Pro nuclear spin now wearing thin
No surprise that Australia’s nuclear establishment is revving up propaganda at present – with falling uranium prices, and Fukushima, and even Chernobyl won’t go away.
Australia could just be waking up at last. Today, Helen Caldicott reminds us of the World Health Organisation’s subservient position to the International Atomic Energy Agency. A reminder of the current nuclear mafia’s “spin” about nuclear radiation being sort of OK, after all.
Australia can’t continue to get away with:
(a) selling uranium to Fukushima reactors, to Russia, China, – pretending the industry is safe, and not connected with weapons.
(b) Australian companies setting up uranium and rare earths industries in countries with poor environmental regulation – e.g Paladin in Africa, and now Lynas, in Malaysia
Ziggy Switkowski, Barry Brook, Michael Angwin, and a swag of Liberal and Labor heavies can try to put it over the Australian public, on the nuclear industry – but they just might not be succeeding any longer.– Christina Macpherson
Urgent need for Australians to wake up to nuclear “spin”
You must hand it to the Australian nuclear lobby. Frontmen Ziggy Switkowski, Barry Brook, Michael Angwin are crisscrossing the continent – bolstering the nuclear industry to selected forums of stuffed shirts.
Uranium companies – Paladin, Cameco, Toro – touting their wares, even as uranium shares plummet.
Feverish negotiating is going on to bribe Aboriginals to lease their land for uranium mining.
But to me – the big danger at the moment is the way in which the media allows the subtle downplay of the Japanese nuclear crisis. And more – this focus on Fukushima not being so bad -( indeed a stimulus for the nuclear industry?) – this focus is obscuring an important current trend:
As you will see, from items below – as nuclear stagnates, renewable energy is forging ahead.
Alexander Downer joins the push for an Australian nuclear waste import industry
There’s a determined little group that continues to push for Australia to import nuclear wastes.- John White (Australia Nuclear Fuel Leasing) Ron Walker and Robert Champion de Crespigny, (Australian Nuclear Energy) .
Now that ever smiling, former Liberal politician Alexander Downer joins them, as reported in today’s THE AUSTRALIAN
I mean – let’s face it – their plan would make an awful lot of money for a very small number of people. And the costs? – no problem – taxpayers from here to eternity will pay that! – Christina Macpherson
About Australia’s water, and about those naughty radioactive fish
Australia is a water scarce continent. Nowdays the technocrats are bleating about how we need Desalination Plants.
But let’s get it straight about who really needs desalination plants. Why it’s that rapacious old multinational corporation, BHP Billiton. BHP B has open slather, at no cost whatever, to its daily guzzle of 35 million litres, and BHPB plans to extract an additional 120 million litres of publicly-owned artesian water per day, every day, for the next 70 years.
Then the desal plant in South Australia. (Never mind that this will mean 
extinction for the unique and beautiful giant cuttlefish. Just another victim to corporate profit.)
Now to those naughty radioactive fish, with Cesium that lasts for 30 years. Well, 1. they don’t stay in one place – they swim elsewhere.
And 2. they get eaten by bigger fish, and so on, in each case concentrating radioactivity further, as predators take the radioactivity up the food chain. -it’s very concentrated by the time it gets to top predators. And shock horror – who are these top predators. Why – it’s US! – Christina Macpherson
The global radioactive toilet – a plague species fouls its home
Time was when Europeans emptied their toilet pans out of windows, into the street.
Now we think that’s disgusting. But – now no problem with the oceans. We’ve been dumping sewage, plastics and all sorts of rubbish into the seas for decades.
Now – the ultimate insult to the oceans – it’s OK to dump radioactive water. This could be a precedent for future nuclear waste problems. I’m sure that the nuclear establishment will be happy with that – if we are.
Don’t let the nuclear industry make an April fool of you
AS the Fukushima tragedy unfolds, the uranium/nuclear lobby redoubles its unethical pr0paganda.
Not only are they telling us that uranium will be a boom industry – in the face of all the economic indications to the contrary, but they now proclaim that ionising radiation is not so bad, even good for you in low doses!
They point to Chernobyl – and proclaim taht the health/death toll from that is small.
