus pandemic is more than a 9/11 moment. It’s a Reagan-second-term-chance-to-beat-the-Soviets moment. It’s a political opening to soften up, wake up, and bring the world together. It’s an opportunity to diminish Beijing and Moscow and marginalize violent extremists.
The United States should be leading the world through this pandemic. Americans should be leading the world. Trump should be leading the world.
He could have thought big, but instead he plays small. On Tuesday night, the president of the United States was up late retweeting posts from the partisan and anti-Semitic information warfare site Breitbart, amplifying their praise and thumping liberal snowflakes and the corporate media.
Yesterday, the number of Americans who have died from the coronavirus rose by 160. The number of Americans who tested positive for the virus rose by 10,000. The number of infected reached 26,000 in New York state. The number worldwide is nearly 500,000. Continue reading →
How Colorado’s nuclear past is affecting its future, Colorado Springs INDY, GONE FISSION, by Heidi Beedle 25 Mar 20, IT WAS FEB. 25 AND BROOMFIELDCity Council was done. It unanimously voted last month to withdraw from the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority (JPPHA), a proposed north-south toll road that would ostensibly help mitigate traffic congestion in the Northwest Metro Denver area. The route would have taken the road through the eastern edge of the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge, just south of the Boulder County line, bordering Arvada and Broomfield. The council vote was influenced by preliminary soil samples taken by the JPPHA in July 2019, specifically one sample that showed plutonium levels more than five times higher than the acceptable standard (the rest of the samples taken at that time were within acceptable standards). Before its current existence as a wildlife refuge, Rocky Flats was the site of a nuclear weapons plant, which has caused concern about plutonium contamination in the area. Forty-eight subsequent samples taken by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, showed levels well below cleanup standards of 50 picocuries per gram.
The city council vote is the latest installment in the ongoing conflict between concerned residents and public officials, and Rocky Flats and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). For decades, residents and at least two directors of Jefferson County Public Health, have claimed that plutonium released from the plant is responsible for the high rate of cancers in the area. These claims have been consistently disputed by CDPHE and the Department of Energy (DOE). ……..
Johnson was concerned about the instances of cancers in Jefferson County and questioned the official measurements of plutonium in the soils around Rocky Flats, finding in his own testing that plutonium levels in the soil were 44 times higher than reported by the Department of Public Health. Johnson grew increasingly concerned about an increase in cancer deaths in Jefferson County, and in a paper published in 1981, noted that a rise in certain kinds of cancers Johnson was seeing in Jefferson County, such as leukemia, “supports the hypothesis that exposure of general populations to small concentrations of plutonium and other radionuclides may have an effect on cancer incidence.” Johnson noted that “plutonium concentrations in the air at the Rocky Flats plant are consistently the highest (1970-1977) in the US DOE monitoring network,” based on his studies of the DOE’s own data. He also asserted that the DOE’s measurements were likely an underestimation.
Almost 40 years later, and the current head of the Jefferson County Public Health Department, Dr. Mark Johnson (no relation) has come to the same conclusion. In 2018 he spoke outagainst opening the wildlife refuge to the public, and he thinks the recent discovery of plutonium near the proposed parkway site should give people reason to reconsider. “
“There are clear studies that have shown there is an increased risk or rate of plutonium in the dirt there,” agrees Mark Johnson. “I have concerns already about the digging around with the subdivisions and the commercial enterprises that have gone into that area that were basically kicking up a lot of stuff — and we don’t know what is there.”
Carl Johnson was fired in 1981 for his persistent, outspoken criticism of the plant, but won a subsequent whistleblower lawsuit. Partly due to Johnson’s criticism, the FBI and the EPA began looking into operations at the Rocky Flats Plant starting in 1987. The investigation was aided by Jim Stone, an employee at the plant who also became a whistleblower over what he saw as grave safety violations……..
THOUGH EXHAUSTIVE DOCUMENTATION of waste sites and deposits exists, questions remain as to the effectiveness of the now-completed cleanup. Jon Lipsky, a former FBI agent who led the raid on Rocky Flats in 1989, criticized the decision to open the refuge to the public in 2016, and has claimed there is still work to be done. Originally, the DOE estimated it would take 65 years and $37 billion to clean up the site. It was completed in 2005 for $7 billion.
During the process, there were still surprises to be found. ……..
The questions of the lasting effects from the operations at Rocky Flats may never be answered to the satisfaction of residents like Hansen, who are dealing with serious health issues. Jeff Gipe, the artist behind the Cold War Horse memorial that was erected in 2015, is currently working on a documentary about the plant, Half-Life of Memory, which may draw more attention to the issue.
