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Australian news, and some related international items

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The week that has been in climate and nuclear news – Australia

Climate change –   climate crisis might be the more accurate phrase. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New Zealand, said the political will to fight climate change has faded at the same time as it is getting worse for those feeling its effects.

Some videos of this week’s news on the effects of global warming -Arctic Ocean Coastal Temperatures Surge to 84.2 F  11 May https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk4sTnfsVcQ    -Global Sea Ice Plunges to New Record Lows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukc7-OVMx_Q . A tiny bit of good news: Rooftop Panels of Tiny Plants Can Cleanse Polluted Air at 100 Times the Rate of a Single Tree.

Nuclear news – the focus this week has been on international politics. While nuclear competition between India and Pakistan is accelerating, Stimson’s South Asia Program offers ways to reduce tensions.  Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign: paving the way for war against Iran?  Donald Trump likes strutting on the global ‘nuclear summit’ stage, but is not interested in genuine arms control.

AUSTRALIA

Federal election on 18 May. If the climate-denying, nuclear-loving Liberal Coalition gets back in, I reckon that there’ll be wholesale emigration to New Zealand, where they have decent and compassionate policies, and a Prime Minister with integrity!

Australia’s role in the species extinction crisis.

Australia’s major parties’ climate policies side-by-side.  Climate emergency is here, whatever the election result . Missing in action’: hunt goes on for Coalition’s invisible environment minister. Bill Shorten urged to declare climate emergency if Labor wins.

Yeelirrie uranium approval, Adani coal – Australia needs new and stronger national environment laws.

CLIMATE.

  • Climate change still key in election social media.  Labor to remove Coalition’s “climate fig leaf”, push funds to clean energy.  Former UN climate leader supports MP Zali Steggall, Kerryn Phelps, Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie, and MP, Julia Banks.  Scott Morrison on “cutting green tape” – commentators respond savagely and sceptically. Scott Morrison’s fib: claims that the Liberal Coalition saved the Great Barrier Reef!!
  • Protesters scale Sydney Harbour Bridge to declare ‘climate emergency’ .  CSIRO unsure on Adani coal project’s water plans, but Minister For Coal, Melissa Price gave it environmental approval anyway. Adani project faces another hurdle – another groundwater review.  Wangan and Jagalingou Country The Frontline In ‘Adani’s Federal Election’.
  • Port Augusta power station sale to mark final closure of South Australia’s coal. Age of cheap coal power is over for Australia, says Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
  • Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and $29 billion in Australia. $571 billion loss by 2030 estimated for Australian property values due to climate change.
  • Torres Strait islanders to United Nations – allege Australian government failure to act on climate change. Bill Shorten urged to declare climate emergency if Labor wins.

NUCLEAR. Duplicity of the Australian government on nuclear waste dump (“Temporary” means “Indefinite”)  At last – HENRY COX, a Senate Candidate with the guts to fight the nuclear waste dump plan ! Confident Clive Palmer predicts tax-payer funding for nuclear power.

RENEWABLE ENERGY. Solar’s stunning rise takes big chunk out of coal in daytime market.  Numurkah solar farm, to help power steel works, Melbourne trams, begins production. First turbine completed at Tasmania’s Cattle Hill wind farm.  Western Australia to fund solar farms in six remote indigenous communities.  Rooftop solar kills summer peak demand in W.A., as renewables nudge 50% share.  NSW green-lights 100MW solar farm plus battery for Riverina region. Solar and storage to power disability housing in first of its kind.  Australian mayors want more ambition on climate change, 100% renewables.

INTERNATIONAL

Radioactive fallout could be released from melting glaciers.  Deep ocean animals are eating radioactive carbon from nuclear bomb tests.

Deep divisions between nations as preparations made for next year’s review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Global paralysis in weapons control agreements as a new arms race begins.

The problematic arrival of Artificial Intelligence for Nuclear Weapons.

The vulnerability of nuclear weapons systems to cyber threats.

Nuclear power is subject to human error. — and that makes it a poor solution to climate change.

The World Blows Over $5 Trillion A Year On Oil And Gas Subsidies: Report

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina reviews | Leave a comment

Leaders of New Zealand, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Fiji welcome UN chief Antonio Guterres for climate talks (What about Australia?)

