French Polynesian president acknowledges nuclear test lies https://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/french-polynesian-president-acknowledges-nuclear-test-lies-1.23500250, Thomas Adamson/ The Associated Press, NOVEMBER 16, 2018 PARIS—French Polynesian President Edouard Fritch has said the leaders of the French collectivity of islands in the South Pacific lied to the population for three decades over the dangers of nuclear testing.
From 1960 to 1996, France carried out 193 nuclear tests in French Polynesia. The images, such as a mushroom cloud over the Mururoa atoll, provoked international protests.
“I’m not surprised that I’ve been called a liar for 30 years. We lied to this population that the tests were clean. We lied,” Fritch told officials in the local assembly Thursday in footage broadcast by Tahiti Nui Television.
France’s overseas ministry declined to comment when contacted by the AP Friday.
Bowing to decades of pressure, in 2010 the French government offered millions of euros in compensation for the government’s 201 nuclear tests in the South Pacific and Algeria. But the process is painstaking and many have still not received compensation.
Bruno Barrillot, a whistleblower investigating the impact of the Polynesian nuclear testing who died last year, raised awareness on the disproportionate rates of thyroid cancer and leukemia to hit Polynesia’s 280,000 residents.
In 2016, then-President Francois Hollande acknowledged during a visit that nuclear weapons tests carried out in French territories in the South Pacific did have consequences for the environment and residents’ health.
But Hollande spoke also about the testing in positive terms as he praised the region’s contribution to France’s position as one of the world’s nine nuclear powers.
The presidential visit came three years after French media reported declassified defence ministry papers exposing South Pacific nuclear tests from the 1960s and 1970s as being far more toxic than previously acknowledged.
At the time, the media reported that the whole of French Polynesia had been hit by levels of plutonium in the aftermath of the testing.
Tahiti, its most populous island that was romanticized in the paintings of Paul Gauguin, was exposed to 500 times the maximum accepted levels of radiation. The fallout extended as far as the popular tourist island of Bora Bora.
Ticking time bomb giant stockpile of nuclear waste endangers USA
https://www.rt.com/usa/444089-california-nuclear-san-onofre/16 Nov, 2018 Millions of pounds of toxic waste are being buried under the site of a privately owned former nuclear power plant in California. The only problem? Experts warn that it sits on a major fault line — and in a tsunami zone.
The San Onofre nuclear plant, located just 108 feet from a popular beach, was shut down in 2015 after a leak was discovered. Now, the Southern California Edison energy company is burying the nuclear waste at the failed site — a move which has been approved by federal regulator
Charles Langley, the executive director of Public Watchdogs, told RT that the situation at San Onofre is of “grave concern” because spent nuclear fuel and water “don’t mix.”
Langley claimed that research carried out by experts which highlighted the extreme risks of storing the waste at the facility was “suppressed” by the very government agency responsible for protecting public health and safety.
“There are actually fault lines that run underneath the facility. We’ve documented this in geological reports that were suppressed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It’s in a Tsunami zone and it’s also extremely vulnerable to terrorist attacks.”
So far, 29 of 73 canisters of waste are below the surface of the ground. Langley warns, however, that the canisters are unequipped to store the toxic nuclear waste. The warranty for the containment system is only for 10 years “and the canisters themselves are only guaranteed to last 25 years,” he said.
Nina Babiarz, a board member at Public Watchdogs, told RT that “there should have been a requirement for an underground monitoring system before one can even went in the ground.”
Babiarz believes the San Onofre plant is a ticking time bomb.
“It’s still very prevalent to me that this not only could happen, but it has happened at Three Mile Island, of course it has happened at Chernobyl, it’s happened at Fukushima — and lest we forget, it could happen at San Onofre,” she said.
Edison refused to answer any of RT’s questions. On its website, however, the company says they are “being proactive in seeking out options for the relocation of the fuel, including an off-site facility.”
But San Onofre is not the only nuclear site causing concern to scientists and environmentalists in California.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory — a highly classified former nuclear testing site, which was the location of the worst nuclear meltdown in nuclear history — was scorched in the California wildfires. During the 1959 disaster, 459 times more radiation was leaked there than during the infamous 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown in Pennsylvania.
Physicians for Social Responsibility say that the toxic materials in the soil and vegetation could become airborne in smoke and ash. More than half a million people live within 10 miles of the area.
Investigative journalist Paul DeRienzo told RT that given the site’s classified status, it’s no surprise that Americans don’t know much about the place.
