Australia’s role in saving the planet’s environment – theme for October 14
Well, Australia seems to be doing not too well in environmental matters, (nor in most others, at present). The sooner we get rid of the Abbott government, the better.
I’ve tried to be non political – because our land, our water, our air, our planet – these matters are beyond party politics. That is something that some Liberals are now realising.
The mass Climate Action Marches on September 21st showed that Australians care. On the local level, so many Australians, including Liberals, are working to conserve the wildlife, our water and land, and many are members of groups like Landcare, Australian Koala Foundation, and the most prominent activist groups – Australian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth, and Beyond Nuclear.
Australia’s environmentalists do have quite a proud history of achievement in environmental goals, really, a remarkable record in awakening public opinion and in slowing down polluting industries. It is thanks to the work of Australians like Dr Helen Caldicott that the atmospheric nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific were stopped. It is thanks to the anti-nuclear movement that Australia does not have the nightmare of nuclear power.
Australians in general do have a strong appreciation of nature. They also seem to be showing a keen appreciation of the economic and environmental benefits of clean energy. The September Climate March, is, I believe, the start of a stronger movement for public awareness of our ecological peril, and for action for positive change.
The Anthropocene Age and the role of nuclear power – theme for September 14
Great changes in the Earth’s history are marked in geological Ages, with great changes caused by events such as volcanoes, meteorite impacts, climate change and the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates, and occurring over millions of years. Now geologists are seeing changes in the Earth that are occurring over merely one hundred years.
These changes are caused by the activities of one species – human beings. They usher in a new Age – the Anthropocene (or human-caused ) Epoch.
The changes in the Anthropocene Age are already profound:
- Landscape – Deforestation, desertification, mountains carved by mining, rivers dammed and rerouted, islands sinking under sea level rise.
- Ecology – massive extinctions of species – loss of habitat, loss of biodiversity
- Climate change – rise in greenhouse gases in atmosphere, heating of air and oceans, acidification of oceans, glaciers melting, sea level rise
- Water – shortage of clean drinking water, pollution of groundwater and surface waters.
Those are just a few “headlines” for the changes that we have already wrought on the only liveable planet.
THE NUCLEAR CONTRIBUTION to the Anthropocene Epoch has already been great – with the landscape scarring effect of thousands of atmospheric and underground atomic bomb tests.
Radioactive pollution – from atomic bomb making, and testing, and from several parts of the nuclear power chain has affected soil, groundwater and air.
The nuclear lobby loves to talk about “background radiation” as if it’s all naturally caused and benign. However it includes radionuclides that never before existed on Earth – plutonium, strontium, cesium, carbon-14, and radioactive iodine from atomic bomb testing and other nuclear activities.
The nuclear industry – just one part in our trashing of Planet Earth – theme for September 14
The nuclear industry is the epitome of the whole process of human society destroying its own essential environment. While so-called “primitive” societies function on a culture of spirituality, and respect for the land, unfortunately the “developed” society has the upper hand in this sad world, and seems bent on mindless destruction.
I do single out nuclear power and nuclear weaponry, because this toxic industry has special features that do not apply in anything like the same degree, to our other toxic industries. These features are: secrecy, deception, false propaganda, invisible cancer-causing radiation, dangerous wastes lasting for thousands of years, weaponry that could quickly annihilate millions, astronomic costs to be paid by present and future generations.
This nuclear nastiness is symptomatic of the malaise affecting the world. The dominant culture of endless growth and endless consumption has now brought about global warming, and frightening climate change with extreme weather, sea level rise, and acidification of the oceans. The focus is now on climate change – but it is not the only disaster befalling our planet.
And all these disasters are related to each other – and to the race for to grow, consume, and sell. Where to start? – over-population, chemical pollution, deforestation, over-fishing, scarcity of clean water , destruction of habitats – loss of biodiversity, loss of arable soil, – just a few aspects of our truly disastrous world culture.
An alien space traveller might be bemused – observing how the world’s technocrats come up with “solutions”. Things like geo-engineering – an example of yet again trying out grand chemical fixes, which would make an awful lot of money for a few, and an awful lot of misery for many.
The trashing of our world is the background to the distrust between ethnic and religious groups, and to violent and criminal clashes. That in turn, feeds the greedy weapons industry, which, while making a few people rich, sets the scene for military destruction of the world environment.
