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Australia’s Environment Ambassador, Patrick Suckling, promotes fossil fuels at UN Climate Summit

Climate Mobilisation Australia, 11 Dec 18, The Australian Ambassador for the Environment, Patrick Suckling, appeared on a panel for a US government side-event pushing clean coal technologies as climate solutions. The session on Monday 10 December was called: “U.S. Innovative Technologies Spur Economic Dynamism – Promoting innovative approaches”.

One must ask was Ambassador Suckling’s presence sanctioned at Ministerial level? His attendance on the panel is hardly good diplomacy for Australia, even given the Liberal Government support for coal and weak climate targets and climate policy.

After about 9 minutes the first speaker was disrupted and youth and civil society delegates unfurled a banner and made their own testimonies on the disruptive and dangerous nature of coal for health and climate.

They chanted “Keep it in the ground” and “Shame on you”, before leaving the session. After they left, there were very few people to listen to the myths being spouted of clean coal.

Watch the Facebook Livestream video of young delegates taking over the side event about 9 minutes in and making their own testimony on the fossil fuel industry.

The Australia Institute Director of Climate & Energy Program Richie Merzian was there to document the session in the tweets below.

“How could this be good for Australia? The Ambassador finding himself in the middle of the largest cultural battle at #COP24” remarks Richie Merzian……  https://www.facebook.com/groups/859848424161990/

Anger, protests as Australia supports US fossil fuels event at UN climate talkshttps://reneweconomy.com.au/anger-protests-as-australia-supports-us-fossil-fuels-event-at-un-climate-talks-17843/, E.A Crunden11 December 2018 , Think Progress

Protests and boos greeted a controversial U.S. side event promoting fossil fuels at the ongoing annual U.N. climate conference, COP24, on Monday morning in Poland. The event comes two days after the United States joined oil-rich nations in refusing to welcome a dire U.N. climate report released in October.

Trump administration officials and businesses leaders fleshed out U.S. support for an “energy mix” consisting of renewables and fossil fuels alike during Monday’s event.

Entitled “U.S. Innovative Technologies Spur Economic Dynamism,” the event offered a panel widely criticized by environmental advocates. The panel included Australia’s ambassador to the talks, Patrick Suckling.

While the annual U.N. climate conference held this year in Katowice is meant to address the world’s pressing climate crisis, the talks have largely been overshadowed by some nations’ show of support for fossil fuels, including the coal industry — which is dying in the United States.

That support ramped up on Monday during the U.S. panel, which presented fossil fuels as a critical component of the global economy while downplaying the environmental impact of such energy sources.

Trump administration officials speaking included Steve Winberg, assistant secretary at the department of energy, and Wells Griffith, senior director for energy at the National Security Council. Other panelists included Suckling from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs, along with speakers representing natural gas, fracking, and nuclear energy proponents.

Kicking off the event, Griffith heralded “America’s energy renaissance,” highlighting U.S. efforts in expanding fracking, natural gas, and crude oil exploration and extraction.

“If we are serious about eradicating poverty… it is clear that energy innovation and fossil fuels will continue to play a leading role,” said Griffith, as uproarious laughter broke out from the crowd, which consisted largely of activists and journalists.

Research, however, has consistently shown that climate change disproportionately impacts low-income communities across the world, including in the United States.

December 13, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change | Leave a comment

Australia’s dirty tricks in Poland: getting away with no reduction in greenhouse emissions

Fake action’: Australia’s secret path to hitting Paris climate goals, Brisbane Times, By Peter Hannam,– 10 December 2018 Australia could use a little-known loophole to help meet up to half its Paris climate commitments in a move that analysts warn could undermine the global accord.

Neither Environment Minister Melissa Price nor Labor will rule out counting Australia’s expected credits from beating its 2020 goal under the soon-to-be-superseded Kyoto Protocol against its 2030 Paris pledge.

The analysts say such a move by Australia would encourage other nations to follow suit.

One ex-member of Australia’s negotiating team said the government had considered using the credits for some time even though it went against the spirit of the Paris accord signed in 2015. While not formally on the agenda at the current climate talks in Poland, the issue of Kyoto credits is expected to be discussed in coming days.

Ms Price, who is attending the summit in the city of Katowice, has put the expected surplus by 2020 – when the Paris agreement kicks in –

at 294 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

However, consultancy Climate Analytics calculated the final figure will be at least 333 million tonnes. If accounting around land use changes – including tree planting and land clearing – is settled in Australia’s favour, the surplus could swell to 400 million tonnes.

Australia’s current pledge under the Paris agreement is to cut emissions 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by the year 2030.

Unless other nations object to the use of carryover credits, it could then meet the target with just a 15 per cent cut – a much easier task.

“This appears to be the ‘canter’ the government keeps talking about,”

said Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics. “It is fake action and would be rorting the planet, and will undermine real action in Australia.”

Carryover estimates are based on data provided by Australia to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the end of 2017.

Ms Price declined to directly answer questions about how it will use any Kyoto carryover.

‘Fatal undermining’

Richie Merzian, who was part of Australia’s climate negotiations

team for nine years before joining think tank The Australia Institute in April, said the government had long considered deploying a Kyoto surplus towards its Paris target.

“It was certainly part of their train of thinking,” Mr Merzian said. “It could be they were banking on this.”

“You’re basically getting away without reducing your emissions,” he said…….

Labor caution

Mark Butler, Labor’s climate spokesman, declined to rule out using Kyoto credits if the ALP wins office next year………

Adam Bandt, the Greens’ climate spokesman, said the public expected “a government of climate deniers to use dodgy accounting to shirk their climate responsibilities, but not Labor”.

“Labor needs to follow the lead of many other developed countries and immediately rule out using carryover credits to meet our measly Paris obligations if it wins office,” he said.

Emma Herd, chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, said any weakening of emissions targets would sap investments needed to tranform the economy to net-zero emissions by mid-century.

