WHERE HAVE ALL THE INSECTS GONE? Satellites are taking them, every one.
The least noticed and greatest assault on Earthly life rains on us from the sky. Nature’s wires strung above us from horizon to horizon, carrying the electricity that helps power our bodies, and the information that informs our growth, healing, and daily lives, now carries dirty electricity — millions of frequencies and pulsations that confuse our cells and organs, and dim our nervous systems, be we humans, elephants, birds, insects, fish, or flowering plants.
The pulsations pollute the Earth beneath our feet, surround us in the air through which we fly, course through the oceans in which we swim, flow through our veins and our meridians, and enter us through our leaves and our roots. The planetary transformer that used to gentle the solar wind now agitates, inflames.
The lake pictured above is the United Kingdom’s largest. Located in Northern Ireland, Lough Neagh swarms so densely with flies every spring and summer that residents shut their windows against the living smoke. Clothes left out on a line are covered with them. So is any windshield on a vehicle traveling around the lough’s 90-mile shoreline. Until 2023.
Last year, unbelievably, no flies were to be seen. Windshields and hanging clothes were bare of them. None flew into open windows. Other species that used to eat them were gone as well — ducks, frogs, fish, eels, and predatory insects. Fly larvae were not there to keep the lake bottom clean. Little was alive in the lough except an overgrowth of algae. “Has the ecosystem of the UK’s largest lake collapsed?” asked The Guardian in a February 19, 2024 article.
Has the ecosystem of the entire Earth collapsed? we ask, for the same is happening all over, according to reports I have been receiving for a year from almost everywhere on every continent.
56 Years of Global Vandalism
On June 13, 1968, the United States completed its launch of the world’s first constellation of military satellites. Twenty-eight of them, more than twice as many satellites as were in orbit around the Earth until then, were lofted to an altitude of 18,000 miles, in the heart of the outer Van Allen radiation belt. The “Hong Kong” flu pandemic began two weeks later and lasted for almost two years.
For the next three decades, the skies slowly filled up with hundreds of satellites, mostly for military purposes. Then in the late 1990s, cell phones became popular.
On May 17, 1998, a company named Iridium completed its launch of a fleet of 66 satellites into the ionosphere, at an altitude of only 485 miles, and began testing them. They were going to provide cell phone service to the general public from anywhere on earth. Each satellite aimed 48 separate beams at the earth’s surface, thus dividing the planet into 3,168 cells. Reports of insomnia came from throughout the world………………………………………………………………
SpaceX has been launching rockets carrying dozens of satellites at a time on a weekly or biweekly basis, filling the heavens with luminous objects that interfere with astronomy, spewing chemicals that are destroying our planet’s protective ozone layer, filling the upper layers of the atmosphere with water vapor that should not be there and that is increasing the current in the global electric circuit and the violence of thunderstorms, and cluttering up space with satellites that are nothing but solar arrays and computers that are continually failing, wearing out, and having to be replaced, and which are deorbited to burn up in the lower atmosphere, filling it with metals and toxic chemicals for everyone to breathe — and altering the electromagnetic environment of the Earth that had not changed in three billion years and that life below depends on for its vitality and survival.
Last Thursday morning, from Boca Chica, Texas, SpaceX successfully launched its Starship — the largest rocket ever built, the one it wants to ferry men and women to Mars with — into space for the first time. And on Friday it launched yet another 23 Starlink satellites to bring its total polluting the ionosphere up to more than 6,000, now not only for internet communication with rooftop dishes but for direct communication with handheld cell phones. The 6,000 satellites are also now communicating directly with one another, wrapping the Earth with pulsating lasers carrying 42 million gigabytes of data every single day………
Since March 24, 2021, not only has human health deteriorated, but the biodiversity of the Earth, everywhere, has plummeted. People have not so much noticed the decline of the larger wildlife like wolves, bears, lions and tigers, which were already scarce, but they are shocked by the total disappearance of the smallest animals that were only recently so common you couldn’t open your windows without them flying in. They are shocked by the disappearance of all the frogs that used to swim in their ponds, the birds that used to nest in their trees, the worms that used to slither on the ground, the insects that used to fly through their windows and cover their clothes hanging on the line. My newsletters of March 29, June 21, September 20, October 17, and November 28, 2023 carried major stories about this from various parts of the world. My newsletters of December 5 and December 26, 2023, and January 9 and February 6, 2024 quoted from individuals all over the world who have emailed or called me, and I have a huge backlog of more such reports that you can read when I publish them in the future.
If we want to have a planet to live on, not only for our children but for ourselves, the [electromagnetic]radiation has to stop. Not only do the cell towers have to come down that are so ugly to look at, but also the cell phones that we hold in our hands and have become so dependent on, and the satellites that are squeezing all the life that remains out from under them. We are running out of time. https://cellphonetaskforce.org/where-have-all-the-insects-gone/
Australia moves to prop up Aukus with $4.6bn pledge to help clear Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor bottlenecks in UK
Funding revealed on eve of government talks is in addition to billions of dollars to be sent to US
Guardian, Daniel Hurst in Canberra, 21 Mar 24
The Australian government will seek to prop up the Aukus pact by sending A$4.6bn (£2.4bn) to the UK to clear bottlenecks at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line.
The funding – revealed on the eve of high-level talks between the Australian and UK governments on Friday – is in addition to billions of dollars that will be sent to the US to smooth over production delays there.
The Australian government will also announce on Friday that the government-owned shipbuilder ASC and the British defence firm BAE Systems will jointly build the nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy.
The nuclear reactors for the boats are to be manufactured at Rolls-Royce in the English city of Derby, but doubts have already been raised about whether reactor cores will be made in time for the UK’s first Dreadnought nuclear submarine.
Australia has now allocated £2.4bn over 10 years to expand the production capacity at Derby to deliver reactors for Australia’s submarines, to be known as SSN-Aukus……………………………………..
Cameron and the UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, arrived in Canberra on Thursday for talks with their Australian counterparts, Penny Wong and Richard Marles.
They will hold an annual 2+2 meeting in Adelaide on Friday, with Aukus expected to be a major focus along with the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East and China’s position in the Indo-Pacific…………………..
Marles, the deputy prime minister and defence minister, said at the same media conference that the Australian government was “really aware of the stretched industrial base in the UK and in the US”.
Australia’s commitment to help clear backlogs in the US and the UK “was not without controversy” but was necessary for Aukus to succeed, Marles said.
