nuclear-news

Conserving energy, reducing demand – no need for nuclear – theme for November 21.

No, nuclear lobbyists – the world needs clean energy, smart energy , NOT endless nuclear energy ! The Cop26 climate conference is just underway. Too soon to know what directions the nations will be taking. Clean, renewable energy sources are needed.

But the most effective, cheapest and quickest measure is energy conservation

The nuclear industry is completely enmeshed in the energy -guzzling operations of space travel and militarism. Conservation of energy is a dirty phrase, not to be considered in their world view. You won’t find it in their propaganda films, like Pandora’s Promise’

The nuclear lobby spouts ”endless energy” as a noble goal to aspire to, – with a sort of religious fervour.

But that’s not what we need. We need a change of culture – a recognition that we live on the only known habitable planet, that has limited resources, and desperately needs to be cared for – not trashed any more..

Endless growth, endless consumerism is a the nuclear industry’s preferred, and suicidal, way for the human species to go.

October 19, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 3 Comments

The nuclear industry, climate change, and the concept of ENOUGH – theme for November 2021.

To the nuclear industry the concept of ENOUGH is anathema. If you saw their slick advertising film “Pandora’s Promise” you would note that their major theme is endless GROWTH that will perpetually require ENDLESS ENERGY.

The nuclear industry’s shills, and there are many of them, love to portray the anti-nuclear movement as wanting to send people back to living in a “dark ages” style.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Genuine environmentalists want all people to have a life of more light, of reasonable comfort and leisure time, of enough of the good things of this world, rather than of too much.

It’s time that governments, bankers, industry leaders woke up to the reality that the world economy is threatened by growth, by climate change, threatened by the accelerating destruction of this planet’s  air, water, land, and biodiversity. The destroyer is the growing human population and its growing consumption of ever more unnecessary products and unnecessary energy use.

It’s time that people stepped away from endless individualistic  consumption, and towards a reasonable life of more cooperation, of working less hours. It’s time to move from our suicidal consumer culture, to a conserver culture.

October 19, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 16 Comments

For a clean nuclear-free climate – theme for September 21

I’m afraid that we’re kidding ourselves, if we think that we can do any more than to slow the onset of climate change. “Disruptive impacts from climate change are now inevitable”. Jem Bendell, A British Professor of Sustainability now says that nothing in our civilization is sustainable.  The emphasis must now also be on adaptation to climate change. Elizabeth May, Leader of Canada’s Green Party, has recently stressed, on Radio Ecoshock,   that not only grandchildren, and later generations will be affected, but today’s children will experience the social, and health disruptions of climate change.

The Power of One Green – Elizabeth May in 2018

As for the nuclear threat – it’s no wonder that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock stays now at 2 minutes to midnight, with aggressive leaders like Trump and Putin, with weapons’ companies and military brass salivating about new, advanced weapons, even space warfare.

Still, nations continue to sign up to the U.N. Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty. It’s a start.

For the “peaceful” nuclear industry – the good news is that it’s becoming  a failing economic disaster. It would die a faster death, if it were not so valuable to the nuclear weapons industry.   Colossal waste problems in USA, Japan, UK, are stalling plans for new reactors . Russia and China are not publicly divulging information on their wastes, but both are keen to export nuclear technology, rather than develop it at home.

The nuclear industry continues its lies about nuclear solving climate change -lies that are mindlessly regurgitated by the mainstream media. Media also faithfully parrot the promises of “new nukes” – the “Generation IV” nuclear designs that do not yet exist, and would be prohibitively expensive, requiring huge tax-payer subsidies..

Stilll, good people continue to do good things. And, we just can’t afford to give up hope – as Greta Thunberg tells us “Look for action – then the hope will come”

September 11, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 18 Comments

On the positive side – heading for a better and a nuclear-free, world – theme for September 21

It’s time to recognise the positive developments – towards a clean and more just world. And time to turn away from the corporate spin of the polluters and nuclear lobbyists.