UN chief Antonio Guterres hits out at climate change ‘paradox’ ahead of historic Pacific trip   https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-13/un-chief-antonio-guterres-talks-climate-historic-pacific-trip/11106622

Pacific Beat 13 May 19,

The United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres has warned the world is “not on track” to meet its climate change commitments kicking off a historic trip throughout the Pacific intended to focus on the looming threat of climate change.

The trip marks the first time a sitting UN secretary-general will meet with Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders in the region.

Key points:

  • Mr Guterres said the “paradox” is that political will fades as climate change gets worse
  • He is set to visit Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Fiji following after his trip to New Zealand
  • Samoa says climate change is not just a Pacific issue and that “Sydney could go down”

“Climate change is running faster than what we are … the last four years have been the hottest registered,” Mr Guterres said yesterday alongside New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern.

“The paradox is that as things are getting worse on the ground, political will seems to be fading.”

Under the Paris Agreement, many countries agreed to a long-term commitment to keep the rise of global temperatures well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in a bid to substantially reduce the effects of climate change.

After New Zealand, Mr Guterres will travel to Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Fiji to meet with leaders who have for years been warning that many of the Pacific’s small island nations face being washed away by rising sea levels due to global warming.

Mr Guterres added to those sentiments yesterday warning that Pacific nations are on the frontlines of climate change.

“We cannot allow for runaway climate change,” he said.

“We need to protect the lives of our people and we need to protect our planet.”

However, he praised the efforts of Ms Ardern’s Government who just last week, introduced an ambitious bill that aims to make New Zealand mostly carbon neutral by 2050 while giving some leeway to farmers.

‘With America or Australia — Sydney could go down’In Fiji, Mr Guterres will meet with PIF leaders and senior government officials from the region. Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilepa Sailele, a leading critic against nations who he believes are ignoring the threats of climate change, told the ABC’s Pacific Beat program that he had a message for Mr Guterres.

To impress on him the importance of the smallness of our islands, and the quicker moves that our vulnerable islands would like to see from the bigger countries responsible for all these problems that we are facing today,” he said.

Mr Sailele, who has previously blasted countries for ignoring the warnings, added that rising sea levels is not just an issue for the Pacific, but for those very same “bigger countries” as well.

“With America for example, or Australia — Sydney could go down,” he said.

His comments follow a controversial withdrawal from the Paris Agreement’s commitments by United States President Donald Trump in 2017, a move that was praised by former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott who last year said that Canberra should do the same.

The secretary-general’s Pacific trip comes ahead of an anticipated Climate Action Summit that he plans to convene in September in New York.

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics international | Leave a comment

Protesters scale Sydney Harbour Bridge to declare ‘climate emergency’ 

SMH 14 May 19, Ten people have been arrested while three protesters remain dangling from the Sydney Harbour Bridge after environmental group Greenpeace called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to “declare a climate emergency” on Tuesday morning.

The abseiling protesters could be hanging from the bridge all day, with a Greenpeace spokesperson saying they were “fully stocked up” and had enough provisions in their bags to last at least 24 hours.

The three people can be seen holding small banners that read “100% renewables” and “make coal history”.

A NSW Police operation is attempting to remove the protesters who are attached to ropes beneath the bridge….. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/protesters-scale-sydney-harbour-bridge-to-declare-climate-emergency-2019051

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming | Leave a comment

If America launched a nuclear war -335 Million Dead, and that’s only in the immediate attack

Overall, an all-out U.S. attack on the Soviet Union, China and satellite countries in 1962 would have killed 335 million people within the first seventy-two hours.

As devastating as these projections are, all readily admit they don’t tell the entire story. While these three studies model the immediate effects of a nuclear attack, long-term problems might kill more people than the attack itself. The destruction of cities would deny the millions of injured, even those who might otherwise easily survive, even basic health care. What remains of government—in any country—would be hard pressed to maintain order in the face of dwindling food and energy supplies, a contaminated landscape, the spread of disease and masses of refugees.

While the threat of nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union has ended, the United States now faces the prospect of a similar war with Russia or China. The effects of a nuclear war in the twenty-first century would be no less severe. The steps to avoiding nuclear war, however, are the same as they were during the Cold War: arms control, confidence-building measures undertaken by both sides and a de-escalation of tensions.

