For renewable energy workers, keeping the Renewable Energy Target would mean keeping their jobs
All I want for Christmas is renewable energy http://www.echo.net.au/2014/12/want-christmas-renewable-energy/ Kane Thornton, CEO, Clean Energy Council The thing most of the 21,000 people working in the renewable energy industry want in their Christmas stocking this year is hope that they will still have a job in 2015.
The federal government’s proposal to slash Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) is bad news not only for the tradies that install solar panels, the wind power technicians and engineers but for construction workers, backhoe operators, truck drivers and the thousands of people who provide valuable services to the renewable energy sector in Australia.
The RET is the policy that supports all these jobs, and it has been supported by all major political parties since it was introduced in 2001. While the government committed to the current policy in the lead-up to the last election, it has provided no credible reason why it needs to be cut – particularly when more than 80 per cent of the country wants more renewable energy rather than less. And cutting the policy will also increase our reliance on high cost gas energy and lead to higher power prices.
So while you are busily decking your halls or decorating your tree, spare a thought for these people in regional and rural parts of the country who will be doing their best to forget their troubles over the festive season.
They want a job supporting renewable energy, but if PM Tony Abbott gets his way they might end up with a lump of coal instead.
Important Project – Uranium − The Silent Killer
Uranium − The Silent Killer Donations are sought for this important project: please visit www.pozible.com/project/187985
At the ANFA (Australia Nuclear Free Alliance) meeting in October 2014, Indigenous Elders called for documentation of the health effects from the Maralinga and other atomic bomb tests in the 1950’s and 1960’s. See www.anfa.org.au for the meeting statement.
From 1952 to 1963 atomic testing covered vast areas of South Australia including Maralinga and Emu Fields test sites. First Nations people along with the rest of the population from the southern regions of Australia were subject to horrific fallout from atomic testing carried out in these remote areas. Permission was never sort from the Aboriginal nations.
This project involves a three-week road trip to archive the stories of the people from Arabuna, Walitina, Ceduna, and Yalata country to produce film, audio and digital documentaries. We will begin a data base of the families affected, the geographical distributions of fall out and detrimental health repercussions of these unconsented tests.
The project will meet with people and family members who remained in the vicinity of the testing who were exposed to the immediate effects of radiological poison; people who were transmigrated from their homelands under duress to missions including Yalata in the south west of the state and people who suffer intergenerational impacts first hand at the expense of the atomic tests.
The project is underway and updates are being posted at: www.pozible.com/project/187985#updates
Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. Both in the scale of the devastation they cause, and in their uniquely persistent, spreading, genetically damaging radioactive fallout, they are unlike any other weapons. For more information on nuclear weapons, including an article on Yami Lester, one of the survivors of the nuclear tests in South Australia, see www.icanw.org/au
Many Aboriginal people in South Australia still rely on bush foods – plants and animals sourced from land that still is contaminated. The possibility of bioaccumulation is very real. Certainly the stories of early death from cancer, thyroid disease and congenital deformities are continuing.
Donations are sought for this important project before December 30, 2014: please visit www.pozible.com/project/187985
Contact: Dr Hilary Tyler and other members of the project team: uraniumthesilentkiller@gmail.com
“I’ve lost a lot of my family members through early death – and a lot of it was through cancer, and I do blame the Maralinga fallout.” − Aunty Martha – Arabana (Lake Eyre)
“Just remember that the fallout at Maralinga affected the whole lot of us. Black, white, brindle; we all breathe the same air, and we’re all being affected in various ways, even though that happened a long time ago. It’s still around.” − Sue Coleman-Haseldine (Kokatha Mula – Ceduna)
Victory for science and public health in removal of Waubra Foundation’s health charity status
Removal of anti-windfarm group’s charity status is a ‘victory for science’, Shalailah Medhora, Guardian 19 Dec 14 Greens say decision by regulator to remove Waubra Foundation’s tax-deductible status is ‘a victory for science and a victory for public health’……..“The Waubra foundation should never have been granted status as health promotion charity, and the fact that it has now lost that status is a victory for science and a victory for public health,” Greens senator Richard di Natale said.“I’m glad that we will no longer be lending legitimacy to an organisation that may be harming people in an effort to undermine an important source of clean and renewable energy.”……..
Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at Sydney University, said the foundation had “made it their business” to spread fear and mistrust of wind turbines……..
The Waubra foundation is named after the Victorian town of Waubra, which has become a hub for wind-powered energy, with 128 turbines in the area.
Many of the town’s inhabitants have distanced themselves from the group, and called on it to remove the town’s name from its title…….http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/19/removal-of-anti-windfarm-groups-charity-status-is-a-victory-for-science
Deteriorating radiation situation at Fukushima – worse than Chernobyl
Fukushima Exponentially More Dire than Chernobyl — Deteriorating Plant Threatens Global Radiation? By Guy Crittenden Global Research, December 18, 2014 ENEnews 12 December 2014
- “…………Instead of a long article about what transpired in 2014 and what may be ahead, I’m going to offer readers three items… that have made a deep impression on me recently; these are “must watch” items for anyone interested in helping our species avoid peril from environmental degradation
- The deteriorating status of things at the destroyed nuclear plant at Fukushima, Japan…you have an obligation, really, to be aware of conditions there
- [There is a] very real and present threat from the… highly radioactive… destroyed cores of the reactors, as well as things like the storage of contaminated water in hastily-built, rusting containers
- This is serious stuff… an actual meltdown of the reactors — real China Syndrome stuff — as had been assumed would never likely happen in a modern reactor
- The situation is exponentially more dire than Chernobyl
- [Workers must] remove the rods for safe containment without having them contact one another and trigger a fire, the consequences of which would be unimaginable — We’re talking mass extinction around the world, especially in the northern hemisphere
- Most people have forgotten the situation and think of it only as a local Japanese problem
- It’s only a matter of time before another earthquake or tidal wave triggers such an event
Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste watchdog for Beyond Nuclear, Nuclear Hotseat, Dec 9, 2014 (at 37:00 in): “If the meltdown is bad enough, that’s going to burn its way right through the foundations of the containment — like we’ve seen at Fukushima Daiichi.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-exponentially-more-dire-than-chernobyl-deteriorating-plant-threatens-mass-extinction-around-world/5420579
Shutdowns of nuclear power in USA
Nuclear Shutdown News, December 2014, Ob Rag by MICHAEL STEINBERG on DECEMBER 19, 2014 by Michael Steinberg / blackrainpress
Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the continuing decline of the US nuclear power industry. As nuclear power reactors approach or surpass their planned operating life of 40 years, they have become less and less reliable and more and more threatening. What to do about this? A complete and immediate shut down of them all! NO NUKES!
Here’s our December report. Continue reading
Waubra Foundation no longer gets charity tax subsidy for anti wind farm activities
Waubra Foundation, prominent anti-wind farm lobby, stripped of health promotion charity status ABC News By environment and science reporter Jake Sturmer 18 Dec 2014, Government regulators have stripped a prominent anti-wind farm lobby of its health promotion charity status.
The status allowed the Waubra Foundation to receive tax deductible donations, concessions the Greens described as “enormous public subsidies”.
A year ago the ABC revealed the Greens made a complaint to the Taxation Office and Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission (ACNC), claiming there was no credible evidence to suggest a direct link between wind turbines and health problems.
University of Sydney Professor of Public Health Simon Chapman supports that view.
“There’s very, very poor evidence of any direct effect – in fact there have been 22 published reviews since 2003 which have all reached that conclusion,” Professor Chapman said.
“So in other words there’s nothing intrinsic that’s emitted from wind farms – sound etcetera – which in itself can cause human health problems.”
Four months after the Greens made the complaint, the Commission sent a show cause notice to the Foundation.
“It is not possible for me to find that the Foundation’s principal activity promotes the prevention or control of disease in human beings,” Assistant Commissioner David Locke said in February.
“My current view is there is that there is insufficient evidence that ‘wind turbine syndrome’ or ‘vibroacoustic disease’ caused by proximity to wind turbines are recognised as human diseases or that the health problems that have been perceived by the complainants as being associated with living or working close to wind turbines are a disease.”……….. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-19/waubra-foundation-stripped-of-health-promotion-charity-status/5977530
1 This month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
– go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
Antinuclear 