Dear All

This is my reply and invitation to the ABC Four corners programme,  "The A
Team, shown last night on Monday 2nd. October.
<http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/>

The programme lacks real balance. In this age of climate change and water
problems, I think the ramifications of the forest practice act, and its
legacy, needs to be spelled out more strongly. The science to back up our
actions was not factored into your programme. The dirty tricks you refer to
only justifies the destuction of the environment for corporate greed. The
strerotyping of environmental activist in the forest as some kind of dirty
drug maniac is an insult to those of us who have given and risked our lives
in attracting you into the forest to bare witness with us the destruction of
our native forests. Its time to give more attention to non violent citizen
actions and sollution strategies. We are in a crisis as Al Gore articulates
so well to us in  "An Inconvenient Truth"  <www.climatecrisis.org>.
Assist us in a cultural shift away from these justified jobs, towards
empowering green sollutions as in the Earth Repair Charter Global Solution
Strategy <www.earthrepair.com>.
Come to Anvil Hill actions this week, Lake Cowell, current forest actions
and most importantly the Aboriginal Tent Embassy just before and on January
26th 2007, on the lawns of Old Parliament House Canberra, where you will
find a lot of us networking discussing, empowering each other with the
general public, hosted on the land of our Aboriginal custodians about these
issues. We do encourage, formulate and comunicate sollutions that benefit us
species alike on this Earth.
You are always welcome, to listen and talk with me on these issues and
sollutions.  I am not only a masked performance artist standing in the way
of "progress".
Hope to meet you all down the track in emphasising ideas that shapes a
culture for all of us and future generations that cares for our indigenous
hertage.
Check out <www.rainbowchaitent.com>, a caring roving installation and
meeting place who I work with.

Yours Benny Zable

Greens to run anti-nuke TV ads - but we need your supportFrom: Juanita
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 8:58 PM
Subject: Greens to run anti-nuke TV ads - but we need your support

Australia could soon be a major exporter of uranium, selling  to countries
such as India in contravention of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT).  We could also develop a uranium enrichment plant and a major nuclear
waste dump, all under the false pretence of tackling climate change and at
the expense of investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.
The Greens are working at the national, state and local levels to stop this
madness, but we need your assistance.
On Wednesday October 4 during the SBS 9.30 news, the Greens will begin
screening an anti-nuclear TV advertisement, but we need your support to keep
the ad campaign running.
Please go to http://www.stopuraniumexport.com/ to view the ad, to find out
more about the alternatives to nuclear energy, and to donate to our
dedicated anti-nuclear advertising campaign fund. Every dollar can help,
donations are tax deductible and every dollar will be spent on this campaign
so please think about making a donation - and please forward this email to
your friends and family.
With more Greens in federal, state and local government we can keep nuclear
waste dumps and other nuclear hazards out of Australia
What can I do to help stop the spread of nuclear waste and nuclear weapons?

1) Get informed at our new website http://www.stopuraniumexport.com/
2) Donate to our dedicated anti-nuclear advertising fund at
http://www.stopuraniumexport.com/
3) Forward this email and other information to your friends and families
4) Sign our online petition at http://www.stopuraniumexport.com/
5) At the upcoming Victorian state election (November 25) and NSW state
election (March 24, 2007) remember to send a strong message  to the
pro-nuclear parties by voting 1 for the Greens
6) Help us to Rescue the Senate from John Howard at next year's federal
election by voting 1 for the Greens
7) Join your local Green group and get involved in grass roots campaigning

Just in case you dont think the Prime Minister is serious about Australia's
nuclear future, just think about his recent comment:

"We do have a longstanding policy of only selling uranium to countries that
are part of the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] regime, but we will have a
look at what the Americans have done [with India] ...We have some of the
largest uranium deposits in the world and provided the rules are followed
and the safeguards are met we are willing to sell."
- Prime Minister John Howard, 5 March 2006, Delhi.

Thank you for your support,
Juanita Wheeler
National Convenor
Australian Greens
convenor@...

resend of bounced message...
----- Original Message -----
From: Anne Goddard
To: Group 1
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 1:54 AM
Subject: Climate Online September 2006 - FOE



----- Original Message -----
From: Friends of the Earth
To: winter___@...
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 10:24 PM
Subject: Climate Online September 2006




       29 September 2006


      Half time and going strong...

       The Big Ask, Big Month, Big Lobby is going fantastically.

       We are already half way through the month (Sept 12 to Oct 11) and we have
been receiving really positive feedback from people who have met with their MP.
To get a flavour of what has been going on check out some of the photos here.

       We're now received well over a thousand responses from people who are
going to see their MP. This covers over three quarters of all constituencies,
which is just fantastic. Thank you so much for all your help.

       The result? Well, it's not over yet, but have a look at the news stories
below - there are some encouraging signs...

       Happy MP lobbying!

       Alex

       PS - We are still keen to fill in those gap constituencies where we don't
yet have someone who is up for talking to their MP. Please check out the
messageboards to see whether yours is one of them - and if so, please do sign up
to take part.




      Blair, Miliband and the Labour party

       Tony Blair and David Miliband have been making some very encouraging
statements at the recent Labour party conference. Find out exactly what they've
been saying - and what the official Labour party line is. This should give you
some handy tips for any of you who are going to visit your own Labour MP. Read
more here.



      They think it's all over... The Big Ask quiz

       During the Big Month our parliamentary team have been out in force at the
party conferences speaking to MPs about the Climate Change Bill. At the Labour
party conference this week, we put David Miliband and his colleagues to the test
in The Big Ask quiz - as featured on Newsnight.




            Nervous about meeting your MP? So was Karen, so she teamed up with
other people via the Big Lobby messageboards. Find out how she got on.





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Stand up for a Nuclear Free Australia - November 14

Protest John Howard's Trojan Horse Nuclear Inquiry.

On June 6 John Howard appointed a task force to review uranium mining,
processing and nuclear energy in Australia headed by ex Telstra CEO Ziggy
Switkowski. The inquiry would seem to be little more than a Trojan horse for
the Government and Industry.

The Howard Government is raising the sceptre of nuclear power plants and
generating fear in the community. This is simply political game playing. Ian
Lowe, emeritus professor of science at Griffith University and president of
the Australian Conservation Foundation stated in a recent interview that he
suspects that "when the inquiry concludes that Nuclear power plants will
only happen if there were massive government subsidies, people will be so
relieved that we aren't having nuclear power stations that they will be more
accepting of an expansion of uranium exports, and possibly more accepting of
the argument that we should put public money into enriching uranium on the
grounds that this produces a value-added product. Then, of course, the
government will run the argument, as they have sotto voce for a few years,
that as a massive uranium exporter we have a moral responsibility to accept
the waste back".

The inquiry's terms of reference themselves have been criticised as being
slanted towards the Nuclear Industry. The export potential of Australian
uranium is highlighted, and references include examination of the future
viability of nuclear power in this country, and the establishment of uranium
enrichment. The make up of the board is heavily stacked towards pro-nuclear
members and has been described by Ian Lowe, as being as "about as
independent as an Alabama sheriff". John Howard himself pre-empted the
Inquiry by saying that he believes Australia will eventually have nuclear
power. It is planned that a draft report is released for public consultation
by November and the final report due by the end of the year. To add to
concern that Government is not seeking a balanced view on the future of
Nuclear power in Australia, the peer review set up by John Howard to test
the voracity of the Switkowski inquiry's findings is headed by the
Government's own chief scientist Jim Peacock, who also known to support
nuclear energy .

Why protest?

The nuclear energy cycle is far from being safe or greenhouse gas
emission-free. Even if it were, nuclear power addresses the source of only
around 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions - electricity production. The
problems of Nuclear Power have not been solved. Nuclear Power is still
hugely expensive, dangerous, environmentally costly and produces waste that
persists for millions of years. Nuclear power is not the new solution to
global warming. A recent Newspoll of 1200 Australians in May 2006 found that
a majority of those surveyed opposed uranium mining or wanted no new mines
opened, uranium being enriched for export, and nuclear power stations being
built in Australia The Nuclear Industry is still dangerous and dirty at
every stage despite the government trying to convince the Australian people
otherwise.

What you can do.

Australians are already sending the Howard Government a strong message that
they are not fooled by the Government and Industries misleading campaign
that Nuclear is the answer and that they will not allow the Government to
extend the nuclear industry in Australia by using this Trojan horse
Inquiry..
Australian Conservation Foundation Supporters sent PM's Nuclear Taskforce a
strong message with 2,800 ACF member submissions delivered to PM's Nuclear
Taskforce.

Contact Nuclear Free Australia for more information:nukefreeaus@...
Ph. 0417 506 150 about
anti nuclear groups in your state and help organise an action in your town
or city on Tuesday November 14th. In Canberra members of Canberra Region
anti-nuclear campaign have already protested outside the department of Prime
Minister and Cabinet with banners and flags. Join others in insisting that
the Howard Government acknowledge that Nuclear Power is neither clean nor
Green and future Australian generations do not deserve to be bequeathed a
dirty legacy for short term gain. PEOPLE MATTER BEFORE PROFITS.

'If Nuclear Power is the answer, it must have been a pretty stupid question
Professor Ian Lowe, President of the Australian Conservation.