“To secure the long-term prosperity of Australia, targets need to be in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement – limiting warming to 1.5 degrees and well below 2 degrees,” Ms Herd said.

“The longer we delay credible taking action, the harder the economic adjustment will be and Australia will continue to lose the opportunity to unlock the benefits of investment in clean energy and other low carbon

opportunities.”……..https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/fake-action-australia-s-secret-path-to-hitting-paris-climate-goals-20181210-p50lb7.html 

December 11, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change, politics international | Leave a comment

Rallies will demand that Australia insists on Julian Assange’s safe departure from UK

Rallies will demand that the Australian government exercise its undeniable diplomatic and legal powers to insist that the British government immediately and unconditionally allow Assange to leave the United Kingdom and return to Australia if he so chooses. The courageous journalist must be provided with a guarantee, by both the Coalition and Labor, that Canberra will categorically reject any US application for Assange’s extradition

SEP meeting and livestream on December 16: What next in the fight to free Julian Assange?  WSW By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) , 28 November 2018As this year draws to a close, WikiLeaks publisher and Australian citizen Julian Assange remains effectively imprisoned inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, denied sunlight and medical care, and blocked from communicating with the outside world. A court document, which surfaced in November, confirms that the US government has filed and sealed criminal charges against Assange, on the basis that his media organisation, WikiLeaks, published leaked information revealing US war crimes and anti-democratic imperialist intrigues.

The information vindicates the fight waged by Assange and his defenders against an arrest warrant, issued against him in 2010, obligating him to answer “questions” over false allegations that he had committed sexual assault in Sweden. The allegations were fabricated in order to provide ammunition for various pro-US layers to discredit Assange and to create the conditions for him to be rendered to a country that could rapidly extradite him to the US. The American ruling elite is determined to make an example of Assange by putting him on trial for “espionage” or “conspiracy,” in order to intimidate every journalist and whistleblower. Continue reading →

December 8, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Australia: Bushfires, Climate Change, and Nuclear Sites

Bushfires in Queensland have ushered in the “new normal”  of superfires in Australia. California has already experienced this new normal. It means that these fires are now catastrophic. They encroach on human habitation. Fire behaviour has changed.  Their intensity is greater. Their severity is greater: their flames are higher. Fires last longer, and come with increasing frequency. They spread at higher rates, and jump gaps such as roads, rivers and fire breaks. .

These fires now do long -term damage to the ecosystem. The earth underneath is affected, habitat destroyed, killing all the normal bacteria and inhabitants of the soil. Many are fires that are impossible to put out.

The background to these new superfires is climate change. Climate change has brought higher temperatures and  drought – resulting in drier trees and other vegetation – meaning that tinder-dry fuel is ready for ignition.

Australia is uniquely vulnerable, as the driest continent, with its prevailing eucalypt forests.

In California, the authorities are trying hard to cover up the reality that the wildfires started at an abandoned and still radioactively contaminated, nuclear facility . The fire would undoubtedly have caused radioactive ash to be blown about. (The fact that it’s not measured doesn’t mean that it is non existent) 

Australia is vulnerable to a similar radioactive threat. Last year, bushfires went uncomfortably close to the  Lucas Heights nuclear reactor. Plans to transport Lucas Height nuclear waste 1700 km across Australia to Flinders Ranges area mean that this radioactive trash would be at risk of accident, and one of the worst risks would be bushfires.

Australia must face up to the climate change threats – floods (as more water vapour, due to heat, will come down as flooding) , sea level rise, and super bushfires. Lucas Heights nuclear reactor should be closed, and ANSTO’s nuclear dream prevented from becoming Australia’s climate-nuclear nightmare.

The Age of Super Fires

December 3, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change | Leave a comment

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – its plight pretty much ignored by government

Portrait of a planet on the verge of climate catastrophe  As the UN sits down for its annual climate conference this week, many experts believe we have passed the point of no return, Guardian, by Robin McKie, 2 Dec 18 “…………Great Barrier Reef  Coral reefs cover a mere 0.1% of the world’s ocean floor but they support about 25% of all marine species. They also provide nature with some of its most beautiful vistas. For good measure, coral reefs protect shorelines from storms, support the livelihoods of 500 million people and help generate almost £25bn of income. Permitting their destruction would put the planet in trouble – which is precisely what humanity is doing.

Rising sea temperatures are already causing irreparable bleaching of reefs, while rising sea levels threaten to engulf reefs at a faster rate than they can grow upwards. Few scientists believe coral reefs – which are made of simple invertebrates related to sea anemones – can survive for more than a few decades.

Yet those who have sounded clear warnings about our reefs have received little reward. Professor Terry Hughes, a coral expert at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, recently studied the impact of El Niño warmings in 2016 and 2017 on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef and its largest living entity – and wept when he saw the damage.

“The 2016 event killed 30% of corals, the one a year later killed another 20%. Very close to half the corals have died in the past three years,” he said recently.

For his pains, Hughes has faced demands from tourist firms for his funding to be halted because he was ruining their business. “The Australian government is still promoting new developments of coal mines and fracking for gas,” Hughes said, after being named joint recipient of the John Maddox prize, given to those who champion science in the face of hostility and legal threats. “If we want to save the Great Barrier Reef, these outdated ambitions need to be abandoned. Yet Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising, not falling. It’s a national disgrace.”

This grim picture is summed up by the ethnographer Irus Braverman in her book Coral Whisperers: “The Barrier Reef has changed for ever. The largest living structure in the world has become the largest dying structure in the world.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/02/world-verge-climate-catastophe

December 3, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change, oceans | 1 Comment

Australian schoolchildren on strike for action on climate change

Kids across Australia walk out of school to protest climate inaction

Climate change is the biggest threat to our futures, not striking from school https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/climate-change-is-the-biggest-threat-to-our-futures-not-striking-from-school Milou Albrecht, Harriet O’Shea Carre and Jean Hinchcliffe, 29 Nov 2018

We are walking out for a day to send the Australian government a message: you can no longer pretend we are not here. his month, hundreds of children are going on strike from school to demand urgent action on climate change. From rural Victoria to Townsville, we are walking out of school for a day or more to tell our politicians to listen to us and protect our futures.