“It was a tremendous accident [in 1959] that gave off more radiation than Three Mile Island did — and other than that, very little is known. It’s a highly classified site and whatever we learn about it, we learn in dribs and drabs over a long period of time,” DeRienzo said.
Asked whether government assurances that the site is safe could be believed, DeRienzo warned against trusting official guarantees.
“You can’t, because it’s classified, because a lot of the things that happened at Santa Susana were classified and therefore there are things that they’re just never going to tell you and only accidentally does it come out,” he said.
Climate change is making hurricanes even more destructive, research finds, Guardian, Oliver Milman, @olliemilman 15 Nov 18 Hurricane rainfall could increase by a third and wind speeds boosted by up to 25 knots if global warming continues. Climate change worsened the most destructive hurricanes of recent years, including Katrina, Irma and Maria, by intensifying rainfall by as much as 10%, new research has found.
High-resolution climate simulations of 15 tropical cyclones in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans found that warming in the ocean and atmosphere increased rainfall by between 5% and 10%, although wind speeds remained largely unchanged.
This situation is set to worsen under future anticipated warming, however. Researchers found that if little is done to constrain greenhouse gas emissions and the world warms by 3C to 4C this century then hurricane rainfall could increase by a third, while wind speeds would be boosted by as much as 25 knots……
The research, published in the journal Nature, used climate models to see how factors such as air and ocean temperatures have influenced hurricanes. Projections into the future were then made, based upon various levels of planetary warming.
The findings suggest that enormously destructive storms have already been bolstered by climate change and similar events in the future are on course to be cataclysmic.
In a world where temperatures were 3C warmer on average, Hurricane Katrina, which resulted in nearly 2,000 deaths when levees breached near New Orleans in 2005, would’ve been even worse, with around 25% more rainfall. Cyclone Yasi, which hit Australia in 2011, would have had around a third more rain, while the deluge during Gafilo, a huge storm that killed more than 300 people in Madagascar in 2004, would have been 40% more intense. ….
Hurricanes, or cyclones as they are known in the Pacific region, draw their strength from warmth in the upper layers of the ocean, while their rainfall is influenced by the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. Climate change, driven by human activity, is creating more favorable conditions for stronger hurricanes, with recent research finding that storms are intensifying more rapidly than they were 30 years ago…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/14/climate-change-hurricanes-study-global-warming
‘A horror story’: history of Chernobyl nuclear disaster wins Baillie Gifford prize, Guardian, 14 Nov 18
Ukrainian author Serhii Plokhy, who grew up downstream from the damaged reactor, wins £30,000 prize for Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy. A Harvard history professor’s “haunting” account of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which delves into the “heartbreaking stories of heroism” from the people who helped to prevent the whole of Europe from becoming uninhabitable, has won the £30,000 Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction.
Serhii Plokhy’s Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy opens as a radiation alarm goes off in a power plant in Sweden, and as staff begin to suspect a Soviet accident. It goes on to lay out what led to the worst nuclear disaster in history, telling the stories of the firefighters, scientists, soldiers, engineers and policemen who worked to extinguish the nuclear inferno in Chernobyl on 26 April 1986. ……
“It is a horror story – of political cynicism and scientific ignorance – in which the world was saved only by heroism and luck … It’s a kind of biblical book – haunting. And it has terrifying lessons for the world,” said the chair of judges, Fiammetta Rocco, the Economist’s culture correspondent. “At the core of it there are heartbreaking stories of heroism – of the firemen, of the people who were sent to close the reactor doors, of doctors, of soldiers – the people on the roof of the reactor who were kicking off burning stuff that had fallen back on it after the explosion. The closer they are to the disaster, the more quickly they die.” …….
In an interview ahead of the Baillie Gifford awards ceremony, Plokhy stressed that “we have to be super careful with nuclear energy, because it was introduced into the world as the cleanest energy possible.
31 Dead In Devastating California Wildfires: Here’s What To Know | TIME
California Fires Could Be The ‘New Abnormal’ If Climate Change Continues A leading climate scientist says a worrying pattern helped light the match for the devastating California fires. 10 daily, 13 Nov 18
The fires have devastated the state, killing 31 people so far.
It’s not looking likely the blaze will calm any time soon.
One of the reasons for the scale of destruction being visited on the state is a collection of environmental triggers brought about by climate change, according to Doctor Daniel Swain of UCLA…….He said due to rising temperatures and dryness similar fires could affect the state for many years to come.