----- Original Message -----
From: Irving Hall
To: irving Hall
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 1:34 AM
Subject: Radio Interview: Bush's Nuclear Armageddon



Irving Wesley Hall
Author of "Depleted Uranium for Dummies"

will be interviewed on The "X" Zone Radio Show with Rob McConnell
http://www.xzone-radio.com/

Thursday September 28 10:00 PM EST
Friday September 29 6:00 AM EST

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->

Christian Zionism and Zionism

Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that possesses nuclear weapons. 
Its arsenal contains hundreds of nuclear warheads that can be launched from air,
land, sea, and underwater.  What if a Zionist crazy seizes power in Israel?

The United States has long possessed enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the
world.  Imagine a Christian Zionist president who believes he is above the law
with his finger on the trigger?  Supposing God tells him he should attack Iran
with nuclear weapons without consulting Congress or the American people?

Christian Zionists in the United States and Zionists in Israel can easily
produce a self-fulfilling prophecy that will destroy all of humanity and reduce
God's sweet earth to a smoking cinder.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->

Listen live or later:
http://www.xzone-radio.com/

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->

"We're Not In Kansas Anymore"
www.notinkansas.us

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->

To remove your name from this list, reply with "unsubscribe PG" in the subject
box.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

BIG ASK

Friends of the Earth are running the Big Ask campaign up until 11th
October 2006, encouraging everyone to ask their UK Member of Parliament
to support the Climate Change Bill. Big Ask Members of Parliament will
be speaking at the Stop Climate Chaos rally in Trafalgar Square, London
on Saturday 4th November 2006 :-
http://www.foe.org.uk/campaigns/climate/press_for_change/big_month/index.html

http://www.foe.org.uk

CLIMATE MARCH

The Campaign against Climate Change is calling for people from all
sectors of society to join the Global March for Climate Justice on 4th
November 2006. The Climate March will hear speeches at Grosvenor Square,
London at 12 midday under the shadow of the United States Embassy before
moving off to join the I-Count rally in Trafalgar Square, London :-
http://www.campaigncc.org
http://www.globalclimatecampaign.org
http://portal.campaigncc.org

hi peter :-)
good article, but the way in which the words are strung together continue to
lessen the truth of what we are going to face...Even if we stop our CO2
emissions (to zero) RIGHT NOW.
a

----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Bright
To: ClimateChangeAction@...
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 11:49 AM
Subject: [ClimateChangeAction] Global Temperature Highest in Millennia


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0926-06.htm






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0926-06.htm

bluegreenearth Forum...

Exxon 'misleads' on global warming
Posted by: "paul illich" paul_illich@...   paul_illich
Mon Sep 25, 2006 3:01 pm (PST)
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/830B9922-6AA8-4F75-814D-0F7F87BCC3E3.htm

Exxon 'misleads' on global warming
by Thursday 21 September 2006 12:16 PM GMT

Exxon Mobil, the US oil company, has been accused of misleading the public
in the relationship between humans and climate change.

The Royal Society, Britain's national academy of science, says the oil
corporation seeks to show that human activity does not necessarily lead to
global warming.

In a letter to Exxon, Bob Ward, Royal Society spokesman, criticised an Exxon
Corporate Citizenship document that described "gaps in the science" of
climate change.

The Exxon document cast doubt on the link between global warming and the
greenhouse gases which humans produce by burning fossil fuels.

Ward's letter, published in the Guardian, said: "I am writing to express my
disappointment at the inaccurate and misleading view of the science of
climate change that these documents present."

Gaps:

Exxon has said there are such gaps in the latest report of the United
Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in
2001, which had used the peer-reviewed academic papers of several hundred
scientists.

But the latest IPCC report spoke of "new and stronger evidence" that human
activities are warming the globe, a stronger stance than in its previous
report in 1995.

"It's quite clear that what Exxon are publishing is not the IPCC
(position)," Ward told the Reuters news agency.

Ward also said that at a July meeting with Exxon the oil company had pledged
to him that it would stop funding lobby groups that misrepresented the
consensus view on climate change science.

An Exxon spokesman denied it had agreed to stop any such funding.

Funding:

According to Ward's own analysis of Exxon's Corporate Giving Report, the
company last year funded 64 groups conducting climate change research, of
which 25 were in line with mainstream climate science and 39 were
"misleading."

The latter category included the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change, to which Exxon gave $25,000 in 2005, the Exxon website
shows..

The Centre's website says: "There is no compelling reason to believe that
the rise in temperature was caused by the rise in CO2."

Exxon Mobil is the world's largest publicly traded company. It achieved a
42% increase in profits in 2005, largely due to soaring oil and gas prices.

Responding to the Royal Society's letter, Exxon said in a statement that it
did accept the contribution of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2)
to climate change.

Refuted:

"Contrary to the Royal Society's assertion, Exxon Mobil recognises ... CO2
emissions are one of the contributing factors to climate change," it said.

"We refute any suggestion that our reports are inaccurate or misleading," it
said, adding it had founded a climate and energy research programme at
California's Stanford University.

An Exxon Mobil spokesman also said that funding of lobby groups did not mean
that the company agreed with the views of all of these groups.

"We do take this issue very seriously," he said. "These organisations do not
speak on our behalf, nor do we control their views and messages. They may or
may not hold similar views to ours."


via Blue Green Earth
global community, ecological, environmental and
social reportage, opinion, analysis, news

bluegreenearth.com /
bluegreenearth.us /
europeansocialecologyinstitute.org /
irelandfrombelow.org

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environment peopleGood digest, relevant activist information (Australian based)
sending on in full.

a


----- Original Message -----
From: enviro-people@yahoogroups.com
To: enviro-people@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 9:57 PM
Subject: [enviro-people] Digest Number 1378


environment people
Messages In This Digest (3 Messages)
   1. Callin' out for Germinate Edition 2!! From: holly creenaune
   2. Water catchment logging operations shutdown From: holly creenaune
   3. Anvil Hill Action Camp 4th-8th October + Earthling @ TINA From: Wenny
Theresia
View All Topics | Create New Topic Messages
   1. Callin' out for Germinate Edition 2!!
   Posted by: "holly creenaune" hollycreenaune@...   holly_creenaune
   Sun Sep 24, 2006 7:51 am (PST)
   hey there kids,

   The Second Edition Germinate is on the way!

   A quality publication circulated on the streets, enviro stalls and a food
   co-op near you, Germinate is the Australian Student Environment Network's
   magazine... We need submissions: articles, campaign updates, comics,
   drawings, dreams, paintings, pictures, photos, poems, stories and tall tales
   of your rockingly adventures!

   Tell us what's going on! From the Far North to the Southern Seas, dialogue
   and education comes wif activism.

   And we need help: layout, design and proofing work are all essential to
   Germinate coming together. We need people to track down grants and find the
   best printing deals. Please get in touch if you have the time and
   inclination to help out in any way.
   <http://www.asen.org.au/index.php?p=germinate>

   Please email stuff by *November 15 *(you've got f'ages!) to: germinate
   @asen.org.au

   If you can't email whatever you've got you can snail-mail to: "Germinate",
   Australian Student Environment Network, 19 Eve St, Erskineville, NSW, 2043
   <germinate@...>

   Truckloads o' love to the crews across Australia who submitted articles and
   art to Edition 1 - it looks ace - and can be read here
   http://www.asen.org.au/index.php?p=germinate

   Rock n roll!

   your friendly germinate announcement team:
   Holly: holly@...
   Danya: danya@... <danya_is@...>
   Loki: lachlan.campbell..type@...

   --
   Holly Creenaune
   National Convenor
   Australian Student Environment Network
   0417 682 541
   holly@...

   : : : www.asen.org.au : : :

   Back to top Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
   Messages in this topic (1)
   2. Water catchment logging operations shutdown
   Posted by: "holly creenaune" hollycreenaune@...   holly_creenaune
   Sun Sep 24, 2006 6:37 pm (PST)
   Noiiiice one to all the NSW and Vic kids in da bush in East Gippsland!!
   3 tree sits and a tripod - woohoo!
   xx holly

   MEDIA RELEASE MEDIA RELEASE MEDIA RELEASE

   25.9.06

   Thirty conservationists have shut down logging operations in the Goongerah
   township water catchment east of Melbourne.

   Logging operations have been halted by three tree platforms suspended in the
   canopy, as well as a tripod stopping access to the forest in which logging
   was taking place.

   Spokesperson for the group Lauren Caulfield said 'It is ludicrous to be
   logging water catchments such as this one when water restrictions are in
   force across most of the state. It is scientifically accepted fact that
   logging in water catchments dramatically reduces water supply to towns and
   cities.'

   'Victoria is a matter of months away from a state election, in which water
   supply and environmental issues will be at the fore, yet Premier Steve
   Bracks still refuses to acknowledge the elephant in the corner that is
   logging of our water catchments. Instead we
   are saddled with increasing water restrictions and the logging continues
   unrestricted.'

   'It is unacceptable that four out of five of Melbourne's water catchments
   are currently being logged. The ALP are lagging behind, it is time for
   Bracks to act and stop logging in our states water catchments.'

