Nuclear catastrophe – fast but avoidable. Climate change -slow, inexorable
Former Defense Secretary Compares Climate Change To Nuclear War, Forbes, Jeff McMahon, 9 Dec 18, There are two existential catastrophes threatening the world, former Defense Secretary William Perry said. One is quick but avoidable, while the other is slowly unfolding.“Our planet today faces two existential dangers,” Perry said at Stanford University, where he now serves as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. “One of them is nuclear war—nuclear catastrophe—and the other is a climate catastrophe.
The nuclear catastrophe could happen next month, next year, ten years from now or if we’re lucky, never. But if it happens it happens all at once. On the other hand the climate-change catastrophe is on a slow roll. It is happening. It’s happening every month, every year. It’s getting worse…….https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/12/09/former-defense-secretary-compares-climate-change-to-nuclear-war/#15e849ee60bb
Climate change now brings bushfires to Australia’s Northern rainforests
 ‘Like opening a fan oven’: Australia’s rainforest threatened by bushfires, Guardian, Lisa Cox, 9 Dec 18Typically, rainforest should be able to self-protect during fire, with closed canopies that allow little sunlight to the forest floor and that keep the vegetation moist. But the cyclones have shredded the canopies, leaving an excess of fuel from debris on the ground, and a lack of rain meant the forest was dry. Since 22 November, more than 1m hectares has been burnt across Queensland, much of which lies in the tropics. Since the beginning of its bushfire season in August, more than 3.6m hectares have been destroyed. The most recent fires occurred on a magnitude never before seen in the state. Over a period of 12 days, the Queensland fire and emergency service said it had attended more than 1,200 fires, with help from crews from every state and territory in Australia. Andrew Piccone, a nature campaigner with the Australian Conservation Foundation, who did his studies in rainforest ecology, said that Australia would have to consider the future impact of warming conditions on a range of plant, animal and insect species in the wet tropics. “If catastrophic fire conditions are going to burn the rainforest in Queensland, what that means for the future of the wet tropics world heritage area could be quite concerning,” he said……… Philip Stewart, a fire ecologist with Queensland University’s school of earth and environmental sciences, agrees. He said governments and communities would need to become more proactive in fighting fires and that current processes were too reactive. “We do need to look at firefighting in a different light,” Stewart said. “We are a fire-prone country and more people are moving into fire-prone areas. We need to have an understanding of the danger of that and look at fighting fire with fire. He pointed to traditional burning used by Indigenous communities as a model, where prescribed burning occurs on a larger scale than hazard-reduction burns, which focus on reducing fuel in specific areas. Stewart said areas of rainforest impacted could take decades or even centuries to recover, adding that the next possible threat to those areas was mudslides as the wet season sets in. “High-intensity fire tends to create a layer within the soil that is hydrophobic and therefore water repellent causing mass soil erosion,” he said. “We are seeing this very phenomenon in the USA at Malibu where mass soil movement has taken place due to the heavy rains that followed the high-intensity and severe fires there.” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/09/australias-rainforest-under-threat-as-bushfires-rage-in-the-tropics |
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Increased risk of bushfires in Tasmania
Growth spurt fuels ‘normal’ bushfire riskFire danger Rapid vegetation growth during Tasmania’s recent spate of wet and warm weather could pose an added bushfire risk for property owners, the Tasmania Fire Service says….(subscribers only)
US and Russia ally with Saudi Arabia to water down climate pledge
Guardian, Jonathan Wattsand Ben Doherty, Mon 10 Dec 2018 , Move shocks delegates at UN conference as ministers fly in for final week of climate talks The US and Russia have thrown climate talks into disarray by allying with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to water down approval of a landmark report on the need to keep global warming below 1.5C.
After a heated two-and-a-half-hour debate on Saturday night, the backwards step by the four major oil producers shocked delegates at the UN climate conference in Katowice as ministers flew in for the final week of high-level discussions.
