Antinuclear

Dr Jim Green exposes the nuclear spin of Ziggy Switkowski and Barry Brook

Unfortunately, Prof. Barry Brook has really abdicated a neutral position on this event. His clear support of nuclear power seems to have impacted his critical thinking skills … Every time he states something in this crisis is ‘impossible’, it seems to happen the next day.”…………Switkowski ignores the widespread human exposure to radiation from Fukushima and the likely resulting long-term cancer death toll.

Fukushima: the political fallout in Australia, Green Left July 4, 2011, By Jim Green “……Spin doctors, Pro-nuclear ideologues have been madly spinning the Fukushima disaster. Several days into the crisis, Dr Ziggy Switkowski made the remarkable comment that: “The best place to be whenever there’s an earthquake is at the perimeter of a nuclear plant because they are designed so well.”

In June, Switkowski claimed “there have been no casualties from the operations of those nuclear reactors in the path of the tsunami or from subsequent uncontrolled leaks of radiation” and that there is no evidence yet of adverse health effects.

He ignores the widespread human exposure to radiation from Fukushima and the likely resulting long-term cancer death toll.

Switkowski has been repeatedly reassuring us that lessons will be learned and improvements will be made in the design of nuclear reactors. However, history clearly shows that nuclear lessons are not properly learned.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency notes that lessons may be learned but too often they are subsequently forgotten. Or they are learned but by the wrong people. Or they are learned but not acted upon.

The situation in Japan illustrates the point — it has become increasingly obvious over the past decade that greater protection against seismic risks is necessary, but the nuclear utilities haven’t wanted to spend the money and the Japanese nuclear regulator and the government haven’t forced the utilities to act.

Adelaide University academic Barry Brook has made even more of a goose of himself than Switkowski.

Even after the first explosion at Fukushima, Brook said: “The risk of meltdown is extremely small, and the death toll from any such accident, even if it occurred, will be zero.

“There will be no breach of containment and no release of radioactivity beyond, at the very most, some venting of mildly radioactive steam to relieve pressure. Those spreading FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] at the moment will be the ones left with egg on their faces….

Every one of Brook’s predictions was wrong. Bad idea to mix a flawed assessment with arrogance and scattergun abuse towards anyone with different views.

One contributor to Brook’s Brave New Climate blog summed up his problem: “Unfortunately, Prof. Brook has really abdicated a neutral position on this event. His clear support of nuclear power seems to have impacted his critical thinking skills … Every time he states something in this crisis is ‘impossible’, it seems to happen the next day.”    http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/48075

Note the environmental impacts of construction at the graphic: https://www.plantlocator.co.uk/impact-of-construction/ 

July 4, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, spinbuster