‘We do need to change our laws’: Environment Minister
‘We do need to change our laws’: Environment Minister
Tanya Plibersek says voters can expect legislative changes off the back of the latest State of the Environment report, which states Australia has suffered catastrophic losses of wildlife and habitat.
Climate protesters criminalised as climate crisis escalates
Long-term environmental activist Bob Brown, Human Rights Watch and a network of grassroots campaigners have condemned the recent raids and police repression against climate protesters, joining in solidarity with a collective warning from 40 civil society organisations.
However, by criminalising protest, governments expose their allegiance to profit before the people. Rather than generate fear amongst us, this may just mobilise more people in defence of systems that threaten life on Earth.
Independent Australia. By Claire Burgess | 18 July 2022.
With anti-protest laws on the rise as our climate crisis worsens, activists are fighting back to raise awareness, writes Claire Burgess.
CLIMATE ACTIVISTS are increasingly using protest tactics that cannot be ignored. They are targeting Australia’s economic and political centres, contending that these systems built from colonial dispossession are responsible for climate destruction and inaction. Does this approach to bringing about change hold up empirically?
Is Australia a colonial and extractive-based climate pariah?
The extraction of “natural resources” is the backbone of colonial relations to the Earth — climate change is a symptom of this way of operating. The sixth International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report points to how marginalised communities, particularly Indigenous, disproportionately bear the burden and harm from climate change though they are the least responsible. Scholars now argue that climate action requires addressing the ongoing legacies of colonialism.
Australia’s current extractive regime has its roots in colonial systems of violence and dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The political and economic system sits proudly upon scarred and damaged land that was never ceded. Mining giants continue to be prioritised by governments, such as coal mining company Adani over the land rights of Traditional Owners.
Politics and economics have been identified by the IPCC as major impediments to climate action. This is particularly evident in the contradiction of Australian mining companies becoming both global leaders in “green” economies while expanding coal and gas production. The plunder for capitalising on the economic opportunities of new green economies is the latest threat to the planet.
Despite all the talk about “green” growth, energy-related emissions have accelerated, reaching record highs in 2021. The only slowdown of emissions occurred during the COVID lockdown. Degrowth scholars highlight how the myth of progress continues to underpin market approaches to climate change. They remind us of the hard limits on the number of natural resources left that we can use.
Every ecosystem is under pressure. First Nations elders and scholars have also long called for designing systems based on ecological relationality with the Earth.
The signs of both planetary collapse and the knowledge of regenerative ways of being have long been available. It is the dominating, extractive-based system that is maladaptive to our planet — not us.
How has people-power shaped this country?
The goal of non-violent direct action (NVDA) is to draw attention to contentious practices and in doing so, exert pressure on targeted actors. In lutruwita/Tasmania during the Franklin Dam blockade, a total of 1,400 people were arrested and gaoled including federal and state parliament members.
This campaign led to a large area of wilderness being saved from development. Grassroots, direct action galvanised the environmental movement in Australia and these tactics continue to be used to defend wild places.
NVDA can encompass open or covert tactics from blockades, sit-ins and occupations to street protests. In gaining land rights, the occupation of land outside Parliament House for establishing the “Aboriginal Tent Embassy” sent a message to the public about the impacts of landlessness and dispossession. Resistance in the form of land defence continues today, in blockading extractive industries on Traditional Lands.
Perhaps because of this history, governments are responding to climate activists with nationwide legislative crackdowns in the form of anti-protest laws. The link between the protection of extractive industries, political power and government repression of protesters should concern all of us.
Long-term environmental activist Bob Brown, Human Rights Watch and a network of grassroots campaigners have condemned the recent raids and police repression against climate protesters, joining in solidarity with a collective warning from 40 civil society organisations.
However, by criminalising protest, governments expose their allegiance to profit before the people. Rather than generate fear amongst us, this may just mobilise more people in defence of systems that threaten life on Earth.
Is collective action commensurate to co-creating a sustainable future?.
…………………………………………………. Reclaiming our humanity in the face of planetary collapse is tapping into the one autonomous vehicle we have — our collective bodies. Speaking truth to power by drawing upon strategies that have worked in the past is an integral part of reimagining and bringing to life the regenerative future, one that we desperately need.
All we have is the Earth and each other https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/climate-protesters-criminalised-as-climate-crisis-escalates,16572
Nationalisation of EDF seen as ‘inevitable’ to carry out France’s nuclear plans
EDF’s market capitalisation has collapsed in the past few years, going from €150 billion in 2007 to less than €40 billion today.
A debt estimated at more than €43 billion, fuelled by delays in constructing its new fourth-generation reactors, also puts the company in a difficult spot.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/nationalisation-of-edf-seen-as-inevitable-to-carry-out-frances-nuclear-plans/ By Paul Messad | EURACTIV.fr | translated by Daniel Eck 18 July 22
The government’s decision to nationalise Electricité de France, announced on 6 July, provoked mixed reactions in the French Parliament.