It has also raised fears among scientists that the US president, Donald Trump, is going from passively withdrawing from climate talks to actively undermining them alongside a coalition of climate deniers.
Two months ago, representatives from the world’s governments hugged after agreeing on the 1.5C report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), commissioned to spell out the dire consequences should that level of warming be exceeded and how it can be avoided.
Reaching a global consensus was a painstaking process involving thousands of scientists sifting through years of research and diplomats working through the night to ensure the wording was acceptable to all nations.
But when it was submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on Saturday, the four oil allies – with Saudi Arabia as the most obdurate – rejected a motion to “welcome” the study. Instead, they said it should merely be “noted”, which would make it much easier for governments to ignore. The motion has not yet been able to pass as a result of the lack of consensus.
t opened up a rift at the talks that will be hard to close in the coming five days. During the plenary, the EU, a bloc of the 47 least developed countries, as well as African and Latin and South American nations, all spoke in favour of the report. Several denounced the four countries trying to dilute its importance. ………
Scientists were also outraged. “It is troubling. Saudi Arabia has always had bad behaviour in climate talks, but it could be overruled when it was alone or just with Kuwait. That it has now been joined by the US and Russia is much more dangerous,” said Alden Meyer, the director of strategy and policy in the Union of Concerned Scientists….
Ministers have only five days to establish a rulebook for the Paris agreement. A wild card is the role of the host nation, Poland – the most coal-dependant nation in Europe – which will chair the final week of the meeting………
As well as acceptance of the report, there are several other potential fights brewing regarding transparency rules for reporting emissions and proposals for wealthy high emitters to provide financial support to poorer nations struggling to adapt. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/09/us-russia-ally-saudi-arabia-water-down-climate-pledges-un
Electric cars, and the hazards of rare earths used in them
The electric-car revolution is here, but is that a good thing for the environment? ABC , By environment reporter Nick Kilvert for Life Matters 8 Dec18 “……..Rare earth metals like neodymium are often used in the batteries and magnets of electric cars, but there’s a catch, according to geologist Carl Spandler from JCU.
“There’s an association with rare earth ores with uranium and thorium, and they’re radioactive,” Associate Professor Spandler said.
Rare earth deposits are often found alongside uranium and thorium, meaning when you mine one, you get both.
In 2011, Mitsubishi spent $100 million on a quiet clean-up of a rare earth plant run by subsidiary company Mitsubishi Chemical near the villages of Ipoh and Papan in Malaysia.
From the time the plant opened in 1982, locals complained of eye-watering smoke and foul odour, and as time went on, villagers say they saw increased birth defects and leukemia.
Mitsubishi eventually removed more than 11,000 truckloads of radioactive material from the site, contaminated with thorium.
Despite the name, rare earths actually aren’t very rare at all, and there are significant deposits in Australia.
Australian company Lynas mines rare earths at its Mount Weld site in south-eastern Western Australia.
But the ore is shipped to Malaysia for processing where locals, whose limited experience with the rare-earth metals industry hasn’t been good, are in staunch opposition.
This week, Malaysia set new conditions on the Lynas plant, including that they must remove all radioactive by-products produced at the refinery, from Malaysia.
Some mining in China also has a poor environmental and social track record, according to Dr Spandler.
“They had small-scale operators just strip mining, but they’ve cut down on that quite a bit now because it was really doing a lot of damage to the environment.”
But despite the risks, radioactivity in rare earths is probably not such a big issue for Australian mines like Lynas, according to Dr Spandler.
“The mining companies are very well aware of [the radioactivity issues]. They’re obviously under strict regulations that they’ve got to control the radioactivity of their waste material and have a proper plan in place for how they deal with that waste,” he said.