President Donald Trump, who has a good shot at re-election, has reduced the effectiveness of agencies like the EPA while also advocating for an increase in nuclear arms development.
Trump Will Feed You to COVID-19 to Keep the Money Happy,William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, March 24, 2020 I have developed a strange affinity for Dr. Anthony S. Fauci. Donald Trump made Fauci — the 36-year director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has advised every president over that span — the hood ornament on this administration’s careening coronavirus Cadillac. Fauci is the face of SCIENCE in this fight, and from the sound of things, SCIENCE is about to get fired.
According to a number of sources, Trump has grown irritated at Fauci for the ever-increasing frequency of Fauci’s public corrections of Trump. Trump has been using the daily coronavirus briefings as a stand-in for his raucous, fiction-raddled rallies to spray dangerous, history-obscuring gibberish into the wind. He does not like it when Fauci, his own hand-picked face of SCIENCE, clowns him from the same podium. Because of this, Fauci may soon be gone.
The reasons for Fauci’s sudden cascade into disfavor are enough to stagger the imagination. I wrote on Monday about the capitalists jumping on television to demand the huddled masses get back to work. As it turns out, one of the larger cats in that particular tree — former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein — started yelling about this very thing before I’d written a sentence.
That’s not the worst part, however. This is the worst part, as reported by Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair:
Trump’s view that he can ignore Fauci’s opinion may be influenced by advice he’s getting from Jared Kushner, whose outside-the-box efforts have often rankled those in charge of managing the crisis. According to two sources, Kushner has told Trump about experimental treatments he’s heard about from executives in Silicon Valley.
“Jared is bringing conspiracy theories to Trump about potential treatments,” a Republican briefed on the conversations told me. Another former West Wing official told me: “Trump is like an 11-year-old boy waiting for the fairy godmother to bring him a magic pill.”
According to sources, Trump has been jealous that Cuomo’s press briefings have gotten such positive reviews. “He’s said Cuomo looks good,” a Republican briefed on internal conversations said. Trump’s solution has been to put on his own show. “Trump wants to play press secretary,” a former West Wing official said.
For the record, Trump’s devoted evocations of the gobbledygook Kushner apparently brings him may have already gotten one person killed. Trump has been peddling the anti-malarial drug chloroquine as a cure-all for COVID-19, even as Fauci and other experts try to wave him off because of the lethal side effects of this untested-for-coronavirus medication. Now, a man who listened to Trump on chloroquine is dead, and his wife is in critical condition.
We have traveled an astonishingly gruesome coronavirus timeline with this damn-fool president — denial followed by denial followed by blame followed by “war,” now followed, apparently, by ignoring and firing SCIENCE because it’s bad for business……….
The president of the United States is lying to you.
He wants you to go back to work because his wealthy friends are feeling the pinch. You, who are the economy, are not participating in the flywheel of the wealth machine because SCIENCE told you not to. You are doing what you are supposed to do, what Dr. Fauci told you to do. Please continue to keep yourself safe.
And then we see what happens next, especially if Trump decides to fire SCIENCE and replace it with profit.
Friends of the Earth on Monday accused the nuclear power industry of exhibiting “disaster capitalism at its worst” after a lobbying group representing it reportedly asked the Trump administration for a 30% percent tax credit amid the coronavirus pandemic and pressed congressional lawmakers to include handouts in stimulus legislation making its way through the House and Senate.
According to E&E News, which focuses on the energy industry, the request came in a letter sent to congressional leaders and White House officials on Friday by Nuclear Energy Institute president and CEO Maria Korsnick.
In addition to other forms of aid—including sick leave for employees and “prioritized access” to testing and masks—the letter requested taxpayer-funded grants in the form of broad tax credits and waivers for existing regulatory fees.
“Our member companies are anticipating—or are already experiencing—severe financial strain as product orders are delayed or canceled, as industrial electricity demand falls, and as workforce availability becomes increasingly constrained,” Krosnick wrote to in a letter sent to lawmakers, Treasury Sectary Steven Mnuchin, and Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council.
In reaction, Friends of the Earth senior policy analyst Lukas Ross called the request a bald effort to exploit the current outbreak and economic downturn to obtain the same kind of financial bailout it has repeatedly sought from the U.S. government in recent years.
“Demanding a $23 billion gift from taxpayers during an unprecedented public health crisis sets a new low bar,” said Lukas Ross, senior policy analyst with Friends of the Earth. “The nuclear industry begged for a bailout last fall and is now using coronavirus to try and brazenly grab more cash.”