We are Milou, Jean and Harriet and we are 14 years old.

Two of us – Milou and Harriet – live in rural Victoria. Throughout our lives, we’ve witnessed the impacts that drought, bushfires and extreme weather have on a community. We have been forced to evacuate when a bushfire came through our town. It was scary. But it is something that will happen more and more as climate change gets worse.

We feel frustrated and let down when we think about the climate crisis and our future. There is so much our politicians could be doing that they aren’t. It seems they are in denial. Our government is supposed to protect us, not destroy our chances of a safe future. Continue reading →

December 1, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

Australian schoolkids go out on strike in order to push for climate action

Why aren’t they doing anything?: Students strike to give climate lesson, Brisbane Times, By Peter Hannam,  24 November 2018 This Friday, November 30, thousands of Australian students will go on strike, demanding their politicians start taking serious action on climate change.The movement, School Strike 4 Climate Action, has been inspired by a 15-year-old Swedish student, Greta Thunberg, who started boycotting classes before parliamentary elections in her nation on September 9, and continues to skip school every Friday. She also has a particular message for Australia.

Students in each state capital and across 20 regional Australian centres will walk out of their classrooms this week to tell politicians that more of the same climate inaction is not good enough.

Here are some of the lessons they hope to teach.

‘If we really want a better planet Earth’…….. https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/why-aren-t-they-doing-anything-students-strike-to-give-climate-lesson-20181123-p50hvu.html

November 25, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change | Leave a comment

Australian population – the guinea pigs for British nuclear scientists in the 1950s

British scientists secretly used Australian population to test for radiation contamination after nuclear tests at Maralinga, 

the agency said it had detected varying levels of Strontium-90 in all Australian capital cities.

 https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/british-scientists-secretly-used-australian-population-to-test-for-radiation-contamination-after-nuclear-tests-at-maralinga/news-story/988651beb4e94e1a4fd1b4c4649b3f03

Colin James, The Advertiser, August 29, 2014, BRITISH scientists secretly used the Australian population to test for radiation contamination after the nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s, a new book confirms.

Its author, Frank Walker, has obtained the minutes of a top secret meeting in England where the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment approved a program to determine the long-term effects of the tests on Australia and its citizens.

In his book, Maralinga, Walker details how the meeting at Harwell on May 24, 1957, decided to first obtain soil samples from pasture regions near Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to check for fallout from the nine nuclear bombs detonated at Maralinga and the Monte Bello Islands, off WA.

The second phase was to test vegetation, particularly grass and cabbage, and milk for the presence of the radioactive isotope, Strontium-90, a fission by-product of nuclear explosions.

The meeting was chaired by Professor Ernest Titterton, the nuclear scientist who oversaw the British nuclear tests in Australia.

According to the document obtained by Walker, Professor Titterton told the meeting he wanted to collect animal bones “to see if Strontium-90 is getting into domestic animals”.

The meeting decided to take bone samples from 12 sheep stations along a 800km path of fallout tracked by Royal Australian Air Force planes which flew into the mushroom clouds following each nuclear explosion at Maralinga.

Professor Titterton told the meeting that the final phase of the testing would be to determine if Strontium-90 was being absorbed by the Australian population.

“We have to find out if Strontium-90 is entering the food chain and getting into humans,” says the document, which has the file number DEFE 16/608.

The scientists then agreed to start testing the bones of dead Australian infants and children for radiation contamination.

“As many bones as possible are to be obtained,” says DEFE 16/608.

“The bones should be femurs. The required weight is 20-50 grams wet bone, subsequently ashed to provide samples of weight not less than two grams. The date of birth, age at death and locality of origin are to be reported.”

Professor Titterton said the bones would be crushed into a powder and sent to the UK for analysis along with the soil, animal samples and vegetation collected from the Australian testing sites.

As The Advertiser has previously reported, hundreds of bones were subsequently collected from the bodies of 21,830 dead babies, infants, children, teenagers and young adults across Australia without the knowledge of their parents.

The Strontium-90 testing program in Australia was the longest of its kind in the world, finally ending in 1978.

In September, 2001, following an extensive investigation by The Advertiser, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency revealed it had kept ash samples from bones collected from hospitals in Adelaide, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne.

In a report to the then federal health minister, Michael Wooldridge, the agency said it had detected varying levels of Strontium-90 in all Australian capital cities.

November 17, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Australian commercial TV station now selling its soul to the nuclear industry?

The 60 Minutes Fukushima nuclear infomercial, Independent Australia Noel Wauchope 23 October 2018  A FEW YEARS AGO, Australian Channel 9’s 60 Minutes did an excellent investigation of the Fukushima nuclear accident.

This Fukushima investigation was compered by Liz Hayes. I recall that, at the time, the program was a much more thorough, serious and well-resourced presentation than anything put forward by even the ABC or SBS.

However, I was pretty appalled at the latest 60 Minutes coverage of the Fukushima issue, which screened on Sunday (21 October) titled, Is nuclear power the solution to our energy crisis?  

The main message of this program is a call to scrap Australia’s legislation against establishing the nuclear industry. The argument given is that we need nuclear power because it is supposedly cheap and dependable. We also need it because it is supposedly essential to combat climate change.

This time, the reporter is not Liz Hayes. It’s Tom Steinfort, who is described as a “seasoned Channel 9 star”. Does a seasoned Channel 9 star just accept without question the claims made in this episode?