Yet, according to Jean-Michel Gauthier, director of the Energy & Finance Chair at HEC Paris, the decision was “inevitable” because of the regulatory constraints faced by the company.
Under French law, EDF must sell part of its nuclear electricity to the competition at a set price (€42/MWh) and buy it back on the market like any other supplier.
But because of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the current market price stands above €200/MWh, according to France’s electricity transmission system operator RTE.
This means EDF is selling at a loss to feed the competition, something unions and many observers have decried as a “plundering” of the French company.
On top of that, the state has also asked EDF to dish out €8 billion for the so-called “tariff shield” to limit gas prices in times of crisis.
EDF’s market capitalisation has collapsed in the past few years, going from €150 billion in 2007 to less than €40 billion today.
A debt estimated at more than €43 billion, fuelled by delays in constructing its new fourth-generation reactors, also puts the company in a difficult spot.
But according to Professor Gauthier, the company’s debt “is not at all the subject”. It is even “irrelevant, with regard to the major subjects of energy and industrial policy in France,” he told EURACTIV.
According to Gauthier, the main challenges lie in the company’s vast nuclear programme. First, EDF will have to spend more than €50 billion by 2030 to extend the life of existing nuclear power plants.
As announced by President Emmanuel Macron in February, the French energy giant must also adopt measures to build six new fourth-generation EPR-type reactors. According to the latest estimates, that effort will cost €50-60 billion.
Going under full state ownership will offer EDF a debt guarantee, as well as lower rates to raise additional debt, Gauthier says.
More worrying, according to him, is the number of key points the state has dropped from its nuclear industrial policy in recent years.
“These are the major issues: what is to be done with the EPR 2, the third generation reactors, the ASTRID project and the small modular reactors (SMR),” he said.
The professor also questioned the state’s means to meet its pledged energy ambitions.
Renewables in all this?
However, these multi-billion euro projects only deal with nuclear without addressing EDF’s capacity to deploy renewable energies – another major priority of the government.
“Today, given the bubble around green finance, there is no reason for the state to own solar or wind power capacity,” explained Gauthier.
“We can therefore imagine [that we] go back to square one […], i.e. that the State puts the portfolio of EDF Renewables, a subsidiary wholly owned by EDF, on the market,” he added. This project could revive divisions between the state and the unions if green-lighted.
For the time being, it is necessary “to keep a single EDF”, the company’s CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy told broadcaster BFM TV on Monday (11 July).
EDF without renewables would be a dark “utopia”, he also said.
When it comes to energy-related decisions, the state must be the “only pilot” on board and the “only decision-maker”, Gauthier concluded.
4 French nuclear reactors authorized to discharge hotter water during heatwave, as 29 others remain offline
Heat wave: a fourth nuclear power plant authorized to release hotter water than normal to continue operating. Twenty-nine French reactors out of 56 are currently unavailable for various reasons. Hence these exemptions.
A temporary derogation from environmental rules has been granted to a new nuclear power plant, that of Bugey, in Ain, to allow it to continue to operate “at a minimum level of power” during the heat wave, according to a decree published on Sunday July 17. in the Official Journal .
“The reactors of the Bugey nuclear power plant discharging effluents into the Rhône may, during the fixed period (…), continue to practice these discharges as long as the heating after mixing of the effluents into the Rhône (.. .) does not exceed 3 ° C in average daily value” , specifies the decree of Sunday.
On Friday, a derogation had been granted to the nuclear power plants of Golfech (Tarn-et-Garonne), Blayais (Gironde) and Saint-Alban (Isère). For these three power stations and that of Bugey, the
authorization was granted until July 24th.
And this, while 29 French reactors out of 56 are currently unavailable for various reasons. Since
2006, each plant has had its own regulatory water discharge temperature limits that must not be exceeded. The power plants indeed pump water to cool the reactors, before rejecting it. The derogation device, which aims to guarantee the proper functioning of the electricity network, had so far only been used once, in 2018 for the Golfech power plant, for a period of 36 hours.
France Info 17th July 2022
Swiss nuclear power plant reduces output to protect fish during heatwave
One of Switzerland’s nuclear power stations has temporarily scaled back operations to avoid raising the temperature of its feeder river to levels that are dangerous for fish.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sci-tech/swiss-nuclear-power-plant-reduces-output-to-protect-fish-during-heatwave/47761010 , July 18, 2022
Beznau is Switzerland’s oldest nuclear plant and comprises two stations built on a small artificial island in the river Aare in the north of the country. Unlike two newer stations, Beznau was not built with a cooling tower but relies on water from the Aare to control temperatures.
Producing some 6,000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year typically raises the temperature of downstream water by between 0.7 and one degree Celsius.
