Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Kim and Trump can continue to hold the world hostage under threat of nuclear annihilation

The scary truths about Trump’s nuclear summit https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/15/the-scary-truths-about-trump-s-nuclear-summit/ In which Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un compared the size of their nuclear buttons. Violet Blue, @violetblue   

In the first summit meeting between the leaders of the United States and North Korea, Donald Trump met with Kim Jong-un, on June 12, 2018, in Singapore. The two leaders smiled warmly, posed for cameras as friends, shook hands, and Trump spoke in glowing terms of admiration about Kim at the news conference.

The summit came after a year and a half of both men terrorizing the world with open threats of thermonuclear annihilation and childish public insults. Trump derisively nicknamed the North Korean dictator “Rocket Man” and called him “fat and short,” while Kim Jong-un called Trump “a mentally deranged U.S. dotard.” This week’s historic meeting was nearly scrapped by Trump in a threatening, yet passive-aggressive letter to Jong-un that tried to make the cancellation look like it was North Korea’s idea.

On behalf of the United States, Trump conceded to Kim the discontinuation of joint military exercises with South Korea and to withdraw troops stationed there; he also gave Jong-un international standing and lavished him with compliments. He echoed North Korean rhetoric, which characterizes the military exercises as “very provocative.”

In response to accusations about giving away the farm for a handful of rocks and rusty Nuka Cola bottle caps, USA Today reported that other than agreeing to a meeting, Trump said “I gave up nothing.”

In return, we got a crazy-vague joint statement wrapped in a PR stunt. All North Korea gave us was a meeting. The signed agreement had no specificsabout denuclearization. The 1 1/2 page document ignored North Korea’s existing stockpile of nuclear weapons, had no verification provisions whatsoever, and failed to address ongoing issues of its attacks, kidnappings, and physical threats on Japan and South Korea.

North Korea has historically avoided true nuclear disarmament, preferring to qualify any agreements instead as denuclearization of the peninsula. “That has always been interpreted as a call for the United States to remove its “nuclear umbrella” protecting South Korea and Japan,” wrote Reuters. The country has promised denuclearization since the 1990s and has repeatedly ignored that promise as a rule.

Emerging from the summit as a victorious bringer of peace on Earth, Trump tweeted that “everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”

It was a stunning concession when Trump announced, “We will stop the war games which will save us a tremendous amount of money.” It shocked and baffled South Korea and other allies, the Pentagon, US military officials, and members of the Republican Party. This came hot on the heels of Trump saying it would be better if South Korea and Japan protect themselves.

South Korea and Japan are not feeling the same love in the air as Trump and Jong-un. “His announcement was a surprise even to President Moon Jae-in’s government in Seoul,” wrote Reuters. “One South Korean official said he initially thought Trump had misspoken.” South Korea’s largest newspaper Chosun Ilbo openly worried that the North will keep its nuclear weapons program permanently as a result of Trump’s concessions, describing the summit as “dumbfounding and nonsensical.”

You see, we’ve allied ourselves to help protect South Korea for some pretty big reasons. If, like Trump, you’re encountering a North Korea-US summit with no prep whatsoever, here’s a quick bit of background.

North and South Korea have been divided since 1945; for a short period Russia occupied the North while the US occupied the south; during the war, China aided the north and the US aided the south (we lost 54,246 lives and 7,704 American soldiers are still unaccounted for). The Korean War ended with an armistice agreement but no peace settlement, so technically the war has never ended. American military remains in the South as part of a mutual defense treaty.

Fast forward to 1963 and the world finds out that the North has begun building a nuclear reactor. Then a nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. The first time North Korea committed to denuclearization was 1992’s Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — though historically, nuclear inspectors have been barred from surveying North Korean facilities.

Earlier this year, a team of Stanford University experts — one who visited North Korean nuclear facilities multiple times — formulated a detailed planfor the dismantlement of the North Korean program with a 10- to 15-year estimate. In statements surrounding the summit, Trump — who has no science advisor — said “I think whoever wrote that [estimate] is wrong.”

