Warning Graphic Images. Australian Liberal Party’s Nuclear Agenda; dirty politics = radioactive environment

posted by Scott Kane on Tuesday, November 17th 2009

The CPRS legislation is before the Senate and the  Liberal/National coalition, with the predictability of a summer bushfire, have heaved out their old files supporting nuclear power.

They are in a bind, with 10 coalition MPs steadfastly and publicly opposed to the carbon pollution reduction scheme.  So Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop has dusted off the nuclear power issue and brought it forward with the justification that “19 of the G20 countries already relied on nuclear power…”

One can only assume that if 19 of the G20 countries announced they were going to jump off a cliff into the ocean tomorrow Julia Bishop would don a new bikini (no pun intended) and join in.

We’ve got big problems with carbon based power.  The science condemning it is beyond question and the need to act is urgent.

But nuclear?

Consider the images above.   These are “survivors” of Chernobyl.  These are people.  The only difference between them and us is we wear hats with corks to keep away the flies, play cricket and Australian Rules or Rugby and prefer beer to vodka.

I could write paragraphs about the half life of various nuclear isotopes.  The centuries upon centuries it takes for them to be rendered inert.  But why?  The images  of the “survivors” of Chernobyl speak louder than words…

Warning Graphic Images Click to Zoom In.

Scott Kane

Bob Hawke paid? Australia to be new home of world’s radioactive waste? We’re receiving a dump.

posted by David Collyer on Wednesday, August 19th 2009

Bob Hawke Wants Us To Turn Australia Into Nuclear Sewer

A former Australian Prime Minister is lining up our beloved country for a sucker punch – to be the dump for the world’s radioactive waste.

Bob Hawke makes me so angry.  And he is bringing my prediction , made in great sadness, into reality.

The world has a serious problem – there is radioactive waste stored precariously in unsafe conditions around the globe.  Scientists have warned governments they must act; populations are anxious.  A resolution is urgently needed.

Australia is ideal as a deep geologic radioactive repository: it is roomy, dry, geologically stable and politically benign. We understand the need for great caution in managing and disposing of depleted uranium.  We are honest too, so whatever facility is built will be to agreed specifications. Perfect.

News Corp today quotes Bob Hawke saying:  “It would also become a strong source of national income for Australia that could be dedicated to our own environmental and water requirements.”

Really?

This is a key problem: dumping countries will not pay Australia properly for the right to free themselves of this dirty, poisonous, dangerous stuff.

Yes, they will pay billions for their get-out-of-jail-free card.  But it wont be enough, not nearly enough.

Australia will commit itself to guarding, containing and protecting the waste for – choose a number – say 1000 years (a gross underestimate).  Other countries will willingly pay for the engineering and construction and transport, but not for 1000 year security – that wont be their problem!

This waste dump will be a magnet for crime.  Anyone with large volumes of radioactive material can hold the entire world to ransom.

Costing Trillions Of Aussie Dollars

One could do an actuarial estimate of what 1000 year security would cost Australia.  It would be trillions.  The dumping countries will want to erase this liability by negotiating it away.

I can see them all in a row, gesturing energetically, looking for a bargain and demanding a discount.

A Millennia is a very long time.  Given the quality of our political leadership, the giant capital injection we would enjoy would be frittered, inflated and mismanaged away in a generation or two.

Do we really want this responsibility?

Hiroshima Day – August 6th – We All Know About Nuclear Danger Yet The Clock Is At 5 Minutes To Midnight? What Are We Doing?

posted by Scott Kane on Thursday, August 6th 2009

At 8:15 am on August 6 1945,  140,000 men, women and children were incinerated by a bomb dropped by the United States of America on the city of Hiroshima.  The bomb, the first nuclear weapon to be detonated in an act of aggression – the second and only other  being Nagasaki a few days later – was known as  “Little Boy” detonated with the explosive force of 13 kilotons of TNT.