Switzerland is experiencing a prolonged summer heatwave that has already raised the temperature of rivers, including the Aare. Freshwater fish species living in the river cannot tolerate water temperatures much above 25 degrees Celsius.
As a result, Beznau operator Axpo has been forced to reduce output to meet its legal environmental commitments.
The plant would be forced to shut down completely if water temperatures rise above 25 degrees for three consecutive days, reports Swiss public broadcaster SRFExternal link.
Switzerland is already facing up to the impact of rising energy costs and potential shortagesExternal link in the coming months, driven in part by meteorological conditions but also disruptions caused by the Ukraine war.
But this danger is expected to strike in the winter months when Switzerland’s hydro-power dams are less productive. At this time of year, the river temperature issue will be less of a problem.
Switzerland produces around 30% of its electricity from its three nuclear power plants. The government decided in 2011 to phase out nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
The initial idea was to stop nuclear power production by 2034. The Mühleberg plant is currently being dismantledExternal link.
Uncertainties about securing long-term power supplies led to the fixed deadline of 2034 being scrapped and replaced with a more vague commitment to only keeping the remaining power stations running as long as it is safe.
The lingering horror of thorium radioactive poisoning in West Chicago
On the one hand, the story of West Chicago and thorium is one of triumph: a small town overcomes the odds and makes a big corporation clean up its radioactive waste. On the other hand, thorium still haunts some residents, especially those living with illness or deaths in the family that they suspect are related.
Are West Chicago’s Radiation Worries Over?, BELT Magazine, By Liuan Huska, 13 July 22,
Sandra Arzola was relaxing in her West Chicago home one weekend in 1995, when she heard a knock at the door. Recently married, she shared the gray duplex with her husband, mom and sister, and family members were constantly coming and going. But when Sandra answered the door that day, what she learned would change how she looked at her home and suburban community forever.
At the door was a woman representing Envirocon, an environmental cleanup company. There was thorium on the family’s property, the woman said, and if it was OK with them, workers were coming to remove it. It was the first time Sandra had heard of thorium “It took me by left field,” she said. “But [the representative] made it sound like everything was going to be fine.”
Unknowingly, the Arzolas had bought their way into what the Chicago Tribune in 1979 called “the radioactive capital of the Midwest.” Not long after they purchased the property, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated it a Superfund site because of the hazardous waste in their yard.
The source of the danger was the old factory one block to the north of the Arzola home, which Jesse Arzola frequently went past while walking their dogs. From 1932 to 1973, the factory was the largest producer of rare earth and radioactive thorium compounds in the world. It started out producing lamps and later supplied thorium for the federal government’s atomic bomb development. But perhaps the factory’s most lasting legacy, at least in West Chicago, is the harmful radioactive waste that was dumped in ponds, piled at the factory and buried around homes and sidewalks across town.
Residents raised health concerns as early as the 1940s about the toxic material, but these were regularly dismissed by the factory, last owned by the Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation. Comprehensive environmental protection rules weren’t put in place until the early 1970s, leaving the factory largely free to dispose of its nuclear waste for decades.
It has taken just as long for the company and government to clean up the radioactive waste. As of 2015, the radioactive sites under federal jurisdiction near the factory have been cleaned to EPA standards. There are no remaining health risks from the land, according to government officials.
But below the factory, the groundwater is still polluted with a range of toxins – particularly uranium – that exceed protection standards. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency, which has jurisdiction over the site, expects remediation to begin this fall. ……………………..
Prolonged or high levels of radiation exposure can damage genetic material in cells and cause cancer and other diseases later on, especially for children, who are more sensitive to radiation. Only two public health studies, published in the early 1990s, have been conducted in West Chicago. Both found elevated cancer rates in the 60185 zip code, which includes the neighborhood around the factory……………………………
The challenges facing West Chicago residents today began ninety years ago, when Charles R. Lindsay moved his lamp factory from Chicago to what was then an undeveloped little town with multiple rail connections. The factory, now officially known as the Rare Earths Facility, took monazite ore and used powerful acids to extract minerals to make gas lanterns, which burned thorium nitrate to emit an incandescent glow. During World War II, it also supplied thorium to the federal government to develop the atomic bombs that were later dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan.
During its four decades of operation, the Rare Earths Facility processed up to one hundred and forty-one thousand tons of monazite. The liquid waste from the extraction process was dumped into unlined ponds around the factory, seeping into the surrounding water table. Solid waste, a black, sand-like material known as thorium tailings, piled up on site. Old-timers share stories of sneaking into the factory grounds and playing on “Mount Thorium.” When the pile got too big, the waste was trucked down the road to a new pile in Reed Keppler Park.