Before going into the summit Trump bragged about his lack of preparation and said that he “will know, just [by] my touch, my feel” how to assess Kim Jong-un’s nuclear plan.
Trump, who coasted into the White House on his sole qualification as a dealmaker, came straight to the North Korean denuclearization summit after failing to make a deal about milk with Canada. That was at the G-7 summit in Quebec, to which he arrived late and left early and wholly tanked by withdrawing the US from the signed trade declaration, all while somehow managing to piss off the one country known as the world’s friendliest. He spent the weekend petulantly talking smack about the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, whom he called “very dishonest and weak.”

He ran from G-7 straight into the arms of Kim Jong-un, with whom he seemed genuinely pleased. As a token, Trump commissioned a gift for North Korea’s leader in the form of a fake Hollywood movie trailer about the two of them, starring together, bringing peace and happiness to the world. It included lines like “featuring President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un … in a meeting to remake history.” He played it on an iPad for the dictator in their private meeting. Washington Post reported that when it aired in the press room, journalists assumed the video was North Korean propaganda.

Reuters explained that prior to Trump’s elevation of Kim, he “was an international pariah accused of ordering the killing of his uncle, a half-brother and hundreds of officials suspected of disloyalty.” They added, “The North Korean leader had been isolated, his country accused by rights groups of widespread human rights abuses and under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”

The Washington Post noted the UN’s report “described the country as a ruthless police state where as many as 120,000 people are kept in political gulags under horrific conditions; other prisons, effectively labor camps, hold people for ordinary crimes. Telephone calls are monitored and citizens are punished for watching or listening to foreign broadcasts.”

Now put that in the context of nuclearization. According to U.S. military intelligence, defense experts and North “watchers” (cited in Newsweek), in 2017 it was estimated that North Korea has “enough plutonium stored up to create a minimum of six nuclear weapons, but other estimates were as high as 10 to 16 nuclear weapons.”

So if Kim is a dictator with nukes and very aggressive hackers, there’s no reason to doubt that both Kim and Trump are fine with holding the world hostage under threat of nuclear annihilation for whatever their real endgames really are. Last August Trump warned that any North Korean attack “will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

For North Korea’s grand finale to its founder’s 105th birthday party in April 2017, it celebrated with a propaganda video showing missiles being launched.

“Eventually the nukes found their target, San Francisco, and exploded in massive fiery eruptions, engulfing the city in flames. The audience appeared to applaud San Francisco’s destruction,” wrote nervous Bay Area press. “The image of flickering flames overlaid shots of an American flag and a military cemetery.”

Let’s just hope they stick to comparing the size of their buttons.

June 15, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

World is on track to exceed 1.5C of warming – leaked UN draft report

Guardian 15th June 2018 The world is on track to exceed 1.5C of warming unless countries rapidly implement “far-reaching” actions to reduce carbon emissions, according to a draft UN report leaked to Reuters. The final draft report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) was due for publication in
October. It is the guiding scientific document for what countries must do to combat climate change.

Human-induced warming would exceed 1.5C by about 2040 if emissions continued at their present rate, the report found, but countries could keep warming below that level if they made “rapid and far reaching” changes.

Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, almost 200 countries signed up to limit global temperature rises to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C. Climate scientist and Climate Analytics director Bill Hare said the draft report showed with greater clarity how much faster countries needed to move towards decarbonisation under various temperature situations and that the impacts of climate change greatly increased between 1.5C and 2C of warming.

Necessary actions include making the transition to renewable energy, powering the transport sector with zero carbon electricity, improving agricultural management and stopping deforestation.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/15/leaked-un-draft-report-warns-of-urgent-need-to-cut-global-warming

June 15, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists not optimistic about the future of USA- North Korea nuclear negotiations

Now, it’s time to deliver https://thebulletin.org/now-its-time-deliver11916?utm_source=Bulletin%20Newsletter&utm_medium=iContact%20email&utm_campaign=June15

A Bulletin editorial  The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists favors all dialogue aimed at reducing nuclear risks, and it therefore supports US President Donald Trump’s decision to engage with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un in Singapore.

But media pomp and video symbolism cannot substitute for arms control substance. The high-level goals listed in the joint statement Trump and Kim issued after their meeting are extremely vague, but concrete steps are required, if the nuclear risk that North Korea poses to the United States and the international community is to be reduced. The vagueness of the joint statement creates a distinct possibility that it will quickly evaporate, with regrettable—and possibly catastrophic—results for the region and the world.