Many were vaporized instantly by the blast, others, less lucky – the “walking charred” – died painful deaths from leukaemia and other radiation illnesses.

Some died of poisoning from drinking the irradiated river water to quench their searing thirst.

Everytime this topic is brought up it is guaranteed to generate a war of words on whether or not the United States was justified in using these bombs on a civilian target.

But that empty argument fails to do justice to the stark reality that this event occurred and must never be allowed to happen again.

Whether one supports the peaceful use of nuclear fission or not, the use of weapons of mass destruction – of any nuclear device in war as a weapon – is inhumane.   It is genocide.

Nuclear weapons brought the world to the brink of disaster between 1945 and the early 1990’s.  The imminent threat and reality of nuclear war has hung over the heads of several generations of people worldwide.

But what have we learned?  We’ve learned over the years of the Cold War that:

1. Talk is cheap.
2. There are two types of fear.  Fear of these weapons being used and fear of not being able to use them.
3. They provide no valid solution to conflict.

Albert Einstein famously said:

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Public awareness of nuclear issues  is much higher today than in the 1940’s and even 1950’s.  Most understand a nuclear conflict is unwinnable as, once begun, it must escalate into global thermonuclear war.  Yet the Doomsday clock – run by the “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists” since 1947 – shows right now – 5 minutes to midnight.

The history of this clock is worth reproducing, the original historical  “times” of their clock can be found on their website here – Click Here – along with their rationale for the settings listed below.  It’s essential reading.  As you’ll see from the timeline we are not currently at an all time “close to midnight” but we are, despite the assumption that the end of the Cold War meant the end of the threat – higher than at many other times and dangerously close regardless.

IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
2007: The world stands at the brink of a second nuclear age. The United States and Russia remain ready to stage a nuclear attack within minutes, North Korea conducts a nuclear test, and many in the international community worry that Iran plans to acquire the Bomb. Climate change also presents a dire challenge to humanity. Damage to ecosystems is already taking place; flooding, destructive storms, increased drought, and polar ice melt are causing loss of life and property.
IT IS 7 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
2002: Concerns regarding a nuclear terrorist attack underscore the enormous amount of unsecured–and sometimes unaccounted for–weapon-grade nuclear materials located throughout the world. Meanwhile, the United States expresses a desire to design new nuclear weapons, with an emphasis on those able to destroy hardened and deeply buried targets. It also rejects a series of arms control treaties and announces it will withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
IT IS 9 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1998: India and Pakistan stage nuclear weapons tests only three weeks apart. “The tests are a symptom of the failure of the international community to fully commit itself to control the spread of nuclear weapons–and to work toward substantial reductions in the numbers of these weapons,” a dismayed Bulletin reports. Russia and the United States continue to serve as poor examples to the rest of the world. Together, they still maintain 7,000 warheads ready to fire at each other within 15 minutes.
IT IS 14 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1995: Hopes for a large post-Cold War peace dividend and a renouncing of nuclear weapons fade. Particularly in the United States, hard-liners seem reluctant to soften their rhetoric or actions, as they claim that a resurgent Russia could provide as much of a threat as the Soviet Union. Such talk slows the rollback in global nuclear forces; more than 40,000 nuclear weapons remain worldwide. There is also concern that terrorists could exploit poorly secured nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union.
IT IS 17 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1991: With the Cold War officially over, the United States and Russia begin making deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty greatly reduces the number of strategic nuclear weapons deployed by the two former adversaries. Better still, a series of unilateral initiatives remove most of the intercontinental ballistic missiles and bombers in both countries from hair-trigger alert. “The illusion that tens of thousands of nuclear weapons are a guarantor of national security has been stripped away,” the Bulletin declares.
IT IS 10 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1990: As one Eastern European country after another (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania) frees itself from Soviet control, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev refuses to intervene, halting the ideological battle for Europe and significantly diminishing the risk of all-out nuclear war. In late 1989, the Berlin Wall falls, symbolically ending the Cold War. “Forty-four years after Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, the myth of monolithic communism has been shattered for all to see,” the Bulletin proclaims.
IT IS 6 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1988: The United States and Soviet Union sign the historic Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the first agreement to actually ban a whole category of nuclear weapons. The leadership shown by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev makes the treaty a reality, but public opposition to U.S. nuclear weapons in Western Europe inspires it. For years, such intermediate-range missiles had kept Western Europe in the crosshairs of the two superpowers.
IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1984: U.S.-Soviet relations reach their iciest point in decades. Dialogue between the two superpowers virtually stops. “Every channel of communications has been constricted or shut down; every form of contact has been attenuated or cut off. And arms control negotiations have been reduced to a species of propaganda,” a concerned Bulletin informs readers. The United States seems to flout the few arms control agreements in place by seeking an expansive, space-based anti-ballistic missile capability, raising worries that a new arms race will begin.
IT IS 4 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1981: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan hardens the U.S. nuclear posture. Before he leaves office, President Jimmy Carter pulls the United States from the Olympics Games in Moscow and considers ways in which the United States could win a nuclear war. The rhetoric only intensifies with the election of Ronald Reagan as president. Reagan scraps any talk of arms control and proposes that the best way to end the Cold War is for the United States to win it.
IT IS 7 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1980: Thirty-five years after the start of the nuclear age and after some promising disarmament gains, the United States and the Soviet Union still view nuclear weapons as an integral component of their national security. This stalled progress discourages the Bulletin: “[The Soviet Union and United States have] been behaving like what may best be described as ‘nucleoholics’–drunks who continue to insist that the drink being consumed is positively ‘the last one,’ but who can always find a good excuse for ‘just one more round.’”
IT IS 9 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1974: South Asia gets the Bomb, as India tests its first nuclear device. And any gains in previous arms control agreements seem like a mirage. The United States and Soviet Union appear to be modernizing their nuclear forces, not reducing them. Thanks to the deployment of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV), both countries can now load their intercontinental ballistic missiles with more nuclear warheads than before.
IT IS 12 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1972: The United States and Soviet Union attempt to curb the race for nuclear superiority by signing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The two treaties force a nuclear parity of sorts. SALT limits the number of ballistic missile launchers either country can possess, and the ABM Treaty stops an arms race in defensive weaponry from developing.
IT IS 10 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1969: Nearly all of the world’s nations come together to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The deal is simple–the nuclear weapon states vow to help the treaty’s non-nuclear weapon signatories develop nuclear power if they promise to forego producing nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapon states also pledge to abolish their own arsenals when political conditions allow for it. Although Israel, India, and Pakistan refuse to sign the treaty, the Bulletin is cautiously optimistic: “The great powers have made the first step. They must proceed without delay to the next one–the dismantling, gradually, of their own oversized military establishments.”
IT IS 7 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1968: Regional wars rage. U.S. involvement in Vietnam intensifies, India and Pakistan battle in 1965, and Israel and its Arab neighbors renew hostilities in 1967. Worse yet, France and China develop nuclear weapons to assert themselves as global players. “There is little reason to feel sanguine about the future of our society on the world scale,” the Bulletin laments. “There is a mass revulsion against war, yes; but no sign of conscious intellectual leadership in a rebellion against the deadly heritage of international anarchy.”
IT IS 12 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1963: After a decade of almost non-stop nuclear tests, the United States and Soviet Union sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which ends all atmospheric nuclear testing. While it does not outlaw underground testing, the treaty represents progress in at least slowing the arms race. It also signals awareness among the Soviets and United States that they need to work together to prevent nuclear annihilation.
IT IS 7 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1960: Political actions belie the tough talk of “massive retaliation.” For the first time, the United States and Soviet Union appear eager to avoid direct confrontation in regional conflicts such as the 1956 Egyptian-Israeli dispute. Joint projects that build trust and constructive dialogue between third parties also quell diplomatic hostilities. Scientists initiate many of these measures, helping establish the International Geophysical Year, a series of coordinated, worldwide scientific observations, and the Pugwash Conferences, which allow Soviet and American scientists to interact.
IT IS 2 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1953: After much debate, the United States decides to pursue the hydrogen bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any atomic bomb. In October 1952, the United States tests its first thermonuclear device, obliterating a Pacific Ocean islet in the process; nine months later, the Soviets test an H-bomb of their own. “The hands of the Clock of Doom have moved again,” the Bulletin announces. “Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization.”
IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1949: The Soviet Union denies it, but in the fall, President Harry Truman tells the American public that the Soviets tested their first nuclear device, officially starting the arms race. “We do not advise Americans that doomsday is near and that they can expect atomic bombs to start falling on their heads a month or year from now,” the Bulletin explains. “But we think they have reason to be deeply alarmed and to be prepared for grave decisions.”
IT IS 7 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
1947: As the Bulletin evolves from a newsletter into a magazine, the Clock appears on the cover for the first time. It symbolizes the urgency of the nuclear dangers that the magazine’s founders–and the broader scientific community–are trying to convey to the public and political leaders around the world.