Facing mounting piles of toxic waste, Lindsay came up with another solution: offer the waste to residents for landscaping. From the 1930s through the 1950s, radioactive thorium tailings were distributed across town, mixed with concrete to pour foundations, mixed with topsoil for gardens and spilled along roadways. The company continued to do this as the risks of radiation exposure became widely known starting in the late 1940s through its effects on Japanese atomic bomb survivors.
Soon after the factory moved to West Chicago, people started complaining. In 1941, nearby residents sued Lindsay Light for releasing airborne hydrofluoric acid that killed trees and shrubs nearby.
The federal government did not begin regulating nuclear materials until 1954. Starting in 1957 the company received repeated citations for safety violations, including failing to fence off radioactive storage areas, exposing workers to radiation levels above standards and improper waste disposal.
As the environmental movement gained steam through the 1960s, growing public pressure pushed Congress to create the Environmental Protection Agency and pass the Clean Air Act of 1970 and Clean Water Act of 1972. That resulted in sweeping new regulations – and obligations to the American public – for companies like Kerr-McGee, which had gotten used to operating with limited oversight…………………………….
The EPA denied the company’s request for an operating permit and the factory shuttered in 1973. It was cheaper to cease operations than follow the new rules. By 1980, Kerr-McGee had started the process of closing down the West Chicago facility for good. Pressure from residents and the city pushed the company to begin cleanup on 119 contaminated residential properties.
Still, Kerr-McGee had another plan that worried residents: to permanently store thirteen million cubic feet of radioactive waste at the factory site in a four-story, twenty-seven-acre, clay-covered cell. Concerned residents formed an organization, the Thorium Action Group, to fight the company’s proposal. This spawned more than a decade of legal battles between residents, the city of West Chicago, and state of Illinois — who wanted the thorium out of town — and the company and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who insisted the waste could safely be stored in this densely populated neighborhood of West Chicago…………………
Moving the thorium waste out of town would take over two decades to complete. In the meantime, there was still the problem of radioactive tailings embedded around the neighborhood…………………….
The Arzolas’ experience is far from rare. Realtors in West Chicago have operated with a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, said longtime realtor and former West Chicago resident Dan Czuba. Unlike for radon or lead, realtors never received directives from the state or any licensing board to disclose other harmful thorium byproducts. People have had to do their own homework and decide whether or not a home was a risk. “To this day,” Czuba said, “I still don’t know that there was an official statement of, ‘Thorium will hurt you.’”…………………………………..
Throughout the decades, various groups have tried to get the word out about thorium. The Thorium Action Group was active through the early 2000s. Once the EPA got involved and Kerr-McGee agreed to move the waste out, the group dissipated………
The lack of easily accessible information surrounding the contamination and cleanups has left some residents with the nagging worry that there may be other hidden pockets of radiation around town……….
One house to the west and across the railroad from the Arzolas, Erika Bartlett grew up playing along the tracks and under her yard’s sprawling old oak trees. When she was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012, at age thirty-four, a friend asked if there was anything she could have been exposed to.
“Wait a minute, I actually was,” Bartlett told her friend. She thought back to her high school years, when the oak trees, swingset and above-ground pool at her house were removed during the radiation remediation. Bartlett realized she had spent her childhood, starting from age four, in a neighborhood embedded with nuclear waste. She wondered how many others living near the factory had similar health problems. That started her on a yearslong personal investigation into the town’s thorium legacy.
Between 2012 and 2016, as Bartlett was undergoing cancer treatment, she knocked on doors in the neighborhoods around the factory, an area covering about one square mile. She found over 200 cases of cancers and other illnesses that could stem from radiation exposure, including birth defects, Hashimoto’s and aplastic anemia, the illness that killed the pioneering radioactivity researcher Marie Curie in 1934.
“When I first started, I didn’t think I’d find anything,” Bartlett said. “But block after block, it seemed like a bigger deal than I thought.”
The EPA estimated that, before the waste was removed, radiation levels in some residential neighborhoods in West Chicago increased lifetime cancer risks up to seventy times what is acceptable……
The only official health studies into the impacts on people living near the factory were conducted over three decades ago, by the Illinois Department of Public Health. Among residents in the 60185 zip code, studies in 1990 and 1991 found elevated rates of cancer, including melanomas and lung, colorectal and breast cancers. By grouping exposed and unexposed people together, however, researchers said more differences may have been masked……………………………………….
On the one hand, the story of West Chicago and thorium is one of triumph: a small town overcomes the odds and makes a big corporation clean up its radioactive waste. On the other hand, thorium still haunts some residents, especially those living with illness or deaths in the family that they suspect are related………………… https://beltmag.com/are-west-chicagos-radiation-worries-over/
Biden Rebuked for ‘Openly Praising War Profiteering’ at Lockheed Martin
Critics said Biden’s visit to Lockheed Martin—whose CEO suggested to investors in January that the coming conflict would strengthen the company’s profits—offered a clear picture of the president’s current priorities
“This is all the [Democrats] can deliver,” said one critic. “War, policing, capital consolidation for warmongers, and more war
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/04/biden-rebuked-openly-praising-war-profiteering-lockheed-martin JULIA CONLEY. May 4, 2022
While reproductive rights advocates across the U.S. Tuesday called on the Democratic Party to do everything in its power to codify abortion rights into federal law, President Joe Biden called on Congress to approve more military aid for Ukraine after visiting a Lockheed Martin facility to praise its supply of weaponry.