The Bulletin is deeply concerned the United States has already committed to cease large-scale military exercises in Northeast Asia without, apparently, first consulting its South Korean allies. This move is part of a deeply problematic pattern, in which the Trump administration aligns with dictators at the expense of longtime US allies and important multinational agreements. It is a pattern that must end, if negotiations with North Korea are to have any chance of succeeding.

As a next step, the United States and North Korea need to agree in specific terms on the characteristics of a “freeze” in activities that would continue during negotiations that could well take years to complete. The United States should insist that the North formally agree to cease all nuclear weapons tests, missile launches, and fissile material production while talks continue. Without such an agreement, talks could drag on fruitlessly for years, perhaps even acting as a cover for continued development of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.

The Bulletin encourages the United States and North Korea to seek assistance from a wider range of scientific and policy experts, within and outside their governments, during negotiations. Such technical advice is absolutely necessary, if North Korea’s nuclear program is to be dismantled in a verifiable way that serves the security interests of both countries and, just as important, the interests of South Korea and Japan, longstanding US allies who are vital to securing peace in Northeast Asia.

Notwithstanding the gauzy verbiage of the Singapore joint statement, we think it unlikely that negotiations will soon achieve the complete denuclearization of North Korea (if that goal is ever reached). But the nuclear risk that North Korea poses to the world can be reduced and managed, if negotiations follow a concrete, verifiable, step-by-step roadmap. Frankly, that roadmap should have been drawn long before the Singapore meeting occurred. It should be drawn now.

We are hopeful that yesterday’s meeting in Singapore was a first step toward a safer Korean Peninsula, but we remain doubtful about prospects for progress in this regard, given the Trump administration’s erratic approach to international affairs. When top-level scientific experts from the US national laboratories and elsewhere are brought into the North Korean talks—as they were for the Iran nuclear deal that President Trump has tried so hard to sabotage—we will know his administration is as serious about the substance of addressing North Korea’s nuclear program as it is about the styling of grand public relations events.

June 15, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

USA Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that USA- North Korea talks will take place next week

The Latest: Trump’s claim of no nuke threat seen as dubious WASHINGTON (AP) 14 June 18,  — The Latest on the summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he’s confident that U.S. talks with North Korea will resume “sometime in the next week.”

Pompeo says he doesn’t know the exact timing. Speaking in Seoul, he says he expects it to happen fairly quickly after he and the North Koreans return to their nations. Pompeo returns late Thursday to the U.S.

He says President Donald Trump is “in the lead” but that “I will be the person who takes the role of driving this process forward.”

He says much more work has been done by the U.S. and North Korean that couldn’t be encapsulated in the Trump-Kim Jong Un statement. So he says teams will now work to make more progress on those items……..https://apnews.com/79a6ec899f4c4fa08adbd05d4315ae24/The-Latest:-Pompeo-says-NKorea-talks-to-resume-next-week

 

June 15, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Russia suspends nuclear waste transport due to safety fears with World Cup visitors

World Cup puts break on nuclear transport  A load of containers with spent nuclear fuel from Andreeva Bay on the Kola Peninsula will have to wait because of a general ban on transport of dangerous goods in Russia during the Football World Cup. https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2018/06/world-cup-puts-break-nuclear-transport  Thomas Nilsen, 14 June 18,

Russia puts priority to safety and doesn’t want any potential lethal substances moving around during the four weeks with World Cup when tens of thousands of football fans are commuting by railway to different cities.

In the north, the ban now delays a shipment of nuclear waste that otherwise would be on its way to Mayak north of Chelyabinsk in the South Urals.

Head of Rosatom State Nuclear Corporation’s international technical assistance project, Anatoly Grigoryev, says three railway sets already have departed to Mayak this year. «The fourth is ready, but we can’t send it because transport of dangerous goods during the World Cup is prohibited,» Grigoriyev says to Interfax in an interview reposted by Rosatom.

From Andreeva Bay near Russia’s border to Norway, the containers with old uranium fuel from Cold War submarines are shipped to Murmansk, where they are loaded over to a set of special rail-wagons. From Murmansk, the train follows Russia’s railway lines south through Karelia towards St. Petersburg and Yaroslav before heading east towards the Urals, a distance of more than 1,600 kilometers.

Mayak reprocessing plant is located between the cities of Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg. The last is one of the cities where football matches will be played.

Anatoly Grigoryev assures that the load of nuclear waste containers from the Murmansk region will be shipped to Mayak as soon as the World Cup is over by mid-July.