335 Million Dead: If America Launched an All-Out Nuclear War   https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/335-million-dead-if-america-launched-all-out-nuclear-war-57262 “Under SIOP, “about 1,000” installations that were related to “nuclear delivery capability” would be struck.” by Kyle Mizokami 13 May 19, A major draw of U.S. nuclear weapons to Soviet cities would have also been the presence of local airports, which would have functioned as dispersal airfields for nuclear-armed bombers. On the other hand, the Soviet attack would largely hit ICBM fields and bomber bases in low-population-density regions of the Midwest, plus a handful of submarine bases on both coasts.

It is no exaggeration to say that for those who grew up during the Cold War, all-out nuclear war was “the ultimate nightmare.” The prospect of an ordinary day interrupted by air-raid sirens, klaxons and the searing heat of a thermonuclear explosion was a very real, albeit remote, possibility. Television shows such as The Day After and Threadsrealistically portrayed both a nuclear attack and the gradual disintegration of society in the aftermath. In an all-out nuclear attack, most of the industrialized world would have been bombed back to the Stone Age, with hundreds of millions killed outright and perhaps as many as a billion or more dying of radiation, disease and famine in the postwar period.

During much of the Cold War, the United States’ nuclear warfighting plan was known as the SIOP, or the Single Integrated Operating Plan. The first SIOP, introduced in 1962, was known as SIOP-62, and its effects on the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and China were documented in a briefing paper created for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and brought to light in 2011 by the National Security Archive. The paper presupposed a new Berlin crisis, similar to the one that took place in 1961, but escalating to full-scale war in western Europe.

Although the war scenario was fictional, the post-attack estimates were very real. According to the paper, the outlook for Communist bloc countries subjected to the full weight of American atomic firepower was grim. The paper divided attack scenarios into two categories: one in which the U.S. nuclear Alert Force, a percentage of overall nuclear forces kept on constant alert, struck the Soviet Union and its allies; and a second scenario where the full weight of the nuclear force, known as the Full Force, was used. Continue reading →

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News | Leave a comment

The ghost towns of Fukushima

Nuclear wasteland
Inside the ghost towns of Fukushima, 
 Eight years on from the tsunami and nuclear meltdown, much of Japan’s Fukushima province remains derelict and deserted. Telegraph, 13 May 19 

There was a chilling silence in the town of Tomioka in the days after the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Shoes were left in porches, half-read newspapers lay abandoned next to cups of tea, long gone cold. As night closed in on the seaside town, lights glared out from a few bare windows, while news of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant just six miles away drifted from a solitary radio.

Nobody was home.

Eight years on, little has changed. Before March 11, 2011 – the day the tsunami engulfed the nuclear facility, forcing the evacuation of more than 150,000 residents across the region – the town had a population of 15,960. Now, just a few hundred people have returned despite the lifting of the evacuation order in April 2017.

“Officially 835 have returned, but many are plant and other clean-up workers who are renting out abandoned houses,” says Takumi Takano, a local councillor who splits her time between Tomioka and temporary digs in Koriyama an hour’s drive away that she and her husband Kenichi have lived in since evacuating.

Of the remaining locals most are either elderly, or only return during the day, she says. Most worryingly, just 14 are children. When night falls, they return to “temporary” homes elsewhere, she says. “It’s like a ghost town.”

A similar situation is found throughout the entire evacuated region, where only 12,859 of the 100,510 residents who were living in the zone before the disasters have returned, a Cabinet Office official says. Like Tomioka, many of them are clean-up workers, local residents say.

…… After almost eight years, residents, especially those with young families, have settled elsewhere, securing new jobs and starting new schools or moving out of Fukushima entirely,  says  says Kenichi, a former worker at the devastated nuclear plant.. Many are put off returning by the severe shortage of medical facilities in the region.

Then there’s the radioactivity,” he says, as the couple sit outside their caravan, set up on the land of their recently demolished home, which backs on to a 130-square-mile “difficult-to-return-zone” that is still considered too highly contaminated to inhabit.

Eight years on, radioactivity levels have fallen in the reopened parts of Tomioka, though remain 20 times higher than before the disaster. “It’s much higher over there,” he says, pointing to the blockaded zone, where radiation levels exceed 3.8 microsieverts per hour – the designated threshold for issuing evacuation orders.