Join the worldwide Hiroshima Day rallys on Saturday 8th of August.   Click Here For Details

Scott Kane

Werribee rejected Uranium and the nuclear fuel cycle through political action. Reactors leak and genes mutate.

posted by Roger Howe on Friday, July 31st 2009

When the Liberals proposed a toxic dump for Werribee, the people were stirred into a massive reaction.

A national boycott was lead by the Democrat senators against CSR, the commercial operator of the proposed dump.

The protest movement culminated in a 15,000 strong meeting at Werribee Racetrack – average mums, dads and kids – joining to deny the government and the profit seeking CSR their plan, which was to be at the cost of the local residents. The civic resistance would have only got bigger if the Liberals hadn’t cut their losses and cancelled the planned toxic dump.

Uranium and radioactive waste from nuclear reactors are far more toxic than the contents of the once planned toxic dump in Werribee.

If 15,000 people protest against the cost to their health and livelihood from chemical waste, imagine how many would be out to stop a fatal government mistake mining Uranium and creating radioactive waste at every point of the fuel cycle. I recall Werribee was mooted as a potential site for a Nuclear Reactor, but the quiet giant of public opinion stirred. The proposal was quickly stilled.

Now, Labor has increased the scale of uranium mining in Australia, and continues to operate 2 nuclear reactors at Lucas Heights.

The more modern reactor was shutdown pending investigation of incidents during its operation.

The older has suffered a number of incidents, no doubt obliging the decision to replace it.

I am convinced that with the appropriate use of particle accelerators, nuclear reactors would no longer be required for nuclear medicines and medical research, the stated justification for keeping the reactors.

Australia is trading the genetic health of generations in return for quick bucks – Is it really worth it??

Australia was once proudly nuclear free, with uranium left safely in the ground.  Now we have operating and planned Uranium mines and two sick nuclear reactors.  This is NOT progress.

February 2009 Victorian Bushfire – Latte Environmentalism – Why Labor, Liberal And The Australian Greens Aren’t Thinking And Won’t Talk

posted by Scott Kane on Sunday, July 19th 2009

Popularity is the life blood of any political party.  Logically, without supporters you cant get elected.  For the machines of most political parties this is the paramount consideration.  Sadly this is exactly why unpopular realities are usually ignored.  If acted upon, it is in a way opposite to the principles of decency,  safety and logic.

One could argue the Brumby Labor government is acting in direct response to the horror we all witnessed on February 7th 2009,  Black Saturday.

Giving A Disaster A Cool Name And A Royal Commission Isn’t First Aid

We are quick to stick a brand name on sorry events.  It makes it easy for the media to discuss it;  it looks sharp.  It’s easy to erect a Royal Commission to  palliate community horror and indeed outrage.