Under the staged plans announced last March, Australia will buy at least three Virginia-class submarines from the US in the 2030s, prior to the domestically built SSN-Aukus entering into service from the 2040s.
But revelations that the US Navy plans to build only one Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine next year have prompted renewed concerns about lagging performance on US production lines.
Marles, Shapps and the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, issued a joint statement on Thursday declaring the three countries remained “fully committed to this shared endeavour” and were “investing significantly” to ensure its success.
Australia plans to set up a joint venture between ASC and BAE Systems to build the SSN-Aukus submarines. This structure will allow the Australian government to be heavily involved in delivering the strategically important project.
But the finer details have yet to be locked in, and ASC and BAE will work cooperatively in the meantime to develop the new submarine construction yard at South Australia’s Osborne shipbuilding precinct.
ASC built Australia’s conventionally powered Collins-class submarines, but has not previously worked with nuclear-powered boats.
In 2014 the then defence minister, David Johnston, was censured by the Senate for saying he “wouldn’t trust them [ASC] to build a canoe”…………………………
Australia and the UK on Thursday also signed a new defence and security cooperation agreement that formalises a commitment to consult each other on threats to sovereignty and regional security.
It includes a status of forces agreement, clearing regulatory hurdles for their forces to operate in each other’s countries.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/21/australia-moves-to-prop-up-aukus-with-46bn-pledge-to-help-clear-rolls-royce-nuclear-reactor-bottlenecks-in-uk
Groups demand broader consent for nuclear waste storage
A petition demands that Ottawa require the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to get consent from other communities, including those along the transportation route.
Gary Rinne, 22 Mar 24 https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/groups-demand-broader-consent-for-nuclear-waste-storage-8471189.
THUNDER BAY — An alliance of Northern Ontario citizen groups wants the federal government to ensure an underground storage site for used nuclear fuel isn’t built without the consent of all impacted communities.
We The Nuclear Free North has launched an online petition asking Ottawa to require the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to demonstrate it has the permission not just of its designated “host community” but also of residents and communities in the region, along the transportation route, and downstream of the proposed repository.
NWMO has narrowed its search to the Ignace area in Northwestern Ontario and South Bruce in Southwestern Ontario, and plans to announce its preferred site before the end of this year.
In a news release Wednesday, North Bay-based Northwatch spokesperson Brennain Lloyd said NWMO has repeatedly stated it will only proceed with “an informed and willing host,” and argued that “the communities along the transportation route are ‘hosts’ to the same risks as Ignace,” but are shut out of the selection process.
“Residents living closer to the site and downstream live with the short-term and long-term risks of nuclear contamination but are not being asked if they are willing,” he added.
The alliance is also wary about five members of Ignace council having the ultimate power to decide if NWMO can label the community as an agreeable host.
“Now is the time for all of us to speak up,” said Dodie LeGassick, nuclear lead for Thunder Bay-based Environment North. “The federal government must intervene to bring some fairness and facts into the siting process. That’s what this petition is all about.”
The petition will be open to all residents of Canada until May 3.
Among other things, it notes that the federal government has affirmed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which requires that no hazardous materials shall be stored on the territories of Indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.
U.S. Troops Are One Mile From The Chinese Border
the most important news, March 21, 2024 [ The original has several substantial quotations from news media]
The U.S. cannot afford a war with China. The size of our military has been shrinking, and our resources are stretched way too thin. Today, the U.S. has military bases in 80 different countries, and we have troops stationed in 178 different countries. That is insane. No empire in the entire history of humanity has had forces spread all over the planet like this. Our ammunition levels are extremely low due to major conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and every war game that our leaders have conducted has shown us losing a war to protect Taiwan. So we should be trying to avoid sparking a war with China, because we are holding a losing hand.
But our politicians seem determined to provoke one anyway. It is being reported that officials in Taiwan have confirmed that U.S. forces are now permanently stationed “on its islands in the Taiwan Strait”…
Taiwan’s main island is approximately 100 miles from China, but in some places the Kinmen islands and China are “barely more than a mile apart”…
What are our leaders thinking?
This doesn’t make war less likely.
It makes war more likely.
On Wednesday, China sent 32 warplanes toward Taiwan in a 24 hour period…
The Chinese do this sort of thing when they are upset.
And right now they are very, very upset.
And China has been feverishly preparing for the coming war…
When war with China finally erupts, will we be able to handle it?
Of course not.
Our forces are scattered all over the planet, and so many of our resources have already been poured into the war in Ukraine.
Even though there have been efforts to ramp up ammunition production in the U.S., it is being reported that “Russia is producing nearly three times as many artillery munitions as the United States and Europe combined”…
No matter how you feel about the war, that is just embarrassing.
One of the reasons why we won World War II was because the U.S. could simply outproduce everyone else by a wide margin.
But now we just look pathetic.
French President Emmanuel Macron and other western leaders have suggested that NATO troops should be sent into Ukraine if that is what is necessary to keep the Russians from winning.
If that actually happens, U.S. boys and girls will inevitably be sent to die in the trenches of eastern Ukraine too.
In anticipation of a wider war, the Russians are conducting another round of mobilization.
In fact, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has just announced “the creation of 2 new ground armies, with 16 new brigades & 14 new divisions”.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials continue to insist that a major ground operation will happen in Rafah no matter what the Biden administration thinks about such a move…
When the IDF goes into Rafah, that could cause the entire region to erupt.
And so U.S. forces may be called on to intervene in the Middle East as well.
Spreading your resources way too thin is a sure way to lose.
Unfortunately, our politicians don’t seem to understand this, and their very foolish decisions will soon lead to absolutely disastrous consequences.
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here. https://themostimportantnews.com/archives/u-s-troops-are-one-mile-from-the-chinese-border
Halting Biden’s Weapon Shipments to Israel
byEDITORMarch 22, 2024
The Chris Hedges Report with attorney Katherine Gallagher and Palestinian plaintiff Ayman Nijim on their lawsuit demanding the Biden administration halt weapons shipments to Israel.
By Chris Hedges / The Real News Network
The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed the lawsuit on behalf of the human rights organization, Defense for Children – Palestine; Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group based in the occupied West Bank; and eight Palestinians and US citizens with relatives in Gaza accusing President Joe Biden and other senior officials of being complicit in Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. The case is being heard in a federal court in California.
Lawyers representing Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, have attended the proceedings along with the plaintiffs who accuse them of “failure to prevent and complicity in the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide.”