That zone is a legacy of the nuclear disaster, when multiple reactor meltdowns and explosions, triggered by a magnitude nine earthquake and towering tsunami, spread radioactive materials for hundreds of miles around……..

despite clean-up operations there to reduce radiation levels below the government-set target of 0.23 microsieverts (µSv) per hour, other legacies of the disaster – the crumbling houses and shops, corroding vehicles and overgrown fields, not to mention 16.5 million containers of contaminated earth collected at some 140,000 sites around the region – are impossible to avoid.

The 0.23 µSv figure is significant in that it adds up to an annual dosage level of one millisievert (mSv) (calculated on the premise that a resident spends eight hours a day outdoors), stipulated by the International Atomic Energy Agency as being safe for members of the public.

But while maintaining that level is complicated by recontamination from surrounding woodland, some experts argue the figure says little about the true dangers, or safety, of radiation exposure. That the Japanese government raised this to 20 mSv in the aftermath of the disasters adds weight to their argument…….

Misao Fujita, a doctor who performs thyroid scans at a clinic in Iwaki, about 30 miles south of the nuclear plant, says a connection between the cancers and radiation exposure cannot be ruled out and the screening effect is no reason to disregard the examinations.

“What we do know is that after Chernobyl, many children developed thyroid cancer, and if you take that into account and consider the high risk that Fukushima children were exposed to radiation then I think we should carry out such tests,” Dr Fujita says, adding that thyroid cancer normally occurs in one in one million children.

Noriko Tanaka, whose son is one of Dr Fujita’s patients, says exams revealing cysts in her son’s thyroid are a concern, not least because iodine-131 – a substance that causes thyroid cancer – was contained in the plume released by the Fukushima plant that landed on Iwaki after the disasters. At the time, she was pregnant with her son. “I worry because nobody knows for sure what the future holds,” she says……….

The issue of the one million tons of contaminated water being stored at the stricken nuclear plant is another worry for residents. After receiving assurances from Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO ) that the water had been successfully treated and stripped of all but one radioactive material, tritium, the government announced in 2017 it would start releasing the water into the ocean, despite protests, especially from local fisheries.

TEPCO released convoluted data to demonstrate the water’s safety, but was forced to backtrack last September when further tests showed the sums didn’t add up and 80 per cent of the water was in fact up to 20,000 times higher than the official safe threshold. Furthermore, it contained harmful radionuclides such as iodine, caesium and strontium.

Moreover, while the initial suggestion was that tritium was relatively harmless some studies have shown it to be a cause of infant leukaemia, says Ayumi Iida of NPO Tarachine, which independently analyses seawater samples taken from the ocean near Fukushima’s two nuclear plants.

“Tritiated water is easily absorbed and hazardous when inhaled or ingested via food or water,” she says. “There’s already data indicating infant leukaemia rates are higher near to nuclear plants, and tritium is known to cause DNA damage, so while there are claims that tritium is harmless, there are counterclaims it can adversely affect health, especially among young children.”…….

Shaun Burnie, a nuclear expert with Greenpeace says that discharging the water into the ocean is “the worst option” available, and one whose main consideration is economic.

“The only viable option, and it’s not without risks, is the long-term storage of the water in robust steel tanks over at least the next century, and the parallel development of water processing technology,” he says. ……….

“The reality is there is no end to the water crisis at Fukushima, a crisis compounded by poor decision-making by both TEPCO and the government,” says Mr Burnie.

Among more pressing issues, Mr Burnie says, is 400,000 cubic meters of sludge being stored within the Fukushima plant grounds that contains high concentrations of strontium – known as a “bone-seeker” because, if introduced into the body, it can accumulate in the bones in the same way as calcium does.

With the plant still generating waste, this sludge is expected to nearly double over the next 10 years, he adds.

Strontium releases into the environment from the plant were relatively small following the 2011 disaster, but significantly greater 30 months later, when in 2013 a large strontium-laced plume contaminated land as far away as Minamisoma – a city about 20 km from the plant, Mr Burnie says. Such an event could re-occur, he says.

“Is it a good idea to lift the evacuation orders? Absolutely not. The public are right to be concerned about the possibility of further offsite releases.”

They can also be forgiven for being sceptical over official reassurances that foodstuffs are safe, says Ms Iida of Tarachine, which also runs a produce-testing laboratory and has found “plenty” of items with levels of contamination exceeding the safe limits.

Meanwhile tests on samples of soil – which has no official safe threshold in Japan – have also revealed high levels of radiation in the area, she adds.

