The politics of Australia’s ABC TV coverage of climate change
Climate change denial is as easy as ABC Independent Australia , 25 April 12, The ABC’s approach to reporting on climate change is motivated more by politics than science, says environment editor Sandi Keane — who compares its coverage to that of the BBC. “…….This week, the ABC’s Q&A show will host another ‘debate’ on climate science, with former Coalition Senator and Liberal power broker, the well-known AGW-dissenter, Nick Minchin. Regardless of the outcome, the sceptics can already chalked it up as a win thanks to the myth perpetuated by the ABC that AGW is ‘controversial’….. It is no secret that the phoney ‘debate’ about global warming was deliberately manufactured by self-interest groups to delay regulation on emissions….
In a disgraceful move by the ABC, no doubt as a result of politics once again determining program content, the above clip from the show with Professor Naomi Oreskes (author of the best seller: Merchants of Doubt) has been cut from tonight’s show – or so we are told in this morning’s Age by Prof Stephan Lewandowsky.
You will be told that each ‘side’ was able to choose its own team to convince the other to change their mind. Not so Anna Rose, it appears.
Watch the above clip of Oreskes’ interview with Nick Minchin and you’ll understand why his side of politics were afraid of it going to air. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/climate-change-denial-is-as-easy-as-abc/
“Balance” in the media: the ABC gives anti-science a national platform
ABC’s latest climate change doco another PR victory for doubters Crikey, by Clive Hamilton 27 April12, The strategy of doubt-mongering has been highly effective for climate deniers at exploiting the media’s practice of presenting “two sides” to controversial issues. The media have an ethical commitment to provide “balance” and stories are more interesting if there is a conflict to report, whether that conflict is real or manufactured. Which is why ABC TV’s I Can Change Your Mind … About Climate Change is yet another victory for climate denial ..
.. If there were a real debate among scientists, then the climate deniers would be publishing their counter-evidence in the professional scientific journals. But they are not, because they do not have evidence that will stand up to scrutiny.
So they set out to do something else, to create the impression in the public mind that there is a serious debate among scientists about global warming. To do so they must shift the terrain away from the scientific journals and into the popular media, where they do not have to face the scrutiny of experts.
It’s certain that when asked last year to participate in the program, Minchin grabbed the chance with two hands. His denialist comrades have been patting him on the back ever since…..
Scholars such as Naomi Oreskes have exposed the tactics of the climate deniers with a mass of documentary evidence.
Yet the ABC persists with the charade of “providing balance”. Some news organisations abroad have decided they will no longer fall for the doubt-mongering ruse. Professional pride now prevents editors and journalists from being manipulated by the denial machine.
The BBC would not air a program such as this. In the United States, National Public Radio has revised its ethics handbook. “Our goal,” it states, “is not … to produce stories that create the appearance of balance, but to seek the truth.”
When it reports on questions such as climate science its aim is not the spurious fairness of presenting “both sides”; instead NPR commits itself to be “fair to the truth”. “To be fair to the truth.” Once we simply expected that of the national broadcaster. This latest program tells us that the truth no longer carries so much weight at the ABC, not when it comes to climate science. http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/04/26/hamilton-abcs-latest-climate-change-doco-another-pr-victory-for-doubters/
THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper ignores reputable science on wind energy
The Australian’s fear of reds under the bed, CLIMATE SPECTATOR: Tristan Edis, 12 Mar 2012 On Friday, The Australian newspaper dedicated front page coverage to a United Kingdom study that claimed that, in Britain, using wind turbines to cut emissions costs 10 times the price of a gas-fired power station. Such a claim is not correct for Australian circumstances. But what I find remarkable is why The Australian considered such a study to be front page news.
There are more than 50 Australian economic modelling studies (my hard drive holds 730 megabytes worth) – prepared by a range of highly credible sources – that examine the relative costs of wind versus alternative power sources, specifically for Australian conditions. The Australian could have chosen from the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics, Access Economics, CSIRO, Carbon Market Economics, the Treasury, the Electric Power Research Institute, several of Australia’s major electricity companies, and even ACIL Tasman (who they have cheerfully and uncritically quoted on countless occasions in the past when they have been commissioned by the Coal Association and the oil and gas industry).