My favourite silly solution is the push to set up a colony on Mars. Never mind that Mars average temperature is 51F, but can reach – 184F on cold nights, that there’s not enough oxygen, that there’s no magnetic field to protect us from cosmic radiation, there’s intolerably low atmospheric pressure …..etc. Never mind that the astronauts would probably die on the way there anyway.
There IS NO PLANET B.
Australia’s role in the pollution of the planet – theme for September 2014
Australia is seen as the “lucky country” – wealthy, healthy, progressive – happily remote from the troubles, and the pollution of other countries. But, as Barry Jones once wrote – Sleepers Awake!
Australia is well and truly up there with the major world polluters. Indeed, we boast the greatest greenhouse emissions per person, of any country in the world. We’re letting the coal industry trash the Great Barrier Reef. We’re killing our one and only major river system – the Murray Darling. We’re champion deforesters. Australia’s thin arable topsoil is being blown and washed away. Radioactive pollution has been with us since the inception of the dirty uranium industry, and the colonialist scandal of Britain’s atomic bomb testing, – and fools are recommending that we get more of it!
This website has focused on the nuclear industry. But really, that should not be separated from all the other criminal offences against the planet – carried out because of an exploitative and crazy culture of endless growth and endless consumption.
We’d better hope that it is not too late to change. At a “local level” Australians can learn from traditional Aboriginal land management, as described by Bill Gammage in his book The Biggest Estate”
At a global level, we’d better take part in the world-wide movement towards clean energy, and towards a conserver, rather than a consumer, society.
The perfect terrorism targets – nuclear facilities – commercial and military
We know what a suicide plane crash can do to buildings. We know what missiles can do to planes. But what about the radioactive devastation that terrorist missiles, bombs, computer hacking could do to nuclear facilities?
While the nuclear nations ramp up their nuclear weapons – supposedly for “security” “defense” – they are in fact increasing their vulnerability – setting up targets for terrorists.
Nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel pools, nuclear waste containers, nuclear transports – these are indeed the perfect targets for terrorist attack. Meanwhile the nuclear lobby spins out its guff about “energy security” blah blah. Governments worry about earthquakes, floods, tsunamis – and well they should.
The “twin towers” attack of September 2011, the missile attack on a civilian plane over Ukraine – surely these are indications of why it is time to get rid of those even more terrible targets – the world’s nuclear facilities.
Australia’s nuclear targets for terrorists – theme for August 2014
In August, we remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki and World War 2. The fear of nuclear war still hangs over the world. However, terrorism is now a more likely threat. The nuclear industry in all its forms provides for terrorists the best possible targets. 
AUSTRALIA RISKS AN EVEN WORSE NUCLEAR TARGET FUTURE
Greedy businessmen and unimaginative politicians are scheming to get the entire nuclear fuel chain into this country. This will inevitably be part of the USA militatarism in the region, and will provide not just one nuclear terrorism target, as we now have, but many. The big push is for the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor ( LFTR), Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Importation of Nuclear Wastes. A lot of money for a few? A lot of danger for all of us! 
Nuclear wastes – theme for October 2012
The world faces a dangerous and ever more pressing problem – nuclear wastes. In Australia – “new nuclear” is being hyped as the answer- don’t believe it!
The logical steps to deal with nuclear wastes are:
1. Stop making the stuff. Close down the commercial and military nuclear reactors that produce plutonium and other long-lived radioactive materials
2. Choose the “least worst” option to dispose of the existing nuclear wastes – (a) Interim storage of radioactive wastes into above ground containers (b) Deep burial underground permanent repositories.
The nuclear lobby, desperate to stave off the death of its industry, comes up with grand promises of new Generation IV systems, reactors that will reprocess, “recycle” plutonium wastes into Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) to fuel for other Gen IV reactors. At the end, highly toxic radioactive wastes are still produced.
And all this – despite the enormous costs, the very dangerous transport of plutonium, the risks of terrorism, the increased risks of weapons proliferation.
The nuclear lobby’s cries for Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTR)s, Super Critical Water Reactors (SCWR)s, Molten Salt Reactors (MSR)s, Gas Cooled Fast rectors (GCFR)s, Sodium Cooled Fast Reactors (SCFR)s, Lead Cooled Fast Reactors (LCFR)s – all desperate and conflicting cries for their own salvation, rather than any solution to wastes, costs, climate change, energy needs.
The worry is that the nuclear lobby might win, by manipulating governments and populations into buying their expensive and dangerous new toys – because nobody really wants a nuclear waste tomb in their area.