Namie’s Obori district, about six miles northwest of the nuclear plant and within the difficult-to-return-zone, is one place where soil radiation levels remain high. In woodland backing the pretty hamlet, which is famed for its pottery but has slowly surrendered to nature, the Telegraph recorded up to 127 µSv per hour – over 350 times the IAEA’s safe threshold……

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News | Leave a comment

CSIRO unsure on Adani coal project’s water plans, but Minister For Coal, Melissa Price gave it environmental approval anyway

Adani water plan ticked off within hours despite lack of detail, internal CSIRO emails reveal

By environment, technology and science reporter Michael Slezak, 13 May 19, Internal CSIRO correspondence reveals the science agency was pushed to formally accept the Federal Government’s approval of Adani’s water plans in a single afternoon.  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-14/adani-csiro-emails-foi-melissa-price/11107276

Key points:

  • Internal CSIRO correspondence explicitly shows the agency went out of its way to avoid giving any categorical scientific advice on Adani’s plans
  • A letter from the CSIRO to the environmental department noted other concerns were yet to be addressed
  • The emails obtained by the ABC also show how rushed the CSIRO was to provide its “formal assent” to the department

Despite the Government saying Australia’s top science agencies “confirmed” Adani’s water plans had “met strict scientific requirements”, the emails show CSIRO was determined not to give a “categoric” response.

The correspondence obtained by the ABC through freedom of information laws exposes further discrepancies between what the Government said about the assessment of Adani’s environmental plans, and what actually occurred.

The newly uncovered emails follow hand-written notes from Geoscience Australia, obtained by the ABC in April, showing Adani refused to accept several of its recommendations, counter to what the Government said at the time.

Two days before the federal election was called, Environment Minister Melissa Price signed off on Adani’s two groundwater management plans,meaning Adani had passed all the tests required by the Federal Government before it could start constructing its proposed Carmichael coal mine.

When announcing the decision, Ms Price said she was simply following the advice of scientists.

“I have accepted the scientific advice,” she said, declaring that CSIRO and Geoscience Australia had provided “assurances that these steps address their recommendations”.

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

USA government is not likely ever to secure local consent for disposal of spent nuclear fuel

Former DOE Nuclear Waste Chief Critical of Consent-Based Siting    https://www.exchangemonitor.com/former-doe-nuclear-waste-chief-critical-consent-based-siting/

BY EXCHANGEMONITOR   13 May 19, The federal government is not likely ever to secure local consent for disposal of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors, but that approach could nonetheless be tested in a plan for temporary storage of the radioactive material, according to a former head of the Energy Department’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM).

“Consent-based siting does sound very appealing. I just don’t see it leading to a successful leading to a successful conclusion. Of course, I may be wrong,” Ward Sproat, who managed OCRWM from June 2006 to January 2009 before it was dismantled by the Obama administration, wrote in a May 2 letter to Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), the top members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Among the obstacles to consent, Sproat wrote: history, as illustrated by failed Private Spent Fuel storage project in Utah; politics, including the potential for elected officials who support a facility to be replaced by opponents; and the need for at least two layers of local approval to analyze a selected location and then to begin licensing.

Still, Sproat indicated support for assessing the viability of a consent-based approach for interim storage discussed before the committee by an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Geoff Fettus, senior attorney for the NRDC’s nuclear program, was among the witnesses for a May 1 hearing on a draft bill from Barrasso that is intended to advance interim storage and permanent disposal of U.S. spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Among the measures, the legislation would authorize the secretary of energy to site, build, and operate at least one monitored retrievable storage facility and to store DOE-held waste in a privately operated facility.

In his prepared testimony, Fettus said the NRDC supports changing existing federal laws to give states more authority for regulating radioactive waste as part of a consent-based approach. A pilot program for interim storage should specifically involve a hardened structure at an operational nuclear power plant, Fettus said.

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News | Leave a comment

Tepco to start taking apart one highly radioactive chimney at Fukushima

 

TEPCO to slice dangerous chimney at Fukushima plant    http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201905100045.html, By CHIKAKO KAWAHARA/ Staff Writer, May 10, 2019 Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to start work on May 20 to dismantle a 120-meter-tall, highly contaminated chimney that could collapse at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

It will be the first highly radiated facility at the plant to be taken apart, the company said May 9.