If they had bothered to pick up any single one of these studies they would have found the claim of a tenfold cost difference to be profoundly exaggerated
Yet the paper decided a study analysing UK conditions and prepared for a lobby group (The Global Warming Policy Foundation) that is obviously dedicated to undermining the case for action to reduce carbon emission, was not just news, but front page news. I would have perhaps understood such a response to an international study if it had been prepared by the International Energy Agency, or the OECD, or the UK’s peak scientific body, the Royal Society. But the Global Warming Policy Foundation?
This report was supported by commentary by their environment reporter, Graham Lloyd, headed ‘An Industry Running out of Puff ’. In it he suggests that community opposition to wind farms and health fears about wind turbines are widespread, major problems afflicting the wind industry. No mention is made of the CSIRO study that found that opposition within local communities hosting wind farms in Australia is largely exaggerated. Nor does it mention that many thousands of people in Denmark have been living in close proximity to wind turbines for more than a decade without ill-effect. …..
f this was an isolated case from The Australian then one could just pass this off as ‘slow news day desperation’. But the embarrassing errors have been systematic and long-running. Below are some stand-out examples, but there are enough to fill a book……
Australia’s ABC television Q and A neglects serious thinkers in favour of “Punch and Judy
It appears that the producers have their favourites when it comes to “thinktanks”, with the free marketeering IPA topping the list with 4 different panellists and 11 appearances in total (not including appearances by former staff members). Meanwhile, prominent progressive think tank The Australia Institute has never featured on Q&A, despite TAI’s current head Dr Richard Denniss debating Lord Christopher Monckton about climate change at the National Press Club last year and its former head being prominent author and intellectual Professor Clive Hamilton.
Mining corporations’ control of Australian media to increase, as Gina Rinehart joins
Other mining billionaires may also join Rinehart’s bid to shape Australia’s media in her own image…….. the corporate rich’s control of the media is hardly limited to Rinehart. It is the rule, not the exception….. Australia already has the most monopolised media in Western world.
Rinehart grabs for media control, Green Left, February 11, 2012 ,By Paul Benedek She’s proposed nuclear explosions for open-cut mining, funded tours by climate deniers and called for bringing in cheap migrant labour to work her mines.
Now Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has bought the largest individual stake in Fairfax Media, which runs the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review, plus various radio stations and regional papers.
In 2010, Rinehart bought herself a seat on the Channel 10 board when she paid $166 million for a 10% stake in the television station.
Her expansion from mining baron to media mogul is most likely not a financial decision. Rinehart is spending less than 1% of her wealth on Fairfax, and media is far less profitable than mining. Read more »
Gina Rinehart’s threat to the proud independence of Australia’s Fairfax newspapers
So why is Gina Rinehart buying? She has no interest as a shareholder in making money. She wants to buy influence.
In 1979, Gina’s father, Lang Hancock argued: “We can change the situation so as to limit the power of government,”
before concluding: “it could be broken by obtaining control of the media and then educating the public”.
The Conversation, By Andrew Jaspan, Editor, 11 Feb 12, News of Gina Rinehart’s tilt at Fairfax Media is a circuit breaker in the never-ending story of the media company’s decline. As a former editor of The Age, one of Fairfax’s prized mastheads, I have spent the day wondering where this might end. Whichever way, it looks bad for quality, independent journalism. This is a defining moment for the kind of Australia we want….
Fairfax’s papers have an awful lot of clout. The combined audience for The Age in print and online is about 1 million readers per day, and the SMH just above. For those who follow these things, that’s higher than for any Channel 7, 9, 10 or ABC news bulletins. And more importantly, the audience for the Fairfax papers, including The Australian Financial Review, is the influential and affluent “AB” market. For these people, what the Fairfax papers report, matters.