Since the October 7 incusrion by Hamas and other resistance groups, which left some 1,200 people dead, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, thousands are missing, some 60,000 have been injured and nearly all of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people have been displaced. Israel’s blocage of humanitarian supplies and food have cause a widespread famine and many are dying of starvation and infectious diseases.
The CCR complaint was filed in November last year. It charges that Biden, Blinken and Austin “have not only been failing to uphold the country’s obligation to prevent a genocide but have enabled the conditions for its development by providing unconditional military and diplomatic support [to Israel].”The CCR is asking the court to “declare that defendants have violated their duty under customary international law, as part of federal common law, to take all measures within their power to prevent Israel from committing genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza”. The group is also calling for the US to use its influence over Israel to end the hostilities against Palestinians in Gaza. Joining me to discuss the case is Katherine Gallagher, a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and plaintiff Ayman Nijim……………………………Transcript………………. https://scheerpost.com/2024/03/22/the-chris-hedges-report-halting-bidens-weapon-shipments-to-israel/
This is why Sizewell C construction poses ‘possible risk’ to new hospital build
Potential obstacles facing construction of new West Suffolk Hospital in
Bury St Edmunds by 2030 include funding shortfall and development of
Sizewell C
A shortfall in funding and a difficulty in finding a contractor
are among the potential obstacles facing plans to build a new hospital in
Bury St Edmunds by 2030. A report, published ahead of the West Suffolk NHS
Foundation Trust (WSFT) board meeting tomorrow, highlighted potential
issues with the Hardwick Manor project.
The building of a new nuclear power
plant, Sizewell C, on the Suffolk coast was mentioned as one of the reasons
finding a contractor could be challenging.
Suffolk News 21st March 2024
TODAY. A SUMMIT of nuclear fantasy, folly and ignorance
Yes they all gathered in Brussels, all those very well-paid stuffed-shirt blokes, and that one even-better paid token woman.
First there was propaganda to “more than 70 young science communicators” – with top salesman Rafael Grossi in full flight, (necessary because the marketing body IAEA has decided that we must make nuclear power look lively and YOUTHFUL)
Then the top bananas – Prime Minister of Belgium Alexander De Croo and the Director General of the IAEA Rafael Mariano Grossi kicked off the spin buildup, leading to the adoption of a key declaration about nuclear energy.
Then the trail of international followers-on had their bit of a say.
Then heaps of big-wigs from nuclear energy agencies – panel talks on how to get nuclear power resuscitated world-wide
Finally – the Big One – how on earth to con taxpayers worldwide, and investors, to suddenly come up with the $billions needed to resuscitate this dirty and failing industry, with its only raison d’etre being nuclear weapons-making.
Julian Assange and the Plea Nibble
Barry Pollack, one of Assange’s legal representatives, has not been given any indication that the department would, as such, accept the deal, a point he reiterated to Consortium News: “[W]e have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case.”
March 23, 2024 by: Dr Binoy Kampmark https://theaimn.com/julian-assange-and-the-plea-nibble/
Be wary of what Washington offers in negotiations at the best of times. The empire gives and takes when it can; the hegemon proffers and in equal measure and withdraws offers it deems fit. This is all well known to the legal team of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, who, the Wall Street Journal “exclusively” reveals, is in ongoing negotiations with US Justice Department officials on a possible plea deal.
As things stand, the US Department of Justice is determined to get its mitts on Assange on the dubious strength of 18 charges, 17 confected from the brutal Espionage Act of 1917. Any conviction from these charges risks a 175-year jail term, effectively constituting a death sentence for the Australian publisher.
The war time statute, which was intended to curb free speech and muzzle the press for the duration of the First World War, was assailed by Wisconsin Republican Senator Robert La Follette as a rotten device that impaired “the right of the people to discuss the war in all its phases.” It was exactly in time of war that the citizen “be more alert to the preservation of his right to control his government. He must be most watchful of the encroachment of the military upon the civil power.” And that encroachment is all the more pressing, given the Act’s repurposing as a weapon against leakers and publishers of national security material. In its most obscene incarnation, it has become the US government’s political spear against a non-US national who published US classified documents outside the United States.
The plea deal idea is not new. In August last year, the Sydney Morning Herald pounced upon comments from US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy that a “resolution” to the Assange imbroglio might be on the table. “There is a way to resolve it,” the ambassador suggested at the time. Any such resolution could involve a reduction of any charges in favour of a guilty plea, subject to finalisation by the Department of Justice. Her remarks were heavily caveated: this was more a matter for the DOJ than the State Department or any other agency. “So it’s not really a diplomatic issue, but I think there absolutely could be a resolution.”
The WSJ now reports that officials from the DOJ and Assange’s legal team “have had preliminary discussions in recent months about what a plea deal could look like to end the lengthy legal drama.” These talks “remain in flux” and “could fizzle.” Redundantly, the Journal reports that any such agreement “would require approval at the highest levels of the Justice Department.”
Barry Pollack, one of Assange’s legal representatives, has not been given any indication that the department would, as such, accept the deal, a point he reiterated to Consortium News: “[W]e have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case.”
One floated possibility would be a guilty plea on a charge of mishandling classified documents, which would be classed as a misdemeanour. Doing so would take some of the sting out of the indictment, which is currently thick with felonies and one conspiracy charge of computer intrusion. “Under the deal, Assange could potentially enter that plea remotely, without setting foot in the US.” Speculation from the paper follows. “The time he has spent behind bars in London would count toward any US sentence, and he would be likely to be free to leave prison shortly after any deal has concluded.”
With little basis for the claim, the report lightly declares that the failure of plea talks would not necessarily be a bad thing for Assange. He could still “be sent to the US for trial”, where “he may not stay for long, given the Australia pledge.” The pledge in question is part of a series of highly questionable assurances given to the UK government that Assange’s carceral conditions would not include detention in the supermax ADX Florence facility, the imposition of notorious Special Administrative Measures, and the provision of appropriate healthcare. Were he to receive a sentence, it would be open to him to apply and serve its balance in Australia. But all such undertakings have been given on condition that they can be broken, and transfer deals between the US and other countries have been plagued by delays, inconsistencies, and bad faith.
