Coronavirus is scary. Secret, silent, radioactive pollution is also scary
Regina McKenzie Fight To Stop A Nuclear Waste Dump In South Australia, 20 Mar 20,
National Radioactive Waste Management must come clean. Kimba is the start of continued high level nuclear waste dumping
Eyre Peninsula Tribune, March 4th 2020 , GARY CRUSHWAYI write in response to a recent letter (Happy to answer questions raised, Letters to the Editor, February 20) from Sam Chard of the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.
Paul R. Ehrlich: A pandemic, planetary reckoning, and a path forward
The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing environmental destruction and the deterioration of social and cultural systems into sharp focus. But we can learn from this.
In addition to great concern over the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m also disappointed.
For more than half a century, scientists have been expressing concern over the deterioration of what I like to call the “epidemiological environment.” That environment consists of the constellation of circumstances that influence patterns of disease and factors related to health.
It includes such things as population sizes and densities, diets, speed and type of transportation systems, toxics, climate disruption, frequency of human-animal contacts, availability of medical isolation facilities, stockpiles of medicines, vaccines, and medical equipment.
The epidemiological environment also includes cultural norms: levels of education, equity in societies, competence of leadership. Few aspects of the human predicament do not impinge on our epidemiological environment…….
Climate disruption is the best recognized of contemporary health threats, but the decay of biodiversity, and “updating” the American nuclear triad as part of the Russian-United States’ “mutually assured imbecility” are among the most critical.
Those, at least, are not obvious to the average citizen or decision-maker, but what about others such as increased flows of plastics and toxics (especially synthetic hormone mimicking compounds) into the global environment?
Everyone knows about volumes of plastics in waste streams and oceans and has personal experience with the thermal paper receipts coated with bisphenol-A (BPA), yet little to no remedies have been undertaken.
Indeed, why are there so few effective responses to the epidemics and the maladies of industrial civilization?…….
Educational systems have given up any pretense of supplying leadership to society or informing people about what is coming down the track. Faculty members discuss “sustainability” in major universities that will not even divest from fossil fuel stocks.
Can the absence of a draft alone explain the difference between the ferment in universities during the Vietnam War and the quiet today with the situation a million times worse?
Once again, population size and growth are major factors in this human dilemma – maybe Homo sapiens shouldn’t have tried to organize itself into groups exceeding the Dunbar number, which anthropologist Robin Dunbar showed was about 150 people, the size of hunter-gatherer groups. He also showed that’s roughly the size of groups in which human beings are comfortable today.
Rethinking resources
Where could all the money come from to make the changes to preserve civilization? That’s one of the challenges for the economists who today are operating in a perpetual-growth fairyland.
Much depends on the course of events and whether the debt pyramid collapses. One obvious step, however, is repurposing the military. When Anne and I were working with them on nuclear winter issues, we were greatly impressed by the intelligence and ethics of some of the field-grade officers with whom we were involved.
The military is already way ahead of the present civilian government in addressing existential threats like climate disruption. Various military units have already been deployed to deal with emergencies ranging from pandemics to hurricanes, and there is no reason why they cannot be used to help in tasks ranging from building medical isolation facilities to small-scale affordable housing for the homeless.
Allocation of resources is part of the epidemiological environment. The gigantic amounts of money wasted on such nearly useless toys as nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, main battle tanks, and air superiority jet fighters could be redirected toward rebuilding infrastructure such as sewage systems, modernized electric grids and water-handling networks, and on and on.
The same can be said for the other funds and activities used for decades to support (often clandestinely) U.S. state terrorism that has cumulatively killed millions since the second World War.
Is all this impractical, pie-in-the-sky, never-happen stuff? Sure.
But nothing is more impractical than civilization trying to continue business as usual as it circles the drain.
The current pandemic disaster may end up damping down consumerism and improving the environment – there are reports of the lethal smog usually blanketing some Chinese cities clearing during pandemic lockdowns.
Maybe there’s some chance that people are learning lessons.
We can always hope.