Unlike the tabloids read by the bulk of Australians. The Age, SMH and The Fin, along with The Australian, set Australia’s
news agenda and are slavishly followed by the radio talk-back and TV news shows. Read more »
Gina Rinehart and her influence on Australian media
Like him, [her father, Lang Hancock], she once advocated opening up new mines in Australia by using nuclear explosions. Hancock got the idea of using nukes to excavate harbours from Edward Teller, the fiercely anti-communist ”father of the H-bomb”
She is now putting her wealth into the climate change sceptics’ movement.
right-wing Melbourne think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, which has a long association with the mining industry. The IPA is secretive about its funding but it would be a reasonable suspicion that its rapid expansion during the past two years has been financed by Gina Rinehart.
Will readers of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald soon have to endure regular opinion pieces from climate sceptics like Monckton and Plimer, and various others still stuck in the politics of the Cold War?
Mining in a new vein, SMH Clive Hamilton, February 2, 2012 IF GINA Rinehart succeeds in getting a controlling
interest in Fairfax Media, the only competition to the Murdoch stable of newspapers in Australia, the nation’s political landscape will be changed.
Although she is famously shy of publicity, enough has emerged to make it clear that Rinehart has political views on the far right of the spectrum. Those close to her have reported that she would like to use her wealth to gain political influence.
Last year Rinehart was named by Forbes magazine Australia’s richest person. She is reported to hold more than $20 billion in assets. Citigroup estimates she is on track to become the richest person in the world.
Rinehart inherited more than father Lang Hancock’s mining company; she took on his politics, too. Hancock was described by one journalist as ”a swashbuckling right-winger who believed people and governments should bow to his will”. On workers’ rights, WA secession and special deals for mining, Gina is her father’s daughter. Read more »
Australian media: lies and distortions about a legitimate Aboriginal protest
That evening the WIN TV news repeatedly referred to “violence” and used other inflammatory terms so inaccurate as to amount to lies. The Canberra Times front page next day screamed “Australia’s day of disgrace”. There are disgraces involved, but the rowdy protest was not one.
The media, unfortunately typically, reported inaccurately and used inflammatory language, thereby promoting division.
Aussie Day ‘riot’: perspective and balance hard to find The Drum, Geoff Davies, 30 Jan 12 The bias, hysteria and divisiveness of our public political conversation is never far from view, but this week I encountered it firsthand.
I watched outside as the Aboriginal protest unfolded at The Lobby restaurant on Australia Day. The event reported in the media and reacted to by many commentators is a lurid parody of what actually happened. Perspective and balance are hard to find.
The protest was not violent. It was certainly rowdy and confronting. The protesters chanted loudly and angrily, and some beat time on the glass walls of the restaurant. There was some pushing and shoving as the VIP cars finally moved out. Police on the day said there were”scuffles” and no arrests would be made. Read more »
Australian media distorts Aboriginals’ peaceful protest – what a load of anti-Aboriginal spin!
Gillard and Abbott were never really threatened by aboriginal protestors, Independent Australia, 26 Jan 2012 The official account portrays Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott as being attacked by violent aboriginal demonstrators today in Canberra. Present at the demonstrations was John Passant — who paints a rather different picture of events. Lunching at the appropriately named Porkbarrel Café for an awards ceremony, Gillard and Abbott became the target of a large crowd of demonstrators from the nearby Tent Embassy 40th year commemoration. Earlier that morning, 2,000 of us had gathered at the Australian National University for a welcome, some talks, rap and dancing before marching up to Parliament House and then on to the Tent Embassy at Old Parliament House….. Soon about 200 of the demonstrators moved from the Tent Embassy commemoration to the café to tell Abbott what they thought of him.
There was a bit of banging on the glass walls. The chants started as “Shame, shame!” and “Racists, racists” and then became a steady “Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.” This is a truth the one per cent and their paid mouthpieces, Gillard and Abbott, cannot acknowledge, let alone address.