Among claims made:

  • that the evacuation of the Fukushima prefecture was unnecessary — which implies that the Japanese Government and scientists acted stupidly;
  • that there were no deaths and will not be any deaths resulting from the radiation from the meltdown, a point on which many experts disagree;
  • that nuclear power is essential to tackle climate change, despite recent research which doubts its usefulness.
  • that cancer deaths from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster will amount to only 40-160, despite a comprehensive Russian-UK investigation estimating over a million deaths; and
  • the downgrading of renewable energies, which the latest research recommends for Australia.
If Mr Steinfort really is a star reporter, I would expect him to have done his homework before swallowing these claims hook line and sinker. ………

So, what do we make of this latest offering about Fukushima, from 60 Minutes? It must have taken a lot of money and a lot of negotiation to get a 60 Minutes camera team inside the Fukushima nuclear station. I assume that the negotiations were largely arranged by Ben Heard, who has influential nuclear contacts overseas — particularly in Russia and South Africa, where he has been a prominent nuclear spokesperson. In Russia, Heard launched Rosatom National Geographic — a nuclear soft sell environmental program.

I think that we can be sure of one thing. As Japan plans for the 2020 Olympics – some sections of which are to take place in Fukushima Prefecture – the Japanese Government is not likely to permit a team with any anti-nuclear perspective access to the crippled nuclear power plant.

The 60 Minutes media team would have had to have the Japanese authorities on side. I would bet, some companies keen to set up the nuclear industry in Australia would also be on side and keen to assist.

There have been rumblings, too, of yet another resurgence for nuclear energy in Australia, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison declaring that he is ‘open to the idea of nuclear power’ and that ‘the source of Australia’s energy doesn’t bother him and he isn’t interested in an ideological debate’.

Is it too much to hope that Channel 9 might do something to correct this nuclear infomercial and give us a different, more comprehensive view, rather than one blessed by Japanese authorities and the nuclear power lobby? https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/the-60-minutes-fukushima-nuclear-infomercial,12023

October 25, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, media, spinbuster | 1 Comment

Australian company Berkeley Energia’s bid to open uranium mine is knocked back by Spain

Spain to block Berkeley uranium mine project – sources, CNBC , Belén Carreño, 16 Oct 2018  The Spanish government has decided not to deliver the permits necessary to open the European Union’s only open-cast uranium mine near Salamanca, dealing a serious blow to Australian mining company Berkeley Energia’s plans.

The project was granted preliminary approval in early 2013 but has since faced local opposition………
A neighbouring mine run by public company ENUSA was previously in operation near the site in Retortillo in Salamanca province, but closed in 2000 after it failed to turn a profit.
The price of uranium fell heavily following Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011 and for years struggled to recover…
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/reuters-america-exclusive-spain-to-block-berkeley-uranium-mine-project–sources.html

October 18, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs, Spain | Leave a comment

65 years later, the toxic legacy continues – of British nuclear bomb tests in Australia

Menzies “immediately agreed to the proposal,” without consulting any of his cabinet colleagues or the Australian parliament. Indeed, until weeks before the first test was carried out, only three government ministers knew about it.

The most devastating effects were suffered by two groups: Australian and British soldiers working on the tests themselves, and the Indigenous populations local to Emu Field and the later testing site of Maralinga.

One prominent member of the testing team, Sir Ernest Titterton, later said that if Indigenous people had a problem with the government, they should vote it out, ignoring that Indigenous Australians did not have full political rights until 1967.

an Australian defense ministry report was leaked to the press, warning that large amounts of plutonium left at Maralinga could potentially be a target of terrorists.

those wrongs have not been fully addressed. Health problems stemming from the tests continue for those still living, and while the veracity of Lester and other victims’ stories has been acknowledged, what exactly happened to them remains unclear, the details of the nuclear test still kept top secret.
“To this day we don’t know what Totem I did, those records are still classified by the British,
Australia is still dealing with the legacy of the UK’s nuclear bomb tests, 65 years on https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/14/australia/australia-uk-nuclear-tests-anniversary-intl/index.html  By James Griffiths, CNN  October 15, 2018 (
Yami Lester was 12 years old when the black mist came to Walatinna.

Early on the morning of October 15, 1953, Lester heard a “big bang” in the distance. This was followed by a dark, ominous-looking cloud which drifted low over the ground like a slow-moving dust storm, bringing with it an unpleasant smell.
A tiny speck in the vast South Australian outback, the area around Walatinna was regarded as “depressingly inhospitable to Europeans” by early colonizers, few of whom settled there. But Indigenous people had a long history in the region, including Lester’s tribe.
As the dark cloud settled over the Walatinna camp, the tribal elders attempted to ward it off, thinking it was a malevolent spirit. In many ways they were right.
As those exposed to it later told investigators, the black mist caused their eyes to sting and their skin to break out in rashes. Others vomited and suffered from diarrhea.
It took almost three decades until the cause of the mist was acknowledged as the Totem I nuclear bomb test, as Indigenous people had been claiming for years.
That test was one of a number conducted in the 1950s and ’60s, not by the Australian government, but by its former colonial master, the UK. Today, 65 years after the Totem I test, the effects are still being felt in South Australia and beyond.