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The dangers and opportunities to Assange have been bundled together, a sniff of an idea rather than a formulation of a concrete deal. And deals can be broken. It is hard to imagine that Assange would not be expected to board a flight bound for the United States, even if he could make his plea remotely. Constitutional attorney Bruce Afran, in an interview with CN Live! last August, suggested that a plea, taken internationally, was “not barred by any laws. If all parties consent to it, then the court has jurisdiction.” Yes, but what then?
In any event, once on US soil, there is nothing stopping a grand volte face, that nasty legal practice of tagging on new charges that would carry even more onerous penalties. It should be never forgotten that Assange would be delivered up to a country whose authorities had contemplated, at points, abduction, illegal rendition, and assassination.
Either way, the current process is one of gradual judicial and penal assassination, conducted through prolonged proceedings that continue to assail the publisher’s health even as he stays confined to Belmarsh Prison. (Assange awaits the UK High Court’s decision on whether he will be granted leave to appeal the extradition order from the Home Office.) The concerns will be how to spare WikiLeaks founder further punishment while still forcing Washington to concede defeat in its quest to jail a publisher. That quest, unfortunately, remains an ongoing one.
Green Groups Protest ‘Nuclear Fairy Tale’ in Brussels
“All the evidence shows that nuclear power is too slow to build, too expensive, and it remains highly polluting and dangerous,” one activist said.
OLIVIA ROSANE, Mar 21, 2024, https://www.commondreams.org/news/protest-nuclear-power
An international coalition of environmental groups dropped banners and blockaded roads to protest the International Nuclear Energy Summit in Brussels on Thursday.
While the summit, hosted by the Belgian government and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), pushes nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels, more than 600 climate action groups launched a declaration calling nuclear power plants a “distraction which slows down the energy transition.”
“We are in a climate emergency, so time is precious, and the governments here today are wasting it with nuclear energy fairy tales,” Greenpeace E.U. senior campaigner Lorelei Limousin said in a statement. “All the evidence shows that nuclear power is too slow to build, too expensive, and it remains highly polluting and dangerous.”
“The nuclear lobby camouflages itself beneath a climate-friendly facade, hoping to divert massive sums of money away from real climate solutions, at the expense of people and the planet.”
At the United Nations COP28 climate conference in the United Arab Emirates last year, more than 20 countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050. However, Greenpeace France calculated that achieving this would mean finishing 70 reactors each year between 2040 and 2050. This would be an unprecedented buildout in defiance of current trends: Between 2020 and 2023, 21 reactors were completed while 24 were shut down worldwide.
In the European Union specifically, many countries turned away from nuclear after 2011 in response to the Fukushima accident in Japan, according to Reuters. Germany shuttered its last three reactors for good in April 2023 following a successful anti-nuclear campaign there. In general, the nuclear share of the E.U. power mix dropped from 32.8% in 2000 to 22.8% in 2023, Greenpeace said.
Activists argue that nuclear still poses all the dangers the anti-nuclear movement has been warning about for decades and also cannot be ramped up quickly enough to prevent escalating climate extremes.
To reinforce this message, members of Greenpeace France blockaded the main roads to the Brussels summit using cars and bicycles. They also lit pink flares and threw pink powder as a motorcade of officials en route to the summit approached. The action succeeded in delaying the arrival of several delegations, Greenpeace E.U. said.
Other demonstrators dropped banners from the summit site at Brussels Expo reading, “Nuclear Fairy Tale,” while a group representing the 600 declaration signatories protested in front of an inflatable bouncy castle holding up a sign reading, “Nuclear fairy tales = climate crisis.”
The declaration was drafted by Climate Action Network Europe and signed by groups from at least 56 different countries and territories including Climate Action Network Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch, CodePink, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and several 350.org, Fridays for Future, and Friends of the Earth affiliates.
“The nuclear lobby camouflages itself beneath a climate-friendly facade, hoping to divert massive sums of money away from real climate solutions, at the expense of people and the planet,” the declaration reads.
The signatories pointed out that, while the world must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in order to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, it would take longer than this for any new nuclear plant to come online.
At the same time, it costs significantly more money to increase nuclear capacity than renewable options like wind and solar, they stressed. A new reactor requires almost four times the funds of a new wind power installation.
“Governments need to invest in proven climate solutions, such as home insulation, public transport, and renewable energy, rather than expensive experiments, like small modular reactors, which have no guarantees of actually delivering,” the declaration says.
It also points to safety risks across the nuclear lifecycle, from uranium mining to waste storage. And it adds that those dangers would only increase as temperatures rise.
“The climate crisis also increases the risks involved in nuclear power, as increased heatwaves, droughts, storms, and flooding all pose significant threats to the plants themselves and to the systems that aim to prevent nuclear accidents,” the signatories argued.
Instead, the declaration proposes that governments focus on achieving 100% renewable energy while also improving efficiency.
“What we demand is a just transition toward a safe, renewable, and affordable energy system that secures jobs and protects life on our planet,” the declaration concludes.
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility – Letter to the Editor.
Re: Radiation in Elliot Lake homes (Toronto Star, March 21 2024)
from Gordon Edwards, PhD, President,, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.22 Mar 24
The government will not take responsibility for radioactive contamination of homes in Elliot Lake, built using radioactive waste from uranium mines. Officials claim that “waste rock” is not “radioactive waste”, although the federal Government has always classified
waste rock as a part of the radioactive waste inventory (over 380 million tonnes) from uranium mining.
Excess radiation in Elliot Lake homes, from radon gas and gamma radiation, was subjected to a provincial inquiry in 1977-78. The Elliot Lake miners’union asked me to testify as an expert witness.
Using the government’s own published radon mortality figures, I showed that the “acceptable limit” for exposures in homes could cause a 31 percent increase in the male lung cancer rate for those living in those homes. That means an additional 17 lung cancer deaths per 1000 males exposed, over and above the 54 lung cancer deaths already reported in Ontario per 1000 males. These figures represent lifetime exposures.
Today’s so-called “safe” level referred to in the Star article is the same “acceptable” level of radon used back then.
Based on my testimony, the Panel recommended that radon “standards” be re-examined. It never happened. Instead, the regulator commissioned an independent study by an epidemiologist from McGill, Duncan Thomas. His study confirmed my estimate of radon-induced deaths. The regulator rejected the results of its own expert study.
Excess exposures in Elliot Lake should have been corrected 45 years ago, but was not. Canada’s regulator still refuses to address the problem.