“All of the [Australian] projects that are in the pipeline or up and coming now, they have fairly low levels of uranium and thorium, so they’re fairly manageable.”…… https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-12-08/electric-cars-revolution-environment/10589270
Northern Territory – legal case over climate change
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Key points:
Paul Vogel gave evidence this week in a landmark challenge brought against the EPA’s decision to not require an environmental impact assessment of a proposal to clear 20,000 hectares at the Maryfield cattle station south of Darwin. The case is considered to be the first in the Northern Territory to challenge the approval of land clearing on the basis of climate change impacts. Lawyers for the Environmental Defenders Office NT argued the authority was wrong in regarding itself unable to consider the impact of the clearing’s emissions because the Northern Territory had no climate policy and because the emissions would not have a nationally significant environmental impact. The Supreme Court heard that estimates of the likely emissions were not provided to EPA members in the briefing papers prepared for them, despite officers from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources calculating an estimate of 2.3 megatonnes or 18.5 per cent of the NT’s total annual emissions for 2015. Dr Vogel said while the EPA seeks to ensure that proponents keep emissions as low as possible, the impact of activities from individual projects on climate change is not measurable……….. Proposal raised ‘flashing red’ concerns: EPA member The Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) lawyers also argued the authority’s decision was invalid because the EPA had not followed its own meeting procedures nor voted on the final decision. Emails discussed in court between the EPA decision-makers, who mostly live outside the Territory, revealed concerns raised by a number of members. “For many projects with a much smaller area involved we have required extensive flora and fauna surveys.” Mr Wallis said the land-clearing proposal should be exposed to public scrutiny through an assessment process. Another EPA member suggested the authority clear the project for approval only on the basis that it ensure recommended conditions were met. Recommendations were made but some of the conditions were then rejected by the Pastoral Land Board, which ultimately approved the clearing. The matter will return to court later in December. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-08/nt-land-clearing-climate-change-legal-stoush-supreme-court/10590808 |
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Trump wants the Paris climate accord to be scrapped
 Trump, observing French turmoil, suggests end of climate change pact https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-france/trump-observing-french-turmoil-suggests-end-of-climate-change-pact-idUSKBN1O70RP, 9 Dec 18WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump, commenting on the clashes between police and “yellow vest” protesters in Paris, said on Saturday that it may be time to do away with the Paris accord on climate change.
“Very sad day & night in Paris,” the president said in a message issued on Twitter. “Maybe it’s time to end the ridiculous and extremely expensive Paris Agreement and return money back to the people in the form of lower taxes?” Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Nick Zieminski |
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Fossil nations sideline science at Katowice, even as emissions rise and warming accelerates — RenewEconomy
In a deadly diplomatic strike, big oil and gas nations took a key scientific report out of the Katowice text, replacing it with an ambiguous formulation that merely notes its existence. The post Fossil nations sideline science at Katowice, even as emissions rise and warming accelerates appeared first on RenewEconomy.
IPCC says coal must go in urgent race to limit global warming — RenewEconomy
It’s over to the Morrison government, as IPCC warns of increasing urgency of emissions reduction task, and of the “very, very substantial” cut in coal use essential to this.
via IPCC says coal must go in urgent race to limit global warming — RenewEconomy
It’s time: why Labor must join the global push to outlaw nuclear weapons
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/it-s-time-why-labor-must-join-the-global-push-to-outlaw-nuclear-weapons-20181206-p50kpx.htmlBy Robert Tickner, 10 December 2018 The key political players and decision makers of the Australian Labor Party are about to gather in Adelaide for their 48th national conference from next Sunday. They will consider Labor’s stand on a humanitarian issue that has been the focus of the party’s ideals and aspirations for decades. Will it back a new global move to outlaw nuclear weapons?
Support for signing and ratifying the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has already been endorsed by 78 per cent of members of the parliamentary Labor Party. They include national president Wayne Swan, deputy leader Tanya Plibersek, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen, Tony Burke, Mark Dreyfus, Mike Kelly, Joel Fitzgibbon, Linda Burney, Catherine King, Brendan O’Connor, Anthony Albanese and Patrick Dodson. More than 20 leading trade unions have joined the ACTU in this cause. Continue reading
Students lead anti-Adani protests, vow to remove Liberal Party from power
Stop Adani protesters gather in cities, take aim at Scott Morrison’s activism comments, ABC News, 9 Dec 18 By Kevin Nguyen Student activists who felt the Prime Minister was condescending last week over climate issues have vowed to remove the Liberal Party from power — and keep it out — as long as it maintains its current policies.