The industry proposal, added Ross, “would hurt ratepayers and the climate at a time when immediate need for people must be the first priority. The nuclear lobby should be ashamed. This is disaster capitalism at its worst.”
Presenting Trump and Science as Equals Isn’t Balanced, It’s Dangerous, FAIR, NEIL DEMAUSE, 23 Mar 20, With more than 32,000 COVID-19 infections and 400 deaths in the US to date, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams predicting that “this week, it’s going to get bad,” as hospitals prepare for the eventuality of rationing treatment for patients least likely to survive, the president of the United States hit his caps lock key and typed out a tweet:
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!
The next day’s news coverage (Bloomberg News, 3/23/20; New York Times, 3/23/20) confirmed what the tweet implied: At the end of March, the White House will consider lifting recommendations that US residents stay at home and engage in “social distancing,” in order to get the economy rolling again.
This would, public health experts agree, be a disaster, both in terms of death toll and as far as having any chance of eventually bringing the pandemic under control. The Imperial College London’s projections (3/16/20) of the consequences of an unmitigated epidemic are 2.2 million dead in the US alone, and likely a lot more after taking into account the impact of overwhelmed hospitals making it impossible to get care for other health needs.
Meanwhile, public health experts say it’s now too late for short-term measures to work (New Yorker, 3/20/20), with at minimum eight weeks of social distancing and other closures needed to bring infection rates down to less immediately dangerous levels, with repeat shutdowns likely necessary in the summer and fall until a vaccine can be tested and made available (New York Times, 3/17/20); Hong Kong has already had to restore more stringent measures just two weeks after it first lifted restrictions (CNN, 3/23/20).
Unfortunately, thanks to some of the same journalistic pitfalls that have undermined news coverage of early phases of the crisis (FAIR.org, 3/19/20), reporting on Trump’s statements ended up soft-pedaling the dangers of the economy-first approach, and denying readers important information on what will likely happen if the White House tries to lift restrictions too soon.
As is common in breaking news coverage, most reports took a just-the-facts approach to the matter, pairing Trump’s statements with disease experts’ warnings, and leaving it to readers to decide whom to believe. The New York Times (3/23/20), for example, led by reprinting Trump’s tweet, then countering it with the opinion of infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, who serves on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, that “it would take several more weeks until people can start going about their lives in a more normal fashion.”
That kind of journalistic balance is problematic enough when it presents elected officials’ opinions as equally important as those of public health experts, in the middle of a public health crisis. But as the Times article (by Maggie Haberman and David Sanger) continued, it tilted even further toward the words of politicians, not scientists: Those quoted included former Trump homeland security advisor Thomas Bossert (who called social distancing “imperative”), Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin (who described talk of a “complete shutdown of the economy” as “fake news”), Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham (who said the US shouldn’t “back off aggressive containment policies”), and anti-tax advocate and Reagan White House advisor David McIntosh (who said the government must “put an end to the social distancing some time in the near future to restore economic activity”). No actual scientists other than Fauci were cited.
Even on the numbers themselves, the Times skewed its coverage toward fears of an economic downturn: Its article twice cited the millions of job losses that would result from a long shutdown, but never mentioned the millions of deaths likely if the US chooses to lift restrictions too soon.
NC nuclear plants brace to operate during coronavirus pandemic, Carolina Public Press, MARCH 23, 2020, BY JACK IGELMAN Duke Energy is bracing for the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the possibility of staffing shortages in the operation of its six nuclear energy power facilities in the Carolinas. Three locations in North Carolina house five reactors in Brunswick, Mecklenburg and Wake counties…….Among the actions the company has taken to ensure the safe operation of the nuclear plants and the safety of its employees are social distancing, a no-visitor policy, increased cleaning at plants and use of screening measures before employees enter facilities.
Duke has directed employees who are not involved with power generation or other critical functions to work from home. However, areas of a nuclear plant, such as the control room, cannot be operated remotely and are staffed by rotating shifts…….
Across the industry, said Korsnick, “there is capacity within the normal operator staffing to address some increase in absenteeism.”
.., maintaining qualified personnel could become a critical factor in operating nuclear energy if the coronavirus spread worsens……
On Friday, March 20, the NRC hosted a phone meeting with the nuclear industry to discuss regulatory impacts due to COVID-19. The meeting was open to the public.
Among the topics discussed were exemptions and regulatory relief, such as allowing power companies to extend work shifts beyond current regulations, considering exemptions or waivers to licensing, or conducting inspections off-site and deferring some inspection activities.
Ho Nieh, director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, said on the public call that having a sufficient number of qualified operators is an important issue…….