Last June, a top brass of Russian and Norwegian politicians, diplomates and nuclear safety experts cheered and waved as the first load of containers set out to sea from Andreeva Bay. Since the 1990s, Norway has spent tens of millions of euros to support preparing for the nuclear waste removal from the site to start.

In Murmansk, nuclear safety expert with the Bellona Foundation, Andrey Zolotkov, says this is the first time to his knowledge transport of nuclear waste has been put on break for such reason as a international tournament.

«I don’t recall any such thing. This is most likely due to keeping the railway routes free from such cargos because of all the [football] fans on the move,» Zolotkov says to the Barents Observer. Additional to Bellona, Zolotkov has for many years been working on board the Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet’s transport- and storage vessel «Imandra».

From Murmansk, the nuclear waste cargo-train follows the same tracks, and through the same big cities, as ordinary passenger trains.

«After all, we are just talking about a one month delay,» Andrey Zolotkov explains pointing to the many-years it will take to remove all spent nuclear fuel elements from Andreeva Bay.

A total of about 22,000 such uranium fuel elements where stored in three rundown concrete tanks. That is equal to about 100 submarine reactor cores.

Anatoly Grigoryev with Rosatom estimates it will take about 10 years to remove it all from the Kola Peninsula to the Mayak plant.

June 15, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Why Are Nations Throwing Cash At Nuclear ‘White Elephants’?

Jeremy Leggett: Why Are Nations Throwing Cash At Nuclear ‘White Elephants’? Impact4All.org, 14 June 18 

In recent weeks we have seen evidence on the one hand of the fast advance of renewable energy, and on the other the incredible resilience of the energy-incumbency defence against that advance, including big oil and nuclear.

Celebrations of the fast growth of renewables I will leave to the inestimable REN21 report, published on 4 June. All clean-energy advocates should spend some time immersed in it, arming themselves with bullish ammunition. The point I want to make in this column is about the residual strength of the incumbency rearguard action.

In the last week of May and the first week of June the UK, US, and Canadian governments all tried to bail out uneconomic or stranded fossil fuel and nuclear projects with many billions in public funds. I have dubbed it “The Week of the White Elephants.”

First, the Canadian government bailed out a stranded Kinder Morgan oil pipeline system for US$3.5 bn. They hope to sell this, the Trans Mountain pipeline, in due course. Analysts doubt they can, so economically unattractive and risky is the proposition. In the interim, protestors have labelled Canadian PM Justin Trudeau – who says he aspires to be a climate hero – a climate criminal.

Second, US President Donald Trump ordered emergency federal action to stem coal and nuclear plant shutdowns. Proposals in a leaked memo included forcing utilities to buy electricity from coal and nuclear operators for two years, despite the fact that renewables and gas are both better value. The Economist describes Trump’s gambit as follows: “The plan would benefit a handful of firms the president favours at the expense of consumers: it entails up to $12bn worth of ‘cash for cronies’.”

Third, in a remarkable U-turn, the UK government agreed to a £5bn injection of taxpayer money into a Welsh nuclear power station, Wylfa. The total cost, to be shared with Hitachi and Japanese government, is £16 bn. The price of power will be £75-77 MWh (they say). That is more than solar and wind.

These are all very strange things to do when you consider not just the economics but the general direction of travel in all relevant areas

……..As for the UK nuclear decision, in France nuclear regulators now fear an “epidemic” safety-culture collapse at Flamanville, the supposed precursor of the British Hinkley Point C reactor. 150 weld failures mean the nuclear plant scheduled online in 2012 at €3.5bn is now probably delayed to 2020, at €10.5bn and counting. This is not the same type of reactor that Hitachi intends for Wylfa, but the horror show at Flamanville shows how badly, and quickly, things can go wrong in modern nuclear.As the formerly pro-nuclear The Economist put it in 2016, in a analysis entitled “Hinkley Pointless”, “Britain should cancel its nuclear white elephant and spend the billions on making renewables work.”…….https://impact4all.org/jeremy-leggett-new-coal-and-nuclear-deals-show-power-of-incumbent-energy-players/

June 15, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Trump – Kim nuclear summit – great PR show, with meaningless blather result

U.S. President Donald Trump, and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un seem to have both achieved their goals at the much hyped ‘nuclear summit’ in Singapore on June 12.