The $1.6 billion radioactive cleanup now underway in Port Hope, involving hundreds of homes contaminated with radon-generating waste, was known to the regulator as early as 1965. But the Port Hope problem was ignored by officialdom and specifically by Canada’s nuclear regulator until the scandal became too much to bear when, in 1975, St Mary’s elementary school was evacuated because the radon levels in the cafeteria were greater than those allowed in Elliot Lake uranium mines.
Gordon Edwards, PhD, President,
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
Canadian officials found radiation levels in these northern Ontario homes ‘well above’ the safe limit. Their response: ‘¯\_(ツ)_/¯’ .
Many residents might not be aware they are living atop radioactive infill, which came from nearby, closed-down uranium mines that helped develop atomic bombs during the Cold War.Toronto Star
The number of homes in Elliot Lake affected by buried radioactive waste could top 100 — twice as many as previously thought.
By Declan Keogh and Masih Khalatbari, Investigative Journalism Bureau, Thursday, March 21, 2024 https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/canadian-officials-found-radiation-levels-in-these-northern-ontario-homes-well-above-the-safe-limit/article_6b68ad20-e605-11ee-9a2a-f72182db65b6.html
In January 2021, a senior official with Canada’s nuclear regulator asked a colleague to do a rough, “back-of-the-envelope” calculation on the amount of potentially deadly radiation that residents in Elliot Lake were exposed to in their homes.
The government had just received a complaint that long-forgotten radioactive mine waste was buried underneath some homes in the northern Ontario city. Ron Stenson, senior project officer at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), wanted to “confirm our assumption that 468 Bq/m3 is not an urgent health concern.”
He did not get the answer he wanted. A senior official with the commission’s radiation protection division replied that those levels of radon are “well above” the public radiation dose limit set by federal authorities.
Stenson’s response came 90 minutes later: “¯\_(ツ)_/¯.”
For too long, shrugging is all the Canadian government has done, as far as local homeowner Lisa Speck is concerned.
The government official’s email is “a true visual representation of the response we’ve received to date,” she says. “It accurately summarizes the respect we’ve been shown.”
Documents show 100+ homes affected
Documents obtained by the Investigative Journalism Bureau show the number of homes affected by buried radioactive waste could top 100 — twice as many as previously thought. Many of the residents might not be aware they are living atop radioactive infill, which came from nearby, closed-down uranium mines that helped develop atomic bombs during the Cold War.
And when faced with calls for action, civil servants make jokes.
Speck, part of a group of Elliot Lake homeowners fighting to get the radioactive mining waste removed from their properties, called the email exchange “disgusting” and “dismissive.”
Despite having spent billions of dollars to clean up similar radioactive waste in Port Hope, federal regulators deny they have any obligation to do the same in Elliot Lake, saying the waste buried beneath the properties is the homeowners’ responsibility.
CNSC declined an interview request. In a statement, the agency said it could not answer detailed questions from the IJB because of ongoing litigation, adding that it’s “dedicated to upholding the highest standards of safety in our work.” Stenson did no respond to a request for comment.
Lawyers representing impacted Elliot Lake homeowners filed an application to Federal Court for a judicial review last July in the hopes of forcing the reversal of the federal government’s position.
The government filed their response in federal court on March 4, reiterating the waste is outside their jurisdiction and stating that the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, which governs the CNSC, does not compel them to act upon demands from the homeowners.
It argues federal legislation does not give the public the right “to file complaints, request inspections, or demand orders be issued as against regulated entities.”
A screen grab from a January 2021 email sent by a senior project officer at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), after being told the levels of radon recorded at homes in Elliot Lake are “well above” the safe limits. Toronto Star illustration
Lawyers representing impacted Elliot Lake homeowners filed an application to Federal Court for a judicial review last July in the hopes of forcing the reversal of the federal government’s position.
The government filed their response in federal court on March 4, reiterating the waste is outside their jurisdiction and stating that the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, which governs the CNSC, does not compel them to act upon demands from the homeowners.
It argues federal legislation does not give the public the right “to file complaints, request inspections, or demand orders be issued as against regulated entities.”
Lawyers representing impacted Elliot Lake homeowners filed an application to Federal Court for a judicial review last July in the hopes of forcing the reversal of the federal government’s position.
The government filed their response in federal court on March 4, reiterating the waste is outside their jurisdiction and stating that the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, which governs the CNSC, does not compel them to act upon demands from the homeowners.
It argues federal legislation does not give the public the right “to file complaints, request inspections, or demand orders be issued as against regulated entities.”
At the crux of the federal government’s refusal to accept responsibility is a technicality: It says that it isn’t responsible for the regulation of naturally-occurring radioactive materials, only those that have been processed in some way. It says that the uranium rock dug up during mining “was never chemically processed” before being trucked to nearby Elliot Lake for use as backfill during the construction of homes. That, the government says, means it’s technically “not considered radioactive waste.”
‘Public perception of a coverup’
The government didn’t always view the radiation blight in Elliot Lake as someone else’s problem, internal documents suggest.
By the 1980s, the government had assumed some role alongside the mining companies that built most of the houses.
The Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) — the predecessor of the CNSC — took responsibility for “about 1,900 private properties and public areas,” according to a 1998 internal report summarizing the ongoing radiation problems in Elliot Lake.
Despite discovering “contaminated materials in structures” as well as “excessive gamma radiation due to the presence of mine waste on private properties,” there had been “minimal effort” to remove the waste, the summary report noted.
Fans and venting had been previously installed in homes to funnel the dangerous gas outside. However, it was likely these remediation efforts had failed, the report stated, possibly because residents didn’t know how to maintain the systems — or that they even existed.
“There is no evidence to suggest that owners were made aware of corrections made, or that they must assume responsibility for maintenance,” the report states.
All of this, the report concluded, created a “public perception of a coverup.”
“The only way to remove the mine waste issue from public perception is to remove the contamination.”
Supplied
As of 1998, it was estimated up to 120 properties were potentially affected by radioactive contamination and, as a result, “increased radiation exposure is likely as is renewed public concern.”
The report also called for a citywide effort to test properties, monitor and remediate excess levels of radiation and clean up the “man-introduced contamination” once and for all. It’s unclear whether those calls were heeded.
At the time, it was assumed that cleanup efforts would be shared between the federal government and the mining companies, with the companies offering financial assistance to remediate the properties they once owned.
Billions spent on remediation in other Ontario communities
In 2001, the federal government signed a deal with the municipalities of Port Hope and Clarington to collect, transport and permanently store as much as 2 million cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste that had been distributed by a government-owned radium and uranium refinery between the 1930s and the 1980s.