British bomb

Australia was not the UK’s first choice of nuclear testing site. British scientists had been intimately involved in the Manhattan Project during World War II, and fully expected to be able to follow the US in testing their own nuclear weapon on American soil.
However, after it emerged Soviet spies had infiltrated the US atomic program, Washington passed the McMahon Act, which strictly limited the sharing of nuclear information with other countries and sent London looking for new locations to conduct its first test.
“Ultimately, they settled on Australia, which had many benefits,” said Elizabeth Tynan, author of “Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga story,” a book about the tests. These includes a sympathetic, compliant government under the recently elected Anglophile Prime Minister Robert Menzies, and wide open spaces in which to carry out the detonations themselves.
In September 1950, British leader Clement Attlee sent Menzies a secret message asking whether his government “would be prepared in principle to agree that the first United Kingdom atomic weapon should be tested in Australian territory.”
According to a later Australian Royal Commission investigation, Menzies “immediately agreed to the proposal,” without consulting any of his cabinet colleagues or the Australian parliament. Indeed, until weeks before the first test was carried out, only three government ministers knew about it.
Menzies’ enthusiasm for the British bomb “wasn’t all sycophantism, it wasn’t all sucking up to his colonial masters,” said Tynan, though this was definitely a factor. The Australian leader also saw in the atomic age an advantage for his country, which was one of the few to have large stocks of uranium, a previously largely unwanted material.
The UK’s first atomic bomb was detonated in the waters off the Montebello Islands, a small archipelago in north western Australia, in the early hours of October 3, 1952, officially making London the third member of the nuclear club, after the US and the Soviet Union.

Emu Field

While the Montebello Islands were used for the first test, British planners were never totally happy with the location, and even before the bomb was set off they began looking for a site on the Australian mainland where they could be granted greater secrecy and autonomy.
They settled on a location in the Great Victoria Desert, about 480 kilometers (300 miles) from the nearest town, Woomera, which they named Emu Field.
Plans were soon set in motion for a second test, and on October 15, 1953, the first of the Totem devices was detonated.
Unlike the Montebello test, which went off largely as planned, the 9.1 kiloton Totem I sent a cloud of debris and smoke some 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) into the air, spreading fallout far higher and farther than originally expected.
The Royal Commission later found the test was carried out in inappropriate wind conditions and without proper consideration for people living nearby, examples of the often staggering lack of care taken by British officials overseeing the nuclear program, who frequently ignored or did not bother to seek out vital information about the potential effects of their tests on the host country.

Black mist

The most devastating effects were suffered by two groups: Australian and British soldiers working on the tests themselves, and the Indigenous populations local to Emu Field and the later testing site of Maralinga.
While some concern was paid to their safety during the tests, it was often cursory at best. A single “native patrol officer” given the thankless task of having to try and inform Indigenous residents of the potential dangers had a 100,000 square kilometer (38,610 square mile) region to cover.
Nor did the British much seem to care. One prominent member of the testing team, Sir Ernest Titterton, later said that if Indigenous people had a problem with the government, they should vote it out, ignoring that Indigenous Australians did not have full political rights until 1967.
Another senior official, in a letter to his superiors, complained that W. B. MacDougall, the man with the dubious task of trying to protect the local Indigenous populations, was “placing the affairs of a handful of natives above those of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”
“The harm done to the Aboriginal people is one of the most shameful aspects (of the tests),” Tynan said. “Nowhere in the British records is there a sign of even the slightest concern for the Aboriginal people.”
This lack of concern is likely what led to the situation at Walatinna. Around 40 people were in the camp when the Totem I blast sent clouds of radiated material miles into the sky.
“It rumbled, the ground shook, it was frightening,” Lalli Lennon told investigators. Some time later, a large black cloud passed low over the settlement. Her husband Stan described it as “sort of hazy, like a fog or something.” Lalli and her children developed fevers, headaches, vomiting and diarrhea, and two of them suffered rashes and sore eyes from the smoke.
But just as they had paid little attention to the wellbeing of Indigenous people prior to the test, the British and Australian authorities did not concern themselves with such matters afterwards.
This was reflected by and large by Australian public opinion, which Tynan said was initially “quite jubilant” about the tests, and remained broadly supportive until the 1970s and ’80s, when a host of revelations about the British nuclear program exposed its lackluster safety procedures — even by the standards of the time — and the disdain of those overseeing it for Australian democratic oversight.

Maralinga mess

This shift began when an Australian defense ministry report was leaked to the press, warning that large amounts of plutonium left at Maralinga could potentially be a target of terrorists.
This ran contrary to a 1968 report prepared by British official Noah Pearce which assured the Australian government the plutonium had been properly buried and did not present a significant risk.
Indeed, that year the Australians agreed to release the UK from nearly all “liabilities and responsibilities” regarding the tests, in the belief the British had “completed decontamination and debris clearance … to the satisfaction of the Australian government.”
When Canberra finally carried out its own survey of the site, scientists were shocked by what they found.
“They still thought the Pearce Report was accurate until their geiger counter went crazy,” said Tynan, who has interviewed several of the inspectors. “They weren’t wearing protective gear (and) were kicking plutonium soaked rocks with their boots.”
The Royal Commission report said later that there were between “25,000 and 50,000 plutonium- contaminated fragments in the (Maralinga) area, although the number might need to be doubled if missed and buried fragments were included.” Emu Field and the Montebello Islands were also found to be more dangerous than expected.
“In addition to British scientific and military personnel, thousands of Australians were exposed to radiation produced by the tests,” according to a report by the Australian Institute of Criminology. “These included not only those involved in supporting the British testing program, but also Aboriginal people living downwind of the test sites, and other Australians more distant who came into contact with airborne radioactivity.”