Yet reputable health experts tell us that 2011 – 25 years after the accident, wis the key year for fatal cancers to emerge, from the population’s wide exposure to low level ionising radiation. – Christina Macpherson
‘Regulatory Capture’ and ‘Objectivity’ – important words
First – a new term –‘ Regulatory Capture‘ – came up this week, in the documentary “Inside Job”. Here, it was used to show how Wall Street executives got their agenda into financial regulations, and into University courses on Economics.
Well, the same must be said about the nuclear industry. Nuclear physicists and nuclear company men manage the rules, and pronounce on matters nuclear.This is Regulatory Capture. (It’s about as impartial as expecting the Pope and Cardinals to decide whether or not God and the saints exist.)
Second – ‘Objectivity‘. This is a very worthy word, used by a top BBC executive recently to explain the BBC’s approach to current issues. It means that they weigh up opinions, and decide to focus on the ones with credible evidence.
If only Australia’s ABC and media had that focus. Instead, we get ‘Balance” – meaning that however crackpot and minority a view may be, it must get equal coverage with the opposing scientifically credible view.
Perhaps this is one cause of Australians’ lamentable lack of understanding on the issue of climate change – as our media makes sure to give plenty of coverage to the likes of Lord Monckton and Ian Plimer – Christina Macpherson
Earth Hour’s message towards a Conserver Society
Some environmentalists dismiss Earth Hour as pretty much irrelevant to the global
warming crisis, and to the issue of nuclear energy.
But I think that they are wrong. Earth Hour in itself might mean just a temporary drop in energy use, worldwide. But during Earth Hour, people realise how they can manage quite well, using less energy.
This is a subversive message – for it contradicts the whole “philosophy” behind society’s present rampant consumerism,
and ever-growing need to use more energy.
If the Consumer Society were to change to a Conserver Society, then the planet and its atmosphere would be treated with respect. Greenhouse gas emissions would diminish, and it would be obvious that nuclear energy is not needed. The nuclear lobby thrives on ever-growing consumption of energy and material “goods” – Christina Macpherson
Nuclear Marketing: theme for March: ‘spinning’ Japan’s emergency
Above all – it will be argued that this incident shows the stability of new nuclear power plants. Despite a record earthquake, they are said to be not seriously damaged – no threat to the public. Somehow the incident shows the success of new designs. Any small flaw that let this happen will now be rectified in all future models, and we can all sleep peacefully, near a nuclear reactor
The nuclear marketeers have started the spin already– Christina Macpherson. You will hear Barry Brook, Ziggy Spinowski and many others, crapping on about how wonderfully safe are “3rd Generation nuclear reactors”. They will pay a little lip service to renewable energy, while subtly rubbishing it.
1. We are already being told that “background” radiation is minimal – so that 8 times that much is unimportant. Continue reading
Lies and blind greed about Australia’s carbon price, and uranium sales
Oh dear, oh dear -Have you noticed what is going on in Australian politics, and in the marketing of uranium?
First there are the blatant lies against carbon pricing. We have the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott all out to stop Australia “leading the world” on a carbon price. Yet a carbon price has been operating very well in 30 countries, creating jobs and saving $millions of Euros,
Then there’s the amazing disregard for the danger of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. We have the Australian government touting for uranium sales to United Arab Emirates, and an Australian company helping Egypt to get a nuclear reactor. Yet the Middle East is in uproar, and there’s no knowing what kinds of regimes are going to result there. –
There’s also Rio Rinto’s ERA uranium mine at Ranger – desperately being kept going despite climate threats of flooding, in the hopes of expanding and of booming sales to the Middle East. Christina Macpherson
Political paralysis over Climate Change and Nuclear
Australia, this forlorn outpost of Western culture, is now experiencing a burst of American Tea Party -style incitement to stupidity, and perhaps even, to violence -against the government’s carbon tax plan.
Democracy surely is in danger, when loutish radio “shock jocks” like Glenn Beck, in USA, and Alan Jones in Australia, can front for powerful polluting industry lobbies. Australia’s mainstream media in general, is also now once again used to conduct a barrage of attacks against any action to address Climate Change.
We saw it in 2010, where somehow or other, billionaires were portrayed as poor grassroots activists, against the Resources Super Profits Tax- and where our elected Prime Minister was vilified and removed from office.