The cops reacted as they always do when confronted by angry Aboriginal people. The riot squad and the Prime Minister’s protection unit brutalised the crowd to clear a path for Gillard and Abbott, ….
Then the cops tried to wreak their vengeance on the crowd – an Aboriginal crowd and their supporters – for having dared to protest against these two representatives of the mining companies that are stealing Aboriginal land. Together in a line, they walked slowly towards the protestors chanting ‘Move, move, move’ and in one case, shoved a pepper spray bottle into a demonstrators’ face….. The demonstration was a reminder that polite conversation isn’t going to shift entrenched capitalist interests and their representatives in the Parliament. It might give you fake constitutional changes but not land rights, not sovereignty, not a treaty…. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/gillard-and-abbott-were-never-really-threatened-by-aboriginal-protestors/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=IA+Newsletter
Tent Embassy spokesman Pal Coe made a point largely lost in the media coverage today, which is that Warren Mundine and Mick Gooda don’t speak for those involved, much less for Aboriginal Australia as a whole
The Mob Violence That Wasn’t New Matilda.com, By Ben Eltham , 28 Jan, 12, The media has framed it as violent but the tent embassy protest was basically peaceful. It’s this gross distortion – and the heavy-handed response of the AFP – that warrant criticism, writes Ben Eltham
Somehow, with the strange alchemy that the media seems to summon, the dominant angle of reporting about yesterday’s Australia Day kerfuffle involving the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition has been to condemn it as a violent protest.
“Indigenous leaders condemn ‘disgraceful’ protesters” is how the ABC has beendescribing it and much of the Fairfax press has carried similar stories. The television networks have, of course, reveled in the dramatic footage. Channel 9’s news report from last night, which carried the inside-the-restaurant footage of the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader conferring on whether to evacuate, repeatedly framed the protest in emotive terms like “violent”, “raging”, “angry mob”, under siege” and so on.
Few media outlets seem to have asked whether there was in fact any violence from protesters. The available video and eyewitness evidence suggests that the violence came mainly from police and security staff. Yes, there was chanting, Yes, there was banging on the windows of local restaurant The Lobby.
But were the protesters really “violent”? Read more »
THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper twists climate information to benefit fossil fuel industries
The Australian newspaper’s war on science, truth and journalistic ethics continues. Independent Australia, Managing editor David Donovan reports. 17 Jan 12,
In last Wednesday’s The Australian newspaper, columnist Imre Salusinszky came out with the quite extraordinary claim that the world had “beaten global warming”.
He said we should congratulate ourselves; that the worst dangers no longer loom over us……. Here’s some of what he said:………
“Last year was the sixth coldest since 1997, which shows the catastrophic scenarios of recent times are no longer looming over us.”
According to Salusinszky, because last year was only the 8th hottest in the last 14 years, and some parts of the world had below average temperatures, global warming is beat……
Because if Salusinzky had looked at the data from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) as he suggests he has, he must know that, although 2011 was “the sixth coldest since 1997” (or the 8th hottest, whichever you prefer) it was also, according to the WMO, the 10th hottest year the world has ever recorded and the hottest ever during a La Nina weather event…….
the newspaper has been conducting a calculating and concerted campaign to discredit the established and very clear consensus in global warming science and foster doubt about the need for climate action. It is the only newspaper in Australia that publishes these sorts of unscientific denialist articles — and it does publish this anti-science on a daily basis.
And while The Australian fiddles with public opinion, the world gets hotter. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/media-2/the-australian-declares-victory-in-war-on-global-warming/
ABC Radio National again provides a platform for the nuclear lobby
Just a few months ago, in ABC Radio National’s “Ockham’s Razor” program, Robin Williams interviewed the Australia Nuclear Forum’s Terry Krieg. Yesterday, 15/1/ 12, Krieg was back on the program – this time with a more subtle approach to his pro nuclear propaganda. So , I thought it timely to draw attention to Krieg’s previous ABC performance, analysed in the article below. Perhaps it’s time that “Ockham’s Razor” gave right of return to the other point of view? - Christina Macpherson
Nuclear industry infiltrates ABC to push for an atomic Australia, Independent Australia, 10 Sep 2011, The nuclear industry is using increasingly subtle methods to promote the development of a nuclear power and radioactive waste disposal industry in Australia. Noel Wauchope reports .
