Pre -Christmas week: dancing on the climate/nuclear Titanic?
I know. It’s just not what you need to hear in the week before Christmas. Unfortunately, I am reminded 
by the wonderful Katharine Hayhoe that even if you ignore, or even disbelieve in scientific findings – they are still there, still real.
At the bottom of this newsletter, I attach my picture – my rather jaundiced view of Christmas preparations. My two big influences this week come from Radio Ecoshock. Firstly – we’ve underestimated global warming. Our current path heads to worst 5 degree warming. And, there’s suppression of climate facts, and some disinformation on global warming. My second – it’ s the same as last week’s – Future Earth may be home to grass, bugs, and maybe, – maybe – a few humans. It’s a hot radioactive world.
Well – on with the dance –
AUSTRALIA
NUCLEAR. “Significant radiation dose” received by Lucas Heights worker in nuclear accident.
Unrealistic call for rural Australians to host Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs).
Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN. “My people are still suffering from Australia’s secret nuclear testing” – Australia resists efforts to ban nuclear weapons, and Australian Prime Minister snubs ICAN Nobel Peace Prize win.
Federal nuclear waste dump plans. AUSTRALIA’S RADIOACTIVE WASTE: WHAT TO DO WITH IT? WHERE TO PUT IT? WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? WHY KEEP PRODUCING IT? Call For Senate Inquiry Into South Australia’s Proposed Nuclear Dump Sites Aboriginal custodians ‘in dark’ over nuclear waste dump plans.
CLIMATE. For Australia’s cities, climate change is already here. Despite the Turnbull government, Australia quietly waking up to the existential threat of climate change. Australia’s top companies ignore climate change, and we let them . AGL resists govt pressure, goes for gas, wind, solar – not coal.
Adani coal megamine plan. Traditional Owners Want To Delay The Government Removing Their Rights Over Land Adani Wants To Mine. Having won the Queensland election, Annastacia Palaszczuk will be vetoing the Adani coal megamine. Queensland Premier’s first act will be to veto Adani railway line loan. The Greens will not stop “until this mine is stopped’. Traditional Owners fighting Adani make demands of new Queeensland Labor Govt.
Audit office slams Australia’s dud investments in “clean coal”.
ENERGY. Any integrity Turnbull ever had is now blown as he kowtows to the Right on energy.
Clean Energy Finance Corporation passes 1GW big solar milestone, after backing two new projects. Tesla big battery goes the full discharge – 100MW – for first time . Byron bay’s world-first solar train gets ready to trundle. How Sydney could become a zero-carbon city. lots more at reneweconomy.com.au
Traditional Owners Want To Delay The Government Removing Their Rights Over Land Adani Wants To Mine
‘The WandJ Traditional Owner’s Council is one of the final barriers to one of the world’s largest coal mines.
And it is now scared its native title will be extinguished before its day in court.’
Amy McQuire, Indigenous Affairs Reporter www.buzzfeed.com/amymcquire amy.mcquire@buzzfeed.com www.buzzfeed.com/amymcquire/traditional-owners-want-to-delay-the-government-removing?utm_term=.vx7kjGveg December 15, 2017
‘W&J spokesperson Murrawah Johnson told BuzzFeed News that there are concerns the Queensland government could move “at any time” to extinguish native title over the site, before a Federal Court hearing in March that will challenge the validity of the ILUA. That’s the reason W&J are seeking an injunction.
‘”We have a court case, challenging the legitimacy of this agreement, and they seem to be willing to go and extinguish our native title in the face of all of that, despite the agreement being illegitimate,” Johnson told BuzzFeed News. … ‘
Computer modelling is valuable for fire prevention: prescribed burning is inadequate
Unfortunately, due to climate change, we are going to see a lot more catastrophic days in the future in Tasmania and indeed globally.
To fight the catastrophic fires of the future, we need to look beyond prescribed burning California is burning – a sentence we’ve heard far too often this year. Sydney is currently on bushfire alert, as firefighters battle a fire in the Hunter Valley region and temperatures are set to top 40℃.
A cocktail of factors, from climate change to centuries of ignoring indigenous burning practises, means that catastrophic fires are likely to become more common.
One of Australia’s favourite fire prevention measures is prescribed burning – using carefully controlled fires to clear out flammable materials. We’re almost obsessed with it. Indeed, it seems the outcome of every major inquiry is that we need to do more of it.
The Royal Commission inquiry that followed Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday fires recommended that 5% of all public land in Victoria be treated per year – a doctrine that was subsequently dropped due to impracticality.
Yet our research, published today in the International Journal of Wildland Fire, modelled thousands of fires in Tasmania and found that nearly a third of the state would have to be burned to effectively lower the risk of bushfires.
The question of how much to burn and where is a puzzle we must solve, especially given the inherent risk, issues caused by smoke smoke and shrinking weather windows for safe burning due to climate change.