Paul Ehrlich is the Bing Professor of Population Studies, Emeritus and President of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford. https://www.ehn.org/pandemic-population-covid-19-2645518249.html
Coronavirus Stimulus Plans Are An Opportunity for Bold Climate Action
Coronavirus Stimulus Plans Are An Opportunity for Bold Climate Action, Expert Says, 19 Mar 20 https://e360.yale.edu/digest/coronavirus-stimulus-plans-are-an-opportunity-for-bold-climate-action-expert-says Governments and financial institutions should incorporate climate change action into their COVID-19 economic recovery plans, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, told Climate Home News. Stimulus packages, he argues, should focus on large-scale investments in things like clean energy, battery storage, and carbon capture-and-storage technologies.
“I am talking with several governments and international financial institution leaders because they are all busy designing stimulus programs for the economy,” Birol said in an interview. “We can use the current situation to step up our ambition to tackle climate change… This is a huge opportunity we cannot miss. Here the issue is not only the level of [stimulus] money, but the direction of the money.
Birol’s argument comes amid news that the coronavirus has forced the cancellation or postponement of several major climate, scientific, and environmental meetings. Policy experts warn that many countries, particularly developing nations, may not have enough time to produce tougher climate targets ahead of international climate talks in Glasgow in November. In addition, the Trump administration is considering bailout packages for the fossil fuel and aviation industries, which have been hit hard by the pandemic.
“This is a historic opportunity for the world to, on one hand, create packages to recover the economy, but on the other hand, to reduce dirty investments and accelerate the energy transition,” Birol said
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a silly scheme
The carbon capture con, Online Opinion, By Viv Forbes 19 March 2020
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) tops the list of silly schemes to reduce man-made global warming. The idea is to capture carbon dioxide from power stations and cement plants, separate it, compress it, pump it long distances and force it underground, hoping it will never escape………
The quantities of gases that CCS would need to handle are enormous and capital and operating costs will be horrendous. For every tonne of coal burnt in a power station, about 11 tonnes of gases are exhausted – 7.5 tonnes of nitrogen from the air used to burn the coal, plus 2.5 tonnes of CO2 and one tonne of water vapour from the coal combustion process….., CCS also requires energy to produce and fabricate steel and erect gas storages, pumps and pipelines and to drill disposal wells. This will chew up more coal resources and produce yet more carbon dioxide, for zero benefit.
But the real problems are at the burial site – how to create secure space for the CO2 gas.
There is no vacuum occurring naturally anywhere on earth – every bit of space is occupied by solids, liquids or gases. Underground disposal of CO2 requires it to be pumped AGAINST the pressure of whatever fills the pore space of the rock formation now – either natural gases or liquids. These pressures can be substantial, especially after more gas is pumped in.
The natural gases in rock formations are commonly air, CO2, CH4 (methane) or rarely, H2S (rotten egg gas). The liquids are commonly salty water, sometimes fresh water or very rarely, liquid hydrocarbons.
Pumping out air is costly; pumping natural CO2 out to make room for man-made CO2 is pointless; and releasing rotten egg gas or salty water on the surface would create a real problem, ……
Then there is the dangerous risk of a surface outburst or leakage from a pressurised reservoir of CO2. The atmosphere contains 0.04% CO2 which is beneficial for all life. But a CCS reservoir would contain +90% of this heavier-than-air gas – a lethal, suffocating concentration for nearby animal life if it escaped. ….
Forget toilet paper, consumers are panic buying solar
Byron Bay’s Smart Energy is seeing an unprecedented surge in sales and enquiries of solar and home storage as consumers look to shore themselves up in uncertain times. pv magazine,
Byron Bay’s Smart Energy is seeing a record sales quarter after an unprecedented 41% increase in sales and a 400% increase in battery enquiries over the last two weeks as panicking consumers look to protect themselves in times of uncertainty.
In uncertain times people rush to certainties. It is said that the only certainties are death and taxes, but what about pasta, toilet paper and solar PV? We certainly need to eat, to use the toilet, and just as certainly as the tax bill comes, so too does the electricity bill, so why not do whatever we can to lessen the impact?
When other industries and businesses are shrinking and self-isolating, Smart Energy is taking on additional resources and looking for ways to support local communities and installers as the solar and battery retailer enjoys an unprecedented surge for its products.