“……..There was, as there always seems to be, some “astroturfing” going on. A bit of research on the Net and we soon discover that Mr Krieg is a spokesperson for the Australian Nuclear Forum. This is an organisation dedicated, it says, to “advancing peaceful aspects of nuclear science and technology”. With that aim, the ANF provides “policy papers and information papers for schools”. Its members are “professionals with wide collective experience in nuclear science and technology”. In other words, it is a false grassroots nuclear industry lobby group.
Now, I really do think that the presenter, Robin Williams, should have told us that. But perhaps he didn’t know. It is in the interests of nuclear astroturfers to not have people know that the information they present, far from being unvarnished, comes straight from the nuclear industry itself.
Secondly, Mr Krieg came out with what the nuclear lobby has been secretly planning for Australia — that is, to establish the full nuclear cycle in this country, including storing radioactive wastes……
Krieg, rather surprisingly, loses some scientific credibility right at the start, as he reveals himself as a climate-change denier. He moves on to state that pursuing renewable energy is unwise, saying that USA energy experts in the ’80s have been proved right in writing off solar energy…… Krieg dismisses any problem of radiation from Fukushima:….
He claims that nuclear power is “emission free”. Yes, emission-free if only you don’t count the nuclear fuel cycle’s “front end” uranium mining, milling, transport and its “back end”…
Krieg has spelled out what Australia’s nuclear mandarins have been quietly planning for some time, as has been reported in this journal. Not a word, not a worry, about environmental impacts, water supply and water contamination, costs of security and permanent waste disposal, risks of terrorism. It is no mere pipedream. …. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/media-2/nuclear-industry-infiltrates-abc-to-push-for-an-atomic-australia/
Uranium sales to India – nuclear weapons aspect ignored by media and government
Yes, but India has nuclear weapons! Australia may begin exporting uranium to India, but proponents have hijacked what is primarily an arms control debate. Aljazeera, NAJ Taylo r 29 Nov 2011 ”…..The Labor Party will vote on whether to change its policy position, thereby exporting uranium to India, at its national conference held in Sydney, December 2-4, 2011. As discussed in part one, on November 15 Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard proposed an amendment to her party’s longstanding and non-negotiable position on uranium exports: that recipient states must be members of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
The immediate response in Australian news media was politically orchestrated and myopically centred on Gillard’sbelief that Australia’s economy and job seekers will benefit, and that India requires a modern policy in line with “the international community”. Few commentators appeared committed to seriously debating the uranium exports in the gritty terms of arms control ……
according to the Australia and Japan-led International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament report in 2009:
“10.5… One criticism – frequently voiced since the India agreement – is that [Nuclear Suppliers Group] members may be driven by commercial incentives to be less rigorous in their approach to countries not applying comprehensive safeguards or not party to the NPT.”
“10.7 The main substantive problem with the deal is that it removed all non-proliferation barriers to nuclear trade with India in return for very few significant non-proliferation and disarmament commitments by it. The view was taken that partial controls – with civilian facilities safeguarded – were better than none.”
Two years after these dire warnings – incidentally by an International Commission co-chaired by our former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and instigated by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd – Gillard also appears to be primarily “driven by commercial incentives” and a perceived diplomatic dividend…..
it’s not the strength or frequency of criticism of the existing policy that is troubling to me, but the flawed arms control logic within, and moral grandstanding of, their arguments.
For if this sort of willing delusion prevails, and uranium sales to India go ahead, then undoubtedly this will be a pivotal moment when nuclear arms control returns to those tense and cold days from which, this time, we may never turn back. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011112414232543488.html
Australians can now check out coal seam gas activities on ABC’s new map
ABC’s new CSG site, ABC News 24 Nov The ABC has mapped every coal seam gas well in the country and compiled a bank of information on a new website available from today.