The U.N. atomic watchdog says Iran continues to stay within the limitations set by the nuclear deal reached in 2015 with major powers, aimed at keeping Tehran from building nuclear weapons in exchange for incentives.
In a confidential quarterly report distributed to member states Monday and seen by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has stayed with key limitations set in the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.
The issue has grown more complicated since the U.S. withdrew unilaterally in May from the deal and then re-imposed sanctions. Iran’s economy has been struggling ever since and its currency has plummeted in value.
The other signatories to the deal — Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China — are continuing to try and make it work.
The IAEA says the agency had access to all sites in Iran that it needed to visit and that inspectors confirmed Iran has kept within limits of heavy water and low-enriched uranium stockpiles.
On November 10, Los Angeles Magazine ran an article claiming there was no risk related to SSFL contamination from the Woolsey fire that we now know actually began on the SSFL property itself. Below is our response.
Los Angeles Magazine must print a correction – this article is filled with errors and misinformation:
There is no need to put quotes around “significantly contaminated” – SSFL is one of the most contaminated sites in the nation, subject of a promised but long-delayed state and federal cleanup; it is heavily contaminated with well documented nuclear and chemical contamination, from, among other things, a partial nuclear meltdown.
The claim in the first hours of the fire by DTSC, an agency that has no public confidence to the point that the state legislature commissioned an Independent Review Panel to investigate its failings (which include the Exide fiasco in Vernon,) that it didn’t “believe” there was a risk is cover for its failure to live up to its cleanup commitments (it had promised the site would be cleaned up by 2017 and the cleanup hasn’t even begun). It is pure conjecture. DTSC does not have have any scientific data to back up the claim. It based the spurious assertion on its claim that the fire in its first hours was not in areas where contamination could be released, but the state fire department now shows almost all of the contaminated site as within the fire boundary.
DTSC did not release it’s statement in response to the Forbes article, it released it the night before, when virtually nothing was known about the extent of the fire at SSFL
SSFL is NEVER referred to as Area IV – that is simply one area in the site, the area where most of the nuclear activity occurred
Given the extent of contamination in the site’s soil and vegetation, it is indeed possible and likely that contamination from the site was spread further from the fire in smoke, dust, and ash.
Woolsey Fire Burns Nuclear Meltdown Site that State Toxics Agency Failed to Clean Up
Nov 9, 2018 THE SANTA SUSANA FIELD LABORATORY (ROCKETDYNE) BURNED IN THE WOOLSEY FIRE, THREATENING TOXIC EXPOSURES FROM CONTAMINATED DUST, SMOKE, ASH AND SOIL. THE DEPARTMENT OF TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL DENIES RISK THAT IT CREATED BY DELAYING THE LONG PROMISED CLEANUP. November 9, 2018 Denise Duffield, 310-339-9676 or dduffield@psr-la.org, Melissa Bumstead 818-298-3182 or melissabumstead@sbcglobal.net,
Last night, the Woolsey fire burned the contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), a former nuclear and rocket engine testing site. Footage from local television showed flames surrounding rocket test stands, and the fire’s progress through to Oak Park indicates that much of the toxic site burned.
A statement released by the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) said that its staff, “do not believe the fire has caused any releases of hazardous materials that would pose a risk to people exposed to the smoke.” The statement failed to assuage community concerns given DTSC’s longtime pattern of misinformation about SSFL’s contamination and its repeated broken promises to clean it up.
“We can’t trust anything that DTSC says,” said West Hills resident Melissa Bumstead, whose young daughter has twice survived leukemia that she blames on SSFL and who has mapped 50 other cases of rare pediatric cancers near the site. Bumstead organized a group called “Parents vs. SSFL” and launched a Change.org petition demanding full cleanup of SSFL that has been signed by over 410,000 people. “DTSC repeatedly minimizes risk from SSFL and has broken every promise it ever made about the SSFL cleanup. Communities throughout the state have also been failed by DTSC. The public has no confidence in this troubled agency,” said Bumstead.
Nuclear reactor accidents, including a famous partial meltdown, tens of thousands of rocket engine tests, and sloppy environmental practices have left SSFL polluted with widespread radioactive and chemical contamination. Government-funded studies indicate increased cancers for offsite populations associated with proximity to the site, and that contamination migrates offsite over EPA levels of concern. In 2010, DTSC signed agreements with the Department of Energy and NASA that committed them to clean up all detectable contamination in their operational areas by 2017. DTSC also in 2010 committed to require Boeing, which owns most of the site, to cleanup to comparable standards. But the cleanup has not yet begun, and DTSC is currently considering proposals that will leave much, if not all, of SSFL’s contamination on site permanently.