Kim achieved a kind of international recognition as an equal world leader, without having to give up anything, in the showy but fairly meaningless negotiation that went on .

Trump achieved his over-riding aim –  having the eyes of the world on him, his endless craving for attention being satisfied, for the moment, anyway.

The body language is more interesting than the waffly document outcome. We saw Trump’s super-long super-strong handshake, and pats on Kim’s back –  signs of dominance. We saw Kim’s eyes move sideways – a little nervous shiftiness?

It all could have been worse. Trump could have chosen, instead of his effusive praise for Kim, to say there is “a special place in hell” for Kim, (as Trump recently said of USA’s ally, Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau). And with Trump’s new and dangerously bellicose security adviser John Bolton, hovering about,  could have set off the “fire and fury” that he previously promised  North Korea.  I guess that Trump saved that for a later occasion, when he feels that he is not getting enough world attention.

The most interesting one, North Korea commits to work towards “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.” Not a word about  “complete, verifiable and irreversible”. As the Washington Post commented, that one is “empty blather” too.

The fourth point is a weak statement on North Korea returning the remains of U.S. prisoners of war, from the Korean war.

Why on earth would Kim Jong Un want to give up his biggest bargaining chip – the ability to send nuclear weapons to neighbouring States, and even to the USA?  He saw what happened to Iraq and Libya. He can see how America is now backtracking from the nuclear agreement with Iran.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | General News | 1 Comment

Full text of nuclear summit document from Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un

Singapore summit: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un document released after historic meeting http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/donald-trump-and-north-korea-leader-statement-after-meeting/9861688–June 12, 2018, Sentosa Island

The text from the document signed by Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un has been made available. Here it is in full:

President Donald J Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018.

President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth, and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new US-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong-un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

Convinced that the establishment of new US-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognising that mutual confidence-building can promote the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un state the following:

  1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
  2. The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
  3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
  4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
Having acknowledged that the US-DPRK summit — the first in history — was an epochal event of great significance and overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un commit to implement the stipulations in this joint statement fully and expeditiously.

The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations led by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.

President Donald J Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new US-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.

 

June 13, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Where will climate refugees go?

Universal migration predicts human movements under climate change, Physics World, 12 Jun 2018 

Climate change is expected to displace millions of people through impacts like sea level rise, crop failures, and more frequent extreme weather. Yet scientists still cannot predict where these expected climate-induced migrants are likely to go in the coming decades.

A new study, published today in Environmental Research Letters, seeks to address this need by incorporating climate impacts into a universal model of human mobility.

To demonstrate the efficacy of the new approach, the study focused on the case of sea level rise (SLR) and human migration in Bangladesh, where the authors estimate that more than two million Bangladeshis may be displaced from their homes by 2100 because of rising sea levels alone.

The study, led by Columbia University, New York, used a probabilistic model combined with population, geographic, and climatic data to predict the sources, destinations, and flux of potential migrants caused by sea level rise.

Lead author Dr Kyle Davis, from Columbia University, explained: “More than 40 per cent of Bangladesh’s population is especially vulnerable to future sea level rise, as they live in low-lying areas that are often exposed to extreme natural events.

“However, SLR is a very different type of migration driver from short-lived natural hazards, in that it will make certain areas permanently uninhabitable.”

The team’s results using Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios showed that mean SLR will cause population displacements in 33 per cent of Bangladesh’s districts, and 53 per cent under more intensive conditions. By mid-century, they estimated nearly 900,000 people are likely to migrate because of direct inundation from mean SLR alone.

Under the most extreme scenario, of up to 2 metre mean SLR, the number of migrants driven by direct inundation could rise to as many as 2.1 million people by the year 2100. For all RCP scenarios, five districts – Barisal, Chandpur, Munshiganj, Narayanganj, and Shariatpur – are the source for 59 per cent of all migrants.

Their analysis considered mean SLR without normal high tides, so the results – both in terms of inundated area and displaced population – are conservative.

The researchers also estimated the extra jobs, housing and food needed to accommodate these migrants at their destinations. They found that to cope with the numbers likely to be displaced by 2050, 600,000 additional jobs, 200,000 residences and 784 billion food calories will be needed.

