“I want you to feel the presence of not only the future generations, who will benefit from your negotiations to ban nuclear weapons, but to feel a cloud of witnesses from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
“We have no doubt that this treaty can – and will – change the world.” – Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima atomic bomb victim
The elimination of nuclear weapons has been the cause that Greenpeace campaigned so passionately and heavily for since 1971.
Even with the passing of the UN’s Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, Japan still remains an outlier, betraying the hopes of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It started with just 12 of them. With a bold mission, this group of activists set sail to Amchitka island off Alaska to protest the detonation of an underground US nuclear test. It was September 1971, and though the mission was initially unsuccessful, it was the beginning of what became Greenpeace, and just one of the many issues – the elimination of nuclear weapons – that the environmental organisation would campaign endlessly against.
Fast forward to 2017, and what was once a hard-fought battle and one of Greenpeace’s legacy issues, has now become a successful defeat. On 7 July, the United Nations adopted the “Nuclear Weapons Treaty” with an overwhelming majority – an epoch-making agreement that prohibits not only the development, experiment, manufacture, possession, and use of nuclear weapons, but also the “threat to use”. Nuclear and chemical weapons, and anti-personnel landmines and cluster bombs were also banned. The Treaty will be open for signature by states on September 20th.
One reaction would be to say, ‘Too bad, we’re going to miss the 2-degree target,’ so we kind of throw up our hands and say there’s nothing we can do,” Raftery said. “But I think that’s exactly the wrong message to take away from the study. The more warming it is, the worse the consequences, and that makes it even more urgent to to take urgent action to at least limit temperature increase to be as close to 2 degrees as possible.”
Catastrophic climate change all but unavoidable; now what? UW study finds little chance of keeping temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius, Seattle PI, By Stephen Cohen, August 3, 2017 Seattle is suffering through its worst heat wave of the year, but according to a recent University of Washington study, increasingly hotter temperatures — and their deadly outcomes — are all but unavoidable.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take steps to try and slow down the rising thermometer.
The UW study, co-authored by statistics and sociology professor Adrian Raftery and associate professor of atmospheric sciences Dargan Frierson, concluded there is a 90 percent chance the Earth’s average temperature will rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
Limiting a rise to less than 2 degrees was one of the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement due to the potentially catastrophic effects of such an increase, including heat waves, extreme storms, flooding, sea level rise, etc. But the study, published on July 31 in the journal “Nature Climate Change,” found there is a less than 5 percent chance that the goal will be met, and only a 1 percent chance the increase will be limited to 1.5 degrees.
“If we’re to keep anywhere close to the 2-degree limit, we basically need to pull out all the stops on all registers over the next 80 years,” Raftery told SeattlePI. “I don’t see any alternative.”
Melting glaciers in Swiss Alps could reveal hundreds of mummified corpses
Frozen bodies of couple who vanished 75 years ago among those uncovered recently as global warming forces ice to retreat, Guardian, Philip Oltermann and Kate Connolly, 5 Aug 17, Swiss police say hundreds of bodies of mountaineers who have gone missing in the Alps in the past century could emerge in coming years as global warming forces the country’s glaciers to retreat.
Alpine authorities have registered a significant increase in the number of human remains discovered last month, with the body of a man missing for 30 years the most recent to be uncovered.
Rescue teams in Saas Valley in the Valais canton were called last Tuesday after two climbers retreating from an aborted ascent spotted a hand and two shoes protruding from the Hohlaub glacier…….
The discovery comes less than a week after the bodies of a Swiss couple, missing for 75 years, were found in the Tsanfleuron glacier in the same canton…….
Switzerland’s glaciers have been melting at an unprecedented rate, losing almost one cubic km in ice volume or about 900 bn litres of water over the past year. According to an investigation by Tagesanzeiger newspaper, eight of the 10 months in which the glaciers have lost the most in volume over the past century have been since 2008.
Since 1850, when glaciers covered 1,735 sq km (670 sq miles) of Swiss land, the total area has shrunk by a half, to about 890 sq km.
Police in Valais expect the bodies of many more missing persons to emerge because of global warming. “It’s quite clear,” a spokesman, Christian Zuber, told the Guardian.
This Hiroshima Day anniversary, 72 years after we dropped the first atomic bomb as a weapon of war, will be different.
Just ask Setsuko Thurlow, who was in Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. She was also present at the United Nations a month ago when Costa Rica ambassador, Elayne Whyte, announced that the treaty to ban nuclear weapons had been adopted.
“I have been waiting for this day for seven decades and I am overjoyed that it has finally arrived,” she said that day. “This is the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.”
Ms. Setsuko was 13 years old when she saw the flash of the bomb. Bodies were thrown up in the air around her. The wooden building she was in collapsed, and she could hear the cries from her classmates in the darkness. She managed to extricate herself and escape to the hills, witness to grotesquely injured people trying to move away from the city in silence for lack of physical and emotional strength — whispering only for water. She remembers her 4-year-old nephew, a “blackened, scorched chunk of flesh wailing in a faint voice until his death released him from agony.”
