Climate and Nuclear – but what’s the panic?
AUSTRALIA
I’ve been humming Reg Livermore’s song all this morning ” I’m in the Dance Band on the Titanic” Now why is that? Oh, It’s ever since I learned of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’ response to the IPCC’s report on Climate Change – Tony’s got no worries. ““Australia is a land of drought and flooding rains, always has been and always will be”.
Is that not dandy? And here were we stressing unnecessarily about yesterday’s The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those panic merchants say that climate change is already upon us, and will get worse. Especially here in Australia! Rubbish! (Excuse me while I yell to someone – ”for god’s sake someone turn on the air-conditioning, it’s boiling hot here”)
Anyway – not to worry, because it’s the poor and disadvantaged in Australia, who will be hit most. (Not US – will we?)
And, another thought. There’s that enthusiastic push in Australia for the nuclear industry , including the claim that nuclear power will solve the climate change problem. (That in itself is a bit of a problem for them, with a government that doesn’t believe in climate change).
But no doubt Tony Abbott will change his mind about climate change, as soon as BHP and Rio tell him to.
Nuclear industry for Australia? Sure, sez I, why just stuff up our country partially with coal and gas, when we can stuff it up completely with nuclear.
However, nuclear will have zilch impact on climate change, for many reasons. but here’s a couple:
- The time lapse until the 11,000 necessary nuclear plants are operating, will be many decades – by which time global warming will have run away with no hope of mitigation.
- The entire nuclear fuel cycle – uranium mining to reactor and waste burial – gives out heaps of carbon emissions. (The nuclear lobby just doesn’t count the dirty bits at the beginning and at the end.
INTERNATIONAL
Oh dear – in my patriotic delight that we in Australia are exempt from worrying about Climate and Nuclear, – I have left little space for those countries that are NOT Australia.
Well – the IPCC says that they are all going to cop Climate Change, too. (See youtube video) And odd people like Barack Obama, David Cameron, Xi Jinping, and all the European leaders believe it. Well, we in Oz never did trust foreigners, did we?
USA are going to spend over 1 $trillion making and minding their nuclear weapons until 2015
UK is paying private companies 7 billion pounds to clean up old nuclear reactors.
Japan has a shocker of a nuclear energy plan so full of dangers that it is a (bad) April Fools Day joke.
INTERNATIONAL
Oh dear – in my patriotic delight that we in Australia are exempt from worrying about Climate and Nuclear, – I have left little space for those countries that are NOT Australia.
Well – the IPCC says that they are all going to cop Climate Change, too. (See youtube video) And odd people like Barack Obama, David Cameron, Xi Jinping, and all the European leaders believe it. Well, we in Oz never did trust foreigners, did we?
USA are going to spend over 1 $trillion making and minding their nuclear weapons until 2015
UK is paying private companies 7 billion pounds to clean up old nuclear reactors.
Japan has a shocker of a nuclear energy plan so full of dangers that it is a (bad) April Fools Day joke.
Sorry – I gotta go and get some ice. Summer in Australia is supposed to end in February? Oh well….
Climate change is here. And there’s worse to come.
Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come NYT, By JUSTIN GILLISMARCH 30, 2014 YOKOHAMA, Japan — Climate change is already having sweeping effects on every continent and throughout the world’s oceans, scientists reported Monday, and they warned that the problem is likely to grow substantially worse unless greenhouse emissions are brought under control.
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that periodically summarizes climate science, concluded that ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating toward the poles or in some cases going extinct.
The oceans are rising at a pace that threatens coastal communities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide given off by cars and power plants, which is killing some creatures or stunting their growth, the report found.
Organic matter frozen in Arctic soils since before civilization began is now melting, allowing it to decay into greenhouse gases that will cause further warming, the scientists said.
And the worst is yet to come, the scientists said in the second of three reports that are expected to carry considerable weight next year as 
nations try to agree on a new global climate treaty. In particular, the report emphasized that the world’s food supply is at considerable risk — a threat that could have serious consequences for the poorest nations.
“Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,” Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the intergovernmental panel, said at a news conference here on Monday…….. Timothy Gore, an analyst for Oxfam, the anti-hunger charity that sent observers to the proceedings, praised the new report for painting a clear picture. But he warned that without greater efforts to limit global warming and to adapt to the changes that have become inevitable, “the goal we have in Oxfam of ensuring that every person has enough food to eat could be lost forever.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/science/earth/panels-warning-on-climate-risk-worst-is-yet-to-come.html?hp&_r=0
Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is not worried about Climate Change
(Video) T
ony Abbott unmoved as UN report finds climate change happening all over the world BERNARD HUMPHREYS AND KATRINA STOKES THE ADVERTISER MARCH 31, 2014
PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has played down a United Nations climate report that predicts a dire future for the Murray-Darling Basin and the Great Barrier Reef, saying that “Australia is a land of drought and flooding rains, always has been and always will be”.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says governments around the world can still avoid the worst of forecast droughts, floods and bushfires, but Mr Abbott says he remains reluctant to link extreme weather events to climate change.
Disadvantaged Australians will be hit hardest by climate change heat
Heatwaves hurt disadvantaged Australians the hardest ABC GREG FOYSTER 1 April 14, Heatwaves hit the most disadvantaged Australians the hardest. And with hot-spells expected to increase with climate change, there are calls to act early to save lives…….http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2014/03/30/3974586.htm
Climate change will affect you at home in 10 ways (at least)
Ten ways you personally will notice the effects of climate change, Sydney Morning Herald, Fiona Johnson March 31, 2014 -On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report on the impacts of global warming
- . Here are 10 ways that climate change will affect you in your home……
US Pentagon’s military city in Australia – Darwin
Darwin: Australia’s most militarised city, and a lily pad for the Pentagon Australians know the isolated and exotic city of Darwin through stories about cyclones, crocodiles and Aboriginal art, but it really is a cleverly camouflaged garrison town Tess Lea theguardian.com, Monday 31 March 2014 In his recent book Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of our National Obsession, former ADF soldier James Brown correlates deep Australian ignorance about our contemporary military with our increasingly fantastical commemoration of the Anzac legend. Bedazzled by myths of Gallipoli, Australians neglect more pressing defence policy concerns.
It’s a compelling thesis, and one that closely parallels the situation in one of Australia’s most militarised city, 
Darwin.
Australians prefer to see the isolated and exotic city of Darwin through stories about cyclones, crocodiles, Aboriginal art, spicy market food and unlimited road speeds; a place that lets you go to the supermarket in bare feet and look normal. This way, we don’t have to notice the most significant militarisation effort in Australia’s post-war history, which is happening under our noses. The militarisation of the north is unknown to most of us and thanks to this ignorance, the new Cold War brewing in the Asia Pacific region, and Darwin’s place in it, is rarely being debated………
In allowing Australia’s foreign policy interests to be played out of sight, out of mind, in a town that also hides its own nature from itself, we avoid debating difficult questions. What does being a subordinate ally to a military force clinging to its global primacy commit us to? What are our liabilities and responsibilities? At what point do Australian sovereign interests diverge from America’s security objectives? And what are we prepared to do about it? http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/31/darwin-a-complicated-but-dazzling-history
Western Australian election: is Clive Palmer’s Party FOR or AGAINST the Renewable Energy Target?
RET And PUP – Confusion (Still) Reigns http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4244 The Palmer United Party (PUP) still appears not to have a solid stance on the future of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET).
PUP’s WA candidate, Zhenya ‘Dio’ Wang, recently expressed support for the Renewable Energy Target to be left as is and Clive Palmer appeared to indicate the same view. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Palmer clarified; stating it perhaps shouldn’t be a “mandatory thing”.
Nearly 2 weeks later and it seems there still isn’t a unified position at PUP.
According to the Guardian, a PUP spokesman told the publication on Monday “the policy is what Clive says; the target has to be voluntary”. However, when Mr. Wang was again asked about when asked about the RET policy on Monday; he told Guardian Australia, “We are still discussing our policy. We are working out what it is.”
With voters set to go to the polls in Western Australia this Saturday, the mixed signals from PUP wouldn’t be very encouraging for solar supporters considering the party – and the outcome of WA’s election could have major implications nationally for renewable energy.
According to the Australian Solar Council, 500,000 WA residents live in solar households and hundreds of thousands more will go solar if the RET is left as is; something that is in doubt due to the Federal Government’s RET review.
“By putting barriers up for 350,000 people in WA who want to install solar on their homes and slashing large-scale solar projects back from the current path of 700 MW, the Federal government looks set to break a key election promise,” says Australian Solar Council CEO John Grimes.