The $2.6 billion remediation project, which involves digging up and removing soil around affected houses, the construction of permanent storage facilities and monitoring of radiation levels, is slated to be completed by the end of this year.
Despite the parallels to Elliot Lake, the federal government has said it is not responsible for the cleanup in the northern community because the radioactive contamination came from a private company, not a crown corporation.
In June 2023, lawyers for the residents sent a host of politicians including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and executives of CNSC more than 3,000 pages of evidence and documentation. They called on the government and mining companies to remove the uranium waste in Elliot Lake.
Upon receiving the demands, Patrick Burton, director of CNSC’s uranium mines and mills division, asked two of his colleagues in radiation protection about the claims that residents were getting excess doses of radiation. He also told them to “buy a shovel and get a [travel authorization] for Elliot Lake,” adding a winking face emoji.
“Is that going to get a response?” replied one of his colleagues with a smiling face emoji.
When reached by the IJB, Burton directed questions about the email to CSNC. The agency did not offer further comment. When questioned by lawyers representing the Elliot Lake homeowners, Burton said it was supposed to be a joke among colleagues.
“The intention was never … for the homeowners to become aware of this exchange,” Burton said during his deposition.
Homeowner Speck says the joke was “rude” but says she would welcome the government’s shovels to clean up the uranium on her property.
“The statement sort of lends to the fact that he thinks it’s a small job. If it’s such a small job that he’s just going to go to buy a shovel and fix it … then just do that,” Speck says.
“Everyone in the community would expect better from a government official than to be joking about a matter that could potentially affect … or maybe has affected, a population of people.”
With files from the Toronto Star’s Marco Chown Oved. The Investigative Journalism Bureau is a non-profit newsroom based at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Disadvantaged Canadian towns look at the $billions promised by nuclear waste hosting
Offended tribal elders formed the Committee for Future Generations and initiated what they called the 7,000 Generations Walk Against Nuclear Waste, which saw participants trudge nearly 1,000 kilometres from Pinehouse to the legislature in Regina.
No local DGR debate has been harder fought than the 30-month marathon of psychological and ground warfare that unfolded in Saugeen Shores, one of several contestant municipalities in Bruce County, between 2011 and 2014.
Inside the race for Canada’s nuclear waste: 11 towns vie to host deep burial site Canada’s nuclear waste will be deadly for 400,000 years. What town would like the honour of hosting it?CHARLES WILKINS TheGlobe and Mail Feb. 26 2015,
“……..There are 11 rural and wilderness municipalities vying for the DGR, survivors of an original roster of 22. The aspirants include veteran northern encampments such as Hornepayne, Ontario, where, as Brennain Lloyd of the environmental education group Northwatch describes it, there is “a really fierce desire” on the part of at least a few municipal administrators to “bring the nuke dump to town.”
And Schreiber, a struggling railway town on the north shore of Lake Superior. And Ignace, another struggler, in the boreal wilds to the west. And, to the east, Manitouwadge.
And Creighton, Saskatchewan, directly across the Manitoba border from Flin Flon (Creighton is a town described by a former resident as “having had its fiscal balls to the wall for half a century”).
And Blind River, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Huron, where survival has for years depended on the uncertain flow of traffic along the Trans-Canada Highway.
And Elliot Lake, some 50 kilometres north of Lake Huron, where uranium mining was the sustaining industry during the 1950s and ’60s but which these days survives on the pensions of retirees who moved to the town to take advantage of discount housing left over from the boom years.
“What makes it all so attractive to competing municipalities is, of course, the money,” says Tony McQuail.
While billions of dollars will flow directly through the chosen town over a period of four or five decades, Lloyd suggests that most of the money is likely to end up in the pockets of big-city consultants and other outside beneficiaries.
Mainly, the price tag will buy decades’ worth of infrastructure and construction costs, as well as maintenance, monitoring and employment training. It will also pay for the transportation of the waste to the spanking new DGR, which will, by the time it opens, have been a reality for its “willing host” for a quarter of a century or more.
Finishing just the first phase of the preliminary assessment brings $400,000 of NWMO money to candidate towns, so they can “build sustainability and well-being.” It has been speculated that some towns had no intention of staying in the process beyond the early payout.
While some towns applied to participate of their own volition, others were, according to Lloyd of Northwatch, courted by the NWMO. “What bothers me most about the process,” says Lloyd, “is the ‘siloing’ that the NWMO practises on the municipal politicians they choose to target.
“They approach them not in the context of their communities, where the politicians are immediately answerable to their constituencies, but at municipal conferences and conventions where they’re away from home, isolated, perhaps a little unsure of themselves. They wine and dine them and soft-talk them about the unimaginable benefits that could accrue to their towns should they consider hosting the DGR.
“Then they fly them to Toronto and put them up in the best hotels and take them up to the Bruce Power site, or other nuclear generating stations, and show them what of course appears to be secure and flawless waste storage. The politicians are just snowed—they’re made to feel like important players. They take this dream of hope and prosperity and safe science back to their communities and in effect go to work for the NWMO.”
Other northern councils—at Ear Falls, at Nipigon, at Wawa—have been more divided over the DGR and so were eliminated early, or withdrew, from the process. Similarly, Brockton, near the site of Bruce Power, was cut late in 2014 after its residents elected a largely anti-DGR council. (The NWMO says Brockton’s assessment simply didn’t pan out.)
The aboriginal communities of Pinehouse and English River, Saskatchewan, were dropped from the process when community debate over land and water issues, as well as a growing distrust of the NWMO, became irresolvable.
While Pinehouse was still in the running, three community leaders, including a cousin of the mayor, received money from the NWMO. Offended tribal elders formed the Committee for Future Generations and initiated what they called the 7,000 Generations Walk Against Nuclear Waste, which saw participants trudge nearly 1,000 kilometres from Pinehouse to the legislature in Regina.
No local DGR debate has been harder fought than the 30-month marathon of psychological and ground warfare that unfolded in Saugeen Shores, one of several contestant municipalities in Bruce County, between 2011 and 2014………..http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/inside-the-race-for-canadas-nuclear-waste/article23178848/
Filling Nuclear Power’s $5 Trillion Hole Is Beyond the Banks
“We need to find a way to make it predictable, stable, bankable and affordable.”