   'Victorian communities and voters are up in arms at the allowance of logging
   in our water catchments and demand that Bracks act to protect our water
   supplies and forests.' Said Ms Caulfield.

   For media comment contact Lauren Caulfield 03) 51540156
   (Melbourne contact Louise Morris 03)94198700.)

   http://www.geco.org.au/
   Googerah Environment Centre

   --
   Holly Creenaune
   National Convenor
   Australian Student Environment Network
   0417 682 541
   holly@...

   : : : www.asen.org.au : : :

   Back to top Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
   Messages in this topic (1)
   3. Anvil Hill Action Camp 4th-8th October + Earthling @ TINA
   Posted by: "Wenny Theresia" wennytheresia@...   wennytheresia
   Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:19 pm (PST)
   Anvil Hill - drawing a line in the sand against the continued expansion of the
coal industry in Australia.

   See Anvil Hill, and learn skills for climate action and beyond!
   Anvil Hill Action Camp
   4th-8th October, 2006

   Register today!

   WHAT?
   Five days of training and skill-sharing for people taking action against
climate change!

   Wednesday 4th - Friday 6th:Three days direct action workshops, skill shares,
practical sessions & action!

   Saturday 7th - Sunday 8th:Tour of Anvil Hill, workshops, discussions about the
campaign, media & strategy training - and a good old BBQ & bushwalk.

   Come for the whole 5 days or just for the weekend.

   WHEN?
   4th - 8th Oct 2006 or come for the weekend of the 7th/8th Oct.

   WHERE?
   In the Hunter Valley near Anvil Hill and the town of Denman (3 hours drive
north of Sydney, 2 hours west of Newcastle). Directions will be sent out when
you register

   WHY?
   Because climate change is the biggest threat to our future.because coal fuels
climate change .because Newcastle is the largest coal exporter in the
world.because the proposed new coal mine at Anvil Hill will produce 9 million
tonnes of coal each year and will drive the expansion of Newcastle's coal export
infrastructure .because the mine will have massive local environmental and
social impacts. because we need to act urgently to prevent dangerous climate
change.because it is time to draw a line in the sand and say NO to the mine at
Anvil Hill.

   The proposed mine is rapidly becoming the focus of a campaign by a broad
coalition of groups concerned about it's impact on the local environment and the
global climate. Anvil Hill is the largest intact stand of remnant vegetation on
the Central Hunter Valley floor, and, at a time when global greenhouse pollution
needs to be cut swiftly and radically, consumption of fossil fuels like coal
needs to be phased out as fast as possible.

   Throughout history, non-violent civil disobedience has been used again and
again to triumph over injustice. From the anti-slavery movement, through the
women's and civil rights movements, non-violent direct action has been a potent
tool - and it is a tool that we need more than ever in the fight against climate
change.

   This camp is about sharing skills and stories. It's a camp for people of all
ages and from all walks of life. It's about creating a strong, diverse community
of people who are confident and inspired to take power into their own hands, in
their own communities to take effective action to stop climate change and the
proposed Anvil Hill coal mine.

   PROVISIONAL WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

   Wednesday: 10am-5pm: Overview of the global movement to prevent climate
change, theories of social change, non-violent direct action workshops;

   Thursday: 9am-5pm: Planning effective actions, blockading techniques, legal
issues for activists, climate change, coal & clean energy alternatives;

   Friday: 9am-5pm: Political strategy & lobbying, overview of hunter coal chain,
campaign strategy, planning effective actions, blockading skills;

   Saturday:10am-5pm:Traditional owners welcome to country at Anvil Hill,
overview of Anvil Hill campaign, bushwalk near proposed mine sitel, BBQ and
social gathering;

   Sunday: 9am:5pm: Workshops - using the media for effective campaigning +
campaign strategy, civil disobedience as a tool for social change, where to from
here for the Anvil Hill campaign.

   Note: There will be open space sessions every day with lots of opportunity for
skillsharing and spontaneous discussions & workshops. If you have workshops
you'd like to offer, please e-mail us at: anvilhillaction@...

   COST
   Costs include all meals, tea and coffee etc.
   Waged: $15 per day
   Unwaged: $10 per day

   Note: If you can't manage this cost, please contact us to see if we can sort
out some kind of exchange so that no-one is excluded from participating..

   FOOD, ACCOMMODATION & OTHER CAMP INFO
   . Accommodation will be camping. So you will need to bring your own tent and
sleeping gear;
   . In order to keep costs low, a communal kitchen will be set up, with rosters
for cooking and washing up etc. We'll be sourcing food from organic and local
farms where possible;
   . Children are welcome to attend but will need to be supervised;
   . Sorry but you can not bring dogs;
   . Transport will be available from Muswellbrook & Newcastle stations and
minibuses from Sydney & Melbourne. Please see details on the website closer to
the event.
   . Please note: the camp will be a drug and alcohol free event.

   GET INVOLVED
   The camp cooking, housekeeping and decisions will have input form all the
participants. Have a workshop or skill to share? Want to help get the camp
together? Want to help with the Kids area? or facilitation? Want to come early
and help set up & get to know the amazing bush surrounding the proposed mine
site? Please email the organising collective. anvilhillaction{at}riseup.net

   HOW TO REGISTER
   You can download a registration form from http://anvilhillactioncamp
.blogspot.com/ Please send in this registration form to:
anvilhillaction@... Or mail to: Anvil Hill Action Camp, PO Box 290
Newcastle, NSW 2300. For questions, please call Sophie on 0438 273 765. For
transport related questions, please call Rob on 0428 541 046.

   For more information please visit: http://anvilhillactioncamp.blogspot.com/

   Come for the 5 days... or just for the weekend. Families are welcome. Look
forward to seeing you there!

   ***

   Check out www.thisisnotart.org!

   This Is Not Art
   Newcastle
   28th September - 2nd October

   See http://earthling.thisisnotart.org.

   Earthling: National Environmental Activist Forum

   Earthling is a terra firma gathering for environmental activists, who too
rarely get together to talk about "why" and "how" and "if." Sessions will
explore broad ideas about the way we activate, and the tools we use, the way we
organise and the biggest challenges facing us all.

   Earthling will include panel discussions on climate change, biodiversity
conservation, media and image culture and green-indigenous alliances as well as
practical workshops, a wind-down Environmentalism at the Club talk fest and
benefit gig for the Save Lake Cowal campaign.

   Program
   (Please note: this program is subject to change, keep in touch to make sure
you get the final program)

   Thursday 28th September:
   >>This is Not Art Launch
   From 6pm, Festival Club

   Friday 29th September:
   >>Tassie Forests
   12:00pm - 1:00pm, Playhouse Theatrette
   Wilderness, old growth and ancient rainforest - Tasmania's Southern Forests
are still wild and still threatened at the hands of the woodchip industry. Find
out more ...

   >>Cape York Peninsula
   2:00pm - 3:00pm, City Hall: Newcastle Room
   Cape York is one of the three most unspoiled wilderness areas left on Earth.
Until now, these diverse landscapes have largely escaped the environmental
damage so common in southern Australia. A mosaic of rainforests, woodlands, wild
rivers, heath lands, and wetlands remain intact - but the companies are lining
up...

   >>Bitchin Stichin get Together
   5:00pm - 7:00pm, Shop front, 376 King Street
   Be part of the Alternative Futures Quilt Project, which will show all the
amazing progressive visions that people hold. Join in on creating panels to be
sent to Melbourne and sewn into a MASSIVE QUILT that articulates a better world
than the bleak future vision that the G20 is trying to impose.

   >>Earthling film night
   7:00pm - 10:00pm, City Hall: Newcastle Room
   Special guest Auntie Ellie will introduce a film about Lake Cowal, cyanide
threatened wetlands in Wiradjuri country. Then, from Tassieâ?Ts forests, a
global treasure, a pirate ship, bugs and clearfells. Plus films on the Manhattan
Project, Cape York, the clandestine insurgent rebel clown army, emissions
statement, and more.

   Saturday 30th September:
   >>Green Black Alliances panel
   10:30am - 12:30pm, Banquet Room Newcastle City Hall
   Some alliances between environmentalists and Aboriginal activists have been
hugely successful, as are some Aboriginal conservation areas. Others have raised
questions about where Aboriginal and environmental interests diverge. Aboriginal
and non-Aboriginal panellists and audience members reflect on their experiences
in green-black alliances. What works, and what needs to be improved?
   Featuring:
   Carole Ridgeway-Bisset, Worimi Traditional Owner
   Steven Ross, Coordinator, Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations
   Ellie Gilbert, Lake Cowal defender
   Peter Thompson, Nature Conservation Council
   Lucinda Douglass, The Wilderness Society
   Panel-led and audience participatory panel.

   >>A Physical Investigation of Urban Ecology
   1:00pm - 3:00pm, Playhouse Rehearsal Room
   'Dwelling no place but being everywhere as home, as the only way to truly
experience the dimensions of reality, time and space.' Franco Rella, 'Atopy of
the Modern'. Exploring the nature of the urban, through physically mapping the
elements of place. Drawing on psychogeography and Body Weather practices, a
series of walking tasks will focus on bodytuning and site mapping to encourage a
sense of intimacy with place. Everywhere as home.