In a statement, Elliot Hayes, co-founder and managing director of Smart Energy said that there are many contributing factors to the growth, the main two being consumers seeking out greener purchases following the recent natural disasters in Australia and economic downturn, and consumers looking to future-proof their homes.
And why wouldn’t consumers look to future-proof their homes with solar PV and an energy storage system?……..
The solar industry in Australia expected to take quite a hit from the Coronavirus outbreak considering most panels in the market come from China, where the virus originated. Of course, many in the industry are doing it tough, but BloombergNEF reports that the production of PV components in China is already resuming, and whilst shortages may exist in the short-term, China is expected to meet its export demand before its domestic market. https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/03/19/forget-toilet-paper-consumers-are-panic-buying-solar-pv/?fbclid=IwAR3wceEHrP9MVgguwPW4092RhgYZ4GVNt7iM4abDe4XpTXOJfPf33ThqrkU
What if the money for nuclear weapons was used for health care? — limitless life
Alice Slater 446 E 86 St New York NY 10028 212-744-2005 646-238-9000(mobile) http://www.wagingpeace.org http://www.worldbeyondwar.org We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire’s level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet’s daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million […]
via What if the money for nuclear weapons was used for health care? — limitless life
March 20 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “We Can No Longer Rely On Historical Data To Predict Extreme Weather” • We’ve always been able to use historic weather patterns to help predict extreme weather events. But a new study published in Science Advances shows that in just a decade, the climate has shifted so drastically historic weather is […]
Japan Olympics Official Tests Positive For COVID-19 As Training Camps Canceled Across Country — Fukushima 311 Watchdogs
The deputy head of Japan’s Olympics Committee has coronavirus after reportedly experiencing a mild fever on Sunday after returning from a trip to Europe and the United States, according to the Wall Street Journal. March 17, 2020 Kozo Tashima, who is also the president of Japan’s Football Association, was in Orlando, Florida on March […]
Japanese Prime Minister Gives First Hints Tokyo Olympics Could Be Postponed — Fukushima 311 Watchdogs
March 17, 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has begun to shift his messaging on the Tokyo Olympics, in a sign he may have accepted that the deadly coronavirus will make it necessary to postpone the event planned to start in July. Abe and his cabinet, as well as the organizers and Tokyo Governor Yuriko […]
70% do not expect Tokyo Olympics to be held as scheduled: Kyodo poll — Fukushima 311 Watchdogs
March 15, 2020 A total of 69.9 percent of people do not expect the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer to be held as scheduled amid the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus, a Kyodo News survey showed Monday. The poll, conducted from Saturday to Monday by phone, comes as Japan continues with preparations […]
via 70% do not expect Tokyo Olympics to be held as scheduled: Kyodo poll — Fukushima 311 Watchdogs
Starting the Olympic torch relay in Fukushima should remind us of the dangers of nuclear power — Fukushima 311 Watchdogs
A woman protests against the Olympics and the government’s nuclear energy policy Feb. 29 in Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, where the Olympic torch relay begins this month. March 13, 2020 VANCOUVER – If the Tokyo Olympics are held on schedule, thousands of athletes will soon come to Japan. Considering the multiple reactors that melted down there […]
Zali Steggall holds fire on zero emissions climate bill amid Coronavirus chaos — RenewEconomy
Independent Zali Steggall to defer presentation of federal Climate Change Bill from next Monday to a later date, as Parliament focuses on its response to COVID-19.
via Zali Steggall holds fire on zero emissions climate bill amid Coronavirus chaos — RenewEconomy
Covid and climate: Can Morrison listen to experts to flatten that “other” curve? — RenewEconomy
This is the Critical Week during which state and federal governments did or did not act firmly and early enough to avoid a devastating health crisis. For many, it is a study, in miniature, of Australia’s response to the climate emergency. The post Covid and climate: Can Morrison listen to experts to flatten that “other”…
via Covid and climate: Can Morrison listen to experts to flatten that “other” curve? — RenewEconomy
Wind output overtakes hydro power for first time in Tasmania — RenewEconomy
Wind output overtakes hydro for first time in Tasmania as state Liberal government plots path to “200 per cent” renewables. The post Wind output overtakes hydro power for first time in Tasmania appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Wind output overtakes hydro power for first time in Tasmania — RenewEconomy
Antinuclear 