Dr. Robert Dodge, President of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, shares the community’s concerns. “We know what substances are on the site and how hazardous they are. We’re talking about incredibly dangerous radionuclides and toxic chemicals such a trichloroethylene, perchlorate, dioxins and heavy metals. These toxic materials are in SSFL’s soil and vegetation, and when it burns and becomes airborne in smoke and ash, there is real possibility of heightened exposure for area residents.”
Dodge said protective measures recommended during any fire, such as staying indoors and wearing protective face masks, are even more important given the risks associated with SSFL’s contamination. Community members are organizing a campaign on social media to demand that DTSC release a public statement revealing the potential risks of exposure to SSFL contamination related to the fire.
But for residents such as Bumstead, worries will remain until SSFL is fully cleaned up. “When I look at that fire, all I see is other parents’ future heartache,” said Bumstead, “And what I feel is anger that if the DTSC had kept its word, we wouldn’t have these concerns, because the site would be cleaned up by now.”
# # #
Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles (PSR-LA) is the largest chapter of the national organization Physicians for Social Responsibility and has worked for the full cleanup of SSFL for over 30 years.. PSR-LA advocates for policies and practices that protect public health from nuclear and environmental threats and eliminate health disparities.
Parents vs. SSFL is a grassroots group of concerned parents and residents who demand compliance with cleanup agreements signed in 2010 that require a full cleanup of all radioactive and chemical contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
A fragile shield of gas around the planet, the ozone layer protects animal and plant life from the powerful ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun. When the ozone layer is weakened, more UV rays can get through, making humans more prone to skin cancer, cataracts and other diseases.
Scientists discovered huge damage to the layer in the 1980s and identified chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, as the main culprit.
CFCs used to be common in refrigerators, aerosol cans and dry-cleaning chemicals, but they were banned globally under the Montreal Protocol of 1987.
The decline in CFCs in our atmosphere as a result of those measures now mean the ozone layer is expected to have fully recovered sometime in the 2060s, according to the report by the UN Environment Programme, World Meteorological Organization, European Commission and other bodies.
In parts of the stratosphere, where most of the ozone is found, the layer has recovered at a rate of 1-3% per decade since 2000, the authors state.
The amount of ozone in the stratosphere varies naturally throughout the year, with zone depletion most pronounced in polar regions, resulting in so-called ozone holes.
At the recovery rates projected by the UN report, the northern hemisphere and mid-latitude ozone is scheduled to heal completely by the 2030s, followed by the southern hemisphere in the 2050s and polar regions by 2060.
Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment, described the Montreal Protocol as “one of the most successful multilateral agreements in history.”
NASA’s Paul Newman, joint chairman of the report, said that two thirds of the ozone would have been destroyed by 2065 had the measures not been implemented.
Back in May, however, scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported a sharp rise in CFCs from an unknown source.
“We’re raising a flag to the global community to say, ‘This is what’s going on, and it is taking us away from timely recovery of the ozone layer,'” NOAA scientist Stephen Montzka, the study’s lead author, said in a statement at the time.
Montzka said if the source of the new emissions could be identified and contained, the damage to the ozone should be minor.
However, if it could not be remedied the already slow recovery of the atmosphere’s protective layer could be further delayed.
11.11.2018 – Madrid, Spain – Tony RobinsonAt the II World Forum on Urban Violence and Education for Coexistence and Peace, in Madrid from the 5th to the 8th of November, Pressenza took the opportunity to cover activities carried out by the international team of activists from ICAN.
A combined presentation by Dr. Aurora Bilbao from IPPNW and Hayley Ramsay-Jones from Soka Gakkai International covered two very important topics: the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and the intersectional aspects of gender and race discrimination in nuclear disarmament.
Divided Congress to clash over Space Force, nuclear arsenal, The Hill, BY REBECCA KHEEL – 11/11/18
Democrats next year will control the gavels for the defense and foreign policy committees in the House for the first time since 2010.
The party has been itching to check President Trump on a host of issues, from his relationship with Saudi Arabia to the ballooning defense budget.
But to get legislation through Congress, House Democrats will need to work with the Senate, which is still in Republican hands. And the chairmen poised to lead the defense and foreign policy panels in the upper chamber are seen as staunch Trump allies.
Here are the top foreign policy and defense fights to watch in a divided Congress:
U.S.-Saudi relations
Lawmakers in both parties have been eyeing ways to punish Saudi Arabia over the killing of U.S.-based journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi.