   >>DIY activist media workshop
   2:00pm - 4:00pm, TAFE computer labs
   Online Video Publishing for Independent Doco Makers and Campaigners - how to
use new web video tools to distribute your film and get your message out there,
hosted by the EngageMedia team.

   >>Image, media and activism panel
   4:30pm - 6:30pm, Banquet Room, Newcastle Town Hall
   What gains has the "movement" made by becoming more sophisticated in terms of
messaging and marketing? And what, if anything is lost by focus-grouping
environmental awareness? Environmental groups, especially those with extensive
resources, have become increasingly interested in notions of "framing"
"messaging" and how to attract media attention. Panelists and audience members
will be encouraged to reflect on the benefits and risks of this kind of
community engagement and explore whether this media-consciousness serves
short-term "outcome-based" campaigns at the expense of longer-viewed
consciousness shifts.
   Featuring:
   Bob Burton, Sourcewatch
   Anna Helme, Engagemedia
   Mithra Cox, Media Officer, Nature Conservation Council of NSW
   John Sutton, environmentalist and media academic
   Terra, Lake Cowal defender
   Panel-led with audience participation

   >>Environmentalism at the Club: Silencing Dissent
   7:30pm - 11:00pm, Newcastle Leagues Club
   An all of room piss-up and debate about how dissent is quashed.
   In 2005, 'anti-terror' laws were used to deport US peace activist Scott
Parkin, and Tasmanian timber giant Gunns Ltd. served a $6 million writ against
17 individuals and 3 organisations for defending Tassie forests. Come along, eat
drink and talk about how dissent is being silenced in contemporary Australia.
   Featuring:
   Iain Murray, Greenpeace Australia Pacific
   Greg Ogle, The Wilderness Society

   Sunday 1st October:
   >>Biodiversity crisis panel
   12:00pm - 2:00pm Banquet Room, Newcastle Town Hall
   Featuring:
   James Watson: National Wild Country Coordinator, Wilderness Society
   Carmel Flint: Grassroots biodiversity advocate with the North East Forest
Alliance
   Peter Robertson: Campaign Coordinator for Environment Centre Northern
Territory
   Ashley Love: North Coast conservationist
   Panel-led discussion with audience participation

   >>Tea party workshop space
   12:00pm - 5:00pm, Sunday Street Fair, Auckland street

   >>Climate crisis panel
   5:00pm - 7:00pm, Banquet Room, Newcastle Town Hall
   Industrialised economies need cheap energy, and lots of it. How does this fit
with the challenge of climate change, which demands radical cuts to greenhouse
pollution? Can consumer-society and the growth economy exist in a zero-emissions
world? And if dealing with climate change requires radical social change, do we
have time to achieve that?
   Featuring:
   Monica Richter, Australian Conservation Foundation
   Peter Gray, Rising Tide Newcastle
   Asher Goldman, Save Happy Valley (NZ)
   Ben Pearson, Greenpeace Australia-Pacific
   Panel-led discussion with audience participation

   >>Going for Gold: Lake Cowal benefit gig
   7:30pm onwards, Festival Club
   Going for Gold is an awareness night to experience words, music, film and
dance inspired by a spectacular seasonal wetland in Wiradjuri Country that is
threatened with gold mining. Dance and chill out, see the latest documentary and
meet Traditional Owners, grassroots campaigners and activists involved in the
struggle.
   Featuring:
   Madeline, Paul Spencer, Dhopec, Sydney City Trash, Unsoundbwoy, MC Picses,
James Brook and P.Chi

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/41910/

I thought this news item might be of interest to list members - it would be good
to encourage some young Australians and/or people from this group to get
involved.

It was also very interesting to hear on this morning's Radio National AM program
that Al Gore has played a big part in getting Richard Branson of Virgin Blue
Airlines fame to contribute US$3 billion over the next ten years to projects to
help deal with climate change. Apparently he also partly instrumental in getting
Rupert Murdoch to support moves to reduce global warming. Murdoch newspapers in
Britain are already putting pressure on politicians there - let's push the
Australian and other papers here to follow suit!

Cheers,

John Hill

Gore training global warming volunteers
Friday Sep 22 07:29 AEST
AP - Former US Vice-President Al Gore, the star of a documentary derived from
his slide show on global warming, is about to begin training 1,000 Climate
Project volunteers to help spread his environmental message around the globe.

Gore has been promoting his documentary and book, An Inconvenient Truth, and
encouraging volunteers to apply for his training sessions to learn how to give a
shorter version of his PowerPoint-style presentations.

Several thousand have already applied to be among the 1,000 volunteers Gore
expects to train within the next six months, said spokeswoman Kalee Kreider. The
first session with about 50 volunteers begins this weekend in Nashville, Gore's
hometown.

Gore, a Democrat who lost the 2000 presidential election to George Bush, has
criticised the lack of action on global warming by politicians across the
spectrum.

The wave of publicity about his initiative has raised questions about whether
Gore will run for president again in 2008. Gore has said he has no plans to
become a candidate, but he has not ruled it out either.

Gore plans to participate in the instruction at the sessions but will also have
scientists and other experts help train the activists, Kreider said. There are
no plans to hold sessions outside Nashville.

Activists will have to pay their own airfare and accommodations, but the
training sessions - which are expected to run Sundays through Tuesdays - are
free. Scholarships will be available for some participants, Kreider said.

Annapolis, Maryland, Mayor Ellen Moyer is among the initial group of activists
heading to Nashville.

"I'm honoured to be a part of this first training program," she told The
(Baltimore) Sun. "There comes a point in time when we have to say, `Enough is
enough'."


©AAP 2006

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello Anne from Chicago at 10AM -

Thinking of you and hope you're well.  You're up late
tonight.  My clock very erratic as at times wake up at
odd hours with too much on my mind to get back to
sleep so just get going.

Sending you all my articles even though not on climate
change - so many vital issues and too few of us to
deal with them.

My very best to you.

Steve

--- Anne Goddard <anne@...>
wrote:

> From: Jim Green
> Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 12:50 AM
> Subject: MARALINGA - NEVER AGAIN
>
>
> MARALINGA - NEVER AGAIN
>
> 50th ANNIVERSARY - 2006
>
> September 27 marks the 50th anniversary of the first
> of seven nuclear bomb tests carried out at
> Maralinga, following nuclear bomb tests at Emu Field
> and the Monte Bello Islands. The September 27, 1956
> bomb at Maralinga was a 12.9 kiloton plutonium bomb
> - similar to the Fat Man plutonium bomb which killed
> tens of thousands of people in Nagasaki in 1945.
>
> Over the next month, a series of events around
> Australia will both commemorate the Maralinga
> anniversary and build the movement for a
> nuclear-free world.
>
> Please find below a list of some of these events,
> and contact details for other nuke groups around the
> country so you can find out what's happening in your
> part of the world. (I haven't been able to get
> details for all the events happening around the
> country.)
>
> Below ...
>
> 1. 'Maralinga - Never Again' events
> - Melbourne
> - Adelaide
> - Perth
> - Darwin
> - Alice Spings
> - Sydney
> - Brisbane
>
> 2. Current list of nuclear campaign groups (please
> advise of ommissions, corrections)
>
> 3. Information about Maralinga
>
>
> 4. Fighting the NT nuclear dump plan ... and Martin
> Ferguson
>
>
> ------------------->
>
> MELBOURNE
>
> ------------------->
>
> Wednesday, September 27
> * 7am wreath-laying at War Memorial on St Kilda Rd
> * 8am protest at BHP - 'radiaoctive racism then and
> now' - highlighting BHP's refusal to relinquish
> exemptions from SA Aboriginal Heritage Protection
> Act.
>
> Maralinga Concert
> Sunday October 22, 3pm to 5pm
> Storey Hall, RMIT, cnr Swanston & La Trobe Sts
> A concert to mark the 50th anniversary of the
> British Nuclear Tests in South Australia. Featuring
> musicians (including Kutcha Edwards), speakers,
> recent photographs and interviews with Maralinga
> veterans. Come and join us to commemorate the
> ongoing legacy of the tests, and to celebrate a
> vision for a nuclear free future. Tickets $10/$5
> available at the door. 
Enquiries:
> <ilanabrahams@...>
>
> ------------------->
>
> ADELAIDE
>
> ------------------->
>
> The fun kicks off Friday night, September 22, from
> 7.00pm at the Karen Eliot Social Centre, cnr. Coglin
> & Hawker Streets, Brompton. There'll be an amazing
> crop of riotous short films, pictures from the most
> recent Radioactive Exposure Tour, music, organic
> popcorn and maybe even vegan choc-tops! A gold coin
> donation would be super-appreciated.
>
> Then, next Wednesday 27 September, Friends of the
> Earth Adelaide is holding a black-tie award ceremony
> for the first ever Blinky Award. The Blinky was
> created to recognise the outstanding commitment of
> massive corporations to short term profits at the
> expense of a healthy society and environment.
> There's so many massive corporations to choose
> from... Meet at 9.30am at Beehive Corner to walk to
> the surprise award venue nearby. Dress in your best
> tuxedo or ball-gown, and bring anything you think is
> essential for such a high-calibre award ceremony -
> Radical Cheerleader chants are especially welcome!
>
> Then on Sunday 1 October, we're holding a community
> picnic at the  North Terrace War Memorial, joining
> groups around Australia in a national day of
> commemoration of the Maralinga tests. It all kicks
> off from around noon, with guests including ecofaith
> maestro Jason  John, Maralinga veteran and long-time
> rabble-rouser Avon Hudson and  Kokatha
> representative Rebecca Bear Wingfield.
>
> Hope you can join us for some of these events,
> please spread the  details far and wide - if you
> want any more details, email Joel at
> joel.catchlove@..., or phone 0403 886 951.
>
> ------------------->
>
> PERTH
>
> ------------------->
>
> Wednesday 27 September 2006.
> Meet 11am at Perth Cultural Centre outside Perth
> Institute for Contemporary Arts (PICA), James Street
> Northbridge for lunchtime street theatre and
> actions. Contact Nic on 0422 990040.
>
> ------------------->
>
> DARWIN
>
> ------------------->
>
> 27th Sept - presence in the mall.
> Details: Contact Justin 8945 6810 or Emma 8981 1984.
>
> ------------------->
>
> Maralinga - Field of Thunder
> Sunday 1st October, 5pm to 10pm
> Aviation Institute, Charles Eaton Dve, Marrara
>
> The musical lineup includes an array of indigenous
> performers, including Shellie Morris, Russel Corowa,
> Aly Mills  as well as other local acts, including
> Flesh Petal and Aly Mental.
>
> Guest speakers include Uncle Speedy McGinness, a
> senior custodian of the Finnis River Land Trust,
> which encompasses Rum Jungle. Speedy will describe
> his deep sorrow at the fact that uranium from his
> country was responsible for the blinding of his
> friend Yami Lester during the British atomic tests.
>
> We'll have face painting fun for kids, a bar for
> adults, a bit of food and an energetic MC
>
> ------------------->
>
> ALICE SPRINGS
>
>
> ------------------->
>
> September 27th
> One Tree
> In commemoration of the first atomic test at
> Maralinga, codenamed "one tree", Alice Action, Arid
> Lands Environment Centre and Lhere Artepe Aboriginal
> Corporation will be planting one tree, along with a
> small plaque, on the Uniting church lawns in the
> Todd Mall at lunchtime on September 27th.
>
> --------------------
>
> October 1st
> “we are not no-one, this is not nowhere�
> Alice Springs Council Lawns
> 5-10pm
>
> In June 2005, then science minister Brenden Nelson
> asked “why can’t people in the middle of nowhere
> have low level and intermediate level (radioactive)
> waste?�
>
> On October 1st the Alice Community will be coming
> together to remind the Government that this is not
> the middle of nowhere. We live here. This is our
> place.
>
> Bands: Warren H Williams, Shane Howard (Goanna)
> Performance: Drum Atweme, Tangentyere Circus
> Films: Living Country (CAAMA), We of Little Voice
> Speakers: NT Senator Trish Crossin, Fran Kilgariff
> (Alice Mayor), Elliot McAdam (Minister for Central
> Australia, member for Barkly region),
> Margie Lynch (Arrernte Nations Campaign) and
> Traditional Owners from the proposed waste dump
> sites
>
=== message truncated ===