Kevin Kamps of the organization Beyond Nuclear, a watchdog organization based in Maryland that advocates for abandoning nuclear power, participated in the meeting and told CPP that “most of the content of the call was about waivers from existing regulations.”
“But during a crisis, requirements should be strengthened, not weakened,” he said. Additional shift hours, Kamps said, will place additional “stress and strain on workers that need to be fully attentive and alert in sensitive jobs.” A better strategy than permitting regulatory relief, he said, would be to proactively power down reactors until the threat of the coronavirus ends…… https://carolinapublicpress.org/30062/nc-nuclear-plants-brace-to-operate-during-coronavirus-pandemic/
How the Virus Has Hit the Climate Movement: Bill McKibben
The Tyee talks to the prominent activist and author about fighting on two fronts. Geoff Dembicki 23 Mar 20 | TheTyee.ca
Geoff Dembicki reports for The Tyee. His work also appears in Vice, Foreign Policy and the New York Times. A few weeks ago, this was looking like a big year for Canada’s climate movement.
After years of grassroots opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline in B.C., an eruption of rail blockades across the country in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en natural gas fight and Teck Resources shelving a major new oil sands mine for economic reasons, all the conditions seemed there to push for economy-transforming policies on the scale of the Green New Deal.
Then the coronavirus hit.
At a time when climate leaders in Canada, the U.S. and Europe imagined millions of people on the streets pressuring financial institutions to ditch fossil fuels and forcing political leaders to enact bold legislation, people are now fearful and physically alone, stuck in their homes to prevent a public health catastrophe as outside ecosystems veer towards collapse.
To help Tyee readers make sense of this new reality, we reached out to author and activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of the climate group 350 and a global authority on what must be done to fight the climate emergency. It was McKibben who wrote the book The End of Nature about climate change in 1989 that put the threat firmly on the public radar.
On the impact of coronavirus on the climate movement:
In a conversation that has been edited for length and clarity, he urges Canadians to pressure politicians to keep the climate emergency front and centre as we navigate this crisis, while using these terrifying and inexplicable times as a chance to reflect on the fairer and more sustainable world we must build after the crisis is over.
On the similarities between coronavirus and climate change:
There’s a sense in which something like coronavirus is like climate change except encapsulated in a few months instead of a few decades…The biggest difference is that there’s no enormous industry that gets rich off of coronavirus, so there’s not like a built-in opposition to doing what needs to be done and that’s always been one of the problems with climate change.
On how coronavirus is helping kill off the fossil fuel industry:
One thing that’s happening I think is that last year will mark the peak of fossil fuel demand. I don’t think fossil fuels will be able to recover to the point they were at before. I can’t imagine anyone deciding that what they’re going to invest their money now in is another tar sands mine. I find it hard to imagine that even the Canadian government is going to want to spend $12 billion to build its pipeline out to Burnaby. I think we’re going to be reminded that there are other more important things to spend money on.
It seems to me that probably some of the landscape of oil and gas is getting rewritten even as we watch. That is a direct testament to the power of protest and organization over this last decade and to the incredible work of people, especially Indigenous organizers, pushing this case for a very long time. And it’s gotten through. Earlier this winter, the decision of investors that they weren’t going to throw more money into the Teck Frontier mine was a kind of bell ringing and those echoes will reverberate for a long time.
On the message Canadians should send to businesspeople and politicians:
I do think that the best thing for people to be doing in North America at the moment is to be putting huge pressure on the banks and financial institutions that fund fossil fuels, like JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, Liberty Mutual, RBC, all the Toronto banks, reminding them that it’s not ok to be trying to profit off the end of the world.
Democrats are balking at the Senate GOP’s version of the bill because it is far too top-heavy with financial assistance to corporations and lacks sufficient assistance for working families.
The main sticking point, however, is a $500 billion slush fund included in the bill, which was originally a $208 billion slush fund until the lobbyists dogpiled the process. This money would be disbursed by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, presumably at the behest of Trump, with no oversight.
The Virus of Capitalism Has Infected the COVID-19 Fight, William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, 23 Mar 20, …….. Under vastly different circumstances, perhaps it would have been possible to argue for a different path of action than dramatic physical-distancing measures, following from the idea that to develop a herd immunity to COVID-19, a certain number of people have to contract it and recover (assuming we are even capable of developing an immunity, which is not yet confirmed). To even countenance this idea, however, we would need a robust and fully functional health care system to aid in the recovery process.
In point of fact, the U.S. health care system lags far behind much of the developed world. Even countries with strong systems, such as Germany, are at risk of being subsumed by COVID-19 for the same reason the U.S. system is perhaps days away from collapse: The for-profit commodification of health care itself has thoroughly denuded the ability of those systems to react to this crisis.