Mr. Grimes says Western Australian householders and small businesses will invest their own money to build 445 megawatts of generating capacity if the RET is retained for rooftop PV systems and hot water. With regard to large-scale solar, the existing RET could deliver more than 700 MW of projects in WA, employing an additional 7,000 people during the construction phase between now and 2020.
With solar so popular in the state; the parties that clearly support the RET in its current form may have a bit of an edge this Saturday.
Care needed in managing mobile phones safely
JCNN, By Domanii Cameron, 31 March 14 “…………“I tend to say it’s like having a car. There’s a risk there but there’s road rules to reduce that risk. The problem with cell phones and a lot of new technology is that even though the evidence is that there can be adverse effects, there’s no road rules.” author of numerous publications on Electromagnetic Fields health issues Don Maisch says in his most recent publication……..
With around one billion smart phones sold worldwide in 2013, mobile phone radiation is being considered by some as a serious health risk and for obvious reasons. Specialists, researchers and some of Australia’s top neurosurgeons are unanimously concerned that the radiation emitted from mobiles is an impending health risk that needs to be acknowledged soon.
And it’s the long term effects of this health issue that creator of EMFacts Consultancy Don Maisch says will first effect Generation Y.
“It’s the young people that are going to be effected the most,” Maisch says.
“Evidence from the Interphone Study which is a 13 nation study shows that over the duration of 10 years, there seems to be a connection with long term phone use and brain tumours.”……..http://jcnn.com.au/spotlight/generation-radiation/
Solar power making economic sense for remote mining projects in Australia
First Solar close to deal to power Australian mines, SMH, April 1, 2014 First Solar, the largest US solar-panel maker, is close to announcing agreements to supply its technology to remote mining projects in Australia to help resources companies save on fuel costs.
The company expects to develop as much as 200 megawatts of capacity for the mining industry over the next three years, Jack Curtis, First Solar’s Sydney-based vice president of business development for the Asia-Pacific, said in a phone interview. The Arizona-based company plans to combine solar power with diesel, he said.
“In an environment where profitability isn’t what it used to be, with the mining industry focused on cost control, the electricity that powers the mines is becoming a bigger line item, and the ability to put a dent in that and hedge against fuel price volatility is something that solars offers,” Curtis said. “We expect fairly shortly to announce some pretty exciting projects in that space.”
The U.S. company is increasing efforts to install solar systems at industrial sites and warehouses as utilities demand smaller projects, and is seeking deals in other regions including Saudi Arabia, India and South America. The world’s largest mining companies, including BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto Group, at the same time are reining in spending as a decade-long boom in metal prices wanes.
Mining sites
First Solar will target mining sites in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia and seek to expand as the solar industry proves that it can provide reliable supply, Curtis said, declining to name any companies.
Operators of Australian mines facing high diesel fuel costs should grow more comfortable using solar technology to generate some of their power, said Nathan Lim, who oversees $127 million in assets and owns First Solar shares as manager of the Australian Ethical International Equities Trust.
“The high cost of energy at a facility in the middle of nowhere has always made it interesting to anyone offering an alternative solution,” Lim said. “The difference between today and five to 10 years ago is the reliability, and that the cost of solar has come down. It’s becoming a no-brainer for people in remote locations.”….. http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/first-solar-close-to-deal-to-power-australian-mines-20140401-35uth.html
IPCC report strengthens activisim against coal and gas industries
Australian activism reaches fever pitch as IPCC warns on climate, Guardian, 1 April 14 New South Wales campaign group is harnessing community support to confront oil and gas companies over drilling As George Bernard Shaw put it: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Australia‘s coal and gas operators may not agree with Shaw, but it is the power of these unreasonable people that new campaign group Our Land, Our Water, Our Future hopes to tap. Continue reading
Sunshine: balance the need for Vitamin C with the avoidance of skin cancer
Concerns women may not be getting enough sunshine http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/concerns-women-may-not-be-getting-enough-sunshine/2215239/ Rae Wilson 31st Mar 2014 Professor John Wark, who works at both organisations, said vitamin D was an essential nutrient for everyone, young and old.
“Vitamin D is necessary for strong bones, muscles and overall health. Ultraviolet radiation from the sun is the best natural source of vitamin D, but it is also the main risk factor for skin cancer and premature ageing of the skin,” he said.
“A balanced approach to sunlight exposure can help you avoid vitamin D deficiency, which has been linked to many chronic health conditions such as poor bone and muscle health, cardiovascular disease, some cancers and adverse mental health conditions to name only a few. Continue reading
Antinuclear 