Hear Christine Milne destroying Tony Abbott’s campaign against environment and renewable energy
The Australian Greens
Tony Abbott’s plans for the environment are dangerous and extreme: from his determination to gut national environmental protections and hand what’s left to the states, to his double dissolution promise.
We stand up for the environment in Parliament. We’ll stand firm for the Clean Energy Act and for national protection of the places and species that are too precious to lose.
Have a listen to Christine Milne respond to Greg Hunt on ABC Radio National this morning:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/greens-respond-to-greg-hunt-christine-milne/4699682
Australia launches clean energy map
http://www.cleanenergymap.gov.au/ Clean Energy Future – Australian Government
REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson 17 May 2013
The map can be searched by postcode or technology, and includes projects being carried out under measures such as the Renewable Energy Target, Solar Cities, Energy Efficiency Information Grants, the Carbon Farming Initiative and the Clean Technology Programs…. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/mixed-greens-australian-launches-clean-energy-map-29422
Hear this: Australian resources companies putting it over Aborigines?
AUDIO Miners falling short on Indigenous consultation: Oxfam http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-17/miners-falling-short-on-indigenous-consultation/4696040 By national resources reporter Sue Lannin May 17, 2013
A study by Oxfam Australia found that only one of the 53 biggest miners on the Australian stock exchange had a public commitment to the United Nation’s principles of informed consent for Indigenous people.
Oxfam Australia chief executive, Helen Szoke, says Australian mining companies need to do better.
“We looked at the policies of companies specifically within the context of how they dealt with the issue of consent of Indigenous peoples to use their land,” she said.
“Disturbingly what we found is that the majority of companies don’t have any transparent policies about how they gain that consent and how they go about negotiating with local Indigenous communities.”
AUDIO: Anxiety for Sutherland Shire over Lucas Heights’ radioactive trash
they should shut down this factory for producing radioactive trash
Nuclear future unclear for Lucas Heights. http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2013/05/16/3760616.htm?
site=sydney By John Donegan, 16 May, 2013 702 ABC Sydney Morning presenter Linda Mottram discusses the future of the Lucas Heights nuclear facility with Sutherland Shire mayor Kent Johns. While the permanent site for a national nuclear waste storage facility is mired in the courts, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation [ANSTO] is required to store processed waste materials at the Lucas Heights facility in Sydney.
Australia’s disarmament double-speak
As former prime minister Malcolm Fraser writes in the foreword, Australia “should use our position on the UN Security Council to help lead the push for negotiations on a treaty to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons”.Western Australia: 250 km walk against uranium mining
VIDEO: Indigenous and international protesters have begun a 250 km-long walk to campaign against uranium mining in Western Australia http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1764182/WA-uranium-protesters-to-walk-250km
A month-long anti-uranium walk has begun in the gold fields of Western Australia.
Traditional owners and international protesters are walking 250 kilometres from Yellirrie to Leonora campaigning against uranium mining in the resource-rich state.
But their march comes less than a month after the federal government approved a proposed uranium mine about 100 kilometres away.
Watch the video for the full story
Victorian Health Department finds that wind turbines do not cause illness
AUDIO http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3753421.htm Wind farm report puts pressure on government restrictions Simon Lauder reported this story May 7, 2013 ELEANOR HALL: A company that makes wind turbines is urging the Victorian Government to respond to a Health Department report by ending restrictions on wind farms in the state.
The report by the Victorian Health Department dismissed concerns that wind farm noise makes people ill, although it did find that the noise could be annoying.
In Melbourne, Simon Lauder reports.
SIMON LAUDER: Noel Dean moved to Ballarat to get away from Waubra. He says the wind farm there made him sick…….
Now Victoria’s Health Department has produced a report dismissing that claim.
It says if you can’t hear a sound then there’s no way known that it can affect health, regardless of the frequency. It says the level of noise produced by a wind farm is somewhere between a rural night-time background noise and the sound of a car passing 100 metres away…….
The Government has never linked those restrictions with health concerns but Mr Garner says it should now reconsider them anyway.
STEVE GARNER: And a lot of those objections come about from the myth of your health and now that that myth has been taken away, then maybe revisiting those laws is something that ought to be done.
SIMON LAUDER: The Victorian Health Department report follows a recent report by South Australia’s Environmental Protection Agency, which also rejected the link between wind farms and sickness.
But the health argument is still a barrier for the wind industry.
Victoria’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal has put off its decision on a wind farm project near Seymour, until the National Health and Medical Research Council completes a review of evidence about the health effects…….