The stack, with a diameter of 3.2 meters, was used for both the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors. TEPCO plans to remove the upper half of the chimney within this year to prevent the structure from collapsing.

The dismantling work will be conducted by remote control because the radiation level around the base of the chimney is the highest among all outdoor areas of the plant. Exposure to radiation at the base can cause death in several hours.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck in March 2011, pressure increased in the containment vessel of the No. 1 reactor. Vapors with radioactive substances were sent through the chimney to the outside.

TEPCO also found fractures in steel poles supporting the chimney. The damage was likely caused by a hydrogen explosion at the No. 1 reactor building when the nuclear disaster was unfolding.

Since then, the chimney has been left unrepaired because of the high radiation levels.

Immediately after the nuclear accident, a radiation level exceeding 10 sieverts per hour was observed around the base of the chimney. In a survey conducted in 2015, a radiation level of 2 sieverts per hour was detected there.

TEPCO will use a large crane that will hold special equipment to cut the chimney in round slices from the top.

The company set up a remote control room in a large remodeled bus about 200 meters from the chimney. Workers will operate the special cutting equipment while watching footage from 160 video cameras.

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News | Leave a comment

Beyond the Anthropocene – humans aim for planetary powers

Accidental changes are entirely different from deliberate ones.

Forget the Anthropocene: We’ve Entered the Synthetic Age, Singularity Hub, By Christopher Preston, May 12, 2019

One fact about our time is becoming increasingly well-known. No matter how far you travel, no matter in which direction you point, there is nowhere on Earth that remains free from the traces of human activity. The chemical and biological signatures of our species are everywhere. Transported around the globe by fierce atmospheric winds, relentless ocean currents, and the capacious cargo-holds of millions of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles, nowhere on Earth is free from humanity’s imprint. Pristine nature has permanently blinked out of existence.

These planetary changes have been characterized by geographers, geologists, and climate scientists as the end of one geological epoch, the Holocene, and the start of the next, the Anthropocene. In this newly designated ‘human age’, our species’ impact on the oceans, the land, and the atmosphere has become an inescapable feature of the earth. This idea that humanity has forced a geological transition is capturing people’s attention not just because changes in epochs are rare. It is attracting notice because our species is gripped by the idea that we possess planetary powers.

A second fact about our age is much less widely appreciated. We are changing how the planet works. It is not just that human activities have stained every corner of the planet. The simultaneous arrival of a range of powerful new technologies is starting to signal a potential takeover of Earth’s most basic operations by its most audacious species. From this time forward, technologies such as the gene-editing technique CRISPR and climate engineering will transform an already tainted planet into an increasingly synthetic whole.

This February, when the entomologist Ruth Mueller pried open a container of genetically modified mosquitoes in a high-security lab in the Italian town of Terni, she wasn’t just experimenting with a powerful new tool in biotechnology. …….

If the question is ‘How much does your research amend the planetary rules?’ the Mueller lab has plenty of company.

Early this summer, a research team from Harvard University will conduct the first field test of geoengineering the climate. They plan to use a high-altitude balloon to place reflective particles into the stratosphere above the arid landscapes of the US southwest. There they will examine how effectively the particles beat back incoming solar energy. Scaled up appropriately, the technology could in future be used to rewrite the planetary rules in a way that echoes the changes wrought by gene drives.

Anthropogenic climate change has already altered how heat moves through the system. As devastating as this is, up till now, climate change has never been a matter of intentional planning and design. ….

Technologies such as gene drives and climate engineering go a quantum leap beyond what stratigraphers were noting when they recommended renaming this epoch the Anthropocene. Accidental changes are entirely different from deliberate ones. David Keith, one of the researchers in the Harvard climate-engineering project, points out the huge difference between deliberately engineering something and simply making a mess……. https://singularityhub.com/2019/05/12/forget-the-anthropocene-weve-entered-the-synthetic-age/

ReplyForward

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News | Leave a comment

Scott Morrison claims that the Liberal Coalition saved the Great Barrier Reef!!

M’s claim Coalition saved reef from nonexistent ‘endangered list’ condemned as ‘ridiculous’, Guardian, Lisa Cox, Mon 13 May 2019

Scott Morrison says government took reef ‘off the endangered list’ – despite no such list existing.  Scott Morrison has credited his government with having “saved” the Great Barrier Reef, a claim rejected as “ridiculous” by scientists, environmental groups and the Queensland government.

