Radioactive Waste Court case. The traditional Aboriginal owners of the Muckaty area in Northern Territory continue their 7 year battle against radioactive waste dumping on their land. Their legal case continues, with hearings in Tennant Creek, Melbourne, and now back to the Northern Territory. The Government’s latest argument is that the radioactive trash dump can go ahead, even without the consent of the Aboriginal owners.
Uranium – Energy Resources of Australia expects an even huger loss this year, but, despite that, AND its environmental failures, NT and Federal govts have approved a restart of Ranger uranium mine. Paladin Energy’s share price collapses.
Left wing Australians are enjoying the gaffes of our pugilistic Prime Minister Tony Abbott. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3IaKVmkXuk He is off on a world jaunt, almost certain to embarrass himself and Australia. However, it’s a pity that:
- The Labor opposition keeps buying into the personal pugilism, instead of coming up with policies that are for the public good, and clearly different from the Abbott government’s.
- The media , like schoolkids watching a playground fight, do not cover the policy issues, and what is really going on.
Abbott’s global tour:
- France. Apart from Abbott connecting up the war heroes with the carbon tax and Australia being “open for business’, it’s pretty clear that the D.Day ceremonies fit well into the building push for a glorious ANZAC Day centenary in 2015. As one whose relatives did fight in WW2, one dying as result, I fear that it will turn out to be some sort of militaristic party – feeding in to Australia’s close role in USA’s military encirclement of China.
- Canada. Abbott will meet P.M. Stephen Harper. On nuclear issues, they will be unanimous, if discreet. Ontario ‘s elections loom, but a non issue will be its planned nuclear power expansion. Both of Canada’s Liberal and Conservative parties are fans of the planned $25 billion expansion of nuclear power. Not only is the uranium industry (though financially failing) important to Canada, but Canada is the hub of the push for a new nuclear gimmicky export, thorium reactors. Propaganda for these has been successful in Australia, with backing from all sorts of influential people and organisations, especially in South Australia. So it is likely that thorium nuclear reactors, and even Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) will be included in the government’s Energy White Paper – later this year. Abbott and Harper are also in happy agreement that there should be no real action on Climate Change, and they both support the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)
- USA Yes, the media is paying some attention to this one, since President Obama came out strongly for action on Climate Change. How will Tony Abbott wriggle out of this one? It has importance for the G20 meeting in Brisbane in November. Abbott maintains that Climate Change will not be a G20 agenda item. That is probably why Abbott may cancel planned meetings with the heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund – to avoid discussing that subject.
Renewable Energy. Mainly more bad news for Australia, as the International Renewable Energy Agency reports that Australia could reach 50% renewable energy by 2030, BUT, we’re actually going backwards instead.
June 9, 2014
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Beyond Nuclear initiative By Padraic Gibson 6 June 14Dr Donoghue continued submissions for the Commonwealth for most of the morning session. He restated an argument that both the Northern Land Council and Commonwealth have used in the lead up to this trial during Directions Hearings; that the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act (2005) had been clearly designed to shut down legal avenues for Aboriginal people wanting challenge the nomination of their land for a
waste “facility”. 
Dr Donoghue explained that the Commonwealth had been attempting to establish a remote “facility” since the 1980s in numerous locations. But consistent opposition, including successful litigation, had prevented them from doing so. With this in mind, the Howard Government went out of it’s way to ensure Traditional Aboriginal Owners were explicitly stripped of their rights in the 2005 Act.
Dr Donoghue cited a number of legal avenues explicitly closed to anyone wanting to challenge a national radioactive waste dump, including the exclusion of procedural fairness and a clause allowing nominations on Aboriginal land to remain valid even if a Land Council had not complied with obligations under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976.
If this argument is accepted by the court, the nomination of Muckaty as a nuclear waste dump will stand even if the Traditional Owners are found never to have consented to the nomination. Or, as Dr Donoghue put it, “the fact of consent being validly given is not legally relevant”.