Youtube: countering the uranium industry’s lies about uranium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZotGdcV1Kik&feature=youtu.be Dr. Jim Deutsch Corrects GE’s Uranium Secrets James Deutsch, MD, PhD, FRCP(C) Assistant Professor Faculty of Medicine University of Toronto
“I think it is important to take apart what the GE spokesperson quoted, which is that uranium is a natural entity and that the problem is not uranium but the general public’s so to speak fear of the unknown.
So there is a problem with that.
It is true that uranium is a naturally occurring element , but we evolved as biological creatures above ground with virtually all of the uranium below the ground safely away from our DNA.
Now we are bringing all of this stuff above ground in different forms
and it goes into the body.
And uranium is an emitter that will release particles with energy that can damage the DNA and various tissues and organs in the body close up.
When the GE people talk about that living next to the reactor is about equivalent to one flight from Toronto to Vancouver
they are talking about gamma radiation which is a high energy radiation that can penetrate tissues and pass right through.
What is happening with uranium and the reactors which produce 200 isotopes that never existed before humankind created them.
What those various isotopes do is they go to specific organs in the body and reside there emitting lower energy particles that will damage the molecules within the cells in the tissues in those organs.
Children are especially susceptible, especially newborns and pregnant mothers.”
Book and Audio: ‘A Short History of Nuclear Folly’
AUDIO -- ‘A Short History of Nuclear Folly’ and the lasting effects of the nuclear arms race
Book ‘A Short History of Nuclear Folly’ and the lasting effects of the nuclear arms race Jacob Margolis with Michelle Lanz | Take Two | April 30th, 2013, Though Russia and the U.S. are working together when it comes to investigating the bombing suspects in Boston – their relationship wasn’t always so amicable. Even today we have our problems.
Back in the 1980s there was always the threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction. Many people probably remember a time when, as schoolchildren, they were trained to hide under their wooden desks during nuclear blast drills. Had a blast actually happened they’d essentially be hiding under kindling, but that’s beside the point.
Before the threat of World War III, however, countries at the forefront of the nuclear arms race had to test these new weapons of mass destruction. The United States in particular tested weapons across the West, and radiation is still found in places like Nevada and Utah today. They treated Earth as their own nuclear testing playground, but that process could have a nasty effect on the environment.
In Rudolph Herzog’s new book, “A Short History of Nuclear Folly: Mad Scientists, Dithering Nazis, Lost Nukes and Catastrophic Cover-ups,” he traces the history of the nuclear race and what effects it has on the world today.
Interview Highlights:….http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2013/04/30/31559/a-short-history-of-nuclear-folly-and-the-lasting-e/
AUDIO The harsh economic facts contradict the Uranium Paydirt Conference’s hype
AUDIO Australia’s uranium industry is high risk, low return, says campaigner http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/connect-asia/australias-uranium-industry-is-high-risk-low-return-says-campaigner/1123008?autoplay=1122972 29 April 2013 Australia’s uranium industry is high risk, low return: that’s the assessment of a report designed to expose the uranium industry’s promise of great economic reward. Its findings suggest uranium accounted for just 0.29 per cent of Australia’s export revenue between 2002 and 2011.
The report by the Australian Conservation Foundation calls for a national independent inquiry into the industry’s contribution to Australia’s economy and employment.The report comes as uranium advocates meet in Adelaide today for the annual Paydirt Uranium Conference.
Presenter: Richard Ewart
Speaker: Dr Jim Green, national anti-nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth in Melbourne and co-author of the report, ‘Yellowcake Fever: Exposing the Uranium Industry’s Economic Myths’
Excerpts from this audio discussion
Yorta Yorta Nation and Monash Sustainability Institute – new responses to Climate Change
VIDEO http://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/multimedia/v.php?id=32603 Australia: To see with both eyes collaboration between the Monash Sustainability Institute (MSI) and the Yorta Yorta Nation in developing responses to climate change.
Australia: A dual approach to climate change adaptation http://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/news/v.php?id=32601 24 Apr 2013 :Monash University
A new video shows the benefits of collaboration between the Monash Sustainability Institute (MSI) and the Yorta Yorta Nation in developing responses to climate change. Nhawul Bultjubul Ma or To See With Both Eyes was filmed during the Yorta Yorta Climate Change Adaptation Workshop, held in Echuca last November. It features the international participants in the workshop speaking about traditional and western approaches to climate change and how each can inform the other.
The Yorta Yorta Nation, who hosted the workshop in conjunction with MSI, will use the video as a teaching tool, a demonstration of community leadership and an example of collaboration between Aboriginal societies and academia.
The workshop examined how Indigenous knowledge can contribute to improved adaptation to climate change for Indigenous communities and the Australian community in general – through ongoing protection of cultural heritage, promotion of healthy ecosystems and community empowerment. Director of MSI, Professor Dave Griggs praised Australian Indigenous people’s knowledge of the environment.