From: Jim Green
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 12:50 AM
Subject: MARALINGA - NEVER AGAIN


MARALINGA - NEVER AGAIN

50th ANNIVERSARY - 2006

September 27 marks the 50th anniversary of the first of seven nuclear bomb tests
carried out at Maralinga, following nuclear bomb tests at Emu Field and the
Monte Bello Islands. The September 27, 1956 bomb at Maralinga was a 12.9 kiloton
plutonium bomb - similar to the Fat Man plutonium bomb which killed tens of
thousands of people in Nagasaki in 1945.

Over the next month, a series of events around Australia will both commemorate
the Maralinga anniversary and build the movement for a nuclear-free world.

Please find below a list of some of these events, and contact details for other
nuke groups around the country so you can find out what's happening in your part
of the world. (I haven't been able to get details for all the events happening
around the country.)

Below ...

1. 'Maralinga - Never Again' events
- Melbourne
- Adelaide
- Perth
- Darwin
- Alice Spings
- Sydney
- Brisbane

2. Current list of nuclear campaign groups (please advise of ommissions,
corrections)

3. Information about Maralinga


4. Fighting the NT nuclear dump plan ... and Martin Ferguson


------------------->

MELBOURNE

------------------->

Wednesday, September 27
* 7am wreath-laying at War Memorial on St Kilda Rd
* 8am protest at BHP - 'radiaoctive racism then and now' - highlighting BHP's
refusal to relinquish exemptions from SA Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act.

Maralinga Concert
Sunday October 22, 3pm to 5pm
Storey Hall, RMIT, cnr Swanston & La Trobe Sts
A concert to mark the 50th anniversary of the British Nuclear Tests in South
Australia. Featuring musicians (including Kutcha Edwards), speakers, recent
photographs and interviews with Maralinga veterans. Come and join us to
commemorate the ongoing legacy of the tests, and to celebrate a vision for a
nuclear free future. Tickets $10/$5 available at the door. 
Enquiries:
<ilanabrahams@...>

------------------->

ADELAIDE

------------------->

The fun kicks off Friday night, September 22, from 7.00pm at the Karen Eliot
Social Centre, cnr. Coglin & Hawker Streets, Brompton. There'll be an amazing
crop of riotous short films, pictures from the most recent Radioactive Exposure
Tour, music, organic popcorn and maybe even vegan choc-tops! A gold coin
donation would be super-appreciated.

Then, next Wednesday 27 September, Friends of the Earth Adelaide is holding a
black-tie award ceremony for the first ever Blinky Award. The Blinky was created
to recognise the outstanding commitment of massive corporations to short term
profits at the expense of a healthy society and environment. There's so many
massive corporations to choose from... Meet at 9.30am at Beehive Corner to walk
to the surprise award venue nearby. Dress in your best tuxedo or ball-gown, and
bring anything you think is essential for such a high-calibre award ceremony -
Radical Cheerleader chants are especially welcome!

Then on Sunday 1 October, we're holding a community picnic at the  North Terrace
War Memorial, joining groups around Australia in a national day of commemoration
of the Maralinga tests. It all kicks  off from around noon, with guests
including ecofaith maestro Jason  John, Maralinga veteran and long-time
rabble-rouser Avon Hudson and  Kokatha representative Rebecca Bear Wingfield.

Hope you can join us for some of these events, please spread the  details far
and wide - if you want any more details, email Joel at 
joel.catchlove@..., or phone 0403 886 951.

------------------->

PERTH

------------------->

Wednesday 27 September 2006.
Meet 11am at Perth Cultural Centre outside Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts
(PICA), James Street Northbridge for lunchtime street theatre and actions.
Contact Nic on 0422 990040.

------------------->

DARWIN

------------------->

27th Sept - presence in the mall.
Details: Contact Justin 8945 6810 or Emma 8981 1984.

------------------->

Maralinga - Field of Thunder
Sunday 1st October, 5pm to 10pm
Aviation Institute, Charles Eaton Dve, Marrara

The musical lineup includes an array of indigenous performers, including Shellie
Morris, Russel Corowa, Aly Mills  as well as other local acts, including Flesh
Petal and Aly Mental.

Guest speakers include Uncle Speedy McGinness, a senior custodian of the Finnis
River Land Trust, which encompasses Rum Jungle. Speedy will describe his deep
sorrow at the fact that uranium from his country was responsible for the
blinding of his friend Yami Lester during the British atomic tests.

We'll have face painting fun for kids, a bar for adults, a bit of food and an
energetic MC

------------------->

ALICE SPRINGS


------------------->

September 27th
One Tree
In commemoration of the first atomic test at Maralinga, codenamed "one tree",
Alice Action, Arid Lands Environment Centre and Lhere Artepe Aboriginal
Corporation will be planting one tree, along with a small plaque, on the Uniting
church lawns in the Todd Mall at lunchtime on September 27th.

--------------------

October 1st
“we are not no-one, this is not nowhere�
Alice Springs Council Lawns
5-10pm

In June 2005, then science minister Brenden Nelson asked “why can’t people
in the middle of nowhere have low level and intermediate level (radioactive)
waste?�

On October 1st the Alice Community will be coming together to remind the
Government that this is not the middle of nowhere. We live here. This is our
place.

Bands: Warren H Williams, Shane Howard (Goanna)
Performance: Drum Atweme, Tangentyere Circus
Films: Living Country (CAAMA), We of Little Voice
Speakers: NT Senator Trish Crossin, Fran Kilgariff (Alice Mayor), Elliot McAdam
(Minister for Central Australia, member for Barkly region),
Margie Lynch (Arrernte Nations Campaign) and Traditional Owners from the
proposed waste dump sites

This event will be drug and alcohol free, BYO picnic.

Presented by the Alice Alliance Against the Waste Dump: Alice Springs Town
Council, Central Land Council, Tangentyere Council, Lhere Artepe Aboriginal
Corporation, Arid Lands Environment Centre, Warren Snowdon’s office and
AliceAction.