Final hearing

The Royal Commission hearings marked the end to any lingering approval of the tests among the Australian public, exposing fully the ongoing harm done to the local environment, Indigenous people, and the soldiers who worked on the tests.
While many disorders are difficult to link directly to the nuclear tests, veterans of the program have complained of numerous cancers, autoimmune diseases, and other ailments — including among their children — which they put down to their lack of protective clothing and other precautions at the time.
Last year, the Australian government expanded medical benefits for members of the nuclear testing program, but most are now in their late 80s and one told the ABC the move was “too bloody late.”
The harm done to Indigenous people has also been recognized in the decades since the Royal Commission, including by the black mist — which a British official once said investigating would be a “complete waste of money and time.”
In 1993, the British agreed to pay the Australian government and the traditional owners of the Maralinga lands around 46 million AUD ($30 million). The Australian authorities also paid Indigenous Maralinga communities a settlement of 13.5 million AUD ($9 million).
“Everyone became friends again after that,” said Tynan, adding that the issue, which had dominated Australian media and public attention for years, slowly slipped away, becoming a “great Australian secret.”
Today, she said she often meets young Australians who are unaware of the tests, and even many people who were alive at the time of the Royal Commission who only have a hazy idea of the issues.
“It was one of those things that, because it was not really written into the history books … just dropped off the radar,” she said, even as veterans and Indigenous people affected by the tests continue to suffer health repercussions and shortened lifespans because of their exposure to radiation.
Yami Lester died on July 21, 2017. He was remembered in parliament by then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as a “man of wonderful intelligence and insight, as an elder of great standing and as a champion of Aboriginal rights and dignity.”
“He will be revered for rising from personal tragedy to serve his community and to lead his people to ensure that they were recognized and their wrongs addressed,” Turnbull added.
But as Tynan and others have pointed out, those wrongs have not been fully addressed. Health problems stemming from the tests continue for those still living, and while the veracity of Lester and other victims’ stories has been acknowledged, what exactly happened to them remains unclear, the details of the nuclear test still kept top secret.
“To this day we don’t know what Totem I did, those records are still classified by the British,” Tynan said. “It remains one of the great mysteries.”

 

October 15, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, history, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear lobby spreads confusion as it touts “SMRs” – nuclear fantasy research

Steve Dale Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch South Australia, October 10

Small Modular Reactors don’t exist yet, and the picture below shows that the size of these speculative reactors are far from “small” (red arrow points to tiny human figure). Yet Barry Brook continues to receive funding from the “Australian Research Council” to investigate all things nuclear, including putting these reactors on small islands. How much money has gone to funding pro-nuclear fantasy research?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/

Noel Wauchope they are now referred to by IAEA as small and medium reactors (SMRs)…..A subcategory of very small reactors – vSMRs – is proposed for units under about 15 MWe, especially for remote communities……..Note that many of the designs described are not yet actually taking shape. ……. There’s a bewildering array of reactor designs, listed in MWe (MegaWatts electic) -not in physical size.

October 13, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Many UNPAID Australians speak out against nuclear plans of the PAID few nuclear industry proponents

I am always struck by the fact that opponents of the nuclear industry are very many unpaid people. Just people who care. Some are highly educated academically. Many are not – but then they take the trouble to find out, and speak with the authority of both their local knowledge and wider information.

As for nuclear proponents they’re a small number of paid individuals, with another small number of hangers-on who expect financial benefits from the nuclear industry.

ABC Radio Adelaide Evenings with Peter Goer. Talkback 4 Oct 18. This show was inundated with hundreds of South Australians phoning in and texting about the proposed nuclear waste dump. ALL SAID NO!  Are you listening Department of Industry Innovation and Science and Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation  !!!??….  IT’S A BIG NO FROM SOUTH AUSTRALIA!!!

Transcript:. Noel Wauchope . Not a perfect transcript, but a good account of what each caller said 

 Lots of text messages opposing the dump.  Speakers:

Michelle thinks it’s a very risky dangerous thing to do. Many of the community don’t want it. S.A highly regarded for its produce. Transport of wastes is dangerous. It is a wedge. They tried to import nuclear wastes before and they’re trying again. Medical expert has advised that most medical wastes are very short-lived – no distant dump required.

Craig from CCSA says longterm solution is needed. Temporary storage at Lucas Heights a better idea than moving it to rural South Aust- avoid need for moving wastes twice – with “interim” storage in SA. Geological problem – movement of soil, active flood plain. Govt timetable is a political one. Our community being bribed.

James says the dump is a ludicrous idea. Only 3 landowners nominated their land. Money thrown in – distorts people’s thinking. It’s a foot in the door. Govt has already made up its mind.

Greg thinks it’s a ludicrous idea. Idea gone on for 40 years. Previous attempts ended up with legal action. Now legal action on. Need a suitable site – e.g. Commonwealth land – not disrupting a community like Kimba. Not to force it on to remote economically vulnerable community.

Katrina – wastes lasting many thousands of years, people are thinking it’s just gloves and gowns etc. Being rushed through. Need expert inquiry into safest waste solution. Instead, govt is selling it to communities – and they keep upping the money.

Betty says where do Americans store theirs? Agrees with previous callers. We are harnessing generations of children to maintaining these wastes. USA stores wastes in inaccessible mountains highly guarded [Ed. actually not correct]

Peter agrees with the previous speakers. What is this waste to be used for in the future – bombs?

Fay not happy -what are we leaving for the next generation? Last S.A. govt Jay Weatherill international dump in favour but it was knocked back .

Joanne was on Citizens Jury into nuclear waste dump – over 70 % said NO. There was the huge document – Royal Commission – why is govt not using this document? It is full of lies. USA govt has not found a way to dispose of its wastes. Lucas Heights is now receiving back high level nuclear wastes.

Julie the indigenous communities of Kimba and Hawker treated absolutely disgracefully in this process.

Paul says it is going to be low level nuclear waste. Why can’t it travel by air (Compere – we haven’t been told this)

Mary quoted Albert Einstein – “We are drifting towards a catastrophe beyond comparison…..”.

Sandra says 12 yrs ago she was in a caravan North of Tennant Creek – hit by an earthquake. Epicentre was 40km beyond Tennant Creek just where nuclear waste dump had been considered,X-rays done there for that purpose.

Brett – we’ve been told a layer cake of lies. People finding that more and more deception is going on. One of the biggest is that it’s medical waste. ANSTO and DIIS stopped telling that lie 3 months ago. Lots of bribery and deception going on. Bureaucrats gone crazy. It’s high level wastes in big containers- guarded by troops in UK.