But a bandaid is not going to resolve the issues that led to this fire.  No, I dont mean the drought or climate change.  I refer to something entirely in our hands:  sensible forest management and fuel reduction.  

Two conflicting intents paralyse our emergency services and government departments in relation to the whole forestry management and fuel reduction issue.  As a society of decent, humane people we have a serious obligation to think the matter through and decide.  Let me be clear – without either a genuine fuel reduction program or the complete evacuation of all civilians from the fire-prone areas, more innocent people will die in the next fire season.

We got to this point by pandering to simple-minded green politics for the sake of votes.

Note: at no time am I referring to the brave volunteers on the ground or the men and women of our police, fire and ambulance services who were left to clean this mess up.

Latte Green Politics Is The Core Of The Issue

Many political decisions  are targeted, nay designed, to woo inner suburban greens who love the environment, even if they dont know what it means.

It’s easy, it’s attractive and it feels good.  If feels like you’re making a difference – and yes, in that they are right.  They are.  What these well intentioned and passionate people fail to grasp is that the brand of politics they  subscribe is a life-threatening danger to the people living in the bush. I live in the Federal seat of McEwen – the seat containing the communities most heavily devastated by the 2009 bushfires -and I know the people don’t want mass clearing of forest or bush.

They love it!

They live in an area they cherish and seek to protect it.  But they don’t want to die in it, just  because a misinformed green in the inner suburbs believes clearing of fuel is bad, that burning the bush is intolerable environmental vandalism and that “Black Saturday was a one off event”.  These contentions are being actively circulated by the green movement.

It wasn’t.  It will happen again.   On average there’s a bad burn every ten years.  Each time the loss of life and property has increased.  Yet we do even less fuel reduction now than when I was a boy forty years ago.

Labor, Liberal And Green Votes – Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire

Let’s talk perfectly plain here.  Environmental concern is a good thing.  The Australian Democrats have actively pursued best environmental practice for 30 years.  This isn’t about environmental concern or environmental activism.  There is nothing wrong with that.  In fact I  ran an entire electoral campaign on the issue of Climate Change in 2007.

What is wrong is government,  specifically, political parties pandering to the latte environmentalists purely to garner votes and look impressive and concerned.

It’s wrong and yet it works – and that is gravely concerning.

In a forthcoming article, I’m going to address issues of science and previous debate and inquires..  That is, the evidence we had before February 7th 2009 aka Black Saturday.  It was predicted by credible scientists holding hard, scientific, verifiable data.  They were ignored.

Today,  I am contending that the problem lies with Labor and Liberals desperately seeking to win votes that would otherwise go to minor parties or independents.  That problem and The Greens, specifically their supporters, are doing the Australian community great harm campaigning – particularly at local government level – with rhetoric based on pseudo science, emotionalism and the cult of the glowing ember.

Can’t See The Wood For The Greens

The labor government has had ten years to address the problems that led to Black Saturday.  Before them the Liberals had their chance.  The Victorian state government has had 70 years to do so!

Consider the commissions, coronial inquests and public  submissions to both since 1939.  We have the answers yet they’ve not been acted on in an overwhelming number of instances.  It hasn’t always been due to the influence of green politics, to be sure.  But that does not detract from the fact that there has been no action at all.

I remember – like it was yesterday – being caught in the 1969 bushfires.  I lost a fire fighter school friend in the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires and I’ve mentioned here previously that my sister, family and friends lost their homes and in many cases their lives on Black Saturday 2009.  So many lost so much, and the reason is simple.  We live in the area the green movement of the inner suburbs likes to poke holes in the air about.  We live here and, as was the case in February 2009, we die here.

We had commissions and inquiries after all these calamaties.  Yet after the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires there was less, not more fuel reduction taking place.

How could that be?