This line of argument, not to mention the Radioactive Waste Management Act itself, demonstrates the extreme contempt in which the Commonwealth holds the rights of Aboriginal people.
Another attack on Land Rights contained in the Act also became clear in the course of the Commonwealth submissions. So far, arguments in court have focussed on whether the NLC followed proper process in nominating the particular site now earmarked for the waste dump. The quality of consultations with other Traditional Owners, said to hold responsibility for land on Muckaty that is required for transport of the radioactive materials, has also been discussed. But Dr Donoghue made it clear that if the nomination of the waste dump site is allowed to stand, Aboriginal owners of adjacent lands would lose any rights to stop developments on their land needed to facilitate the dump. The Act gives power to the Commonwealth to simply compulsorily acquire any further land that they need to allow the dump to operate…….
three scandals are undeniable. Firstly the Commonwealth held impoverished Aboriginal communities to ransom, withholding funding for essential services unless they accepted a nuclear waste dump. Secondly, as Dr Donoghue made clear yesterday, they did so using legislation which strips Aboriginal people of their actual rights to land. And thirdly, a major Aboriginal Land Council has, from the outset of this case, been hiding behind an argument which says a nuclear waste dump should proceed at Muckaty even if it is found that Traditional Owners do not consent. This is a sad indication of the extent to which Land Rights in Australia were seriously pushed back under the Howard Government. www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com/blog
June 9, 2014
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Australia should be nuclear dumping ground, says Bob Hawke Dump nuclear waste in Australia says former Prime Minister, Bob Hawke: “The one thing this country ought to do is have the disposal of nuclear waste in remote areas.” Australian Times, By Estelle Vosloo on 5 June, 2014 In an address to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Bob Hawke said Australia’s remote areas should be used as a nuclear dumping ground for the rest of the world.
The former Labor prime minister elaborated on his statement while speaking to members of the Australian Press Club, at an event marking their 50th anniversary. Former Liberal prime minister John Howard also spoke at the event……..
Currently approximately 80% of the waste produced at Lucas Heights, Australia’s only nuclear reactor, comes from the production of nuclear medicine items like containers, gloves, plastic and equipment.
Friends of the Earth (Australia) stated that, “Any used fuel is currently stored in permanent storage facilities in France, the UK and the US but will be returned to Australia in 2015 as intermediate-level waste.
It is argued that Australia has a responsibility to accept waste arising from the processing of uranium exports. However the larger share of the responsibility lies with the countries that make use of Australian uranium,” their statement says.
“Moreover while uranium mining companies arguably ought to take some responsibility for the waste arising from their exports, it is not clear that that responsibility lies with Australia as a whole,” they say, adding that uranium is being mined on Aboriginal land without their consent and that the waste will again be dumped on Aboriginal land. http://www.australiantimes.co.uk/news/news-from-australia/news-in-australia/australia-should-become-nuclear-dumping-ground-says-bob-hawke.htm
June 9, 2014
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Documents showing inspections at Ranger uranium mine go missing, 1057 ABC Darwin, By Xavier La Canna 5 June 14, Despite a big diesel spill at the Northern Territory’s Ranger uranium mine in 1995, an investigation into the operation has found paperwork to show diesel tanks are being routinely inspected has gone missing. On Thursday giving Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) was given the green light to recommence processing operations at Ranger after a one-million litre radio-active spill last year sparked a shut-down.
ERA claimed there had been no environmental damage was caused by the spill, but processing was suspended in the wake of the incident.
It is understood processing operations will recommence immediately following the decision by the federal and NT governments.
But 19 years after a 12,000 litre diesel spill at the site caused bird deaths, the review found problems with the documentation of diesel tank inspections.
“Diesel Tanks A and B are missing documentation relating to their one-monthly routine inspections and five-yearly external inspections,” the review found……..
Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation said he was disappointed Ranger was allowed to recommence processing even though a report into the cause of the failure had not been publicly tabled.
Mr Sweeney said the government had a well-worn path of refusing to comment when incidents happened at Ranger because it could jeopardize the independence of inquiries, then refusing to release the full findings of reports because it was “commercial in confidence”.
Ranger, which began production in 1981, is one of the world’s largest uranium mines and is located within the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park. http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/06/05/4019591.htm
June 9, 2014
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Abbott says climate not right for tax Sky News 9 June 14, Prime Minister Tony Abbott says any future global agreement on climate change won’t include carbon pricing.
Mr Abbott is the first Australian prime minister to visit Canada since John Howard in 2006, who arrived just months after Mr Harper’s conservative government was elected. The two prime ministers will meet on Monday, local time, when Mr Abbott will receive an official welcome with military honours in the Canadian capital Ottawa.
But speaking ahead of the meeting, Mr Abbott said the re-elected Mr Harper had succeeded in convincing Canadian voters at the last national poll of the perils of carbon pricing. Stephen Harper and I are like-minded on this,’ Mr Abbott told reporters in Ottawa on Sunday……….
US President Barack Obama, who Mr Abbott will meet later in the week, has announced a target of cutting emissions from power stations by 30 per cent by 2030 and wants a global deal on tackling climate change next year.
Mr Abbott said there were no signs that any future global agreement would involve carbon pricing………
June 9, 2014
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AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics international |
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What is the one thing you would still like to see us do to address climate change? Said Obama: put a price on carbon.
Obama on Obama on Climate NYT Thomas Fiedman 7 June 14, WHEN it comes to dealing with the world’s climate and energy challenges I have a simple rule: change America, change the world.
If America raises its clean energy standards, not only will others follow — others who have hid behind our inaction — we’ll also stimulate our industry to invent more of the clean air, clean power and energy efficiency systems, and move them down the cost curve faster, so U.S. companies will be leaders in this next great global industry and American consumers will be the first to benefit. That is why the new Environmental Protection Agency rules President Obama proposed last week to curb carbon emissions from power plants are so pivotal. You can’t make power systems greener without making them smarter — smarter materials, software or design. One new ruling will not change the world — and we have to be careful that this one doesn’t replace our addiction to coal with an addiction to natural gas alone. But coming at a time when clean energy technologies are becoming more competitive, and when awareness of climate change is becoming more pervasive, this E.P.A. ruling should give a real boost to clean power and efficiency innovation and make our country more resilient, healthy, secure — and respected. Continue reading →
June 9, 2014
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Budget 2014: Bad for climate, great for miners Green Left, May 31, 2014 By Mel Barnes The loss of the Renewable Energy Target would threaten the wind farm industry in Australia.
Repealing the carbon tax, abolishing the department of climate change, and getting rid of the Clean Energy Fund were the top three wishes in “75 radical ideas to transform Australia”, released by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) in 2012. Number six was to repeal the Renewable Energy Target (RET).
In the recent federal budget, the Coalition government is aiming to do all four.
As a problem facing Australia, climate change eclipses the issue of debt, yet it barely rated a mention in the budget. Instead, the Coalition government has proposed slashing environment programs and research into climate change.
It is not just the carbon tax; even promises that Prime Minister Tony Abbott made as part of his alternative “direct action” climate policy are facing the chop. If the proposals pass the Senate, the biggest losers will be the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the RET.
BUDGET CUTS
ARENA gives grants to renewable energy projects to boost emerging technologies. In January, it committed $1.2 million to a feasibility study into a solar thermal power plant at Port Augusta in South Australia, a plant for which climate activists have been campaigning for years.
The government plans to abolish ARENA and return its functions to the Department of Industry. Its funding will be reduced from $436 million this year to $15 million in 2015-16.