“They are the oldest living civilisation on the planet. They have an oral history which goes back many thousands of years. They have an intrinsic knowledge of how natural systems work,” Professor Griggs said. ”I think if we had that kind of cultural connection, those deep roots into the land, we wouldn’t be doing some of the things that we’re doing.”
Yorta Yorta Research Creator, Lee Joachim said the MSI-Yorta Yorta collaboration had been worthwhile for both groups.
“Our work with MSI has benefited the Yorta Yorta Nation in so many ways – such as capacity building, community empowerment and international relations,” Mr Joachim said.
“In turn we’ve been able to educate the researchers in Yorta Yorta knowledge and culture – the possibility of seeing the world through two eyes – so they have benefited as well.“
Additional information http://www.monash.edu.au/news/show/a-dual-approach-to-climat.
Hear Radioactive Show podcast about the Radioactive Exposure Tour 2013
http://www.3cr.org.au/radioactive/podcast/radioactive-show-13042013 Radioactive Show 13.04.2013
What Happens on Rad Tour… Doesn’t stay on Rad Tour. The Radioactive Exposure Tour 2013, organised by Friends of the Earth, ventured into the nuclear heartlands of South Australia and back. This weeks show is an audio reportback of the trip, and the inspirations and challenges of learning about the nuclear industry. Bhargavi Dilipkumar, an Indian anti-nuclear activist gives a talk on the shore of Lake Eyre, and a salty poem is shared.
Commonwealth Bank obfuscation on funding nuclear weapons manufacturers featured on F-U-Tube
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thecheckout/futube/default.htm?WwEQu-_c3Bw
It’s simple to upload your complaints, just make a video, put it on YouTube, go to FU tube and put in the link and your contents.
Nancy Atkin | Executive Officer
Medical Association for Prevention of War,
Australia www.mapw.org.au
VIDEO: Risk of a miscalculation triggering nuclear attack – the North Korean situation
VIDEO Minor flare up could trigger nuclear response, warns expert BY:THE AUSTRALIAN, IAN MCPHEDRAN, NATIONAL DEFENCE REPORTER WITH AGENCIES
- Main risk is a miscalculation or a scenario where the wrong button is pushed
- Experts say a rapid escalation in hostilities is also possible
- How it unfolded: Tensions rise on Korean peninsula
THE key risk on the Korean peninsula is a miscalculation or the ”Dr Strangelove scenario” where a crazy North Korean general pushes the wrong button, according to a strategic expert.
Professor Hugh White from the Australian National University said the regime in Pyongyang would be in no doubt that a nuclear strike against the US or its allies would generate a rapid and disproportionate nuclear response from Washington.
He said the main threat was a miscalculation or a rapid escalation in hostilities following a minor military incident such as an artillery strike.
”At least we don’t face the Cold War situation where any launch would trigger a massive nuclear response by the other side,” Professor White said.
During the 1950s and 60s that strategy was known by the acronym MAD – mutually assured destruction…… http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/minor-flare-up-could-trigger-nuclear-response-warns-expert/story-e6frg6n6-1226619515907
VIDEO: the uranium mine most likely to fail: Tor Energy’s Wiluna
VIDEO http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1754604/WA-needs-to-provide-more-info-on-uranium-mine WA ‘needs to provide more info on uranium mine’ The Australian Conservation Foundation has called on the Western Australian government to be more transparent regarding the country’s newest uranium venture near the remote town of Wiluna.
ACF National Nuclear Campaigner Dave Sweeney says there has been little information to date about how the uranium will be mined and transported.
“If the WA government really believes this is a good industry and it would stack up, they would have no problem at all putting it on the spotlight and putting it on the table and being open about it, rather than cutting secret deals in Perth and making little agreements in a language that most people can’t understand between bureaucrats,” Mr Sweeney said…..
The Federal Government recently approved the Wiluna mine, but has attached what it describes as “36 strict conditions” to ensure minimal impact on country and culture…..
But environmentalists say Toro Energy hasn’t got a proven track record handling a uranium operation. The ACF says uranium is high risk and low return. “We hear a lot about uranium as if it’s some sort of miracle mineral, but if you look at the sums, it’s 650 jobs and $600 million in export earnings, which in the scheme of things of Australia’s balanced trade is really a pittance,” said Mr Sweeney.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says the real money and job creation is in renewable energy. “We’ve looked at the company’s assumptions around jobs and investment,” he said. “It’s a very small mine, it’s financially very marginal…The company has said the operation will mostly be fly-in, fly-out. So there aren’t jobs there for local people, they’ll be coming in from Perth and elsewhere.”