Biden headed to Troy, Alabama to visit the factory where 600 workers have the capacity to produce more than 2,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles per year, applauding the facility for helping to defend “freedom and democracy itself” in Ukraine.
The U.S. has sent more than 5,000 Javelin missiles to Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country in February, according to the White House.
“The weapons built here—now in the hands of Ukrainian heroes—are making all the difference,” the president said.
Critics said Biden’s visit to Lockheed Martin—whose CEO suggested to investors in January that the coming conflict would strengthen the company’s profits—offered a clear picture of the president’s current priorities following the collapse of his domestic agenda, the Build Back Better Act and its anti-poverty and climate action provisions.
“Update on Biden’s economic agenda,” tweeted Stephen Semler of the Security Policy Reform Institute. “He’s abandoned his Build Back Better agenda and is now openly praising war profiteering.”
Following Biden’s visit to Lockheed Martin, the president called on federal lawmakers to approve $33 billion in additional aid for Ukraine, including $20 billion in security and military assistance and funds to replenish the Pentagon’s own stockpiles “to replace what we’ve sent to Ukraine.”
The U.S. has sent more than $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the war began on February 24.
CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin demanded to know how Lockheed Martin’s contributions are “saving civilization,” as the president said during his tour of the factory.
“Is war-making really civilized, no matter which side?” she asked.
Progressive political strategist Peter Daou denounced Biden for visiting the weapons facility as women’s rights in the U.S. apeared on the cusp of being effectively “gutted” following the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion in which Justice Samuel Alito said Roe v. Wade “must be overruled.”
Since the leak Monday night, progressives have been demanding that Biden push every Democrat in the Senate to support eliminating the filibuster in order to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify into federal law the right to obtain and provide abortion care. Right-wing Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) do not support filibuster reform.
Steven Thrasher, a professor at Northwestern University and author of The Viral Underclass, said Biden’s visit demonstrated that “this is all the [Democrats] can deliver: war, policing, capital consolidation for warmongers, and more war.”
“They’ve no money for Covid. They won’t legislate on abortion,” Thrasher said. “Just war, war, war.
The Biggest Lie The Hawks Ever Sold: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
The most important job of the western media right now is convincing the public that the world’s major powers splitting into two increasingly hostile alliances is probably nothing to worry about.
The Biggest Lie The Hawks Ever Sold: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, Caitlin Johnstone The US is the only nation on earth whose entire economy is built on arms manufacturing and security guarantees to tyrannical Gulf states. It’s not just correct to call the US empire a uniquely evil power structure, it’s correct to say it’s impossible for it not to be.
Saudi Arabia’s destruction of Yemen and proxy warfare in Syria are many thousands of times more evil and horrific than the assassination of one Washington Post columnist, but because the empire is built on that kind of bloodshed it gets far less attention.
Biden continuing the unbroken presidential tradition of courting the Saudis is not a betrayal of US values but a very normal expression of them. You either want the complete dismantlement of the US empire or you don’t. If you don’t, quit bitching about how the sausage gets made.
The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Republicans say they will do evil things and then do evil things, while Democrats say they will not do evil things and then do evil things…………..
Current proxy warfare tactics in Ukraine have no chance of delivering a swift defeat to Russia. What they do have is a pretty good chance of creating a costly military quagmire for Russia and a 100 percent certainty of creating massive profits for the arms industry.
The biggest lie the hawks ever sold was that their militaristic policies prevent the problems they actually create. Militarizing against Russia caused this war. The war on terror created terror groups. Continuing the encirclement of China will likely lead to a nasty confrontation there. Etc.
Working to bring down Moscow and Beijing would be a great way to move toward securing unipolar planetary hegemony while simultaneously unleashing the kind of worldwide economic chaos and desperation that shock doctrine capitalism engineers have heretofore only ever dreamed of.
At the end of this clip Bolton cites “classified information” as the reason he won’t name the other US coups he’s helped orchestrate, calling to mind when Assange said “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security”:
The most important job of the western media right now is convincing the public that the world’s major powers splitting into two increasingly hostile alliances is probably nothing to worry about. ………………. https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-biggest-lie-the-hawks-ever-sold?r=3pc89&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Greenpeace radiation investigation at Chornobyl to assess accuracy of IAEA data.