Bob -this whole thing is one great big lie. During Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, a large part of their final report was about so-called low level nuclear wastes dump in Australia, We’re told that we shouldn’t conflate the national dump with an international dump. BUT in a Submission from Richard Yeeles formerly PR for Roxby Downs, he said Drop all this talk about an international facility . Let’s concentrate on getting a national dump here first and then we’ll go to the international dump afterwards. Richard Yeeles is now chief adviser to the Premier Steven Marshall.   Everyone is hanging out for this vote.People in this State need to understand clearly that the Federal government can override the current legislation in our State. So it’s a national issue about a national dump.

Sylvia. Wants to know why S Aust should have the dump. NSW has just as much land, a bigger State..What’s wrong with their ground?

Peter Woolford It has divided our community. I put this to Minister Canavan. Both Kimba and Hawker have been impacted greatly. The govt has clearly forgotten this. A lot of money being thrown around. Take the money away – there’s no debate.People are focused on that money. The govt has tripled the money that’s going towards the facility – they’re upping the ante. Minister Canavan it’s up to his discretion where this goes. People need to understand that the Federal govt can override the legislation of this State It should b wider than KImba or Hawker it’s a National matter.

Patrick we can find out from Wikileaks.

Tim is concerned with the way people are thinking. It’s a political issue. We have been making money from selling uranium around the world, we need to take some responsibility. I wish we’d never started it.

Not one call, apart from Tim, from a pro nuclear person. No calls were screened out. Here we have heard from some of the many unpaid anti-nukers. Next week, Peter Goers might interview a couple of paid pro nukers ?

October 5, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Yet again, Australia sets out to wreck international climate talks

Australia gets out the wrecking ball, again, in international climate talks https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-gets-out-the-wrecking-ball-again-in-international-climate-talks-17099/

Giles Parkinson, 7 September 2018 Well, that didn’t take long. Little more than a week after the elevation of Scott Morrison to the prime minister’s office, Australia has returned to the bad old ways that were a feature of Tony Abbott’s engagement on climate change, and John Howard’s involvement with Kyoto.In separate arena this week, Australia has been accused of attempting to water down the languageof the Pacific Islands Forum declaration on climate change. And in Bangkok it has sided with the Trump administration and Japan in attempting to weaken climate finance obligations in a move that has horrified some observers.

Australia is coming under increasing scrutiny since Malcolm Turnbull announced the country was dumping the emissions obligation proposed for the National Energy Guarantee, and was then dumped by the party’s climate denying conservative wing anyway.

Morrison has shown no interest in climate change, and has instructed new energy minister Angus Taylor to focus only on “bringing down prices” and ensuring the country retains as much “fair dinkum” coal in the system as it can.

Even environment minister Melissa Price, a former mining company lawyer who is supposed to be responsible for emissions, is talking up the idea of having new coal-fired generators.

The international community is looking on in horror, and so are the main business lobby groups in Australia, such as the Business Council of Australia – who have campaigned vigorosuly for a decade to minimise Australia’s contribution to climate action, but understand the considerable reputational, trade and business consequences of choosing to do nothing.

Morrison has so far resisted calls from the party’s far right to follow Trump out of the Paris climate treaty, but in crucial and complex climate talks in Bangkok this week, sided with the US and Japan in a dramatic attempt to weaken climate finance obligations.

The Bangkok talks were called to give negotiators extra time to put together the so-called “rule-book,” which will provide the fine details of the Paris agreement, particularly as countries gear up to increase their climate targets to try and drag the collective efforts closer to the target of limiting global warming to “well below” 2°C, and possibly 1.5°C.

But little progress has been made in Bangkok, forcing the UNFCCC, which runs the climate talks, to call for the annual talks scheduled this year in Poland to begin a day earlier, in the hope that visiting heads of state have something to work with when they turn up.

One of the biggest road-blocks has been erected by Australia, the US and Japan, who put in a joint submission that seeks to water down climate finance guidelines, and casts doubt that this week’s Bangkok negotiations will deliver the clear climate rules UN leaders have been calling for. Climate campaigners say the proposed text on article 9.7 of the Paris accord, which refers to accounting and is meant to establish rules about how developed countries report what finance they provide to developing countries, serves to muddy the rules rather than clarify them.

The campaigners say that the proposal would allow countries to report whatever items they like – including commercial loans ≠ as climate finance, in contrast to demands of clear financial and technical packages to help them developing countries cope with future extreme weather-related events.

“(This) does not create any meaningful rules on how climate finance is accounted for, and instead it essentially says ‘countries should report what they want,’” Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns for ActionAid USA, told Devex.

“This would completely let rich countries off the hook and deprive developing countries of real money for real action,” Wu said. Other campaigners said this meant climate finance could just be re-badged existing aid.

These problems are being felt acutely in the Pacific, where island nations are furious with Australia’s stance on climate, its attachment to coal, and its refusal to act on its declarations that “it takes climate change seriously.”

The current Coalition government still has no policy in place to try and reach what is regarded as a very low interim target of a 26-28 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030. Continue reading →

September 6, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change, politics international | Leave a comment

Following Trump, Canada and Australia go backwards on climate change action

The Global Rightward Shift on Climate Change, President Trump may be leading the rich, English-speaking world to scale back environmental policies. The Atlantic , ROBINSON MEYER, AUG 28, 2018  Last Thursday, Malcolm Turnbull was the prime minister of Australia. By the end of this week, he’ll be just another guy in Sydney.

Turnbull was felled by climate-change policy. His attempt at a moderate, even milquetoast energy bill—which included some mild cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions—proved too aggressive for his co-partisans. On Friday, members of Australia’s center-right Liberal Party voted him out of office…..

Turnbull’s tumble remains a disquieting sign for anyone hoping for an aggressive global climate policy. In Australia—where global warming has contributed to the die-off of half the coralin the Great Barrier Reef since 2016—even a mild climate bill could not pass under a conservative government.