Why use computer simulations?
The major problem fire science faces is gathering data. Landscape-scale experiments involving extreme fire are rare, for obvious reasons of risk and cost. When a major bushfire happens, all the resources go into putting it out and protecting people. Nobody has the time to painstakingly collect data on how fast it is moving and what it is burning. We are therefore restricted to a few limited data sources to reconstruct the behaviour and impact of fire: we can analyse the scar on the landscape after a fire, look at case studies, or run simulations of computer models. Continue reading
UK tribunal rules that WikiLeaks is a media organisation, not a “hostile intelligence agency”
Julian Assange welcomes UK ruling that WikiLeaks is a media organisation, WikiLeaks founder welcomes ruling by UK tribunal. IBT ,By Jason Murdock, December 14, 2017 WikiLeaks has been recognised as a “media organisation” by a UK tribunal in a ruling that flies in the face of claims by US officials who have branded it a “hostile intelligence agency”.
The tribunal, in a section detailing the public interest for disclosing any withheld information, described Assange as “the only media publisher and free speech advocate in the Western world who is in a situation that a UN body has characterised as arbitrary detention”.
It added: “The circumstances of his case arguably raise issues about human rights and press freedom, which are the subject of legitimate public debate.”….http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/julian-assange-welcomes-uk-ruling-that-wikileaks-media-organisation-1651567
Investors are Fleeing Fossil Fuels in Droves
When Bill McKibben and 350.org spear-headed a campaign to divest from fossil fuels and go 100 percent renewables as part of a multi-pronged strategy to confront ramping harms from global climate change in 2012, the big push-back was “divestment doesn’t work, it’s just feel-good, someone else will just buy the stocks when prices drop.”
The Green Mouse That Roared
As if where individuals, banks, investment firms and governments put their money doesn’t matter. As if monetary policy at all levels isn’t an enabler of energy and climate policy. As if the world were awash in an infinite flood of money. As if capital just magically grows on trees.
The detractors clearly didn’t get it. They’d already lost the argument. But the ultimate realization would take years to materialize.
The divestment movement wasn’t so much about the short-term, day to day, flux of money on the financial markets. It was…
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Government and utilities shaken by high court challenge to public trust in Japan’s nuclear authority
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Japanese Foreign Minister’s Gimmick to Promote Fukushima’s Contaminated Produce
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Should the public be allowed to see the radio-contamination map ?
We are publishing the most recent map of the soil contamination made by the “Fukuichi area environmental radiation monitoring project“.
「ふくいち周辺環境放射線モニタリングプロジェクト」作成の最新の土壌汚染マップをアップいたします。
We have published several soil contamination maps of the “Fukuichi area environmental radiation monitoring project” in this blog (see maps of Namie, Minamisoma 1 & 2 ). Normally, the government should carry out the measurements, but the government relies on the air radiation dose measurements at the expense of the radio-contamination measurements found on the surface and in the air (in terms of the volume of radioactive substances). To fulfill the lack of this essential information for the radioprotection of the population, civil groups conduct soil measurements.
このブログで紹介してきた「ふくいち周辺環境放射線モニタリングプロジェクト」の土壌汚染マップですが（浪江町、南相馬市 1 & 2 ）、もともと国や地方自治体が実施すべき測定です。しかし、政府は空間線量率の測定のみを優先し、表面（土壌を含む）や空間の汚染密度をニグレクトしています。そのため住民の放射線防護に不可欠の情報が欠如しています。この情報不備を補完するため、市民団体が測定を 実行しているのが現状です。
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1.This month
For international nuclear news go to https://nuclear-news.net/
Senate Committee Inquiry into National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment (Site Specification, Community Fund and Other Measures) Bill 2020 [Provisions]
You can still send Submissions to them on that same page. Read Public hearings transcripts : the latest (28 August) is now available.
Join my fight to free Julian Assange and stop US extradition
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/julianassange/
Submissions to the Senate Committee Inquiry into National Radioactive Management Amendment Bill. 2020. Go to our summaries of significant submissions, conveniently listed in alphabetical order at Kimba waste dump submissions or see all submissions listed at Read the Submissions
EVENTS
WEBINARS – Details at YELLOWCAKE COUNTRY http://www.ccwa.org.au/yellowcake_country_webinar_series
18 November – Webinar – Maralinga to Mulga Rock the Spinifex Story Wednesday 5.30 pm (AWST) 7.30 pm (AEST) |
No nuclear waste dump in South Australia
ACT NOW: NO PLACE FOR NUCLEAR WASTE https://www.conservationsa.org.au/no_place_for_nuclear_waste?fbclid=IwAR24tyFotCN96nobPpPuhGCqBMlW8zjPixIzmEj8ud8b_J7tRigzlXLpjJc
https://www.change.org/p/release-julian-assange-from-belmarsh-prison-before-covid-19-spreads