A review of the RET has already begun, but since the government has appointed climate change denier Dick Warburton to lead it, its future seems a forgone conclusion. Miles George, head of renewable energy provider Infigen, told the ABC: “If [they] took the RET away tomorrow … we would lose 40% of our revenue and our Australian business would fail … along with nearly all wind farms and wind farm businesses in Australia.”
Abbott’s “million solar rooftops” program, which promised to spend $1 billion to help low-income households and renters make the switch to rooftop photovoltaic and solar hot water, has vanished. It will be replaced by $2.1 million to install solar panels on RSLs and bowling clubs in seven marginal electorates.
The $2.5 billion of funding for the government’s Emissions Reduction Fund, its alternative to the carbon tax, has been spread over 10 years instead of four.
Instead, the budget’s big winner was the mining industry. It will continue to receive generous government subsidies through the diesel fuel rebate and will no doubt benefit from the gutting of climate research……….
CLIMATE BUDGET
The budget that we need to prevent the climate crisis from worsening have would look very different.
It would prioritise infrastructure of large-scale wind and solar energy, spend billions of dollars upgrading public transport — such as the high-speed rail system that Beyond Zero Emissions has proposed for the east coast — and implement a moratorium on new coal and gas projects.
Labor and the Liberals could not implement this green budget. The kind of government that could would need the active support of the majority of people. This would be essential if it was to rein in the power of the richest companies.
This government would be born out of a democratic movement that understood that the economic system — capitalism and its model of endless growth — was causing the climate crisis, and it would have to end if the planet is to be saved.
This kind of movement is not impossible. Examples of it can be seen in Bolivia and Venezuela, which have begun the process of putting decisions about the economy and the environment in the hands of the majority of people.
As Bolivian President Evo Morales said: “Humankind is capable of saving the Earth if we recover the principles of solidarity and harmony with nature as opposed to the reign of competition, profits and rampant consumption of natural resources.” https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/56582
June 9, 2014
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Tony Abbott’s global retreat, THE SATURDAY PAPER, 7 June 14 SOPHIE MORRIS As the PM sets off to meet world leaders, his government is withdrawing the nation from international affairs. en Tony Abbott meets Barack Obama in Washington late next week, the president of the United States of America will no doubt want to discuss his ambitious emissions reduction plans.
If the prime minister is being honest, he would have to concede that, from July, there is the real prospect that Australia may have no official legislated climate policy.
The new senate looks likely to abolish the carbon tax but there is no certainty it will endorse the Coalition’s proposed alternative, which has been criticised by economists and environmentalists. And it is not just on climate change that Australia is increasingly seen as being out of step with the international community. As Abbott tours the world, declaring Australia “open for business”, his government is pursuing a range of policies – on the environment, foreign aid and refugees – that see it retreating from an international approach.
This is no accident; there has been a conscious shift. Forget about global citizenship. Our foreign policy is now all about regional security and trade, rather than climate change and foreign aid. It’s about projecting national sovereignty and domestically oriented policy – stop the boats, axe the tax, end the debt – onto a global stage…….
In a speech to the Westpoint military academy last week, President Obama said a “spirit of co-operation must energise the global effort to combat climate change”, describing it as a “creeping national security crisis” that would lead to refugee flows, natural disasters, and conflicts over water and food. “That’s why, next year, I intend to make sure America is out front in a global framework to preserve our planet,” he said.
Unless Obama is very persuasive when he meets Abbott, it seems likely Australia will not be joining him at the front of this global effort. More likely, we will be bringing up the rear. http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/06/07/tony-abbotts-global-retreat/1402063200#.U5ZrZHJdWil
June 9, 2014
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Peace movement’s common vision – The abolition of militarism by The Stringer June 8th, 2014 Keynote address by Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, at Sarajevo Peace Event Sarajevo. (6th June, 2014) “………People are tired of armaments and war. They have seen that they release uncontrollable forces of tribalism and nationalism. These are dangerous and murderous forms of identity above which we need to take steps to transcend, lest we unleash further dreadful violence upon the world……….