The goal of the small number of billionaire individuals, polluters of the environment, is to stop any environmental action. Obama’s administration is practically paralysed. Australia’s government is now likely to become paralysed, at best. At worst, it could be removed, removed, in favour of an Abbott-led administration, absolute lackey of the polluters.
As usual Nuclear Waste crisis is NOT covered in the Australian news media
As the Australian government rushes to impose a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory, (against Northern Territory law) the Australian media chooses to see this issue as about gay marriage.
Euthanasia, gay marriage fears over Greens bill, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 11, “…….The Greens bill proposes to remove the ability of a Commonwealth minister to veto laws passed by a territory government.Instead, both houses of Federal Parliament would have to agree to a veto, making territory laws more difficult to overturn…….the bill had the potential to pave the way for euthanasia and gay marriage.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gillard is off to the USA to talk with US administration about what? Will the USA’s nuclear waste dilemma be discussed?
The USA nuclear waste problem has been swept under the carpet by a curious new rule from its Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This is the “WASTE CONFIDENCE RULE” – which argues that the problem is presently unsolved, but the NRC has faith that it will be solved some time later, thererfore new nuclear power can go ahead? (Even the Pope, who is infallible, might blush to make such a statement) – Christina Macpherson
Marketing nuclear to Australians – theme for March 2011
2011 is NUCLEAR MARKETING YEAR for Australia. It is not like marketing nukes to other countries. Why not?
The marketing of nuclear power to Australians is a charade – just a matter of marketing the IDEA of nuclear power, without seriously planning the reality. Because everyone knows that Australia has plentiful coal and abundant renewable energy resources. Everyone knows that the cost of nuclear for Australia is completely prohibitive. So – nuclear power’s not going to happen, anyway, for a very long time, and more likely, never.
BUT – nuclear power must be marketed to Australians, because the supposed uranium boom requires Australia to sign up for the full nuclear cycle. And another boom has John White and others salivating – the projected boom in importing international radioactive wastes. Why not? – We’ve got plenty of Aboriginal land for the dumping.
As a distant, poorly informed, cultural colony of the Big Powers, Australians are sitting ducks for the media marketing push about to be unleashed in the famous “Nuclear Debate”
Some others in the nuclear marketing dance troupe: John Howard ( former PM), Dick Smith, (entrepreneur), Colin Barnett (WA Premier), Julie Bishop (Deputy Liberal leader), Ian MacFarlane (Liberal Energy shadow minister). Hugh Morgan (former CEO Western Mining), Ron Walker (Former Melbourne Lord Mayor), Warren Mundine (former ALP President, Josh Frydenberg (Liberal MP for Kooyong). Not one of them knowing much about health or environment
And – let’s not forget the nuclear lobby’s Australian poster boy – Barry Brook.
the Marketing of Nuclear Power – theme for March
The nuclear lobby spends undisclosed amounts on spreading its gospel. The message must appeal to all sorts of people. But, importantly, the nuclear message must be spread through “credible” avenues – so, the money and the message are directed towards particular, respectable, sectors.
In this world of global nuclear recession slowly recovering, donations from big corporations are gratefully received, careers are enhanced, pro nuclear people are promoted, grants for nuclear research are given. Grants to the arts enhance the respectability of the nuclear/uranium corporations.
‘We’ve seen it all before, in the tobacco industry promotion – but the nuclear marketing is more urgent, more desperate, as the nuclear industry is waning, rather than reviving.
About Civil Liberties, and About Climate Change, in Australia
On Civil Liberties. I can’t help noticing how Australian mainstream media, and the Australian government, make a huge fuss about the rights of their convicted drug dealers in Asian countries. Also about an Australian Rio Tinto executive, convicted of bribery, in China.
But what happens when it’s an Australian citizen, who is not charged with any crime, but who has managed to offend the sensibilities of Australia’s master – the USA? So – not only is Julian Assange’s plight ignored by Australia’s mass media and government – but Prime Minister Julia Gillard denounced him, and actually said that he had acted “illegally”.
On Climate Change. I wonder whatever Tony Abbott will make of the new carbon tax plan. We know that he’s a Climate Change Denier. BUT, – as a pusher for nuclear power, surely Abbott should be toeing the BHP Billiton line – about nuclear power being the solution to climate change – therefore action on carbon emissions is good? – Christina Macpherson
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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