On July 7th, 2017, the day Ms. Setsuko spoke before the U.N., 122 non-nuclear nations endorsed the treaty that, when ratified, binds signatories never to develop, test, produce, manufacture, acquire, possess, stockpile, transfer, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. Nations that have hosted these massively lethal bombs pledge not to station, install or deploy them. It establishes humanitarian and human rights for those that have been victims of nuclear weapons or weapons testing, including the right to live in an environment that has been remediated from the damage done by them. It notes that women and children are disproportionately harmed by radiation. The treaty is open for signatures through Sept. 20, and once 50 nations have signed and ratified, it becomes law 90 days later.
“These obligations (of this treaty) break new ground. The prohibition on threatening to use nuclear weapons, for example, sets up a fundamental challenge to all policies based on nuclear deterrence. From now on, deterrence advocates are on the wrong side of the law, as understood and accepted by the majority of countries in the world,” Zia Mian, a Princeton University professor, wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist……..
Because of this treaty, there is hope.
Soon nuclear weapons will not only be immoral but also illegal. Citizens of the world take notice.
In Sweltering South, Climate Change Is Now a Workplace Hazard Workers laboring outdoors in southern states are wrestling with the personal and political consequences of a worsening environment, NYT, By YAMICHE ALCINDORAUG. 3, 2017, GALVESTON, Tex. — Adolfo Guerra, a landscaper in this port city on the Gulf of Mexico, remembers panicking as his co-worker vomited and convulsed after hours of mowing lawns in stifling heat. Other workers rushed to cover him with ice, and the man recovered.
But for Mr. Guerra, 24, who spends nine hours a day six days a week doing yard work, the episode was a reminder of the dangers that exist for outdoor workers as the planet warms.
“I think about the climate every day,” Mr. Guerra said, “because every day we work, and every day it feels like it’s getting hotter.”……
to Robert D. Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University who some call the “father of environmental justice,” the industrial revival that Mr. Trump has promised could come with some serious downsides for an already warming planet. Professor Bullard is trying to bring that message to working-class Americans like Mr. Guerra, and to environmental organizations that have, in his mind, been more focused on struggling animals than poor humans, who have been disproportionately harmed by increasing temperatures, worsening storms and rising sea levels.
“For too long, a lot of the climate change and global warming arguments have been looking at melting ice and polar bears and not at the human suffering side of it,” Professor Bullard said. “They are still pushing out the polar bear as the icon for climate change. The icon should be a kid who is suffering from the negative impacts of climate change and increased air pollution, or a family where rising water is endangering their lives.”
The “environmental justice movement” has, in fact, caught on with major environmental groups, but it has far to go before it begins moving the dial in the nation’s politics. Professor Bullard envisions the recruits for his movement coming not only from the liberal college towns of the Northeast and Midwest, but also from the sweltering working-class communities in the Sun Belt, which he sees as the front line of the nation’s environmental wars.
Residents of working-class communities in the Sun Belt often cannot afford to move or evacuate during weather disasters. They may work outside, and they may struggle to cover their air-conditioning bills. Pollution in their communities leads to health problems that are compounded by the refusal of most Sun Belt state governments to expand Medicaid access under the Affordable Care Act…….. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/us/politics/climate-change-trump-working-poor-activists.html
Wildfires in western Canada on near-record pace, More than 1 million acres burned so far https://summitcountyvoice.com/2017/08/02/wildfires-in-western-canada-on-near-record-pace/Staff Report Canada is on track for a near-record wildfire season this year. So far, there have been more than 500 fires just in British Columbia, burning across more than 1 million acres. Firefighting costs have already reached more than $172 million, and weeks of warm and dry weather will keep the fire danger high. Continue reading →
“If given just one word to describe climate change, then ‘unfairness’ would be a good candidate. Raised levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are expected to cause deadly heatwaves for much of South Asia. Yet many of those living there will have contributed little to climate change.”
If warming is not tackled, levels of humid heat that can kill within hours will affect millions across south Asia within decades, analysis finds, Guardian, Damian Carrington, 3 Aug 17, Extreme heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours will strike parts of the Indian subcontinent unless global carbon emissions are cut sharply and soon, according to new research.
Even outside of these hotspots, three-quarters of the 1.7bn population – particularly those farming in the Ganges and Indus valleys – will be exposed to a level of humid heat classed as posing “extreme danger” towards the end of the century.
The new analysis assesses the impact of climate change on the deadly combination of heat and humidity, measured as the “wet bulb” temperature (WBT). Once this reaches 35C, the human body cannot cool itself by sweating and even fit people sitting in the shade will die within six hours.