This month
For international news, go to nuclear-news
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http://www.cleanenergymap.gov.au/ Clean Energy Future – Australian Government
VIDEO Printing Australia’s Largest Solar Cells http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/19/printing-australias-largest-solar-cells/#I2hPrL1dDL6WTXwD.99
- AUDIO Greens respond to Greg Hunt: Christine Milne http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/greens-respond-to-greg-hunt-christine-milne/4699682
- and this AUDIO Miners falling short on Indigenous consultation: Oxfam http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-17/miners-falling-short-on-indigenous-consultation/4696040
- and this Nuclear future unclear for Lucas Heights. http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2013/05/16/3760616.htm?
Youtube: From Fukushima to New York: Continuing Dangers of Nuclear PowerAnti nuclear action below: - more info at Action Australia « Antinuclear and at Event details « Antinuclear
EVENTS -
- Now - until June 2 – Melbourne PROTEST! ARCHIVES FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/archives/exhibitions/protest/index.html
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May 25 – Tennant Creek, Northern Territory March and Music for Muckaty NO NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP- Six years on and still strong! http://www.facebook.com/events/326459734149343/
- June 22- 23- Brisbane Declarations of Indigenous Independence Conference – open to all people considering these actions including non-Aboriginal supporters. www.sovereignunion.mobi
- July 24-26 - Brisbane - Clean Energy Week
Australia’s anti nuclear hero – Dr Helen Caldicott
As I write this, Dr Helen Caldicott is in Korea, keeping a commitment to lecture there, despite the tense political/military situation. In recent weeks, she has lectured in USA ,and Canada, following the landmark symposium “The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident” http://www.totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=hcf# which she organised in New York in March. Christina MacphersonHelen Caldicott MD The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr Helen Caldicott, has devoted the last 38 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction.
Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1938, Dr Caldicott received her medical degree from the University of Adelaide Medical School in 1961. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1975 and subsequently was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and on the staff of the Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war.
In 1971, Dr Caldicott played a major role in Australia’s opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific; in 1975 she worked with the Australian trade unions to educate their members about the medical dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, with particular reference to uranium mining.
While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she co-founded thePhysicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won theNobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also founded the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the US in 1980….
IN the United States in 1995, Dr Caldicott lectured at the New School for Social Research on the Media, Global Politics and the Environment, hosting a weekly radio talk show on WBAI (Pacifica), and becoming the Founding President of the STAR (Standing for Truth About Radiation) Foundation.
Dr Caldicott has received many prizes and awards for her work, including theLannan Foundation’s 2003 Prize for Cultural Freedom and 21 honorary doctoral degrees, and she was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize byLinus Pauling – himself a Nobel Laureate. The Smithsonian has named Dr Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th Century. She has written for numerous publications and has authored seven books, Nuclear Madness, Missile Envy, If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth(1992, W.W. Norton) and A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (1996,W.W. Norton; published as A Passionate Life in Australia by Random House), The New Nuclear Danger: George Bush’s Military Industrial Complex (2001, The New Press in the US, UK and UK; Scribe Publishing in Australia and New Zealand; Lemniscaat Publishers in The Netherlands; andHugendubel Verlag in Germany), Nuclear Power is Not the Answer (2006,The New Press in the US, UK and UK; Melbourne University Press in Australia) and War In Heaven (March 2007). Dr. Caldicott’s most recent book is the revised and updated If You Love This Planet (March 2009) updated 2012 as Loving This Planet
She also has been the subject of several films, including Eight Minutes to Midnight, nominated for an Academy Award in 1981, If You Love This Planet, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1982, andHelen’s War: portrait of a dissident, recipient of the Australian Film Institute Awards for Best Direction (Documentary) 2004, and the Sydney Film FestivalDendy Award for Best Documentary in 2004.
Dr Caldicott currently divides her time between Australia and the US where she lectures widely. She founded the US-based Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI), which evolved into Beyond Nuclear. Currently, Dr Caldicott is President of The Helen Caldicott Foundation/NuclearFreePlanet.org, an educational outreach project that informs people of the dangers of nuclear power and weapons. The mission of the Foundation is education to action, and the promotion of a nuclear energy and weapons free, renewable energy powered, world….. http://www.helencaldicott.com/about/
Few speakers can match Dr. Caldicott’s ability to simultaneously educate, entertain and ignite an audience. Senator Edward Kennedy has called her “one of the most eloquent voices on earth” and actress Meryl Streep says “Helen Caldicott has been my inspiration to speak out”. http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/dl/caldicott_bio.pdf