House Democrats have said responses should include an end to U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in neighboring Yemen’s civil war. Democratic lawmakers were already opposed to U.S. backing because of civilian casualties, but Khashoggi’s murder has given the issue new urgency……….
Space Force
The Trump administration has said it wants the establishment of a “Space Force” included in next year’s defense policy bill. That position has contributed to increasingly diverging opinions between House and Senate lawmakers……….
Defense budget
Smith [Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who’s poised to be chairman of the House Armed Services Committee] has said this year’s defense budget of $716 billion is “too high,” and in a Thursday letter announcing his run for chairman he vowed to target “inefficiency and waste” at the Pentagon……….
Nuclear weapons
One of Smith’s longtime concerns has been the U.S. nuclear arsenal. He opposed the Obama administration’s modernization plans, arguing they weren’t affordable.
With the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review calling for new capabilities, Smith has stepped up his criticism, vowing to scrutinize the nuclear budget to look for savings in the overall defense budget.
In his Thursday letter, Smith said Democrats must “take substantial steps to reduce America’s overreliance on nuclear weapons.”
Adding to Democrats’ nuclear anxiety is Trump’s intention to withdraw from a Cold War-era arms accord with Russia known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Smith and Engel wrote a letter to the administration last month warning they “will neither support, nor enable, a precipitous course of action that increases the risk of an unconstrained nuclear arms race.”
With the wildfires still raging in the area of the Santa Susana nuclear disaster, the mainstream media does what it always does – tries to reassure people, make the public comfortable that there is no radiation danger.
The government and nuclear experts can be depended on to do what they always do in such situations – make sure that no genuine measuring or assessment of the radiation risk is made.
Then they can say with confidence “There is no evidence of any danger” – having made sure to not look for any evidence.
Experts Say Rumors of “Radioactive Ash” from the Woolsey Fire Are Unsubstantiated LA Magazine 10 Nov 18 “……. authorities from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control who oversee the site say there is no evidence that smoke from the area around the SSFL is any more dangerous than other wildfire smoke……….“Our scientists and toxicologists have reviewed information about the fire’s location and do not believe the fire has caused any releases of hazardous materials that would pose a risk to people exposed to the smoke,”……
The responding fire agencies from Ventura and Los Angeles Counties also consulted independent hazardous materials coordinators who agreed with the conclusion that toxic material from the site was unlikely to have been spread due to the fire…….” https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/santa-susana-woolsey-fire/
BUT – readers of this article were not impressed: below some samples of the comments
Los Angeles Magazine must print a correction – this article is filled with errors and misinformation:
1) There is no need to put quotes around “significantly contaminated” – SSFL is one of the most contaminated sites in the nation, subject of a promised but long-delayed state and federal cleanup; it is heavily contaminated with well documented nuclear and chemical contamination, from, among other things, a partial nuclear meltdown.
2) The claim in the first hours of the fire by DTSC, an agency that has no public confidence to the point that the state legislature commissioned an Independent Review Panel to investigate its failings (which include the Exide fiasco in Vernon,) that it didn’t “believe” there was a risk is cover for its failure to live up to its cleanup commitments (it had promised the site would be cleaned up by 2017 and the cleanup hasn’t even begun). It is pure conjecture. DTSC does not have have any scientific data to back up the claim. It based the spurious assertion on its claim that the fire in its first hours was not in areas where contamination could be released, but the state fire department now shows almost all of the contaminated site as within the fire boundary.
3) DTSC did not release it’s statement in response to the Forbes article, it released it the night before, when virtually nothing was known about the extent of the fire at SSFL
4) SSFL is NEVER referred to as Area IV – that is simply one area in the site, the area where most of the nuclear activity occurred
5) Given the extent of contamination in the site’s soil and vegetation, it is indeed possible and likely that contamination from the site was spread further from the fire in smoke, dust, and ash. The bottom line is it irresponsible to claim that SSFL contamination was not spread further by the fire.