The the world is finally realising the urgency of the existential threat of global heating. Meanwhile the polluting corporative partners, fossil fuel and nuclear industries, now redouble their spin to the public,

And, don’t let’s forget, most of the mainstream media is owned by corporations that also have interests in those polluting industries.

We need to acknowledge the good stuff that’s happening. We also need to turn our attention to those independent voices – the ones who seek out and explain both the facts about the dirty industries, and the positive developments leaving those industries behind.

Great work is being done towards energy conservation, and truly clean energy technologies, and environmental protection. On this page, I’m confining the story to the work of the nuclear-free movement .

Starting out with opposition to nuclear weapons, the movement broadened to opposing the nuclear industry as a whole.  Major anti-nuclear groups include Sortir du Nucleaire, Greenpeace International, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace,  Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Peace Action and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Ploughshares Fund

There are many others across the world, including in Russia and China.

You might think that the nuclear-free movement has failed, especially given the proliferation of nuclear weapons. But the organised protests and work of the movement has had, and continues to have, some success. Most countries do not have nuclear power. Several advanced countries remain opposed to nuclear power – Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Norway . Over the decades, activist movements have led to the stopping of atmospheric nuclear bomb tests, and the prevention of nunerous nuclear power projects.

Importantly, nuclear energy has been excluded from the Green Zone at the COP26 Climate Summit.

Also importantly , the USA Nuclear Regulatory Commision reaffirms the standard that low dose ionising radiation is bad for your health, and rejects the nuclear industry’s petition to weaken that standad.

The work continues, with the most important recent development – the UN Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons . Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are in lockstep – a fact quite openly acknowledged now, even boasted about, by the industry.

The nuclear-free movement works alongside the clean energy movement. On the world stage, the challenge is to keep real climate action in the COP26 climate conference in November, without nuclear. Locally, the clean fight is fought by communities around the world, especially indigenous people, who are always the victims of nuclear bomb tests and waste dumping.

Most mainstream writers, and some academics, are caught up in the pro nuclear spin.

Look for the fine writers who really seek the truth, A few examples – M.V. Ramana, Helen Caldicott, Jim Green, Mary OLson, Gordon Edwards Alice Slater Arnie Gundersen, Libbe Halevy, Diesendorf, Mark , Beatrice Fihn, Lovins, Amory B. Eric_Schlosser and for song – Caitlin Johnstone………

You will note that women are prominent in the truth-seeking writers. They have been dramatically absent from the push for nuclear weapons, (though a few women are now ostentatiously promoted by the desperate nuclear industry)

This little website has a very small readership. But we are still here, and trust our readers to spread the information. And we will keep on promoting the work of the honest seekers after truth, through this site, and via my weekly email newsletter.

August 19, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 11 Comments

From Hiroshima to climate apocalypse – the consummate NUCLEAR LIES- theme for August 2021

It began with the atrocity of Hiroshima, which continued the lie that it’s OK to massacre children, women and men. Then the specific nuclear lies about the reason for this particular bombing , then the lie about ”peaceful nukes” and on until today’s big lie – that ”nuclear is essential to save the climate”.

IF this nuclear lie is allowed to prevail, especially at the Glasgow Climate Change Conference in November, the official climate action movement will have no credibility.

Money, time, effort put into nuclear energy development is money, time and effort taken away from genuine action to combat and to adapt to global heating- energy conservation, and renewable energy technologies.

It is also money put into nuclear weaponry – because so-called ”commercial” nuclear power is economically unviable, is really just a mask for nuclear weaponry, – – on land, sea, in sky, and space

But – LET’S PRETEND THAT NUCLEAR ENERGY REALLY CAN COMBAT GLOBAL HEATING. But oh, what a pity! – the most recent research predicts that climate change will become irreversible by 2027 – 2042.

That means that we have only, at best, 20 years to switch from coal, and gas to carbon-free electricity.

The world would need 1000s of ‘conventional’ nuclear reactors to provide even a partially effective solution, and many 1000s of small nuclear reactors. There is no possibility of achieving that with 50 years, let alone 20. Renewables can be set up within months to a few years. (Nuclear development would be a costly and wasteful distraction).