Key points:
- A national survey showed a majority of respondents supported student protests on climate change
- Rallies took place in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Cairns
- Junior activists said the Prime Minister’s comments compelled them to march
Thousands of protesters gathered in capital cities on the east coast on Saturday in a coordinated march against Indian energy giant Adani’s Carmichael mine and rail project.
At the end of last month, Adani announced the scaled-back $2 billion controversial coal mine in the Galilee Basin would go ahead and would be 100 per cent self-financed, with work starting before Christmas.
While the attendees at the rally were diverse, it was school-aged students who were leading the crowds.
“It’s awful to see our leader feels like we shouldn’t have opinions and we shouldn’t care and they shouldn’t listen to us,” 14-year-old Jean Hinchliffe said in response to Mr Morrison’s calls last week for “less activism in schools”.
“It’s just atrocious. As students we are very informed and very educated and that’s why we’re taking action.
“We’re fighting for our own futures.”………
PM’s comments galvanised students
Like Jean, many young students who appeared at the rallies on Saturday were part of the thousands of Australian students who defied Scott Morrison’s call to stay in school.
While school-aged students will not be eligible to vote in next year’s federal and state elections, they are becoming the face of the Stop Adani and climate strike movements determined to make it a persistent election issue.
Daisy Jeffrey, 16, from Conservatorium High School in Sydney, said she was interested in a future in politics and Mr Morrison’s comments had galvanised her, and dozens of her peers, to take to the streets.
“It wasn’t disheartening, it made us more angry and more determined to go out on the streets,” Daisy said.
In addition to Sydney, rallies were held in Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns.
n Melbourne, hundreds of people sat down in the middle of the busy Flinders Street intersection, blocking traffic in a bid to draw attention to their cause………https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-08/adani-student-protesters-vow-to-keep-liberals-out-of-power/10597022
The choice of Maralinga as nuclear bomb site – and the effects on Aboriginal people
‘Aboriginal people were still living close to the test sites and were told nothing about radiation.
‘High rates of cancer were eventually documented in the 16,000 test workers, but no studies were done on Aboriginal people and others living in areas of fallout. It’s been called the cancer capital of Australia.’
Although many Aboriginal people were forcibly removed from their land, more than a thousand were directly affected by the bombs.
Vomiting, skin rashes, diarrhoea, fevers and, later, blood diseases and cancer were among the common conditions caused by the testing.
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How the Australian government offered up an outback Aboriginal settlement for nuclear bomb testing in the 1950s – saving a small English town but creating our ‘cancer capital’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6466191/Australian-government-offered-outback-nuclear-testing-save-small-English-village.html
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Cost of rehabilitating Ranger uranium mine
World Nuclear News 7th Dec 2018 The estimated rehabilitation costs for the Ranger Project Area inAustralia’s Northern Territory have increased from AUD512 million (USD370
million) to AUD808 million, Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) has
announced. The estimate is based on preliminary findings from a feasibility
study which will be finalised in early 2019.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/ERA-updates-Ranger-rehabilitation-costs
Don’t Nuke the Climate is at the COP talks in Poland.
