A Christmas letter to grandchildren
Santa Claus and Climate Change: A Letter to My Grandkids http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/santa-claus-and-climate-c_b_4477078.html?utm_hp_ref=tw Peter H. Gleick 12/19/2013
December 2020
Dear Grandchildren,
Once upon a time, a jolly old man named St. Nick, or Santa Claus, lived at the North Pole. Every year, at Christmas, he bundled up toys made by his magic elves and flew around the world in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, including his most famous one, Rudolph. Santa brought these presents to all the good little boys and girls in return for nothing more than cookies, milk, and unquestioned love. But he also kept a list of bad little boys and girls, who got a lump of coal in their stockings as a reminder to be better next year.
I’m sorry to have to tell you there will be no presents from Santa this year.
It’s not that you’ve been bad. Rather the world’s governments (sometimes run by bad boys and girls now grown up) have failed to address the long-worsening problem of climate change. Santa is the latest climate victim. As the last of the summer ice at the North Pole finally disappeared, Santa’s workshop sank to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. When the insurance companies cancelled most flood insurance policies, andCanada claimed the North Pole, Santa lost everything and became the latest climate refugee.
This disaster has long been coming. Back in the early 2000s, Arctic sea ice extent and volume started to drop rapidly — even more rapidly than scientists anticipated — due to the rapid warming of the planet caused by the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal. The ice started thinning, breaking up, and disappearing. While some tried to call attention to this as a planetary emergency, others denied it was happening or turned a blind eye. Some even tried to benefit from the lack of ice in the Arctic to find even more dirty fossil fuels to burn.
Others have tried to blame the victims for their lifestyle and energy use. Maybe Santa shouldn’t have handed out all that extra coal. Maybe methane emissions from the reindeer played a role. Maybe the wasteful consumption that accompanied the commercialization of Christmas was a factor. Maybe Santa himself should have said something — perhaps we’d have listened to him rather than the naysayers.
But be of good cheer. There are rumors that Santa and Mrs. Claus are trying to relocate to Antarctica with the surviving elves, for as long as the ice there persists. There are no reindeer in Antarctica, but if Santa could make reindeer fly, perhaps he can do something similar with penguins. Some say Santa’s list of bad boys and girls has gotten longer and so his job will be easier. There is also a rumor that Santa and Superman (who also recently had to relocate to Antarctica), will share space until Santa and Mrs. Claus can find a new workshop.
In the meantime, come on over to the house on Christmas anyway. We’ll crank up the air conditioner and celebrate with family. And there will plenty of extra milk and cookies.
Love, Grandpa
P.S. Oh, also, I’m sorry to say that the fireworks have been cancelled for the 4th of July because of the high fire danger.
This year – Australia’s hottest on record!
2013 Australia’s hottest year on record SMH, December 21, 2013 Peter Hannam 2013 is the year Australia marked its hottest day, month, season, 12-month period and, by December 31, hottest calendar year.
“We’re smashing the records,” said Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of NSW. “We’re not tinkering away at them, they’re being absolutely blitzed.”
Global interest in Australia’s weather flared early. In January, when models predicted heat that was literally off the charts, the Bureau of Meteorology added colours to maps – a deep purple and pink – to indicate maximum temperatures of 50-54 degrees.
But for David Jones, head of climate analysis at the bureau, 2013’s stand-out event was a month largely overlooked by a media diverted by football finals and federal elections: “From a climate point of view, what happened in September was probably the most remarkable.” ……… http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/2013-australias-hottest-year-on-record-20131220-2zqpf.html#ixzz2o8JP6w00
Australia’s nuclear fuel customer, India, has an unsafe nuclear power system
Harsh criticism for India’s nuclear safety regime December 21, 2013 Ben Doherty Delhi: India’s nuclear safety regime is “fraught with grave risks”, a parliamentary committee has reported, saying the country’s nuclear regulator was 
weak, under-resourced and “slow in adopting international benchmarks and good practices in the areas of nuclear and radiation operation”.
The bipartisan Public Accounts Committee tabled a scathing 81-page report in India’s parliament, critical of the decades-long delay in establishing an independent regulator for the nuclear-armed country. Continue reading
Nuclear winter: that unimaginable Climate Change from a nuclear war
it could occur in stages. The first is climate change. Existing literature shows that a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan could drastically affect temperatures throughout the world. A 2007 study published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics predicts that the soot created by such an event could reduce temps by 1.25°C per year for at least a half-decade.
This would wreak havoc on global crops.
The final stage of this catastrophe is starvation.
“This is a disaster so massive in scale that really no preparation is possible. We must prevent this.”
Experts Fear Nuclear Famine: “A Disaster So Massive in Scale that No Preparation is Possible” Peak Oil, Dec 20 13, “…… Whether that war is a widespread nuclear conflict involving the world’s super powers, or a more limited event in the middle east involving Pakistan and India, according to a new report published by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a nuclear engagement (even a limited one) would lead to widespread destruction across planet earth, with at least 2 billion people at risk of starvation or death.
The kicker? The effects will be so long-lasting, according to the author of the study, that there’s pretty much nothing we can do to survive it:
The threat of nuclear war has been embedded in global consciousness since the invention of the atomic bomb. Most fears are focused on blast radius and radioactive fallout; but the long-term effects of a nuclear conflict could be far more concerning. Continue reading
$355 billion and more for USA’s nuclear weapons – Congress report
Lavishing funds on obsolete weapons designed to fight the Soviets robs our troops of the resources they need to fight terrorists. Policy makers need to reevaluate their spending plans on nuclear forces in the coming years to reflect today’s budgetary constraints and the diminishing utility of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy.
Are New Nuclear Weapons Affordable? HUFFINGTON POST12/20/20 Joe Cirincione President, Ploughshares A stunning new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that the government will spend $355 billion over the next 10 years directly on nuclear weapons. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The CBO estimate does not show the final price of all the new nuclear missiles, submarines, and bombers that the Pentagon wants to buy. The total cost could be more than $1 trillion over the next few decades.
As the CBO report notes, at the beginning of the next decade nuclear costs will be “roughly 60 percent higher” than this year’s budget. “Annual costs are likely to continue to grow after 2023,” says the CBO, “as production begins on replacement systems.”
Here’s one example of how the nuclear weapons budget is about to explode. Continue reading
$1 billion every year spent, to stop action on climate change
“It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this. This is a large-scale political effort.”
Conservative groups spend $1bn a year to fight action on climate change http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/20/conservative-groups-1bn-
against-climate-change
• Author: ‘I call it the climate-change counter movement’
• Study focuses on groups opposing US political action Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent. Conservative groups have spent $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change, according to the first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort.
The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative billionaires, often working through secretive funding networks. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 