The site explores the cumulative impacts of coal seam gas activities in Australia, including the amount of water used to produce CSG and the consequences for salinity and greenhouse gas emissions. ABC journalist and site creator Wendy Carlisle says people can look up a well by place name or postcode. ”This industry has, you know, arisen out of almost nowhere in the last decade” she said.
“There is no site you can go to which presents to you in a readily understandable way the extent of the industry as it currently stands.”(There’s) information about how much water may be extracted, how much salt could be extracted and what the greenhouse gas footprint of those activities are likely to be.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-24/abc-sets-up-new-website-about-coal-seam-gas-mining/3690542
Gas lobby attacks Australian Broadcasting Commission over its coal seam gas website
The ABC said it had conducted the report to counter the lack of available, readily understandable information about the industry, including its environmental impacts. The report, which features an interactive website, consolidates government and industry reports on CSG, many of which are more than 10,000 pages.
Gas lobby blows up over ABC ‘errors’, BY:ANTHONY KLAN AND AMOS AIKMAN, The Australian November 26, 2011 THE coal-seam gas lobby has attacked an ABC report into the practice as “riddled with factual errors” and lodged an official complaint with the broadcaster. Read more »
Rupert Murdoch’s secret attack on Australia’s ABC
In hours, Murdoch could secure his stranglehold on the Australian media by acquiring our public international TV news network — and rob a struggling ABC of $223 million in funding. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is under pressure to give control over the network to Murdoch instead of the ABC — but together we can stop the deal.
we desperately need to come together again. Murdoch’s mouthpiece The Australian has been leaking details of insider support for Murdoch in a blatant attempt to force Labor into backing his bid. Conroy knows that giving the network to Murdoch would greatly increase the media mogul’s corrupting influence and hurt the ABC, and is looking for a way out.
Together, we can give Conroy the public mandate he needs to reject Murdoch’s power grab and award the contract to the ABC. Send a message to Conroy telling him that Australians don’t want this dodgy deal – click on the link below and then forward to everyone:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdochs_secret_abc_attack/?vl
Rupert Murdoch already owns 70 percent of Australia’s newspapers. Now he’s on the hunt for more media control, and he’s hoping we won’t notice. Through his stake in Australian News Channel, he’s been pushing hard to take over the crucial but low-key ‘Australia Network’: an Australian international public broadcaster that’s available in 44 countries. Murdoch has shown that his empire ruthlessly puts profits above all else — even hacking a murdered school girl’s phone to increase sales. With this extra network, Murdoch would vastly increase his power and take control of Australia’s public image abroad.
The move is also a key part of his strategy to destroy public broadcasting and silence independent voices. Murdoch knows that the loss of $223 million in funding would severely weaken an already stretched ABC. It would mean the loss of many ABC journalists, and potential closures of overseas news offices. If we let Murdoch win, Australia will become the first country in the world to privatise its international news service.
Insiders say Communications Minister Stephen Conroy doesn’t want this outcome. He’s looking for a way to keep the money with the ABC and stop Murdoch from further increasing his corrupting influence. If huge numbers of Australians send messages, Conroy will receive the public backing he needs to decide against Murdoch’s bid. Send your message now and forward this note to your friends and family:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdochs_secret_abc_attack/?vl
Earlier this year, Avaaz members in the UK forced Murdoch to drop his bid for a complete takeover of British broadcaster BSkyB, and last month we won the media inquiry here despite Murdoch’s fierce opposition. Now we have a chance to win again. With massive public support, we can rid the world of Murdoch’s corrupting influence for good. Something that would have been unthinkable even 12 months ago is now within our grasp, if we keep working together. Read more »
This month
For international news, go to nuclear-news ion for Western Australia’s energy future
http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/?p=5755 Mary Olson on how women are more vulnerable to atomic radiation
- Muckaty Gathering 25 May 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1J9q-OeEO4 - NuclearKop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpMhhzkeYjk
Anti nuclear action below: - more info at Action Australia « Antinuclear and at Event details « Antinuclear
- http://www.communityrun.org/petitions/put-the-brakes-on-toxic-trucks-no-nuclear-waste-at-muckaty
- Online Petition - against the proposed national radioactive waste dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/no-nuclear-waste-dump-at-muckaty.htmlUranium Free WA Sign the online charter saying no to uranium mining in Western Australia http://ccwa.org.au/takeaction/uraniumnotforsaleSIGN THE PETITION TO STOP LYNAS RARE EARTH EXPORTS TO MALAYSIA http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ban-rare-earth-exports/
EVENTS
- May 29 – Melbourne - Amnesty International panel on weapons and war .