The revelations show the most severe impacts of global warming may strike those nations, such as India, whose carbon emissions are still rising as they lift millions of people out of poverty. Continue reading →
How hot weather – and climate change – affect airline flights, The Conversation, Ethan Coffel, Ph.D. Student in Earth & Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, Radley Horton, Associate Research Scientist, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, August 3, 2017 Hot weather has forced dozens of commercial flights to be canceled at airports in the Southwest this summer. This flight-disrupting heat is a warning sign. Climate change is projected to have far-reaching repercussions – including sea level rise inundating cities and shifting weather patterns causing long-term declines in agricultural yields. And there is evidence that it is beginning to affect the takeoff performance of commercial aircraft, with potential effects on airline costs.
Who speaks for US on N. Korea? Contradictions emerge as Tillerson heads to Asia By Joshua Berlinger, CNN August 2, 2017 Hong Kong US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson heads to Asia later this week for a regional meeting on security issues, which is expected to be attended by ministers from North Korea, China, South Korea and Japan.
It could be an opportune moment for a diplomatic breakthrough on Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, which have been causing massive headaches for US President Donald Trump. But questions linger over whether Tillerson can speak for his administration given contradictory remarks from US politicians.
“The Trump administration is still scrambling to find a policy on North Korea. ……
Scientists have long known about the anomalous “warming hole” in the North Atlantic Ocean, an area immune to warming of Earth’s oceans. This cool zone in the North Atlantic Ocean appears to be associated with a slowdown in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), one of the key drivers in global ocean circulation.
A recent study published in Nature outlines research by a team of Yale University and University of Southhampton scientists. The team found evidence that Arctic ice loss is potentially negatively impacting the planet’s largest ocean circulation system. While scientists do have some analogs as to how this may impact the world, we will be largely in uncharted territory. Continue reading →
Science daily, August 3, 2017, Kansas State University
Summary:
Climate variability — rather than the presence of a major dam — is most likely the primary cause for a water supply decline in East Asia’s largest floodplain lake system, according to an expert
Taking on Adani is not just about climate change. It’s taking back power from corporate plutocracy,Guardian, Sebastian Job, 2 Aug 17, The Adani Group almost seems like a crudely drawn corporate villain. And we should be thankful for the chance to reclaim the fight Sebastian Job is honorary associate in the department of anthropology at the University of Sydney
“……Those driving the Carmichael mine have had plenty of time to learn the climate change basics. They know coal has the highest carbon dioxide content of all fossil fuels. They know a large majority of climate scientists have identified rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as the major driver of global warming in the modern era. They know that extracting the bulk of existing global fossil fuel reserves is considered, by everyone from doctors to military commanders and the Davos economic elite, to spell calamity for human life on Earth.
Australian politicians will also have noticed that corals, like glaciers and the carbon and methane trapping permafrost, are highly temperature sensitive. So they know coral bleaching is another neon warning sign that the global climate catastrophe is under way.
Except, of course, that the warning sign is no longer neon. It is bone white. Courtesy of lethal coral bleaching the Great Barrier Reef is being redeveloped as a 2,300km-long offshore cemetery.
To add to the melancholy picture, public money used to build road and rail infrastructure for the Carmichael mine are supposed to open up the basin to many more mines, while the whole operation will be serviced by expanded coal ports cutting like centurions’ lances into the side of the reef.
Queensland: beautiful one day, bone yard the next.
Any halfway rational government would be quarantining the reef from further insults and mobilising the population for an emergency transition away from hydrocarbons. An all-hands-on-deck, bring-everybody-along effort. Not just for domestic electricity production, but for our exports.
Instead, both major parties at federal and state levels are supporting the establishment of a coalmine with a projected lifespan of 60 years.
That alone says everything……..
If global warming is to be seriously addressed then it will not be enough to speak “truth to power”, as the new documentary by Al Gore has it. The gun of state power has to be wrested from the hands of the fossil bloc. This is the great battle on our doorstep.
When our children, or simply our slightly older selves, ask us if we tried to salvage a liveable world for them, they are not going to be content with a bland “what did you do?” They are going to ask us very pointedly why we dawdled so long before throwing out this criminally irresponsible band of ecocidal know-nothings…….
Since at least the 1980s ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Peabody Energy, Shell and other diehard members of the fossil bloc have been fighting a covert war against activists, scientists and policy makers to stop action on climate change.
Now, after decades of windbaggery from the global political class, the transition away from hydrocarbons has become a desperate affair. We might already be doomed. Or we might make it. As for the present, two things are clear: the fossil bloc are not leaders, they are undertakers; and if we don’t take them down, they will take everyone down……
The Adani mine, let us recall, has it all. Not just climate change and damage to the reef, but habitat destruction, erosion of Indigenous land rights, ground water exhaustion and pollution, increased drought risk for local farmlands, loss of coastal employment, and long term health effects. And that’s without mentioning falling demand for coal and waste of taxpayers’ money that could be going on more toll roads and Joint Strike Fighters.
To take on Adani is not just to take on climate change. It is to take on the insane irresponsibility of the corporate plutocracy.
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Antinuclear 