NUCLEAR POWER INCREASES GLOBAL HEATING. The entire nuclear fuel chain, from uranium mining through to wastes burial, is highly carbon emitting.

Meanwile, the nuclear industry, so called ”emissions-free” emits ionising radiation, harmful to health and environment.

The industry’s dangers and role in creasing weapons and the danger of apocalyptic nuclear war, make it totally unsuitable and indeed counter-productive , for inclusion in any climate change action strategy.

July 17, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 7 Comments

The world should stop tiny invisible killer radioactive particles – just as dangerous as tiny invisible killer coronaviruses – theme for July 2021

Why on earth are we so complacent about ionising radiation from nuclear activities –  at the same time as the world is in uproar over the pandemic?

Is it because we don’t mind a plague of cancers, other illnesses and birth defects coming not immediately, but affecting people years later –  our grandchildren and great-grandchildren?

Tiny invisible little viruses float about the air, near people who have the COVID-19 infection, or they settle on people’s hands, on objects – ever ready to be picked up by more people.  Almost certainly, this virus started by jumping from wild bats to humans.

So the epidemiologists now work to trace the movement, the dispersal of the infection – and world-wide maps of COVID illness clusters are identified. The goal is to stop the present global illness, with its many deaths.

Equally, tiny particles from nuclear activities, uranium mining and milling, reactors, wastes, nuclear weapons making, nuclear bomb tests – have floated about the atmosphere, and continue to do so, reaching living creatures, and settling in water and on land. With contact, especially inhaling or ingesting these, the results are birth defects, cancer and other illnesses.   Not an urgent problem? After all, it is usually only after years of exposure, that people develop these illnesses.

Where are the epidemiologists tracing the dispersal of the radioactive particles, and the resultant sicknesses and deaths?

And, these particles came, not from bats, but from a very lucrative human industry.  So lucrative, that all the banks, universities, governments and other backers involved do not want the epidemiological research that would expose this global horror.

As the world wakes up to the urgent need for research and international action on Coronavirus, it is time for international action to stop the global radiation-caused epidemic, and the nuclear activities that produced it.

June 16, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 7 Comments

Exactly who is trumpeting nuclear power as a cure for climate change? – theme for June 21

Well, understandably, it starts with the nuclear industry itself, faced with the reality that now, the only real reason for its continued existence is nuclear weapons. It’s the nuclear power and the nuclear weapons companies.

It’s the global array of nuclear -associated agencies – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the rest of them, in each nuclear country.

And don’t forget those billionaire gurus – Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson – who use their wealth to promote their own businesses in new nuclear toys

So, don’t be surprised to hear nuclear power executives, nuclear physicists, nuclear engineers and chemists extolling the glory of nuclear power – their careers are in danger!

Their best argument ”Only we, with our superior technical knowledge are capable of having an opinion on this matter”

POLITICIANS. In the USA no President can to be elected without the backing of the nuclear industry. The same surely applies for political leaders in other nuclear nations. Many politicians depend on nuclear industry support, to get elected and stay there.

MEDIA. The nuclear lobby has done a great job of convincing many journalists that they can’t really understand matters nuclear. So, for journalists, the safest course is to just regurgitate the industry handouts. Those who do have confidence often know that their corporate employers have interests in the nuclear-and coal industries.

ACADEMIA. and RESEARCH. Many universities have been, to a degree, bought by the nuclear industry.

BANKS and other financial bodies invest in nuclear power, or, better still, nuclear weapons,

THE ARTS. As with corporations through the past century, nuclear corporations have funded all sorts of arts bodies, – so co-opting their support.

June 5, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 9 Comments

Whom to trust on nuclear matters – just ask yourself “What’s in it for whom? – theme for June 21.

The facts on the nuclear industry are shrouded in secrecy and jargon.

What we do know is that many people and many communities rely on this industry for jobs and economic security (until they can’t anymore). But this dependence on an industry does not make it good.