The rise of Green politics.  After the 60’s and 70’s environmental movement had passed and – it needs to be said,  with some very positive outcomes – there was a brief pause in the early 1980’s.  Enormous energy was devoted opposing the nuclear fuel cycle  – rightly – and I applaud that work even now.  It was the Australian Democrats, in the Senate, who led the charge against the damming of the Franklin River – not Bob Brown and The Greens despite their desperate and recent efforts to rewrite history to look like they’ve actually done something, anything!

I supported those real environmental actions.

But the need for fuel reduction is a real concern.  It isn’t based on flimsy theories that trees enjoy being barbequed every ten years by a firestorm.  Sure, Australian native trees germinate widely after a bushfire.  But a firestorm is not the same thing as a bushfire.

When greens point with orgasmic enthusiasm at a series of green sprouts covering the trunks of recently burned trees, they are pointing to an desperate illusion in many cases.  Much of this “green regrowth” is  a last ditch stand of the tree to hang on to life -  soon be extinguished as the tree rots out from the inside.

And that breathless naivity makes me ill.

Yet, this is exactly the kind of material we see published by the green movement.  This and a whole swag more.  Sure, not all the trees will die.  Some of them will in fact go on to live, but  many with this symptom won’t.

How do we know?  The scarring on the hills of Lorne or Warburton after Ash Wednesday is how.  Visible ten years after the fire had passed.  Dead, lifeless trees.  In other words – past forestry experience.  It takes decades to recover from a firestorm, and if not carefully managed leaves the door wide open for invasive and undesirable species to take over.

A little bit like the Senate now the Democrats are absent.

This disinformation is swallowed whole by  latte drinking greens.  This is why labor and sadly the conservatives will not, can not, address this issue – they are desperate to hold the support of these “believers”.

Victorians Have To Decide.  Either We Fix This Now Or We Stop People Living There.

The equation is a simple one at the end of the day.  We either fix this issue by listening to bushfire scientists or we tell people they can’t live in bush-fire prone areas.  It’s a simple decision but it’s painful.  If we attend to proper, science based fuel reduction management then all political parties advocating it face a voter backlash from the latte sipping types we’ve discussed.

On the other hand there is going to be hell to pay if we are going to tell the people, such as those of McEwen, to pack their bags and leave their homes and lives.

The remaining option is no option at all.  That is, to continue to ignore the problem, to pretend all things green are good, and to watch homes and lives burn again.

What would you decide, as a humanitarian, if it were up to you?

Scott Kane

Will we use the low interest rate window to knock down private debt or return lemming-like to the financial orgy?

posted by David Collyer on Saturday, July 11th 2009

Australia struts the world stage, its banks safe, consumption stimulated and exports robust.  Well done, Mr Rudd, you followed the IMF script pretty well.

Except, ahem, what about private debt?  What about the reality that our banks fund half their assets with restless offshore loans, not from sticky domestic deposits?

The Bank of International Settlements prefers the figures to speak for themselves.  And they do.  Australians have borrowed heavily to buy shiny cars and large comfortable houses.

Borrowing to buy long life assets is a useful way to achieve one’s goals.  But in the end, it is all about balance, a quality we are strikingly short of.  Big loans mean heavy repayments – so don’t lose your job, get sick or lift your gaze for a moment from the long and arduous task of forwarding your earnings to the bank.

Today’s low interest rates ease the repayment burden.  Those that use this window to beat down their borrowings buy flexibility and freedom – for themselves and their country.

And, yes, the economy will recover, followed by higher interest rates.

While the banks have been ‘stress tested’, citizens have not.  What happens if the interest rate on your very large mortgage is ten percent not six? What if it is13 per cent?

“Sir!  Sir!  I know! Sir!  Sir!”

Pain.  Thirst.  Sacrifice.

The Australian Government does not have a debt problem.  But you do and I do.

Graph Source: Bank of International Settlements, 79th Annual Report