The trouble is – nuclear cemeteries, however unappealing, are still the least worst option.
WOMEN and Nuclear Power – theme for May 2014
Decisions on nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear wastes are almost exclusively made by men.Yet the brunt of nuclear-caused cancer is suffered by women and children, as is the brunt of nuclear war, and of depleted uranium spread.
Opinion polls over many years, and in many countries, consistently show that women are opposed to nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
More women than men are concerned about health and environmental effects of the nuclear industry.
Yet they are consistently reassured by narrowly educated nuclear physicists, and other technocrats, that nuclear power is safe, and that they have nothing to worry about in regard to ionising radiation.
Decisions on nuclear power and ionising radiation. The nuclear power heirarchy is almost uniformly male, though the nuclear lobby tries hard to pretend that they have equal rights credentials by getting a few token women to show off. And, a favourite male trick, – put a woman in an untenable position – as for example, Anne Lauvergeon was put at the top of France’s rather wobbly 
pinnacle of nuclear expansionism – AREVA.
In Australia they’ve given the CEO job for Toro Energy – with its unlikely-to -be profitable uranium enterprise to Vanessa Guthrie
The continuing nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima – theme for March 2014
Fukushima still out of control February-2014 The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation.
The crisis in Japan has been described as “a nuclear war without a war”. In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:
“This time no one dropped a bomb on us … We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives.”
Nuclear radiation –which threatens life on planet earth– is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern. While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far more serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine…..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz1j4IHcsP4
The power of WORDS about nuclear power, climate change – theme for February 2014
The nuclear power lobby and the fossil fuel lobby spend $billions in publicising their industries and in combatting established information on nuclear dangers and on global warming. This is done through “front groups” such as (for pro nuclear) the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition., (for climate denial) American Enterprise Institute.
It’s getting more difficult to spot these propagandists, because increasingly, they are using sophisticated Internet techniques. These have been beautifully explained in How to spot an astroturfer or an online fake -some of the organisations and techniques are summarised in the sidebar at right.
However, the words alone can help you to spot a fake. Look out for these two types of language:
BIG WORDS – in long complicated sentences – guaranteed to confuse the ordinary reader. The aim is to make you think that the writer is much smarter than you, and his opinion must be right. Amongst the big words, some quack science ones – like hormesis, adaptive radiation, andradiophobia Also,you are referred, by links, to obscure articles in even more complicated language.
SMALL WORDS and CLICHES – short positive ones, with no backup information, e.g. “clean -green-safe-cheap nuclear power”. Or negative cliches e.g. “hysterical- paranoid- emotional – irrational – delusional – extremists –alarmist – scare mongerer” applied to anti nuclear people, or those who want action on climate change.
Australia – Nuclear, Climate, and Weasel Words: theme for February
For this particular theme in Australia, we are surely blest, in having a world class exponent of the art of weasel words, in our very own revered Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.
Moving away from his previous obviously belligerent and direct style -e.g. “climate change is crap”, Tony Abbott now uses weasel words. These are words that sound good, but in fact convey no clear meaning. For example: “the government accepts that climate change is real and that humanity does make a contribution, but the important thing is to take strong and effective action to deal with it.”
With statements like this, no detail given, Abbott nevertheless covers all bases – looks good. while his spokesman Maurice Newman expresses Abbott’s real attitude.“The scientific delusion, the religion behind the climate crusade, is crumbling” Abbott’s “Direct Action Plan -is it simply an empty charade devised by a skeptic wanting to give the impression he is prepared to do something about climate change?
Tony Abbott is smart. He uses weasel words to appeal to appeal to all sides, while saying nothing concrete. In the case of nuclear power- well, Tony’s other (well known) strategy is silence. Abbott again appoints someone who speaks for him – the next Governor General, Peter Cosgrove. – a strong advocate for nuclear power.
Civil Liberties and Nuclear Power for Australia?
Japan leads the way, with its new State Secrets Law enacted to punish whistleblowers. politicians leaking secrets. anyone publishing information designated as “secret”. It allows the government to cover up issues such as corruption in the nuclear industry. It punishes journalists who speak out, and effectively censors nuclear news in the media
It is well known that the USA encouraged Japan to adopt this law. As the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe becomes ever more of a global problem, the nuclear industry (?too big to fail) and its servant governments increase in suppression of civil liberties.