During the Russian occupation of the Chornobyl region, Greenpeace experts warned that this could lead to increased radioactive contamination.
But the IAEA gave an “all-clear” at the end of April. The nuclear agency has a mandate to promote nuclear power.
Greenpeace Germany will present the results of the Chornobyl radiation research, in English, at a press conference in Kyiv on July 20 at 9:00 am CEST (ZOOM Link: https://t1p.de/dzbks).
Greenpeace https://www.miragenews.com/greenpeace-radiation-investigation-at-chornobyl-820855/ 18 July 22,
Chornobyl, Ukraine – Near the ruins of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, an international team of radiation experts led by Greenpeace Germany is examining abandoned Russian positions for radioactive contamination. Trenches and dugouts were built by Russian soldiers during their occupation of the Chornobyl site in March. About 600 soldiers were deployed there. The research project is being conducted with the approval of the Ukrainian government and in cooperation with scientists from the State Agency of Ukraine on the Exclusion Zone Management (SAUEZM).
For the first time since the beginning of the Russian invasion, independent measurements will be taken and the April 28 statement of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be assessed. According to the IAEA, while there was increased radiation the levels did not pose a great danger to the environment or people. The IAEA’s deputy director is Mikhail Chudakov, a long-time employee of the Russian nuclear company Rosatom.[1]
Shaun Burnie, a nuclear expert from Greenpeace Germany, on site in Chornobyl, said:
“We want to know what really happened on the ground. The IAEA’s information so far is insufficient. The Ukrainian authorities are enabling the Greenpeace Germany research team to gather independent information about radiation safety in the region. This includes investigating the radioactive contamination that deposited in the Exclusion Zone when the Chornobyl reactor exploded in 1986. Between seven and nine tonnes of nuclear fuel were pulverized and ejected into the atmosphere in the 1986 explosion.”
During the Russian occupation of the Chornobyl region, Greenpeace experts warned that this could lead to increased radioactive contamination. But the IAEA gave an “all-clear” at the end of April. The nuclear agency has a mandate to promote nuclear power.[2]
“While the European Commission actively supports nuclear power by including it in its taxonomy. It’s more important than ever to investigate the environmental impact of Chornobyl, the world’s worst nuclear disaster,” said Burnie.
Greenpeace Germany will present the results of the Chornobyl radiation research, in English, at a press conference in Kyiv on July 20 at 9:00 am CEST (ZOOM Link: https://t1p.de/dzbks).
Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) may be of a point-in-time nature, edited for clarity, style and length. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s).View in full here.
Was Obama right about Russia-Ukraine?
NonZero Newsletter, 18 July 22, If President Obama’s successors had stuck with his policy toward Ukraine, would there be a war there now?
That question is raised by a 2015 New York Times article that Glenn Greenwald unearthed this week. And, though the answer, as with other great historical what-ifs, is “We’ll never know for sure,” you could make a case for “Probably not.” In any event, pondering the question has benefits—such as reminding us how constricted discourse about war becomes once a war is underway.
The Times article was about Obama’s refusal, in the face of bipartisan pressure, to send arms to Ukraine. Obama, the Times reported, “has told aides and visitors that arming the Ukrainians would encourage the notion that they could actually defeat the far more powerful Russians, and so it would potentially draw a more forceful response from Moscow.”
An anonymous source paraphrased Obama as asking questions like, “Okay, what happens if we send in equipment – do we have to send in trainers?” And, “What if it ends up in the hands of thugs? What if Putin escalates?” In the absence of satisfactory answers, Obama confined aid to things like helmets and night vision goggles.
After he left office, Washington reversed course and sent lethal military aid to Ukraine—billions of dollars worth. And, to answer Obama’s questions: Yes, that turned out to involve sending trainers to Ukraine—as well as conducting NATO-Ukraine military exercises on Russia’s doorstep; and yes, Putin escalated. This doesn’t mean that the former caused the latter, but the sequence of events leaves that possibility quite open.
By early fall of 2021, some American observers were warning that the kinds of fears Obama expressed were being born out. Ted Galen Carpenter of the CATO institute noted that Biden had continued and in some ways accelerated the flow of weapons started under Trump, including weapons that “Russia considers especially destabilizing.” Galen said Ukraine had become “a NATO member in all but name” and called this policy “arrogant, unwise, and potentially very dangerous.”
In Putin’s famously intense speech on February 21, a few days before the invasion, the flow of western weapons to Ukraine, and Ukraine’s increasingly close relationship to NATO, were central themes. ………………………….
given the power wielded within the Ukrainian military by its famously zealous Azov battalion, it’s certainly possible that assertiveness on the part of American-equipped Azov officers was a factor.