See our press release here http://bit.ly/SSFLfire
Also, Los Angeles Magazine may wish to read its own cover story from 1998: “HOT ZONE – Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory was on the front lines of the Cold War. Now some who lived near ‘The Hill’ say they share two distinctions: chronic illness and the unswerving belief that the lab caused it” [https://www.enviroreporter.com/hotzone]
I spoke with South Coast Air Quality and they said there wasn’t any monitoring done and it would be through the EPA. We spoke with CalEPA and they didn’t even know what areas of the site were burned yet. #DTSClies
The DTSC has lied to the community for years. You didn’t mention the 60% cancer incident rates for residents within two miles of the site, or the above average pediatric cancers, or invasive breast cancer rates 20% above the rest of CA, or that 9 out of 10 would get cancer if they lived there- and yet DTSC says that site poses no risk to the public. Why did you only interview them for this article. It seems very biased to me when we have experts backing up the claims against the DTSC. www.SSFLworkgroup.org
Mark Simpkin Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA November 7
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE WASTE
Ben Heard’s recent outing on 60 Minutes Australia in my view highlighted the fundamentally flawed issue regarding Nuclear as a solution to energy. In Australia we have been mining it, refining it, selling it and using it for around 60 years and in all that time, no one has invested much effort into figuring out what to do with it in terms of WASTE. (We’re now becoming even more aware of the disgrace at Woomera, South Australia)
Its pretty obvious to most that the nuclear industries continued efforts to sell the benefits of nuclear only serve to attempt to keep the public’s eyes off the concern of what you do with the WASTE.
The next example of “Smoke and Mirrors” is to say that Papers have been written about the issue of waste so that’s supposed make it OK. It borders on offensive the arrogance these people convey.
Rather than persisting with continually wiping the egg from their faces by defending the indefensible, I have wondered why they don’t invest their efforts into solving the waste issue safely. I have often considered that if the pharaohs used Nuclear, we’d still be looking after the waste today.
Why Australia needs to be a renewable energy superpower https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/the-economy/why-australia-needs-to-be-a-renewable-energy-superpower-20181109-p50f0h.html Mike Cannon-Brookes , Australia has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redefine its place in the world through the production of renewable energy. I share a vision with thousands of Aussies who believe we can get Australia to 100 per cent renewable energy. This transition not only benefits the planet – it presents one of the greatest economic opportunities for our country in terms of job creation and economic growth over the next 10 to 20 years.
This isn’t a pipe dream. Australia is blessed with abundant renewable resources. We have huge open spaces drenched in sun and vast expanses of coastline exposed to powerful winds. If you landed on this planet tomorrow and needed to generate solar and wind power, you’d choose Australia. And you’d be spoilt with choice from sunburnt Western Australia to the windy Great Australian Bight.
Moving our energy generation entirely to renewables is an aspirational and achievable national goal, of which we could be justifiably proud. But we can do better than that. We should be aiming to turn Australia into a renewable energy superpower that exports energy into Asia. Continue reading →
Newly-Elected Women Should Challenge U.S. Nuclear Posture, International Policy Digest, Cassandra Varanka 08 NOV 2018On Tuesday night, women made history. For the first time the United States elected more than 100 women to serve in the United States House of Representatives. These women are diverse in so many ways – the first Native women, the first Muslim women, the youngest woman. They bring incredibly different backgrounds – from military veterans to teachers.
As these newly-elected women converge on Capitol Hill and are sworn in January, they have the opportunity to challenge the nuclear status quo and usher in a new era of nuclear nonproliferation. Many of our nuclear policies have been the same since the invention of the atomic bomb. The president’s nuclear posture review touts “escalate to de-escalate” and relies on the Cold War tactic of mutually assured destruction. The president maintains the sole authority to launch a nuclear weapon and can do so at any time without further authorization. Right now, the United States is risking a return to the Cold War by trashing international agreements regarding nuclear weapons (INF, JCPOA) and building “more usable” nuclear weapons.
Women have played a crucial role in ending dangerous nuclear policies in the past. They led the way in demanding that the United States government put an end to atmospheric nuclear testing after their organizing efforts revealed radioactive isotopes in baby teeth. They led the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980’s. Today, Beatrice Fihn is leading the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize winner, in their work to advance the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which has now has 69 signatories.
Right now, there’s a small but growing women’s movement against nuclear weapons taking place across the United States. Women in state legislatures from Georgia to California have introduced resolutions in nine states calling on Congress to end the president’s sole authority to launch a nuclear weapon. The president has the power to unilaterally decide to launch a nuclear first strike against another country, and no one can stop the president once that order has been issued. …….
History was made on Tuesday, but it was only a first step. The incredible women who have been newly elected to serve in the 116th Congress now have the opportunity to champion policies that have been ignored by those in power for too long. Women have played an important role in reforming reckless nuclear policies in the past, and it is time for them to do it again. https://intpolicydigest.org/2018/11/08/newly-elected-women-should-challenge-u-s-nuclear-posture/
Antinuclear 