Nuclear “education” in Australia – theme for February 2019
For public education about the nuclear industry, Australia relies on – well – the nuclear industry. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) is a government statutory body, which in 1987 grew out of The Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC’s original mission was to plan for nuclear weapons for Australia, or, if that failed, at least for nuclear power. This goal of promoting nuclear power remains ANSTO’s core role
ANSTO does the nuclear education for Australians. It’s just like putting British Tobacco in charge of education about healthy lungs.
Just how does ANSTO do its “nuclear education” for Australia?, Well, broadly, by silence. Minimal information, especially about nuclear reactor dangers, transport of wastes, and about how much tax-payer funding it guzzles up. The Australian media conveniently complies with this silence.
However, when it comes to rural communities in one region of South Australia, then ANSTO is busily flooding them with “education”, because ANSTO has this dream of expanding nuclear power, and becoming a global hub for nuclear, but to do that, it has to dump the radioactive wastes somewhere, – Hawker, Kimba .. anywhere – ‘away from civilisation’.
The nuclear lobby now ‘partners’ with academia, wherever possible, and some universities are very grateful for their funding grants. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) partners with The University of Tasmania. South Australian top university big-wigs are nuclear industry promoters.
Then there’s the space travel hype. The great “colonise Mars” dream and all the rest of the space fever rarely mentions that the space travel rockets will be nuclear-powered – indeed, powered by plutonium, that man-made substance that is the most carcinogenic substance known. Too bad if there’s a crash.
Underlying all this is the glorification of STEM education – Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. These ARE important studies, – but the subtext of this message is the downgrading of the arts and humanities subjects.
Technology can do things and go places. Humanities can guide us on what things we should do, and what places we should go to.
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of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
I’m an academic in a university maths dept. You wrote:” Underlying all this is the glorification of STEM education – Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. These ARE important studies, – but the subtext of this message is the downgrading of the arts and humanities subjects.”
We have never thought there was that subtext. Many of the social sciences benefit from a bit of maths and stats. Computing skills are useful in arts and humanities too. I think it is best to leave side issues like this out so as not to alienate people. I understand your main message to be that the world needs to give up nuclear weapons, and Australia doesn’t need nuclear power or foreign nuclear waste, and I agree with that.
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mmmm – I agree with much of what you say, Keady, but you still seem to accept the division between the “hard” sciences and the “soft” studies. In reality , they’re so intertwined. You don’t accept my view that the humanities are being downgraded. Fair enough for you to have that view. In my opinion, the humanities are really the HARD studies, and the ones we need most, when it comes to making decisions on what to do.
I note that you are opposed to nuclear weapons and “foreign” nuclear waste, – doesn’t sound as if you are opposed to the nuclear industry itself.
By the way, the wastes returning from France to Australia are in fact foreign , as they are actually an amalgam of wastes from different countries.
I suspect that you haven’t explored the nuclear issue much, with its world of historic, social, political and environmental complications. Mathematics is great – so comfortably clear and logical.
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