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June 9, 2014
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El Niño Odds Raised to 70% by NOAA, But El Niño is Actually Imminent (excellent graphs) Weather Underground, By: Michael Ventrice , June 07, 2014 Today’s guest blog post is by Dr. Michael Ventrice, an operational scientist for the Energy team at Weather Services International (WSI). This is a follow-up post to the ones he did on February 21 and April 4 on the progress of El Niño. Today’s post is quite technical! – Jeff Masters
The June 5, 2014 El Niño update from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center gives a 70% chance that El Niño will form this summer, and an 80% by fall, but El Niño odds are higher than this. A strong Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) event is forecast to develop over the central-eastern Pacific later this month in through early July (the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a pattern of increased thunderstorm activity near the Equator that moves around the globe in 30 – 60 days.) This MJO location favors for another period of westerly wind bursts over the Central Pacific, an atmospheric signature that is likely to be the final kick needed for a blossoming El Niño event. ……..http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2694
June 9, 2014
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It is so important to teach healthy scepticism. Two current examples – the pervasive denialism about global warming , despite the massive evidence that it is happening. The persistence of benign theories about ionising radiation – of “hormesis” and “adaptive radiation” , despite evidence from animal studies and epidemiological studies that this radiation causes cancer.
You do have to “follow the money”. As with the tobacco lobby, and the asbestos industry, the fossil fuel and nuclear industries will fight tooth and nail, and promote quack science, to keep selling their product.
How To Quack-Proof Yourself Against Pseudoscience, LifeHacker, DR AMY TUTEUR, 7 JUNE 14
“……….“Brilliant Heretic” as the Source of Information
The quack often has no training in the relevant discipline, be it obstetrics, immunology or cancer care? No problem. A pervasive theme in quackery is the notion of the brilliant heretic. Believers argue that science is transformed by brilliant heretics whose fabulous theories are initially rejected, but ultimately accepted as the new orthodoxy. The conceit rests on the notion that revolutionary scientific ideas are dreamed up by mavericks, but nothing could be further from the truth. Revolutionary scientific ideas are not dreamed up; they are the inevitable result of massive, collaborative data collection, which can also be confusing to communicate, or even agree upon. Galileo did not dream up the idea of a sun-centered solar system. He collected data with his new telescope, data never before available, and the sun-centered solar system was the only theory consistent with the data he had collected.
Citing Esoteric Scientific Theories
Quacks love to baffle followers with nonsense, hence the invocation of esoteric scientific theories that they don’t understand. Quantum mechanics and chaos theory, for example, are two incredibly difficult scientific disciplines, heavy on advanced maths. If you don’t have a degree in either one, you aren’t probably qualified to pontificate on them. The same thing applies to new, imperfectly understood areas of science like epigenetics or the microbiome. Both are genuine scientific concepts, but we are in the earliest stages of elucidating them, and people from non-academic backgrounds who claim to be experts should be treated with scepticism. There is real danger in insisting that they have current practical implications. We should learn from the terrible mistakes that were made when radiation was first discovered and and radioactive compounds were added to everything from water to make up under the false belief that radiation could prevent everything from ageing to death.
There is a saying in science that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Quack claims are typically extraordinary, but quacks don’t offer evidence; they raise some or all of the six red flags, often in an attempt to trick you into buying what they are selling. When you see one of these red flags, you can be virtually certain that you are in the presence of bad science……….http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2014/06/how-to-quack-proof-yourself-against-pseudoscience/
June 9, 2014
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Dr Donoghue explained that the Commonwealth had been attempting to establish a remote “facility” since the 1980s in numerous locations. But consistent opposition, including successful litigation, had prevented them from doing so. With this in mind, the Howard Government went out of it’s way to ensure Traditional Aboriginal Owners were explicitly stripped of their rights in the 2005 Act.
Antinuclear 