These results have clear implications for the places that are likely to receive incoming migrants…….https://physicsworld.com/a/universal-migration-predicts-human-movements-under-climate-change/

June 13, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Antarctic Ocean Discovery Warns of Faster Global Warming 

Climate Central   By Mikayla Mace, Arizona Daily Star  10 June 18

A group of scientists, including one from the University of Arizona, has new findings suggesting Antarctica’s Southern Ocean — long known to play an integral role in climate change — may not be absorbing as much pollution as previously thought.

To reach their contradictory conclusion, the team used state-of-the-art sensors to collect more data on the Southern Ocean than ever before, including during the perilous winter months that previously made the research difficult if not impossible.The old belief was the ocean pulled about 13 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change — out of the atmosphere, helping put the brakes on rising global temperatures.

Some oceanographers suspect that less CO2 is being absorbed because the westerlies — the winds that ring the southernmost continent — are tightening like a noose. As these powerful winds get more concentrated, they dig at the water, pushing it out and away.

Water from below rises to take its place, dragging up decaying muck made of carbon from deep in the ocean that can then either be released into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 or slow the rate that CO2 is absorbed by the water. Either way, it’s not good. Continue reading →

June 13, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Donald Trump approaches nuclear summit guided by his “instincts” – no scientific advice

In the Trump Administration, Science Is Unwelcome. So Is Advice.
As the president prepares for nuclear talks, he lacks a close adviser with nuclear expertise. It’s one example of a marginalization of science in shaping federal policy.  NYT By Coral Davenport 9 June 18

WASHINGTON — As President Trump prepares to meet Kim Jong-un of North Korea to negotiate denuclearization, a challenge that has bedeviled the world for years, he is doing so without the help of a White House science adviser or senior counselor trained in nuclear physics.

Mr. Trump is the first president since 1941 not to name a science adviser, a position created during World War II to guide the Oval Office on technical matters ranging from nuclear warfare to global pandemics. As a businessman and president, Mr. Trump has proudly been guided by his instincts. Nevertheless, people who have participated in past nuclear negotiations say the absence of such high-level expertise could put him at a tactical disadvantage in one of the weightiest diplomatic matters of his presidency.

“You need to have an empowered senior science adviser at the table,” said R. Nicholas Burns, who led negotiations with India over a civilian nuclear deal during the George W. Bush administration. “You can be sure the other side will have that.”

The lack of traditional scientific advisory leadership in the White House is one example of a significant change in the Trump administration: the marginalization of science in shaping United States policy.

There is no chief scientist at the State Department, where science is central to foreign policy matters such as cybersecurity and global warming. Nor is there a chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture: Mr. Trump last year nominated Sam Clovis, a former talk-show host with no scientific background, to the position, but he withdrew his name and no new nomination has been made.

These and other decisions have consequences for public health and safety and the economy. Both the Interior Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have disbanded climate science advisory committees. The Food and Drug Administration disbanded its Food Advisory Committee, which provided guidance on food safety.

Government-funded scientists said in interviews that they were seeing signs that their work was being suppressed, and that they were leaving their government jobs to work in the private sector, or for other countries.

After Mr. Trump last year withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, the international pact committing nations to tackle global warming, France started a program called “Make Our Planet Great Again” — named in reference to Mr. Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again” — to lure the best American scientists to France. The program has so far provided funding for 24 scientists from the United States and other countries to do their research in France…….https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/climate/trump-administration-science.html

 

June 10, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

America dampening down expectations for nuclear summit

US plays down hopes from Trump-Kim nuclear summit Ft.com, 10 June 18  Both leaders land in Singapore as US seeks to manage expectations Bryan Harris and Stefania Palma in Singapore and Demetri Sevastopulo in Los Angeles

Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump landed in Singapore on Sunday in preparation for their historic summit, even as US officials sought to manage expectations for Tuesday’s much-heralded meeting. Once pitched as the final stage of a landmark denuclearisation deal, the meeting is increasingly being spun as just the beginning of a process of engagement between the two bitter adversaries. “I feel that Kim Jong Un wants to do something great for his people,” said Mr Trump as he departed Canada en route for the south-east Asian city state. “There’s a good chance it won’t work out. There’s probably an even better chance it will take a period of time.” The aim of the summit on Tuesday is to see if Mr Kim and Mr Trump could establish a level of chemistry and trust that would provide impetus for further negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, according to one senior US official.