------------------->

SYDNEY

------------------->

27th September - vigil at Sydney Town Hall steps at 5pm.
Contact: Renata <renatafield@...> 0422 854 184

------------------->

BRISBANE

------------------->

Skillshare:
Free Skillshare:  nukes 101
Australia’s nuclear industry – the past, present and future….
explore the issues and how to talk about them
date:  Sept 23 (Sat)
time:  10am-12am – stay on for a light lunch
place:  Friends of the Earth Brisbane 294 Montague Road West End
RSVP:   if possible (07) 3846 5793

Pine Gap 6 Benefit Gig - Coalition of the Unwilling
support the arrestees of the Pine Gap Citizen's Inspection Team - due
to face trial in Alice Springs on Oct 3.   Music by the Burrs, Alec Burns
Folk Band, Warwick Adenay and family - plus more
date:  Sept 22 (Fri)
time: 7:30pm
place:  St. Mary's  Church cnr Merivale and Peel Streets South Brisbane
price:  $8/$5 concession

Maralinga 50 years on: commemoration vigil
Remembering global victims of nuclear weapons, testing and
contamination on the 50th anniversary of major nuclear tests at Maralinga, SA.
date:  Sept 27 (Weds)
time:  4pm- 6pm
place:  ANZAC Square Adelaide Street, Brisbane
this is planned as a silent vigil.  please wear white or black and
bring a candle and a visual message. (information stall will also be held
nearby)

Beyond nuclear testing – Australia’s nuclear past… towards a nuclear
free future
speakers:  Lew Rice, National President Atomic Ex-Servicemen’s
Association; Keith Jaffray, Shoalwater Wilderness Awareness Group;  Medical
Association for the Prevention of War;   Peace Convergence/Friends of the Earth
date:  Oct 1 (Sun)
time:  2pm – 4pm
place:  Ahimsa House 24 Horan Street West End

Pine Gap 6 – solidarity vigil
expose Pine Gap as Pine Gap Trial commences - stand in support of the
Citizens Inspection Team who entered US spy base Pine Gap last year and
now face court under the “Special Defence Undertakings Act�
date:   Oct 3 (Tues)
time:  1-2pm
place:  in front of “Lady Justice� (outside Supreme Court of Qld) cnr.
George and Edward Sts. Brisbane

Queensland Nuclear Free Alliance (QNFA) meets fortnightly.  Join us!
ph Robin 0411 118 737  <nuclearfreequeensland@...>
<www.nuclearfreequeensland.org>

------------------->

LIST OF ANTI-NUKE CAMPAIGN GROUPS

------------------->

Adelaide: FoE Clean Futures Collective
Joel Catchlove <joel.catchlove@...> 0403 886 951
Friends of the Earth's Clean Futures Collective meets each Tuesday, 5.30pm,
Conservation Centre, 120 Wakefield St, Adelaide.
Web: <www.geocities.com/olympicdam> & <cleanfutures.blogspot.com>

Alice Springs: Alice Action & Arid Lands Environment Centre
Nat Wasley <natwasley@...> (08) 8952 2011, 0429 900 774.
Alice Action meets every Wednesday 6pm at ALEC, 39 Hartley St.
Web: <www.no-waste.org> <www.alec.org.au>

Darwin: Environment Centre of the Northern Territory
Emma King <ecnturanium@...> (08) 8981 1984, 0428 818 109

Darwin: No Waste Alliance <www.no-waste.org>
<darwin@...>, ph Justin Tutty (08) 8945 6810

Brisbane: Anti-Nuclear Collective & Food Irradiation Watch
Robin Taubenfield <robintaubenfeld@...> 04 1111 8737
Kim Stewart <kim.stewart@...> (07) 3846 5793
<www.nuclearfreequeensland.org>

Canberra - Canberra Region Anti-Nuclear Campaign (CRANC)
Meets every second Thursday (June 1, 15, 29), 6pm, at ROCKS meeting room, cnr
Kingsley St, off Barry Dr, Acton.
Tim 0405 370782
<nonukescanberra@...>

Melbourne: FoE Anti-Uranium Collective
Michaela Stubbs <michaela.stubbs@...> 0429 136935
Friends of the Earth's Anti-Uranium Collective meets each Wednesday, 6.30pm, 312
Smith St, Collingwood.

Perth: Anti-Nuclear Alliance of WA <www.anawa.org.au>
Annemarie Hindinger <nfreewa@...> (08) 9271 4488
Nicola Paris <Nicola.paris@...> 0422 990 040

Fremantle Anti Nuclear Group. Meets fortnightly. Contact Nicola Paris, 0422
990040 or <nicola.paris@...>

Byron Bay:
Catherine Atoms  <beyondnuclearbyron@...> 0404 899 619

Beyond Nukes Lismore
Ruth Rosenhek (02) 6689 7519, <rainforestinfo@...>
Meets at Winsome Hotel.

------------------->

INFORMATION ON MARALINGA

------------------->

Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, Irati Wanti ('The poison, stop it'):
<www.iratiwanti.org>
and see the links section:
<www.iratiwanti.org/iratiwanti.php3?page=bomblinks>
and the testimonies:
<www.iratiwanti.org/iratiwanti.php3?page=50yrhome>

Australian Nuclear Veterans Association: <http://users.bigpond.net.au/anva>

Large collection of articles by journalist Colin James available as Word file
from <jim.green@...>

Articles by nuclear engineer and Maralinga whistle-blower Alan Parkinson, re
botched clean-up in the '90s: <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/#bwt>
and articles about the use of human gunea-pigs, the body-snatchers scandal and
other stuff at the same site.

BBC material: <www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/falloutatmaralinga.shtml>

------------------->


BRITISH NUCLEAR BOMB TESTS IN AUSTRALIA

Operation Hurricane (Monte Bello Islands, Western Australia)
* 3 October, 1952 - 25 kilotons - plutonium
Operation Totem (Emu Field, South Australia)
* 'Totem 1' - 15 October, 1953 - 9.1 kilotons - plutonium
* 'Totem 2' - 27 October, 1953 - 7.1 kilotons - plutonium
Operation Mosaic (Monte Bello Islands, Western Australia)
'G1' - 16 May, 1956 - Trimouille Island - 15 kilotons
'G2' - 19 June, 1956 - Alpha Island - 60 kilotons
Operation Buffalo (Maralinga, South Australia)
'One Tree' - 27 September, 1956 - 12.9 kilotons - plutonium
'Marcoo' - 4 October 1956 - 1.4 kilotons - plutonium
'Kite' - 11 October, 1956 - 2.9 kilotons - plutonium
'Breakaway' - 22 October, 1956 - 10.8 kilotons - plutonium
Operation Antler (Maralinga, South Australia)
'Tadje' - 14 September, 1957 - 0.9 kilotons - plutonium
'Biak' - 25 September, 1957 - 5.7 kilotons - plutonium
'Taranaki' - 9 October, 1957 - 26.6 kilotons - plutonium

------------------->

Following info from Australian Students Environment Network <www.asen.org.au>

The Maralinga Atomic Bomb Tests – 50 years on…

"They put the bomb there. In our country. Maralinga and Emu Junction. In the
middle, right through. All the smoke went there. Right through and finished all
our people, in the Victorian desert. You look at it on the map, nobody living in
the Victorian desert. All our people gone."
--- Myra Tjunmutja Watson

On September 27, 1956, the first British atomic test at Maralinga, in the South
Australian desert, codenamed 'One Tree', was conducted, on Tjarutja lands.

It followed similar atomic bomb detonations further north at Emu Field, and on
the Monte Bello islands, off the northwest coast of Western Australia. One Tree
was detonated despite poor weather conditions, resulting in significant
radioactive fallout around Coober Pedy, and measured as far away as Townsville
in North Queensland and Lismore in New South Wales. The cumulative fallout from
the tests ultimately passed over most of Australia. Seven further nuclear
devices were tested at Maralinga in the following months.

Many Indigenous communities living in the surrounding areas were not warned of
the immediate nuclear threat. Despite the experience of previous atomic tests at
Emu Field, where Indigenous groups around Wallatinna and elsewhere recalled
experiencing a "black mist" rolling through their camps after the tests,
followed by widespread sickness, the 1986 Royal Commission concluded that at
Maralinga "attempts to ensure Aboriginal safety [during the tests] demonstrate
ignorance, incompetence and cynicism on the part of those responsible for that
safety."

The test range was located in an area that was selected "on the false assumption
that the area was not used by its traditional Aboriginal owners," when in
actuality Indigenous people continued to move in and around the Prohibited Area
– including the Milpuddie family camping in a highly contaminated bomb crater.
The boundaries of the test site were not secure, and warning signs were all in
English.

Communities across the Western Desert suffered significant radiation exposure.
The fallout from the tests was extensive: radioactivity affected most of the
Australian continent, leading to death and sickness, and continuing to affect
individuals and communties today. Indigenous oral histories tell of a black mist
that caused cancer and asthma, red and yellow-coloured smoke rising, bright
flashes of light leading to blindness. There are tragic stories of families
sleeping in bomb craters, nose and stomach trouble, family dying, and children
orphaned.

It is the story of poison spreading far, hurting people and land.