So – whom to rely on for a judgment about nuclear power, [with its partner twin, nuclear weapons?]

Well, the current respected”authorities” on the nuclear industry are billionaire celebrities, officials of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), government department heads, chiefs of nuclear companies. They know best [?]

There are scores of other highly qualified persons who decry the nuclear industry, on the grounds of radiation dangers, safety, health, environmental risks, climate change threats, security, weapons proliferation, terrorism, and oh – that most compelling issue – costs.

Well, the nuclear proponents have one clear way to refute all those people – ‘‘they are not nuclear physicists or engineers, and therefore cannot understand nuclear matters’‘ [only – some of them ARE nuclear physicists]

The mainstream media makes sure to (a) ignore those critics of nuclear power, or (b) depict them as cranks or unhinged leffties.

These are just a few of these often maligned critics:

Dr Helen Caldicott author, Michael E Mann, climatologist and geophysicist, Dr Paul Dorfman, science researcher.  Arjun Makhijani, nuclear physicist, Dr Chris Busby, radiation expert Dr Ian Fairlea, radiation consultant. Arnold Gunderson, nuclear engineer, Beatrice Fihn -chief of ICAN. Mary OLson, expert on radiation effects on women. Dr Timothy Mousseau, ecologist Dr Jim Green, public health expert, Linda Gunter, nuclear media commentator. Dr Gordon Edwards, nuclear science consultant. Karl Grossman – Professor of journalism Bruce Gagnon – Researcher on space issues.

There are many more

Now let’s turn to the nuclear industry promoters. All too well known are the celebrity billionaires, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. They have remarkable influence and access to media. (Example – Bill Gates’ targeted gifting to media) They also have commercial interests in nuclear technology.

Less celebrated names, but still very influential, are the voices from the industry itself, and from politicians friendly to the industry (?campaign-funded by the industry).

I have long been grateful to the scientist and Nobel Prize winner Dr George Wald for the message he gave on whom one should believe, about nuclear power. He said –

Just ask yourself – ”What’s in it for whom”

Police raid nuclear expert Dr Chris Busby’s Bideford home with absurd story he’s a bomb-maker (YOUTUBE)

May 15, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 10 Comments

Toxic masculinity, the nuclear lobby and its climate change confidence trick – theme for April 2021

In 2021, not only viruses, but also ideas, are sweeping around the world. There is a renewed global push for equality for women. A newly revitalised movement to end racism. The pandemic means that the health of each nation now depends on the health of all nations. The climate crisis is headed to affect the whole world.

Curiously absent from these global anxieties is the nuclear threat. Nuclear war could annihilate not only millions of people, but also our chances of a liveable climate. Nuclear pollution affects mainly indigenous peoples , just as nuclear weapons testing was cheerfully imposed by the rich nations on distant indigenous lands.

Nuclear wastes keep accumulating, with no solution as to where to put them. Governments are conned by gee-whiz nuclear salesmen into pouring our tax-payers’ money into dead end Small Nuclear Reactor shemes, and propping up old decrepit Big Nuclear Reactors.

If we’re really getting serious about world health, about equality for women, and indigenous rights – then why on Earth are we tolerating the continuation of the Toxic Masculine Nuclear Culture?

They’ll tell us that we can’t understand nuclear issues – only the toxic masculine nuclear experts can. So leave nuclear decision making to them?

They’ll bend over backwards to entice and promote women into the industry (preferably bimbos if at all possible). They’ll decry women’s ignorance, and some men’s too – people with strong knowledge of environment, history – all those soft humanities issues.

But they know, as we all do, that women overwhelmingly distrust nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and so do indigenous peoples.

As world leaders prepare for the COP Climate Conference in Glascow in November, the unscrupulous nuclear lobbyists are trying every bribe, every trick in the book, to get nuclear accepted as ‘clean’. They’re desperate, as nuclear power is a financial disaster – and they want the tax benefits and subsidies that go with being accepted as ”clean” ”sustainable”

April 11, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes | 9 Comments