“Germany is home to one of the most modern, richest and most powerful health-care systems in the world,” reportsDer Spiegel. “The coronavirus is mercilessly exposing the problems that have been burdening the German health-care system for years: the pitfalls of profit-driven hospital financing. The pressure to cut spending. The chronic shortage of nursing staff. The often poor equipping of public health departments. The lag in digitalization.”
Yet the absence of a health care infrastructure capable of absorbing and treating thousands of patients — even “low-risk” ones — did not stop Captain Capitalist from going on TV and suggesting that maybe it’s about time workers started feeding the beast again. The machine is groaning for lack of lubrication, see. Can’t shut it down and be kind to each other, share our vast yet vastly imbalanced resources, and simply be for awhile until this thing runs its course, saving lives every step of the way. There’s no money in it.
On Sunday night, in yet another Twitter rant, Donald Trump indicated he may be edging toward ignoring the advice of the experts and lift the social distancing strictures intended to thwart the spread of COVID-19:
Why? Money.
There’s money to be made elsewhere, to be sure. “Over the past few weeks, investment bankers have been candid on investor calls and during health care conferences about the opportunity to raise drug prices,” reports Lee Fang for The Intercept. As media outlets focus on individuals hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer, the real money hoarders are leaning into this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to peel massive profit from a desperate land.
Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHCF), a major health care industry lobbying group that is stoutly opposed to Medicare for All, launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign last week to push back against any effort to fix our broken for-profit system. This comes on the heels of insurance industry efforts against waiving costs for COVID-19 treatments.
Meanwhile, mayors and governors are screaming at Trump to use the Defense Production Act, a law that allows the president to essentially nationalize privately held portions of the means of production in order to churn out needed materials. Those mayors and governors need ventilators, masks and coronavirus test kits. They needed them a month ago. Trump has invoked the law, but he steadfastly refuses to actually use it.
Why? Because we have reached the apotheosis of Ronald Reagan’s most rancid gift to the nation: “Government is the problem.” This pestiferous ethos, voiced during Reagan’s first inaugural address, has become holy Republican writ over the course of the last 40 years.
Now, in Trump, it has its greatest champion. Trump is refusing to let government influence business, even in this moment of life-and-death crisis, because the advisers who have his ear worship at the altar of Reagan. For them, right-wing ideology and the profit margin are more important than your life, or mine.
Of course, there is also an angle to be played. “In declining to actually make use of the Korean War-era production act that he invoked last week,” reportsThe New York Times, “Mr. Trump is also avoiding taking personal responsibility for how fast the acute shortages of personal protective gear and lifesaving equipment are addressed.”
And then there is the currently stalled $1.8 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, which hit the reef in Congress over the weekend. Democrats are balking at the Senate GOP’s version of the bill because it is far too top-heavy with financial assistance to corporations and lacks sufficient assistance for working families.
The main sticking point, however, is a $500 billion slush fund included in the bill, which was originally a $208 billion slush fund until the lobbyists dogpiled the process. This money would be disbursed by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, presumably at the behest of Trump, with no oversight.
“The Treasury Department would have broad discretion over where the money would go,” reportsThe Washington Post. “President Trump already has said he wants the money to be used to rescue the cruise ship and hotel industries, making his preferences clear, but at a press conference on Sunday refused to say whether his own hotel properties would apply for the funding.”
Natch. These fellows never, ever, ever miss an opportunity to loot the till.
And therein lies the rub. The priority of the people (for the most part) is to stay safe, to get well if they fall ill, and to do what must be done to eventually return to some semblance of a normal life. The priority of the capitalists is to get the money machine going again, to take full advantage of the crisis in the name of profit, and to defend their well-staked financial turf from any reforms that may be proposed in the aftermath.
“Is coronavirus worse than the flu?” it began. “No, not even close.”
“It already has spread from person-to-person in the U.S., but it probably won’t go far,” ACSH added. “And the American healthcare system is excellent at dealing with this sort of problem.”
ACSH is one of several organizations promoting climate science denial that are now spreading misinformation on the coronavirus, with potentially deadly consequences.
American Council on Science and Health?
The ACSH presents itself to the public as a proponent of “peer-reviewed mainstream science,” in the words of the organization’s mission. Their experts have frequently been quoted in mainstream newspapers and magazines, and they pen columns criticizing journalists who write critically about companies like Monsanto. The group has received funding from oil giants including ExxonMobil, as well as from the agribusiness, chemical and tobacco industries to name a few.