To carry out the tests, thousands of Maralinga, Pitjantjatjara and Kokatha
people were forcibly removed and dispossessed from their land by 'Aboriginal
Protectors' and forced to relocate to government and mission-controlled
enclaves.

British nuclear testing in Australia between 1952 and 1963 at Maralinga, Emu
Fields, Christmas Island and Monto Bello was officially unquestioned because of
the close military ties between Australia and 'Mother' England. Permission was
not sought for the tests from affected Aboriginal groups such as the
Pitjantjatjara, Tjarutja and Kokatha. The racist logic of imperialism
underscored the tests; officials of the day condemned "placing the affairs of a
handful of natives above those of the British Commonwealth of Nations" as
"lamentable" and ludicrous. This racism continues today when the voices of
Indigenous people and communities directly affected by uranium mines, waste
dumps or lingering contamination are ignored and silenced in favour of the
voices profiting from the nuclear industry. Maralinga is testimony to the
radioactive racism inherent in the nuclear industry.

50 years later, the legacy of Maralinga remains. In 2001 the British Ministry of
Defence acknowledged that military personnel from Britain, Australia and New
Zealand were used as "guinea pigs". They were inadequately trained, not made
fully aware of the dangers of the tests and sometimes intentionally exposed to
radiation in order to observe its effects on humans. Many of the veterans carry
a high incidence of cancer and genetic damage, passed on to their children and
grandchildren. The veterans of these tests, along with the Indigenous groups of
the area, still have not been adequately compensated or acknowledged.

Effects on country and failed clean up of Maralinga

The nuclear weapons detonated contain radioactive substances poisonous for up to
250,000 years, already contaminating land and water systems; and affecting
fragile desert eco-systems and the underground water basins which sustain them.

The contamination from the tests still lingers in the ground; approximately
8,000 kg of uranium, 24 kg of plutonium, and 100 kg of beryllium from the 'minor
trials' at Maralinga. In the late 1990s the Federal Government committed to a
clean-up which they declared 'successful' in 2002. The clean-up is widely
considered to have been grossly inadequate. The government breached its own
standards for the disposal of long-lived radioactive waste by burying
plutonium-contaminated debris in shallow, unlined trenches "with no regard for
its longevity or toxicity, and no regard to the suitability of the site," as
nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson commented.

Dr. Geoff Williams, a senior officer from the Australian Radiation Protection
and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) described the 'clean-up' as marred by a
"host of indiscretions, short-cuts and cover-ups." Alan Parkinson, who was
initially appointed as the Government's Representative to oversee the clean-up
but later removed, argues: "What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty
solution that wouldn't be adopted on white-fellas land."

The poison still lingers.

In Australia today….

Climate change is happening – and governments and corporations are being
forced to respond to a consensus of scientists worldwide, and a strong global
movement taking action to avert dangerous climate change. In Australia, the
nuclear industry and other pro-nuclear advocates have been quick to reinvent
nuclear power as "clean, green and safe" and a "solution" to climate change. But
nuclear power is no solution to climate change: it is too dangerous, too costly,
too slow and makes little impact on greenhouse pollution. That is why most of
the industrialised world is rejecting the nuclear option in favour of renewable
energy and improved efficiency.

With 40% of the world's known uranium reserves in Australia, however, the
Federal Government and other nuclear industry players are keen to cash in on the
recent enthusiasm for nuclear power.

The patterns of short-sightedness and discrimination that characterised the
Maralinga tests continue. In the 1950s, it is very likely that uranium mined in
South Australia was sold to another country, and returned as bombs to be
exploded on land not far from where it was extracted. Today, South Australian
uranium is again being sent overseas, with a growing push for the subsequent
wastes to be returned and dumped on Indigenous land in the Northern Territory.
As the Federal Government looks to sell uranium to countries like China and
India, there appears a very real risk that Australian uranium may again end up
in warheads, as countries continue to allow the diminishing effectiveness of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Likewise, government and the nuclear industry's pattern of discrimination
against Indigenous cultures can be seen today in legislation like the Roxby
Downs Indenture Act. This Act allows BHP Billiton's operations at its Olympic
Dam (Roxby Downs) uranium mine to supercede a variety of other crucial pieces of
legislation, including the Aboriginal Heritage Act. The interests of the nuclear
industry continue to be granted precedence over the legislated rights of
Indigenous Australians.

Australia has three existing uranium mines – the Ranger Mine in the Kakadu
National Park in the Northern Territory, and the Beverley and Olympic Dam (Roxby
Downs) mines in South Australia. BHP Billiton is planning a $5 billion expansion
of the Olympic Dam mine to make it the largest mine on the planet, and Australia
the largest producer and exporter of uranium in the world.

A second nuclear reactor in Lucas Heights, Sydney, was recently granted approval
to begin operation, on the grounds there is an adequate storage facility for the
waste it generates. The repackaging of nuclear energy as "clean energy" cannot
hide the ongoing thorn in the nuclear industry's backside: the problem of
nuclear waste. There is still no safe way of disposing of nuclear waste, and
there are still no storage plans for the more than 250,000 tonnes of high-level
radioactive waste already in existence.

Regardless, the Federal Government is working hard to force a low and
intermediate-level nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory. On December 8
last year, the Federal Government passed legislation clearing the construction
of a national nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. This proposal has
been met with opposition from almost all sides of Northern Territory politics,
alongside Indigenous landowners, and environment and community groups. The dump
proposal is crucial to the recent commissioning of the replacement nuclear
reactor at Lucas Heights, as the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology
Organisation (ANSTO) was required to demonstrate they had a comprehensive plan
for waste disposal before the reactor was granted a license to operate.

The reframing of the nuclear industry and 'debate' is a distraction from the
real debate about climate change – energy reduction and moving to renewable
energy. State and Federal Governments seem determined to gratify nuclear and
fossil fuel industries – at the expense of indigenous communities; and
creating environmental destruction, long-lived radioactive waste, and dangerous
climate change.

"The patterns of short-sightedness and discrimination that characterised the
Maralinga tests continue."

Better active today than radioactive tomorrow! Get active and involved:

The nuclear industry is seeing its biggest revival in decades – with extensive
exploration, pushing for new uranium mines and enrichment in Australia, a new
reactor to operate in Sydney, the possibility of nuclear power, and plans for a
radioactive waste dump in the Northern Territory. But it's going to be a
short-lived revival – the nuclear industry is no answer to climate change,
renewable energy works and is non-polluting, and we've got the people power to
create a sustainable and safe future!


--------------->


Fighting the NT nuclear dump plan ... and Martin Ferguson


Labor MP Martin Ferguson recently claimed that environmentalists and other
special interest groups "have used indigenous communities to peddle their own
ideology" and that "indigenous communities are starting to make their own
decisions about these issues."


Below is a response by Mitch, an Eastern Arrernte/Luritja woman from Alice
Springs. She is fighting the federal government's nuclear dump plans.

------------------->


We stand strong as Indigenous people


By Mitch (an Eastern Arrernte/Luritja woman from Alice Springs)September 13,
2006


When the Howard government's proposal to build a nuclear waste dump in the
Northern Territory was announced in July 2005, my Elders from the Harts Range
site north-east of Alice Springs gave me permission to set up a protest camp and
to speak out against it.


The Alice Springs community and environment groups supported us, but they have
never pressured us into anything or put words in our mouths. I reject the
statement from Labor politician Martin Ferguson, published in the Financial
Review on Wednesday, that environmentalists "have used indigenous communities to
peddle their own ideology". The environment groups have only ever helped us, not
told us what to say.


Mr. Ferguson is being paternalistic when he says, "indigenous communities are
starting to make their own decisions about these issues." As he should know, we
have always made our own decisions, but the politicians don't often listen.


My family and I have done a lot of our own research on nuclear issues in the
Alice Springs Library, by watching documentaries, and listening to the
environmentalists and politicians. And of course we already know about our
traditional culture and country - protecting country and access for hunting and
gathering bush tucker.


We have asked repeatedly for more information from the Government but they have
only told us that it is safe and there is no reason why people in the 'middle of
nowhere' can't have a dump. We have asked to meet with federal science minister
Julie Bishop, but she refuses to speak to us.


If this nuclear waste is so safe, why can't they keep it at the Lucas Heights
nuclear plant in Sydney, where it is produced and where the nuclear experts
work? We stand strong in our own culture as Indigenous people, and want the land
and water to be protected for all children, black and white. We have enough
issues of our own to deal with without having to deal with the nuclear waste.


We can solve the problems of racism, economic impoverishment, and inequality in
housing, but as a nation we need to think hard about nuclear issues because
radioactive waste is a problem we can’t solve easily.


Last December, the federal government passed legislation – the Commonwealth
Radioactive Waste Management Act –which prevents the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 from having any effect during
investigation of the short-listed nuclear dump sites, and it excludes the Native
Title Act 1993 from operating at all. Julie Bishop should come here to tell us
why the normal laws - as inadequate as they are - are being ignored.


Aboriginal Heritage is not protected under white law - what are the morals here
if the culture of the Indigenous people is not protected?


Indigenous communities have found solidarity with other groups that have an
interest in caring for the earth. For the dump campaign this has meant feeling
supported instead of feeling like a single Indigenous woman and talking up for
people living out bush at the Alcoota/ Harts Range site, 120 kms north-east of
Alice Springs.


