Like Abbott, New South Wales government not taking climate change seriously
Climate doomsday planning powers to be eroded EAN HIGGINS THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 30, 2014 COUNCILS in NSW will be instructed to distinguish between “clear and present dangers” of coastal erosion and flooding and “doomsday” UN scenarios of global sea-level rises under a landmark policy on coastal planning and climate change to be unveiled today.
NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard will release a draft circular aimed at stopping some coastal councils from imposing draconian planning restrictions based exclusively on UNIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions of what could happen a century ahead.(subscibers only)….. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/climate-doomsday-planning-powers-to-be-eroded/story-e6frg6xf-1226813428273#
” Climate change is a fact” – Obama, unlike Abbott, supports solar energy
Obama’s State Of The Union Nod To Solar http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4149 29 Jan 14 US President Barack Obama has stated the debate is over and climate change is a fact in his State Of The Union speech – and points to solar as being part of the solution. “The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way,” said the President.
“But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.”
He said every 4 minutes a home or business in the USA goes solar and the rapid uptake is being reflected in job creation. As we mentioned earlier this week, U.S. solar jobs grew by 20% in the last year.
The full transcript of the State Of The Union address can be viewed here.
US Congress reports on navymen afflicted by Fukushima radiation
NAVY Sailor Reveals Gruesome Radiation Injuries Number of sick U.S. military first responders doubles — Around 250 victims of Fukushima radiation exposure contact attorney — Congress: Reports are ‘disconcerting’ (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/number-of-sick-u-s-first-responders-doubles-around-250-victims-of-fukushima-radiation-exposure-contact-attorney-congress-reports-are-disconcerting-video
Stars & Stripes, Jan. 27, 2014: Congress has instructed the Defense Department to launch an inquiry into potential health impacts on Navy first-responders from Japan’s March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. […] While the instruction is not law, Defense Department officials said that they were taking the request seriously. […] These individuals claim to be suffering from exposure-related ailments such as unexplained cancers, excessive bleeding, thyroid issues and ailments including loss of muscle power, migraines and vision problems. […] The suit was filed in federal court in San Diego in December 2012 seeking damages and funds to cover medical expenses. The original eight complainants were on the USS Ronald Reagan, but the suit has since expanded to include those who served aboard the USS Essex and USS Germantown as well as attached Marines. […] some claim they were pressured into signing forms confirming they had been given iodine pills when none had been provided.
NAVY Sailor Reveals Gruesome Radiation Injuries
Congressional Record Jan. 15, 2014: Recent reports of sailors who have developed cancer and other health conditions linked to radiation exposure after serving on the USS Ronald Reagan during Operation Tomodachi, which provided humanitarian assistance following the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan in March 2011, are disconcerting. […] The Secretary of the Navy is directed to take all necessary steps to ensure that any health effects resulting from this humanitarian mission are fully addressed. The agreement includes $200,000,000 for the peer-reviewed medical research program, $100,000,000 for the joint warfighter medical research program, and $25,000,000 for the peer-reviewed cancer research program. A portion of these funds should be utilized, if necessary, to carry out additional research on the health effects of radiation exposure.
More from Garner’s interview here
Anti-renewable zealot for Review Panel on Renewable Energy Target
The Abbott government is insisting on another review of the supposed health impacts of wind farms, despite not releasing a report from its main medical body, and there is also talk that the government support for rooftop solar will also be removed.
Will Abbott appoint an IPA man to a renewables review?
GILES PARKINSON Crikey. JAN 29, 2014 Talk in Canberra is the government is poised to appoint a leading anti-wind and anti-solar campaigner from the IPA to a new panel to review the renewable energy target. It spells disaster for the sector. The renewable energy industry in Australia might be tempted to pack their bags and find another country to conduct their business if the latest talk in Canberra is true: sources say that the Abbott government will name Alan Moran, an anti-renewable zealot from the Institute of Public Affairs, to a new panel that will review the Renewable Energy Target.
According to sources, Moran will be one of three or four business people appointed to an “independent” panel that will get secretarial support from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet — rather than departments for the environment or industry, which includes responsibility for energy.
If true, that will ensure that the panel is closely monitored by Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s inner core, who include the climate change contrarion and anti-wind advocate Maurice Newman — his chief business advisor — and others from the conservative hard-right who neither accept the science of climate change nor the attraction of renewable energy. Continue reading
Moves being made towards rich corporations controlling the Internet
The richest 1% could now control what we all see on the Internet forever. http://www.avaaz.org/en/internet_apocalypse_loc/?bqFCVab&v=34951 It’s the apocalypse of the internet as we know it, and will erase the democratic promise of an information highway for everyone the founders of the world wide web imagined. Continue reading
Film “Dr. Strangelove still relevant today
‘Dr. Strangelove’ at 50: Why Stanley Kubrick’s Nuclear Satire Still Matters moviefone, January 29th, 2014 by Gary Susman The ultimate punchline to the nuclear satire of “Dr. Strangelove”? As absurd as Stanley Kubrick’s imaginative black comedy about World War III seemed when it opened 50 years ago this week (on January 29, 1964), it all turned out to be true.
Everything in the movie that the Pentagon said couldn’t happen in real life — from Air Force officers launching nuclear strikes without Presidential approval, to the USSR being ready to respond with an automated doomsday system of its own — actually could have happened. The safeguards really were as flimsy as Kubrick and his screenwriters imagined them to be. (Which begs the question: How safe are we now from a nuclear apocalypse?) Continue reading
Australia will be damaged by this scientifically illiterate Government
Australia cannot afford the luxury of a scientifically illiterate body politic for very long.
Reviving Wind Turbine Syndrome is just what you’d expect from a PM without a Science Minister The Conversation, Michael Vagg, 28 Jan 14 So it appears we are to be treated to another pointless examination of a manufactured controversy in the name of health science. One can only guess at the motivations for the Federal Government announcing a NHMRC-led review of the science around the purported health effects of wind farms, but you can be sure it’s not being driven by scientific curiosity.
In fact this review is probably the most futile bit of spending yet announced in the term of the Abbott administration and is exactly the sort of tomfoolery you might expect of a cabinet which has no room for science. Why? Because there is no controversy about the so-called Wind Turbine Syndrome. It doesn’t exist as a thing. It has not, as the philosophers might say, been reified.
Wind turbines have no health effects on the surrounding populations. That’s not just my personal opinion. It’s the overwhelming scientific consensus. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 