 Beyond Nuclear 2nd Dec 2018 , Linda Walker: Backin the UK, the Labour Party needs to listen. How many times have you heard people say ‘I would much rather not have nuclear power but we need it to combat climate change’? This claim has been made so many times by the nuclear industry and its supporters that many people now just accept it as the lesser of two evils. But the development of new nuclear power plants is actually no part of the solution to tackling climate change, and is in fact a big part of the problem. Nuclear power is not carbon-free; is prohibitively expensive; all projects overrun wildly on both time and budget; is a source of harmful waste which no one yet knows what to do with; provides a terrorist target; produces routine emissions which are harmful to health; power plants are vulnerable to the flooding which will come as sea levels rise, and have to close down in times of drought; Chernobyl and Fukushima have shown the widespread and long-term health and environmental impact of accidents; and even nuclear advocates have recently admitted the close links to nuclear weapons. |
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Lynas’s problem of radioactive wastes – might send them to Australia?
 Lynas faces $60 million radioactive waste transport bill https://www.afr.com/business/mining/rare-earths/lynas- faces-60m-radioactive-waste-transport-bill-20181206-h18toh?fbclid=IwAR3BFaAg8apIoudG9tyGHGcWgY49ZBeX5pikeM41U7MjKE0nbanOzSrK4lo By Bo SeoUpdated 06 Dec 2018 —Rare earths producer Lynas could face a bill of $60 million to transport 400,000 tonnes of radioactive waste out of Malaysia, as well as a complicated legal and regulatory landscape.The Malaysian government’s surprise decision on Tuesday to make Lynas’ future licences conditional on removing the waste sent the company’s shares tumbling by up to 26 per cent on Wednesday and left the $1.4 billion company threatening legal action. The stock recovered 1.5 per cent to $1.67 on Thursday.
“Lynas is working through various scenarios related to the ministerial statement,” said the company in a statement overnight. Lynas obtains rare earths from Western Australia, processes them in Malaysia and sells them to manufacturers of industrial magnets used in automotives and electronics. Given a review released on Tuesday said the company had largely complied with its responsibilities in the country, the government’s more stringent licence conditions came as a shock. A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: “The Australian government has been in close discussions with both the Malaysian government and Lynas and will continue this engagement.” CLSA analyst Dylan Kelly said in a note to clients that the cost of transporting the waste back to Australia was estimated to be $60 million, but said insurance would cover about $46 million of that. The balance of about $14 million would represent about 10 per cent of the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $129 million that Lynas recorded in 2017-18. “Based on the 80 containers per week of concentrate sent to Malaysia from the mine [in WA], it would take around 3½ years to progressively repatriate all 15,000 containers,” Mr Kelly said. “This obviously makes the government’s September 2019 target removal unrealistic, but we expect they will negotiate a reasonable outcome.” Although Mr Kelly suggested the financial impact would not be significant, he and other analysts noted the difficult regulatory challenges faced by Lynas. Crossing the seaIf Lynas decides to return the waste to Australia, which is the preferred solution of its critics in Malaysia, regulatory challenges will begin with cross-border transport. Maurice Lynch, senior counsel on transport and trade at Mills Oakley, said: “Lynas must navigate a heavily regulated space.” Domestic laws, which bring Australia into compliance with a range of international maritime conventions, are stringent on the notice, packing, storage, and personnel training required at various stages of international transport. Mr Lynch said the regulations were onerous but surmountable. The intention of the regime is not to prevent the shipment of hazardous cargoes,” he said, “it’s to ensure that it takes place within a safe and regulated environment.” Back on landThe Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), the federal agency tasked with radiation safety and nuclear safety, said that once on Australian soil, state regulations on transport kick in. ARPANSA said: “it is not possible to say how the Lynas wastes would be classified without more information on the various chemical and radioactive contaminants present in the product. “This would be a question for the WA regulator, as this classification would fall under the West Australia’s Nuclear Waste Storage (Prohibition) Act 1999.” UBS analyst Daniel Morgan said: “Licensing in Australia may also have challenges in accepting re-imports/disposal.” Back to historyIn April 2012, Lynas lodged an application to ARPANSA to explore the possibility of shipping its by-product back to Australia, but ultimately backed away. Then Lynas chief executive Nick Curtis said at the time, “we ceased looking for contracts in Australia because we think shipping to Thailand or Indonesia is cheaper”. |
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Antinuclear 