“The project risks, as we have seen in reality, seem to be very high,” said European Investment Bank Vice President Thomas Ostros. – the world’s biggest multilateral lender recommends that countries needing power quickly focus on renewables and energy efficiency,
Nuclear-energy officials arrived in Brussels this week amid a growing wave of public support for atomic power. They left humbled by the tepid reaction of bankers assessing the price tag of their ambitions.
Bloomberg News, Jonathan Tirone, https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/filling-nuclear-powers-5-trillion-hole-is-beyond-the-banks/wcm/0d2062d5-7120-4480-b53a-a52e70ef2b45/amp/ 22 Mar 24,
The International Atomic Energy Agency convened a summit to build momentum for a low-emissions technology that many expect will be critical for hitting climate targets. A group of mostly Western countries pledged to triple nuclear generation by 2050. But lenders balked at the eyewatering cost of doing so.
“If the bankers are uniformly pessimistic, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Thursday after listening to a panel of international lenders explain why they’re unwilling to provide the $5 trillion the industry needs by mid-century.
“The bankers are calling for a proven business case,” said Jozef Sikela, the Czech Republic’s industry and trade minister. “We need to find a way to make it predictable, stable, bankable and affordable.”
Projects in Western economies have been plagued by construction delays and ballooning costs in recent decades. The newest reactor in the European Union — Olkiluoto 3 in Finland — started generating power last year, more than a decade late and three times over budget. Similarly in the US, Southern Co.’s Vogtle facility came in seven years behind schedule and $16 billion over estimates.
“The project risks, as we have seen in reality, seem to be very high,” said European Investment Bank Vice President Thomas Ostros. While the world’s biggest multilateral lender won’t close the door on nuclear, it recommends that countries needing power quickly focus on renewables and energy efficiency, he said.
China and Russia are building the most reactors. But their state-owned model of development is at odds with the European and US emphasis on private capital. That will likely need to change if Western economies want to maintain nuclear’s market share.
“We need state involvement, I don’t see any other model,” Ostros said. “Probably we need quite heavy state involvement to make projects bankable.”
Ines Rocha, a director at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, and Fernando Cubillos, a banker at the Development Bank of Latin America, also said their lending priorities lean toward renewables and transmission grids. “Nuclear comes last,” Cubillos said.
Potential new investors could include sovereign wealth funds or philanthropists, according to Charles Oppenheimer, who advocates for nuclear energy at The Oppenheimer Project.
“If it’s a safe and secure investment with a predictable return, there’s a huge amount of capital,” said the grandson of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the US physicist who ran the Manhattan Project. “What is lacking generally is capital for that risky build.”
Europe and the US have been trying to engineer nuclear out of its malaise, proposing a new generation of smaller reactors that can be factory-made and assembled on-site. Theoretically, that approach could cut costs, but has yet to be proven.
In the meantime, with global temperatures soaring and international climate targets in peril, some nuclear advocates say the focus on such innovations may be misguided.
“We’ve heard a lot about a leapfrogging to the next generation of nuclear technologies,” Moniz said. “I would submit it might just be better to focus on getting some technologies deployed right now.”
—With assistance from John Ainger.
‘We are the masters of the house’: Israeli channels air snuff videos featuring systematic torture of Palestinians
It’s hard to imagine the depths to which Israeli society has sunk. The official tells the Channel 13 reporter that “the feeling is one of pride.”
Israeli TV channels aired a number of reports showing the torture and humiliation of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. The videos are consumed by the Israeli public as entertainment, revealing the sadism of Israeli society.
BY JONATHAN OFIR , https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/we-are-the-masters-of-the-house-israeli-channels-air-snuff-videos-featuring-systematic-torture-of-palestinians/
Over the past month, mainstream Israeli television channels have aired what can only be described as snuff films. They depict the systematic torture of Palestinians from Gaza in Israeli jails. Such videos have aired on at least three occasions — twice on Channel 14, and once on the public broadcaster, Channel 13. While Channel 14 is considered right-wing, so is about two-thirds of the Israeli public, and the more “mainstream” Channel 13 has shown no qualms about airing similar footage.
The broadcasts follow prison officials into detention centers to document the mistreatment of prisoners, which seems to be something that the officials — and apparently the viewers — find satisfying rather than revolting. The airing of these snuff films is a demonstration of societal sadism.
As Yumna Patel has recently reported, several rights groups have sounded the alarm over the widespread and systemic abuse that Palestinian prisoners face at the hands of the Israeli authorities. These groups’ calls have been unintentionally buttressed by Israeli soldiers’ unapologetic videos of themselves torturing or demeaning Palestinian detainees, which they boastfully post on social media. Now, it seems that the phenomenon has expanded to mainstream Israeli television.
The two aforementioned reports on Channel 14 (threads with subtitles can be found here and here) contained footage of actual interrogation sessions during which torture was used. The Channel 13 report did not, but it exposed some of the worst prison conditions to be broadcast to the public. These conditions include forcing prisoners to live in inhumane conditions and subjecting them to torture and harassment. Here’s the 11-minute video with translated subtitles.
‘The feeling is one of pride’
“Here, we see the cells in which the Nukhba terrorists are held,” the narrator says.
The “Nukhba” refers to elite Hamas-led fighters who carried out the October 7 attack. In the cell, viewers notice metal bunkbeds without mattresses, and instead of a toilet, there is just a hole in the floor. The room is almost completely dark throughout the day, and prisoners have their hands and legs chained together.
We hear attack dogs barking constantly as prisoners are made to kneel while bound and blindfolded, their heads touching the floor.
“This is how it should be,” a guard says. “This is how a Nukhba prisoner should be…what happened on October 7 will never return.”
In another scene, a guard shouts at prisoners as dogs continue to bark incessantly. “Heads down! Heads on the floor!” he yells.
“There are many prisoners here that I personally saw at the [October 7] events,” a prison official says, taking pride in humiliating them. “The difference is that this time, he is afraid, shaking, with his head on the floor…no Allahu Akbar, nothing. You won’t hear a squeak from him.”
“They have no mattresses,” says a warden shift commander. “They have nothing…we control them 100% — their food, their shackling, their sleep…[we] show them we are the masters of the house.” Even without knowing the background to that phrase, to hear him say it is chilling.
“Masters of the house” was the election slogan of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Jewish Power leader and current Minister of National Security. Ben-Gvir declared war on Palestinian prisoners long before October 7, and this has included shutting down bakeries that supply bread to prisoners — described by Ben-Gvir as an “indulgence” — and drastically limiting prisoners’ water use. So now it’s become much worse.