In any event, these are all good questions. So it’s unfortunate that, since the invasion, they’ve become virtually off limits. If you suggest that things like arming Ukraine or encouraging Ukraine to join NATO raised the chances of war, you’re accused of “reciting Putin talking points” or “justifying” Putin’s invasion (even if you explicitly and repeatedly say that the invasion was wrong and unjustified)……………………….. https://nonzero.substack.com/p/earthling-was-obama-right-about-russia?utm_medium=email
AEMO says firmed wind and solar cheapest reliable energy option by “country mile” — RenewEconomy
AEMO’s Westerman says firmed wind and solar are the cheapest reliable power option for Australia “by a country mile.” The post AEMO says firmed wind and solar cheapest reliable energy option by “country mile” appeared first on RenewEconomy.
AEMO says firmed wind and solar cheapest reliable energy option by “country mile” — RenewEconomy
Labor names three independent experts to Chubb-led review of carbon credits — RenewEconomy
Labor names three independent experts to panel reviewing integrity of carbon offsets scheme. The post Labor names three independent experts to Chubb-led review of carbon credits appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Labor names three independent experts to Chubb-led review of carbon credits — RenewEconomy
Video: Indigenous Elders Predicted Climate Crisis. Will Native Voices Finally Be Heard? — Vox Populi — Barbara Crane Navarro
Indigenous communities are among the most vulnerable to climate change, yet they still struggle to be heard by governments around the world. Their spiritual teachings might help civilization to change course and prevent disaster. Video: Indigenous Elders Predicted Climate Crisis. Will Native Voices Finally Be Heard? — Vox Populi
Video: Indigenous Elders Predicted Climate Crisis. Will Native Voices Finally Be Heard? — Vox Populi — Barbara Crane Navarro
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Opinion: ¶ “US EIA Projected The Future Of Electricity Generation In 2001. Why Were They So Wrong?” • Back in 2001, the US Energy Information Administration used its crystal ball and forecast the future of the US electricity supply through 2020. They forecast more coal, a small role for renewables, and steady growth in demand. […]
July 18 Energy News — geoharvey
The tragic obsession with the Chinese threat
From deliberately playing up and smearing China’s normal security cooperation with the Solomon Islands to eagerly jumping on the US bandwagon drumming up support for its containment policy against China, the current Australian government has displayed no signs of changing the course set by its predecessor.
The fact that the United States, thirty years after the end of the Cold War, still has well over 700 bases in at least 70 countries is accepted as normal, and in keeping with an international rules based order.
https://johnmenadue.com/joseph-camilleri-the-tragic-obsession-with-the-chinese-threat/
By Joseph CamilleriJul 20, 2022
Seven weeks in government, and still no sign that Labor in office is prepared to rethink the relationship with either China or the United States. The two are not unconnected. The link is their common addiction to the China threat thesis.
The fact that Australia’s new defence and foreign ministers have met with their Chinese counterparts is no doubt a positive step. But it comes primarily as a result of China’s openness to the idea of resetting the relationship.
The Chinese statement released after the meeting between Wang Yi and Penny Wong on 8th July makes this clear. It reports Wang Yi as saying: “China is ready to re-examine, re-calibrate, and reinvigorate bilateral ties in the spirit of mutual respect, and strive to bring bilateral relations back on the right track.”
The Australian statement is far more guarded. It refers first to “Australia’s concerns about a range of bilateral, regional, trade and consular issues”, and then goes on to say “. . . it is in both our countries’ interests for the relationship to be stabilised.”
But what does “stabilised” mean? China can be forgiven for thinking that what Australia wants is to stabilise its highly profitable trade with China, while continuing to be fiercely critical of Chinese policies at home and abroad, and to support US actions and pronouncements, however provocative Beijing may consider them.
One sentence in Penny Wong’s opening remarks at the meeting with Wang Yi gives the game away: “Australia’s Government has changed but our national interests and our policy settings have not.” It is precisely these policy settings which became the trademark of Liberal governments and provoked China’s ire, eventually prompting a suite of sanctions targeting Australian beef, wine, barley, and coal exports.
If the policy settings remain the same, it is because the Labor government has still to distance itself from the politically contrived anti-China hysteria which has swept the corridors of influence in Washington and increasingly in Canberra.
Not surprisingly, both Albanese and Wong made it clear before and since the May election that they took great exception to the China-Solomons Security Pact. The Labor opposition was critical of the Morrison government for being caught off guard and not acting in timely fashion to forestall the signing of such an agreement.
The widely held view within Australia’s security circles was that the agreement would in time pave the way for a Chinese military base less than 2,000 km from Australia’s coastline. Mainstream media, not noted for their expertise on China, assumed a sombre tone: ‘Australia’s gravest fears were about to be realised’.
Repeated assurances by Prime Minister Sogavare that the Solomons had no intention of allowing a Chinese naval base seemed to carry no weight. Explanations offered by both China and Sogovare that the agreement was intended to foster social stability in the Solomons appeared to fall on deaf ears.