When it comes to climate change, ACSH has published a steady stream of articles downplaying climate science and criticizing efforts to slow carbon emissions — even in the face of a mountain of peer-reviewed research on the climate crisis.
ACSH slammed the medical journal The Lancet as “an ideologically driven outlet with a very clear political agenda where being sensationalist and culturally woke trumps evidence and reasonability” (after the Lancet published an article titled “The carbon footprint”). The purported “pro-science” advocacy group has labeled Greta Thunberg’s activism “doomsday prophesying.” It has (falsely) suggested that climate change is less of a concern because “more people die in winter than in summer” (they don’t).
And that’s all just in the past nine months. The ACSH’s stance against climate action dates back to at least 1997.
When it comes to coronavirus, now a global pandemic, ACSH’s authors rushed to judgment. They assured readers that there was little to worry about, and put some of the same faulty thinking that underlies their stance on climate change on display.
ACSH isn’t alone. Other organizations that have also engaged in climate science denial made similar missteps on COVID-19, including prominent organizations that fanned the flames of conspiracy theories or confidently promoted complacency when circumstances required rapid action.
To be clear: No one should be faulted for failing to foresee precisely how severe of a problem COVID-19 would prove to be. None of us has a crystal ball and few, if any, expected this situation to unfold in this particular way.
But these organizations published positions that not only wound up being laden with false reassurances, but they did so based on claims that they made confidently at the time that now appear to have been false or misleading.
Nuclear lessons from the corona virus, No place for atomic power amidst climate chaos and pandemics By Linda Pentz GunterMarch 22, 2020 by beyondnuclearinternational……….I recently sat in a room of 75 people — just before you couldn’t anymore — in Suffolk, England, listening to a series of eloquent presentations advocating for a halt to the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant there. The occasion was an event hosted by the Nuclear Free Local Authorities. The Sizewell C project, which would add two EPRs to the still operating Sizewell B reactor site, would tear through one of the richest, most preciously fragile and most diverse nature preserves in the country — Minsmere. And be built on a beach.
EDF, the French government-owned utility planning to carry out this project, insists on its website that “The proposed design of the Sizewell C buildings takes into account the sensitive nature of the surrounding environment while providing enough space to build and operate the power station safely and efficiently.” It doesn’t.
The first three speakers reminded us of the breathtaking beauty of Minsmere and the animals, insects, birds, and reptiles whose lives would be disrupted, if not ended, by the construction activities alone (my talk and the two others addressed the radiological and climate risks if Sizewell C ever became operational.) We saw slides not only of these animals, but of an exotic array of spectacular plant life that would also be lost. Site construction would dissect and disconnect habitats and frighten species away, with 24-hour lights, noise, heavy machinery, traffic and the bulldozing of their landscape. Wildness, already disappearing fast enough, would be lost.
After listening to the eloquent opening presentations from nature and sports journalist, Simon Barnes, Ben McFarland, head of conservation at Suffolk Wildlife Trust, and Rachel Fulcher of Suffolk Coastal Friends of the Earth, there was only one question to be asked: Why on earth would anyone allow this to happen? But so far, Suffolk County Council has gone alone with the plan, albeit with some caveats and ongoing questions for EDF. They may yet be dissuaded.
A video from Suffolk Coastal Friends of the Earth, narrated by Fulcher, is a quietly passionate reminder, somewhat in the style of her namesake, Rachel Carson, not to pave paradise, as Joni Mitchell once warned.
The first thing that is likely to happen is that EDF will raze Coronation Wood. It will do this, not because it needs to now. It is not even certain that Sizewell C will go ahead. It will do this for show. The show in question is to prove to the world that the French nuclear industry is alive and well. It is moving forward.
Not content with the ghastly building site which is the Hinkley C two-reactor project in Somerset, EDF must impress upon the world that it is moving forward with Sizewell as well, which, the company boasts, it can complete even cheaper and faster.
At the Suffolk meeting, Theberton & Eastbridge Action Group on Sizewell screened a particularly brilliant piece of video, shot from a drone, showing the spectacular Suffolk countryside today and what the hapless Somerset countryside at the Hinkley site now looks like. You can view it below.
The French government is on record as saying that without Hinkley and Sizewell, the French nuclear brand will be finished. It sees the UK projects as an essential redemptive step, given the EPR, its supposed flagship, has so far been a financial and technical shipwreck.
As the Financial Times pointed out in May 2018, “Avoiding delays in the UK will be crucial if EDF is to persuade international buyers — and its own shareholders, not least the French government — that the EPR’s teething problems are over.”
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which owns the Minsmere reserve, has said it has concerns that “EDF energy may not be able to keep its environmental promises.”