While one is tempted to believe that all prisoners here are “Nukhba” members, it turns out that many of them aren’t even suspected of that. Rather, they were rounded up in Gaza after October 7, during mass arrests in which hundreds of Gazan men were stripped and paraded in a most sadistic demonstration of power. The mass arrests also included hundreds of women, including pregnant women detained with their babies. Israeli security officials told Haaretz that by their own estimate, “only 10 to 15 percent of the hundreds of the semi-naked and bound Gazan men arrested in the Strip during the recent days are Hamas members or those who identified with the organization.”
Back to the Channel 13 coverage, viewers can hear the nonstop blasting of the Zionist anthem, Am Israel Hai (“the people of Israel live”).
“The prison authorities claim that it is meant to boost the morale of the staff,” the narrator declares. “But it is clear that this is another part of the psychological warfare against the prisoners.”
Torture, in other words.
It’s hard to imagine the depths to which Israeli society has sunk. The official tells the Channel 13 reporter that “the feeling is one of pride.”
The reason such sadism has become formalized as a matter of policy is because this is what the Israeli public demands. The Israeli Democracy Institute released a survey last week showing that two-thirds of Jewish Israelis oppose “the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents at this time,” even if “via international bodies that are not linked to Hamas or to UNRWA.” For right-wing voters, the opposition to aid jumps from 68% to 80%.
This is not Israel’s Abu Ghraib moment, because when Abu Ghraib was revealed, most Americans were revolted. Israeli society, on the other hand, is thirsting for genocide. No wonder they consume such videos as entertainment on mainstream TV.
Thanks to Tali Shapiro, B.M.@ireallyhatyou, Hilel Biton-Rosen, and Dave Reed.
Zion Lights and her lying, climate-denying mentor Michael Shellenberger
The only nuclear industry that is booming is nuclear decommissioning ‒ the World Nuclear Association anticipates US$111 billion (A$145 billion) worth of decommissioning projects to 2035. [written in 2017 – but nothing’s changed]
Zion Lights was sucked into nuclear advocacy by self-confessed liar, climate denier and MAGA lunatic Michael Shellenberger.
JIM GREEN, https://jimkgreen1.substack.com/p/zion-lights-and-her-lying-climate 21 Mar 24
The latest substack missive from British nuclear power advocate Zion Lights reflects the cognitive dissonance that all nuclear advocates must be experiencing. Mixed in with anger and nuttiness. In the UK, if the two Hinkley Point C reactors are ever completed (the only two reactors under construction in the UK), the cost will be at least A$44 billion per reactor and it will be at least 25 years between the announcement that new reactors will be built and grid-connection of the reactors. If we allow for the usual pattern of overruns and delays, the figures are likely to be A$50+ billion per reactor, and 30 years between announcement and grid-connection.
Since the last reactor startup in the UK (Sizewell B in 1995), 24 reactors have been permanently shut-down. If the Hinkley Point C reactors begin operating in the early- to mid-30s, it will be 35‒40 years between reactors startups in the UK, during which time there will have been 32 permanent reactor-shutdowns. Only Sizewell B is likely to be operating.
If not for the military connections (which Lights studiously ignores), Hinkley Point C would likely be abandoned and plans for more reactors would also be abandoned.
Lights was sucked into nuclear advocacy by self-confessed liar, climate denier and MAGA lunatic Michael Shellenberger. You can read more about Lights here, Shellenberger here, and you can read Extinction Rebellion’s important statement about both of them here. The Extinction Rebellion statement concludes: “Zion Lights, Michael Shellenberger, the Breakthrough Institute and their associated deniers and delayers are intentionally spreading doubt about the severity of the [climate] crisis and the action needed to respond to it.”
Presumably Lights did at least some research beforehand but still thought it a good idea to work for self-confessed liar and climate denier Shellenberger.
I mention Shellenberger because Lights’ latest substack post is nothing more than a cut-and-paste of lies and distortions that Shellenberger has been peddling for decades. Lights might at least have the decency to come up with her own lies and distortions.
That being the case, I won’t trawl through Lights’ post here. Instead, here is an article about Shellenberger which covers the same ground. “Nuclear power will solve global warming and feed all the world’s children.”
Is there a future for ‘pro-nuclear environmentalism’?
Jim Green, 30 Oct 2017, RenewEconomy. For a longer version of this article please click here.
Michael Shellenberger is visiting Australia this week. He has been a prominent environmentalist (of sorts) since he co-authored the 2004 essay, The Death of Environmentalism. These days, as the President of the California-based ‘Environmental Progress’ lobby group, he is stridently pro-nuclear, hostile towards renewable energy and hostile towards the environment movement.
Shellenberger is visiting to speak at the International Mining and Resources Conference in Melbourne. His visit was promoted by Graham Lloyd in The Australian in September. Shellenberger is “one of the world’s leading new-generation environmental thinkers” according to The Australian, and if the newspaper is any guide he is here to promote his message that wind and solar have failed, that they are doubling the cost of electricity, and that “all existing renewable technologies do is make the electricity system chaotic and provide greenwash for fossil fuels.”
Trawling through Environmental Progress literature, one of their recurring themes is the falsehood that “every time nuclear plants close they are replaced almost entirely by fossil fuels”. South Korea, for example, plans to reduce reliance on coal and nuclear under recently-elected President Moon Jae-in, and to boost reliance on gas and renewables. But Shellenberger and Environmental Progress ignore those plans and concoct their own scare-story in which coal and gas replace nuclear power, electricity prices soar, thousands die from increased air pollution, and greenhouse emissions increase.
Fake scientists and radiation quackery
Environmental Progress’ UK director John Lindberg is described as an “expert on radiation” on the lobby group’s website. In fact, he has no scientific qualifications. Likewise, a South Korean article falsely claims that Shellenberger is a scientist and that article is reposted, without correction, on the Environmental Progress website.
Shellenberger says that at a recent talk in Berlin: “Many Germans simply could not believe how few people died and will die from the Chernobyl accident (under 200) and that nobody died or will die from the meltdowns at Fukushima. How could it be that everything we were told is not only wrong, but often the opposite of the truth?”
There’s a simple reason that Germans didn’t believe Shellenberger’s claims about Chernobyl and Fukushima ‒ they are false.
Continue reading1 This Month
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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