The subsequent tour by Wang Yi of eight Pacific Islands became further grist to the anti-China mill. Apart from concluding bilateral agreements with each of the countries he visited, Wang Yi proposed a multilateral economic and security agreement known as the “China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision”. His meeting with the foreign ministers of the ten Pacific Island countries that recognise China rather than Taiwan declined to support the agreement, at least in its present form. But none of this was enough to placate the ‘frenzy of concern’.
Since being sworn in as foreign minister, Penny Wong has made four trips to the Pacific. This whirlwind of diplomacy supported by additional promises of development and security aid is ostensibly meant to repair Australia’s long neglected relationship with the Pacific. The underlying and unconcealed purpose is to secure a regional framework able to contain the “dangers of Chinese expansion”.
The threat posed by China now pervaded every facet of Australia’s foreign and security policy. A clear indication of this was Prime Minister Albanese’s decision to attend four international summits in his first seven weeks in office.
The first of these was the QUAD Leaders’ meeting in Japan. Predictably the communiqué issued at the end of the meeting pointedly called for a maritime rules-based order – codeword for continuing US military supremacy – that would include the East and South China Seas. Without referring to China by name, the statement pointed to China’s numerous sins, notably “the militarisation of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities.”
A few weeks later, Albanese joined NATO leaders in Madrid for what was billed as “the most important summit in generations”. For the first time in its history, it was attended by leaders of four key US allies in the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. The message was clear. Though the summit would direct most of its venom against Russia, China would not be spared.
The declaration issued by member states explicitly accused China of challenging NATO’s “interests, security, and values” and seeking “to undermine the rules-based international order.” But there was more to come.
The denunciation of China assumed vitriolic proportions in the much heralded NATO Strategic Concept adopted at the summit. It merits quoting at length:
The PRC’s malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target Allies and harm Alliance security. The PRC seeks to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains. It uses its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence. It strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in the space, cyber and maritime domains. The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.
Comments made by Albanese before and during the summit left little doubt that he concurred with the letter and spirit of these admonitions. To dispel any doubts, he launched a diatribe against China for its failure to condemn Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, drew a parallel between Ukraine and Taiwan and invited China to learn from Russia’s “strategic failure”. He went on to commit Australia’s participation in NATO exercises later in the year.
China’s response was swift and direct. The parallel between Ukraine and Taiwan was vehemently rejected. The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused Albanese of gross ignorance with regard to China’s stance on the Ukraine Crisis and Taiwan’s status. “Taiwan”, it emphatically asserted, “is not a sovereign country.”
The China Daily’s assessment was brutally frank:
From deliberately playing up and smearing China’s normal security cooperation with the Solomon Islands to eagerly jumping on the US bandwagon drumming up support for its containment policy against China, the current Australian government has displayed no signs of changing the course set by its predecessor.
This latest unfortunate episode raises unavoidable questions: When it comes to China, does the Labor government have any intention to distance itself from the dictates of current US policy and strategic rhetoric? Will it continue to despatch Australian warships and aircraft to the contested waters of the South China Sea and East China Sea? Recent incidents suggest that increased military activity of this kind heightens the risk of military confrontation, whether by accident or miscalculation.
It is difficult to see why Australia should entertain such risks, not least the prospect of a indefinite freeze in its relations with China. And this, simply to give credence to a threat scenario whose main objective, at best elusive and ultimately unattainable, is to ensure America’s regional and global dominance.
There is little evidence to support the claim that China is intent on using military force against its neighbours. Taiwan is a possible exception, but even here such a military thrust is unlikely to occur unless Taiwan foolishly moves towards a unilateral declaration of independence.
The fact remains that, despite its remarkable economic growth and a rising defence budget, China’s capacity to project military muscle pales in comparison with America’s global military reach.
The possibility, however distant, that the Chinese navy may gain access to one or more port or basing facilities in the Indio-Pacific region, routinely raises eyebrows and provokes deep consternation in government and media circles. The fact that the United States, thirty years after the end of the Cold War, still has well over 700 bases in at least 70 countries is accepted as normal, and in keeping with an international rules based order.
The same holds for China’s efforts to establish links with Australian institutions and political, business and community leaders. These are viewed with suspicion verging on hysteria. By contrast, the longstanding networks of influence which the United States, Britain or Israel have developed across Australia’s political, military and intelligence landscape are viewed with equanimity.
The carefully orchestrated threat scenarios that currently underpin Australia’s China policy offer few benefits. They simply feed on public fears, fan the flames of militarist discourse and policy-making, and heighten tensions in already troubled waters.
A rethink is more urgent than ever. It is unlikely to be facilitated, let alone initiated, by our moribund political parties or blinkered mainstream media. For now, only civil society, in its diverse expressions, can stimulate the mature public conversation we need to have.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
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