But the organization should instead be 100 per cent certain that EDF will not keep its environmental promises or any other kind for that matter. You just have to look at the company’s track record, along with the systemic disregard by all nuclear companies anywhere in the world, for the well-being and survival of animals and their habitats, both wild and domestic. (This latter is all documented in our newest booklet — Nuclear power and harm to animals, wild and domestic.)
There is particular reason to mistrust EDF because the company has experienced an endless series of technical, safety and transparency problems at the EPR construction sites still plodding their way to incompletion at Flamanville 3 in France and Olkiluoto 3 in Finland. Even such fundamentals as the concrete pour of the reactor foundation at Flamanville 3 had to be redone. The Flamanville 3 containment came from a forge which falsified quality control data and installed counterfeit parts; the vessel head is defective. And, amidst the corona virus, part of the workforce at Flamanville 1 and 2, both fortunately offline for maintenance, has now been called home. (An outbreak of covid-19 among its staff has also now forced the closure of the reprocessing plant at Sellafield in the UK.)
One can only hope that the decision-makers of Suffolk will wake up and smell the marsh-marigolds (I am no botanist so I can’t vouch for their actual aroma.) Or maybe amidst the silence of their now corona-forced sequestration, they will listen to the song of reed buntings, or sedge warblers and decide they are worth saving. Perhaps they will marvel at the aerobatics of the marsh harrier, or wander out at night and glimpse a rare barbastelle bat, “serrated wings against the sky, Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,” as D.H. Lawrence so vividly described the animals in his poem, Bats (although Lawrence did not care for bats.)…….https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/03/22/nuclear-lessons-from-the-corona-virus/
More Time Sought for Public Input on Nuclear Fuel Proposal, Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are calling out federal nuclear regulators. By Associated Press, Wire Service Content March 21, 2020, BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Members of New Mexico‘s congressional delegation are requesting that federal regulators extend the public comment period for an environmental review related to a multibillion-dollar complex that would store spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants around the United States.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently issued a preliminary recommendation, favoring approval of a license for Holtec International to build the facility in southeastern New Mexico.
The comment period is set at 60 days, but the New Mexico congressional leaders say that should be extended and any public meetings delayed
given the health emergency that has resulted from the new coronavirus.
“The proposal to store high-level nuclear waste has prompted a great deal of public interest across New Mexico,” they wrote in a letter sent Friday to the commission chairman. “The concerns are driven in part by the prospect that any temporary storage facility will remain in the state indefinitely while a pathway for permanent disposal for high-level radioactive waste is identified.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if the commission would entertain the request, as the federal government is moving ahead with numerous rule-makings and comment periods involving other government projects.
New Jersey-based Holtec International is seeking a 40-year license to build what it has described as a state-of-the-art complex near Carlsbad. The first phase calls for storing up to 8,680 metric tons of uranium, which would be packed into 500 canisters. Future expansion could make room for as many as 10,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel.
Holtec said the U.S. currently has more than 80,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel in storage at dozens of sites around the country and the inventory is growing at a rate of about 2,000 metric tons per year.
The NRC staff’s preliminary recommendation states there are no environmental impacts that would preclude the commission from issuing a license for environmental reasons. That recommendation was based on a review of Holtec’s application and consultation with local, state, tribal and federal officials.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other top elected officials are among those who have long had concerns about the potential environmental effects and the prospects of the state becoming a permanent dumping ground for spent nuclear fuel because the federal government lacks a permanent plan for what to do with the waste piling up at power plants around the country.
The governor and others also have questions about whether the facility would compromise oil and gas development in the Permian Basin, one of the world’s most prolific energy production regions.
There were a handful of public meetings in 2018, and another round was set to begin in the coming weeks.
“NRC has been running on auto-pilot to approve the Holtec license application, but hopefully this letter from the delegation will help them to wake up to the pandemic,” said Don Hancock with the watchdog group Southwest Research and Information Center.
The governor has issued several orders in recent days limiting public gatherings as restaurants and other businesses have been forced to cutback their operations as part of the state’s efforts to curb the spread of the virus.
Trump’s callous sanctions risk tipping Iran over the nuclear precipice, Mike Pompeo’s imposition of further sanctions is another disaster for the people of Iran and could cause Tehran to raise the stakes, Guardian, Simon Tisdall Sun 22 Mar 2020
Displaying the sort of unthinking bellicosity that has characterised his tenure as US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo chose last week – a time of unprecedented global turmoil – to impose yet more unilateral sanctions on Iran. This was akin to pouring petrol on a burning building, then waiting to see how big an explosion ensues.