With uranium mining, nuclear power, nuclear wastes, and nuclear weapons, – civil liberties are increasingly eroded. They must be, even when all seems to be going smoothly. Nuclear reprocessing, with plutonium as fuel, would necessitate taking away even more civil liberties.
A police state would develop, even with “peaceful” nuclear reprocessing. But imagine how fast we would lose civil liberties, in the event of yet another nuclear mishap – theft of plutonium, terrorist strike, accident. For a start, the public would not even be informed, (for fear of public panic). Very quickly, that police state would be turned into a martial law state.
Nuclear Power ,Civil Liberties, Australia – theme for January 2014
We’re in an extraordinary climate of nuclear “spin”, as the powerful USA nuclear lobby works with some greedy Australians to get Australians to support tax-payer funded nuclear power.
The pack of lies surrounding nuclear costs, the new untried nuclear designs, the supposed need for nuclear submarines, the myth of nuclear fixing climate change, and especially the myths against renewable energy – all these form a nexus of deceit.
This deceit will be sold to the Australian public during 2014. To my mind, this pervasive deceit is a Number 1 offence against human rights – against the right to know the truth.
There are other civil liberties lost, in the context of nuclear power. Australia has a shameful history of violating civil rights – in the secrecy, and harm done to Aboriginals and other communities, and soldiers, of the nuclear bomb tests of the 1950s.
Even the less extensive radiation-heath problem of Hunter’s Hill, NSW, was covered up, and cancer victims never got recognition and justice. Similarly, with past uranium mining, where radiation monitoring was non existent, and cancer victims had no redress.
Today, Australia hosts the secret Pine Gap US military site, and is likely to increase its role in the USA’s military nuclear “umbrella”. With increasing nuclear facilities come increasing (and necessary) security, censorship, crackdown on dissent. Nuclear countries – USA, France, India, China, and Japan experience the crackdown on anti-nuclear protestors. Australians can expect increasing loss of civil liberties if we let the nuclear lie prevail in this country.
Peace – nuclear disarmament – theme for December 2013
Peace on Earth to people of good will
But what is good will? How is it shown? The answer is in respect for one another. 
Respect means listening to the other’s point of view, and clearly saying your own point of view. It means discussion, argument – communication.
It can be difficult and time consuming. It often seems easier to just hit someone, show them who’s boss, as we have seen in countless Hollywood films – where might is right.
Communication is the alternative to war – and people use communication to get along, and resolve differences – at home, in the community, the region – and nationally and internationally.
The world is pretty much at the crossroads now. Some Israeli and USA politicians threaten military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran threatens retaliation. North Korea continues to be a nuclear weapons worry and China, India, USA, Russia, UK ramp up their nuclear weapons. Threats, decisions for violent action – it all seems simpler quicker, easier – easier than communication, negotiation, diplomacy.
Peace on Earth – with a nuclear free world – theme for December 2013
Australia can be proud of its history of anti nuclear activism – it has kept 
Australia nuclear weapons free, nuclear power free, and has limited and slowed the uranium industry. Now more than ever, Australia needs its anti nuclear movement, and the Greens party
In both Liberal and Labor parties, machinations go on, behind the scenes, to make Australia a nuclear industry hub, – from uranium quarry right through to nuclear waste dump for the world.
What nice Christmas presents these would make, for their corporate backers!
The Liberals have always been ready to sell out Australia’s clean energy future – and both parties make hypocritical statements about peace, while allowing BHP, ERA, to supplying uranium – fuel for nuclear weapons.
The Labor party already has reneged on its commitment to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, since Prime Minister Julia Gillard dramatically caved in to USA pressure and allowed uranium sales to India. The ALP is stacked with little go getters who know where their corporate backing comes from. Gary Gray, Paul Howes are the prominent pro nuclear Labor figures.
But Labor in general shuts up until they think the timing is right. Labor leader Bill Shorten proclaims Labor’s anti nuclear policy (for now) but in reality, Shorten sits on the fence, ready to go whichever way the wind is blowing – “in the case for nuclear power the jury is out” “I do see the uranium mining debate as separate to the nuclear power debate”.
Aboriginal Senator Nova Peris stands out in her opposition to the Muckaty radioactive trash dump plan. And The Greens are still there – with Christine Milne, Scott Ludlam, Adam Bandt, Larissa Waters standing firm in their anti nuclear commitment.
Australia’s anti nuclear movement continues – and with it grows the movement, at home and abroad, towards clean, non nuclear, renewable energy.
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 