At the Liberal party’s campaign launch in Melbourne on Sunday, Morrison thanked the former environment ministers Greg Hunt and Josh Frydenberg for their work on reef issues.

“We have saved the Great Barrier Reef – well done to Greg Hunt particularly on his work when he was environment minister – taking it off the endangered list,” he said.

“We’ve invested record funds in researching and protecting its future thanks to Josh’s time as environment minister.”

Morrison’s statement contained more than one inaccuracy, including the suggestion the reef was on an “endangered list” at all.

“There is such a thing as the ‘in danger list’ for world heritage properties,” the coral reef scientist Prof Terry Hughes said. “The barrier reef was never on that list.

“If Morrison is claiming Hunt got Australia off the ‘in danger’ list, the obvious response is: it never was on it.”

In 2017, Unesco opted not to list the reef as in danger after reviewing the government’s Reef 2050 plan. But it will reassess that decision in 2020 and whichever party wins the federal election must submit an update on progress of the plan at the end of this year.

Hughes said recent surveys of the Great Barrier Reef showed the impact climate change and rising ocean temperatures were having on coral cover.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science – the government’s own agency responsible for monitoring reef health – reported in 2017-18 that trends in coral cover in the north, central and south reef showed steep decline that “has not been observed in the historical record”.

Hughes’s most recent paper found that the production of baby coral on the reef had fallen by 89% after the climate change-induced mass bleaching of 2016 and 2017.

Under the Liberal-National coalition government, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase, which Hughes said was “an abject failure” for the Great Barrier Reef……… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/13/scott-morrisons-claim-coalition-saved-great-barrier-reef-condemned-as-ridiculous?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR0

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, election 2019, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Call for a carbon tax for UK

FT 13th May 2019 Nick Butler: There is a very simple measure the UK’s Committee on Climate
Change could have flagged. We need a carbon tax to change consumer
behaviour. Introduced at a level designed to alter behaviour (perhaps £50
a tonne), a carbon tax would encourage consumers of all kinds – from
manufacturers to domestic customers – to switch to lower-carbon energy
supplies and encourage the development of technology to make that possible.

Charged at this level a tax would be far more effective than the current
EU-based measures and would allow energy users to identify low-cost
alternatives, or where necessary develop them. In the process, it would
demonstrate whether the most expensive options, such as carbon capture and
the reconstruction of the way we heat buildings, are really necessary.

https://www.ft.com/content/2c5f19d6-7245-11e9-bf5c-6eeb837566c5

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News | Leave a comment

Majority of UK voters want to slash greenhouse gases to nearly zero by 2050

Independent 12th May 2019 A majority of voters would support radical action to slash greenhouse gases
to nearly zero by 2050 at a cost of tens of billions of pounds, a new poll
has found. The public has thrown its weight overwhelmingly behind calls by
the government’s independent climate change advisers to make a legally
binding commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by the middle of
the century. The exclusive survey by BMG Research found 59 per cent of
voters would support such action, with only 8 per cent opposing it and 34
per cent who had no view.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/climate-change-greenhouse-gasses-public-support-poll-greta-thunberg-a8909641.html

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News | Leave a comment

Greenland Melt off to a Rather Early Start — robertscribbler

Of the two great masses of land ice capable of dramatically raising sea levels and altering hemispheric weather patterns through global warming spurred melt, Greenland is the one closest to home for many humans living on Earth. And as fossil fuel burning keeps dumping more carbon into our atmosphere, Greenland melt continues to dump tens […]

via Greenland Melt off to a Rather Early Start — robertscribbler

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

May 13 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion: ¶ “These Days, It’s Not About the Polar Bears” • Social-science investigators have found that the most effective tools for engaging the public in the subject of climate change are those that appeal to core human tendencies. For example, people tend to focus on personal and local problems that are happening right now. [The […]

via May 13 Energy News — geoharvey

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Wildfires Rage in Mexico — Smoke May Move into U.S., Fueling Storms — robertscribbler

Climate change impacts the water cycle in a number of rough ways. First, at its most basic, for each 1 degree C of global temperature increase you roughly increase the rate of evaporation by 6-8 percent. This loads more moisture into the atmosphere — which can lead to more extreme rainfall events. It also causes […]

via Wildfires Rage in Mexico — Smoke May Move into U.S., Fueling Storms — robertscribbler

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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