The timing of the new measures was doubly inept. Iran’s freeing of thousands of political prisoners last week raised hopes of full pardons for jailed US citizens and the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been temporarily released.
Those hopes have receded now. Meanwhile, Pompeo’s heedless intervention risked fuelling calls inside Iran to
not only the creaking 2015 nuclear deal but also the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) – the cornerstone since 1970 of international efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.
,………. the move could hardly have been more provocative, or more cruel. Iranians have endured many months of intensifying hardship as US sanctions have shrunk the economy, destroyed jobs and depressed living standards. They have been badly hit by the coronavirus, which the health ministry has said is killing one person every 10 minutes.
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Callous US disregard for Iran’s Covid-19 emergency – it is effectively blocking bilateral medical aid and a request for a $5bn loan from the International Monetary Fund – suggests that Washington is not interested in confidence-building measures. “The Wuhan virus is a killer and the Iranian regime is an accomplice,” Pompeo snarled.
Iran’s leadership is under pressure from conservative hardliners after the latter’s recent election successes. This latest manifestation of Washington’s unremitting hostility may help push them over the brink. Thanks mainly to Donald Trump and his sidekick, Tehran could soon move a crucial step closer to going nuclear – the very outcome the Americans most fear……. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/21/trump-pompeo-iran-callous-sanctions-nuclear-precipice
Sun 22 Mar 2020 Trump’s callous sanctions risk tipping Iran over the nuclear precipiceSimon Tisdall
isplaying the sort of unthinking bellicosity that has characterised his tenure as US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo chose last week – a time of unprecedented global turmoil – to impose yet more unilateral sanctions on Iran. This was akin to pouring petrol on a burning building, then waiting to see how big an explosion ensues.
The timing of the new measures was doubly inept. Iran’s freeing of thousands of political prisoners last week raised hopes of full pardons for jailed US citizens and the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been temporarily released.
Those hopes have receded now. Meanwhile, Pompeo’s heedless intervention risked fuelling calls inside Iran to
not only the creaking 2015 nuclear deal but also the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) – the cornerstone since 1970 of international efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.
,………. the move could hardly have been more provocative, or more cruel. Iranians have endured many months of intensifying hardship as US sanctions have shrunk the economy, destroyed jobs and depressed living standards. They have been badly hit by the coronavirus, which the health ministry has said is killing one person every 10 minutes.
Callous US disregard for Iran’s Covid-19 emergency – it is effectively blocking bilateral medical aid and a request for a $5bn loan from the International Monetary Fund – suggests that Washington is not interested in confidence-building measures. “The Wuhan virus is a killer and the Iranian regime is an accomplice,” Pompeo snarled.
Iran’s leadership is under pressure from conservative hardliners after the latter’s recent election successes. This latest manifestation of Washington’s unremitting hostility may help push them over the brink. Thanks mainly to Donald Trump and his sidekick, Tehran could soon move a crucial step closer to going nuclear – the very outcome the Americans most fear……. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/21/trump-pompeo-iran-callous-sanctions-nuclear-precipice
Navy sailor assigned to US Central Command headquarters tests positive for coronavirus, The Hill, BY TAL AXELROD – 03/21/20 A Navy sailor assigned to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters has tested positive for the coronavirus.CENTCOM announced Saturday that the sailor, who tested positive for the virus Friday, had returned to the U.S. from overseas on March 15 and “immediately” entered a precautionary quarantine at his residence. He did not stop at CENTOM before returning home.
The sailor began exhibiting symptoms on March 18, at which point he went to the health clinic at Macdill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla…….
The news comes a day after the Air Force announced an active-duty airman and an Air Force contractor who both visited the Pentagon in recent weeks have tested positive for the coronavirus.
The active-duty member works for the Defense Health Agency in Falls Church, Va., and was in the Pentagon “for less than an hour” on Monday. The contractor was last in the Pentagon on March 2, according to the Air Force, and has been self-quarantining and receiving medical treatment since March 7…..
The Pentagon also said Friday it is monitoring 2,600 military personnel in Europe for possible exposure to the coronavirus. Thirty-five of the 72,000 U.S. forces in Europe have tested positive for the illness.
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for rigorous science, demonstrating—in realtime—what the consequences can be when world leaders pay inadequate attention to what that science says. In his response to COVID-19, Presdient Donald Trump has made statements that ignore, question or distort mainstream science. But long before the virus arrived—even before he became president—he was using similar techniques to deny climate change. Here are some examples:
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 ChangeNov. 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 ChangeSept. 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
CoronavirusMarch 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.
“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
CoronavirusFeb. 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.
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