Joseph Yun, the state department’s former point-man on North Korea, echoed the sentiment, saying it was clear that high-level meetings between US and North Korean officials in recent days had reduced expectations on the American side. “Gone is the talk of all-in-one big bang and denuclearisation. The magic word seems to be process and progress,” said Mr Yun, adding that it would still be important to have a “substantive result” from the summit.  Mr Trump said in advance of his arrival that he would know “within the first minute” of the meeting whether Mr Kim was “serious”. He added that he could make such a judgment based on “my touch, my feel — that’s what I do”……….

Washington is seeking CVID — the complete, verified and irreversible dismantlement of the North’s nuclear programme — a process that experts believe could take years, potentially even a decade. https://www.ft.com/content/99901e74-6c5b-11e8-92d3-6c13e5c92914

June 10, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Donald Trump at G7 – a wrecking ball for climate change international action

“CANADA, FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, JAPAN THE UK AND THE EUROPEAN UNIONREAFFIRM THEIR STRONG COMMITMENT TO IMPLEMENT THE PARIS AGREEMENT, THROUGH AMBITIOUS CLIMATE ACTION”

“PRESIDENT TRUMP’S WRECKING BALL APPROACH TO INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY LEFT HIM UTTERLY ISOLATED AT THE G7 SUMMIT,”

Six of the G7 Commit to Climate Action. Trump Wouldn’t Even Join Conversation.  https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10062018/g7-summit-climate-change-communique-trump-allies-estranged-germany-france-canada

Trump skipped the formal climate discussions, had the U.S. negotiators promote fossil fuels instead, and then renounced the group’s official communique. BY STAFF, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS JUN 10, 2018  

President Donald Trump’s disdain for action on climate change, along with his other demands and behavior, left the United States estranged from its closest allies following the weekend summit of the Group of Seven major industrial democracies.

Trump skipped the G7’s formal discussions on the global warming crisis. And in the summit’s communique, the United States refused to join in common statements by the other six nations reaffirming their commitment to the Paris climate agreement, which he wants to abandon. In turn, none of them signed onto unilateral U.S. language pushing development of fossil fuels. And in the end, Trump renounced the whole communique in a Twitter tirade.

The governments of France and Germany said afterward that they and the European Union stood by the communique.

“Let’s be serious and worthy of our people,” the French presidency said in a statement quoted by AFP. “International co-operation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks.”

“WE HAVE SEEN THIS WITH THE CLIMATE AGREEMENT OR THE IRAN DEAL,” DEUTSCHE WELLE REPORTED GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER HEIKO MAAS SAYING ON SUNDAY. “IN A MATTER OF SECONDS, YOU CAN DESTROY TRUST WITH 280 TWITTER CHARACTERS.”

THE RUPTURE ON CLIMATE CHANGE, WHICH HAS BEEN BUILDING EVER SINCE TRUMP DECLARED THAT THE UNITED STATES WOULD PULL OUT OF PARIS, WAS OVERSHADOWED IN THE MAINSTREAM PRESS BY CONFLICTS OVER INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND RELATED ISSUES, AND BY PERSONAL CLASHES, ESPECIALLY BETWEEN HIM AND PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU, THE HOST OF THE GATHERING.  Continue reading →

June 10, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Trump’s nuclear bailout could cost consumers up to $17 billion each year

 https://inhabitat.com/trumps-nuclear-bailout-could-cost-consumers-up-to-17-billion-each-year/  The Trump Administration is taking unprecedented steps to bail out failing nuclear and coal power plants, effectively nationalizing the American energy market with potentially drastic consequences for the renewable energy industry and the American consumer. According to an updated report from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), the Trump Administration’s plan could result in artificially high electricity prices. The planned subsidies for nuclear power plants alone could increase the overall cost of electricity in the U.S. by up to $17 billion each year; the subsidies for coal plants would add even more. This skewing of the American energy market, which has recently seen significant progress made by wind and solar energy, could also result in the decline of renewable energy in the U.S. Continue reading →

June 10, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

Leading green groups fear their international lobbying could expose them to espionage charges. 

(subscribers only)
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/national-security/green-groups-fear-new-laws-open-them-to-spy-charges/news-story/e4fb5448b28160d06fbe72019e97b13e

June 10, 2018 Posted by | General News | Leave a comment

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