- May 29 – 30 Melbourne - Wind Farms conference
- May 30 Darwin - expert Panel on Nuclear Waste Dump plan for Muckaty
- June 2 - Nuclear Abolition Day
- June 13 - Melbourne -Lizards Revenge -Shut Roxby Down
- June 14 Melbourne Beyond Zero Emissions ZCA 2020 plan.
- June 19 - Melbourne Public meeting US FORCES IN AUSTRALIA: SECURITY OR THREAT? USforcesflyer-2.pdf
The Nuclear/uranium industry and WOMEN - theme for May 2012
Deceptive information given to women about breast cancer. Women are repeatedly told about “genetic causes”, about “risks of obesity:. about “diet factors”, about “not having babies”, or “having a baby at a later age” even about “stress” – as causes of breast cancer. The not so subtle message is that it is THEIR FAULT – a problem caused by the individual woman, so – the only preventive actions must be those made by individual women.
The facts are otherwise. The single most proven cause of breast cancer is ionising radiation. After that, other environmental causes exist, amongst the wash of chemicals, and synthetic hormones, that pervade our environment. After that – probably some hereditary susceptability, amongst some women.
Why is this so? One could conclude that breast cancer is a growth industry. There’s money at every point in this sorry cycle – from the radiation from nuclear fuel through to the medical radiation used to detect and treat breast cancer. There is no money clearly involved in shutting down a toxic industry, and preventing millions of breast cancers.
How does ionising radiation cause breast cancer? Ionising radiation comes in several forms. for example, Gamma rays, x-rays, and some sub-atomic particles such as alpha particles and protons In ionising radiation, a tiny electron is released from an atom, and enters a body cell, hitting the DNA in the cell’s nucleus, and damaging it. The damaged DNA sends out ‘wrong’ messages telling the cell to divide in an uncontrolled manner – cancer develops.
“...the time between radiation exposure and breast cancer development is longest in young women and shortest for older women; young children do not show a detectable elevation in breast cancer occurrence for some 35 to 40 years after exposure. Radiation-induced breast cancers appear to occur later in life during the same ages when breast cancer rates, in general, begin to increase. It appears that a single exposure of sufficient dose during early life can increase breast cancer risk even 50 years later...
the relationship between radiation dose and breast cancer risk can be described by a straight line which implies that no matter how low the dose, there is some small risk associated with the exposure.…
The risk of subsequent breast cancer from very high doses is lower than that which might be expected from the effects of lower doses. This is because radiation at high doses is an effective killer of cells and dead cells are not able to develop into cancer…..
Young girls are at highest risk …when a young girl is exposed to radiation, she will have menstrual cycles for several decades that might enhance the development of any underlying damage caused by the radiation. There is evidence to suggest that exposure to the immature breast during early development, and around the age of beginning menstruation, carries a higher risk than at other times of a woman’s life.
It is unclear how radiation exposure of the breast during pregnancy affects a woman’s breast cancer risk. However, a recent study of women treated for Hodgkin’s disease concluded that pregnancy might be a time of increased sensitivity of breast tissue to the cancercausing effects of radiation……”
.” John D Boyce, Jr, DSc, Scientific Director,Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors in New York State.. Ionizing Radiation and Breast Cancer Risk