It points to an emerging pattern: Moderate national leaders—on both the center-left and center-right—in some of the world’s richest and most advanced countries are finding it far easier to talk about climate change than to actually fight it.

At a basic level, this pattern holds up, well, everywhere. Every country except the United States supports the Paris Agreement on climate change. But no major developed country is on track to meet its Paris climate goals, according to the Climate Action Tracker, an independent analysis produced by three European research organizations. Even Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom—where right-wing governments have made combatting climate change a national priority—seem likely to miss their goals.

Simply put: This kind of failure, writ large, would devastate Earth in the century to come. The world would blow its stated goal of limiting atmospheric temperature rise. Heatwaves might regularly last for six punishing weeks, sea levels could soar by feet in a few short decades, and certain fragile ecosystems—like the delicate Arctic permafrost or the kaleidoscopic plenty of coral reefs—would disappear from the planet entirely.

Australia’s recent instability further complicates this unease. The global climate action of 2016 may be producing something like a worldwide climate backlash—especially in countries with powerful fossil-fuel interests, like Australia and Canada. Or—far more worryingly for climate advocates—these changes in policy may be trickling down from the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases of them all: the United States.

The victims of climate change are already here

Take Canada. In 2015, Justin Trudeau campaigned for prime minister by citing his support for a national carbon price. (A carbon price is a type of climate policy that charges polluters for every ton of heat-trapping gas they dump into the atmosphere.) After winning the election, Trudeau took a compromise strategy on fossil fuels, proposing an economy-wide carbon price while endorsing the construction of several massive new oil-export pipelines.

Two years later, Trudeau’s carbon-pricing scheme is in trouble. The government has already slashed the ambition of its initial proposal. The Conservative Party, which opposes Trudeau, has dubbed the carbon price a “tax on everything” and its leader says a future government would repeal any carbon price. The new premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, says he will fight the carbon price when it takes effect in January of next year.

It seems likely that the 2019 elections in Canada—in which Trudeau faces reelection—will hinge in part on what voters think of the carbon price. While that vote is still more than a year away, Trudeau’s Liberal Party has lost its early lead in polling and is now essentially tied with the Conservative Party.

But political opposition is not the only reason Trudeau has watered down his plan. His party seems to have real concerns about the economic consequences of the policy. In order to avoid putting any one country at a competitive disadvantage, global governments vowed to fight climate change together in 2015. But President Donald Trump abrogated this informal arrangement. Since taking office, he ravaged American climate policy, repealing his predecessor’s pollution-reduction rules on cars, trucks, and power plants. Coupled with Trump’s new tariffs and trade policy, a carbon tax could ding Canadian competitiveness.

This month, Trudeau’s government announced that it will tax only 20 percent of carbon emissions, not the planned 30 percent. Some Trump-threatened industries, including cement and steelmaking, will only see 10 percent of their emissions taxed, according to The Globe and Mail. ………

If Trudeau loses next year, and conservatives repeal his carbon tax, then his government’s climate legacy will be a pipeline, not a reduction in emissions. And if Canada abandons its climate policy, then it will follow the path set by another Anglophone petit petrostate: Australia.

Oz is the only country in the world to adopt an ambitious price on carbon pollution and then promptly repeal it. Its aggressive climate policy—adopted by the left-leaning Labor Party in 2012—was repealed by Prime Minister Tony Abbot’s rightwing government two years later.

Which is to say that Australian climate policy is already weird and mangled—and, indeed, that Australian energy policy as a whole is weird and mangled. Australia should have cheap electricity: It is very sunny, and very windy, and its miners haul roughly $50 billion in U.S. dollars of coal out of the ground every year. Yet recently Aussies have been paying some of the highest power prices in the world. Since 2015, household power bills have doubled in cost in some states. Electricity in Sydney is now more than twice as expensive as it is in New York.

Turnbull’s downfall has to be understood in light of that policy disaster. The former prime minister spent months trying to put together a “National Energy Guarantee” that would address its electricity crisis, mostly by making Obamacare-style improvements to the power market. The same bill also legislated some modest emissions cuts that were promised under the Paris Agreement.

Rightwing lawmakers, many of whom are allied with Australia’s booming fossil-fuel industry, seized on the climate aspects of the legislation. So last week, Turnbull abandoned it. The embarrassment ultimately led to his ouster: By Friday, his party’s right wing had voted to replace him.So Australia’s energy policy is now again adrift. Its new prime minister, Scott Morrison, is perceived in the country as being on the center-right, and he’s said he won’t abandon the Paris Agreement. But Australian carbon emissions have been rising for six years and it’s totally unclear whether it will meet its greenhouse-gas targets. The new prime minister has also already appointed a far-right opponent of renewable energy to lead Australia’s ministry of energy and environment.

What else drove this coup? Look to a July speech made by Tony Abbot, a former Australian prime minister and by far its most conservative leader this decade. He exhorted Australia to follow President Trump’s lead and leave the Paris Agreement—…….

Abbot then engaged in a bit of Trumpianism, rejecting many of the conclusions of mainstream climate science. “Storms are not more severe; droughts are not more prolonged; floods are not greater; and fires are not more intense than a century ago.” (These claims are respectively false, likely false, debatable, and false.)

All this does not bode well for advocates of climate action. Extreme weather is battering Australia on all fronts: Carbon-warmed oceans are plundering its Great Barrier Reef, and a record-breaking drought is ravaging the country’s well-populated southeast. Yet even its center-right-led, middling attempt at a climate policy is withering on the vine. On Monday, in one of his first public appearances since taking office, Prime Minister Morrison declined to comment on whether climate change is intensifying the country’s drought. “I’m going to leave that debate,” he said, “for another day.”https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/a-global-rightward-shift-on-climate-change/568684/

August 31, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, Canada, climate change, politics international | Leave a comment

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