Aboriginal communities and greenies are interested in the same thing - with
different reasons and understandings, but both wanting to save the water and
look after the country. Martin Ferguson should do the same.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Green Left Weekly <http://www.greenleft.org.au/index.htm>
RSS feed <http://www.greenleft.org.au/rss/glw.xml>

Green Left Weekly #684, September 20, 2006

Global warming, capitalism's inconvenient truth
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/684/684p11.htm>

In his documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, former US vice-president
Al Gore describes global warming as the greatest crisis humanity has
ever faced. Australia is singled out twice in the film, along with the
US, for not joining most of the rest of the world on climate change,
especially the Howard government's refusal to ratify the UN?s Kyoto
Protocol. [Full article]
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/684/684p11.htm>

From BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4315968.stm
Earth - melting in the heat?

"Predictions vary from the catastrophic to the cataclysmic."
by Richard Black
Environment Correspondent

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Squatters,

Is the Prime Minister digging a very big (and dirty) hole for himself
-- and for Australia? Last night on Lateline he continued to justify
the government's policy of putting economic benefits ahead of taking
substantial action to reduce greenhouse gases. "Whilst believing that
the planet is getting warmer," he argued that strong government action
would "do a lot of short and medium term damage to the Australian
economy" and would "send industries offshore, send Australian jobs to
countries like China and Indonesia." I think, he said, "we can tackle
the problem in a different and equally effective way."


As the PM fiddles, a growing cast of business leaders is calling for
the Government to engage the power of the market in the fight against
global warming, and the world's most influential Australian, Rupert
Murdoch, is throwing the weight of his media conglomerate behind the
push for governments to act decisively on global warming. We know the
Prime Minister is a wide reader, but has he been following the recent
views of Murdoch's most reputable columnists on the subject? Like
Irwin Stelzer ("Hit the polluters where it hurts") and Gerard Baker
("When it comes to climate change, I'll take a small bet that Pascal
was right") in The Times. As Baker puts it so simply:

If we believe in global warming and do something about it and it turns
out we're right, then we're, climatologically speaking, redeemed — if
not for ever, at least until some other threat to our existence comes
along. If we're wrong about it, what is the ultimate cost? A world
with improved energy efficiency and quite a lot of ugly windmills.

John Howard would probably get away with a soporific policy on the
environment if he only had the Opposition, the environmental lobby and
a handful of business leaders to contend with. But if and when Rupert
Murdoch unleashes his battalion of Australian newspapers onto the
issue -- as he is doing in London -- nothing will save the Prime
Minister from making an extremely inelegant green U-turn.

Hi All,

Please pass this new Poll around your networks...

Currently running 76% against and 24% for the expansion of the nuclear
industry in Australia...

http://globalclimatechangeaction.org/NuclearPoll

Warm regards
Anne

A list, hosted in Australia, for people interested in leapfrogging to an
ecologically sustainable economy. The list is for theall good articles, so have
forwarded on the whole digest (my apologies to those who are already subscribers
to this list).

a

----- Original Message -----
From: greenleap@yahoogroups.com
To: greenleap@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 12:39 AM
Subject: [greenleap] Digest Number 1365


A list, hosted in Australia, for people interested in leapfrogging to an
ecologically sustainable economy. The list is for the
Messages In This Digest (16 Messages)
   1. Bigger carbon cut needed to avoid disaster From: Philip Sutton
   2. Study Rules Out Sun As Cause Of Climate Change From: Philip Sutton
   3. Climate expert James Hansen: Only 10 years to act From: Philip Sutton
   4. Global warming: Will the Sun ease the impact for a while? From: Philip
Sutton
   5. Is George W Bush about to backflip on climate change? From: Philip Sutton
   6. Gore Unveils Global-Warming Plan From: Philip Sutton
   7. Climate and the denial industry From: Philip Sutton
   8. Oct 15-17:Workshop "Regions 2048 - Balancing Societal Needs and From: Prof.
Walter Leal
   9a. Re: Advice sought on social change in the face of intransigent From: Luke
Reade
   9b. Re: Advice sought on social change in the face of intransigent From: Paul
Martin
   9c. Re: Advice sought on social change in the face of intransigent From:
Lionel Boxer
   10. the long term view of nuclear waste From: Cameron Neil
   11. Invitation to Students: iNet Student Online Conferences From: Debra Brydon
   12. Re: Thanks for advice on social change in the face of intransigent From:
Mark Diesendorf
   13. Help? re application of compressed air as a fuel From: Alan Marshall
   14. Job: Waste management education officer: Gippsland Vic: apply by 4 O From:
Lisa Crisp
View All Topics | Create New Topic Messages
   1. Bigger carbon cut needed to avoid disaster
   Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...  
philipsuttonoz
   Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:31 pm (PST)
   ------- Forwarded message follows -------
   From: "Andrew Marks" <andrewm@...>
   Subject: Bigger Carbon Cut Needed To Avoid Disaster
   Date sent: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:57:15 +1000

   WARNING: BIGGER CARBON CUT NEEDED TO AVOID DISASTER
   By John Vidal
   The Guardian
   Friday, September 15, 2006

   http://www.guardian .co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1872870,00.html

   Drastic action is needed if Britain is to have any chance of avoiding
   catastrophic climate change, a ground-breaking environmental report warns
   today.

   In the first big study of what households, business and government may have
   to do to cut carbon emissions, the leading climate change research body has
   revised upwards by 50% the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that need to be
   achieved by 2050.

   The government-funded Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research says this
   is necessary because successive governments have failed to include aviation
   or shipping emissions in their calculations.

   At the moment, the government's estimate is that a 60% cut in emissions is
   needed to avoid a 2C increase in temperatures by 2050. But the authors of
   today's study conclude that a 90% cut in emissions is needed. Their data
   suggests that when aviation and shipping is factored in, UK carbon emissions
   have not fallen at all since 1990.

   In a scathing report commissioned by Friends of the Earth and the
   Cooperative Bank, the Tyndall Centre academics lambast successive
   governments for misleading the public on what has been achieved and what
   needs to be done.

   "The government's carbon reduction policies continue to be informed by a
   partial inventory which omits the two important and rapidly growing sectors
   of air transport and shipping ... There is a clear void between the scale of
   the problem and the actual policy mechanisms proposed," the report says.

   It proposes radical ideas to effect change, predicting that most buildings
   will have to generate their own electricity, double-decker trains will
   transport people to work, and planes might not be allowed to take off unless
   they are nearly full.

   But the report says that 90% cuts are achievable if measures are taken
   within four years to stabilise emissions. Beyond 2010, it says, annual cuts
   of 9% will be needed for the next 20 years.

   If the measures are not introduced urgently, say the authors, much more
   drastic and much less manageable cuts will be needed later.

   The authors say that little new technology or investment in infrastructure
   will be needed to reduce emissions, apart from the development of hydrogen
   as a fuel, and carbon capture as a way to store carbon dioxide.

   Instead they say that the government can encourage all sectors of society to
   become far more energy efficient, generating their own power and saving
   energy at all points.

   However, they propose that Britain become the first country in the world to
   introduce a wide-ranging carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme. They
   envisage that everyone would be able to trade emissions, with those who do
   not use much energy able to sell their quotas to those who use a lot. They
   also propose that aviation, the fastest growing emitter of carbon dioxide,
   be given a stringent cap on its emissions.

   "The UK has reached a tipping point. If the government's carbon dioxide
   targets are actually to have meaning the government must act now to curb
   dramatically the nation's carbon dioxide emissions," says the report.

   "The message is stark. We are deluding ourselves [if we] wait for technology
   or emission trading to offer a smooth transition to a low carbon future. The
   real challenge is making a radical shift within four years and driving down
   carbon intensity at an unprecedented 9% a year for up to 20 years."

   Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "To turn
   this road map into reality we need a law that commits this and future
   governments to making annual cuts in the UK's carbon emissions. Without
   legislation to force government to reduce emissions annually, politicians
   will continue to place short-term gains ahead of the long-term decisions
   needed to get to grips with climate change."

   Dr Kevin Anderson, research director of the Tyndall Centre's energy and
   climate change programme, said: "Our research demonstrates that the UK can
   move to a low carbon economy. But the journey will become much more
   demanding the longer the government leaves it to act."

   He added: "To make a smooth transition to a low carbon future the
   individuals need immediately to begin to implement a major action
   programme."

   ................

   Railways

   By 2030, railways could be entering their greatest era. Trains are expected
   to remain the most carbon efficient mode of transport after cycling and
   walking, and the authors expect the British network to grow by 25% in 25
   years as people forsake short haul flights for a new generation of
   high-speed trains linking national and European urban centres.

   By 2030, the authors say, double-decker trains could be introduced to
   increase capacity. Not only will passenger numbers grow, but operators will
   be encouraged to run longer and fuller trains on more energy efficient
   fuels. Rail freight will increase, but will be curtailed because the
   existing lines will be used more for passenger traffic. Track improvements
   will also be needed to reduce emissions.

   Industry

   If Britain is to meet a 90% cut in emissions, the government must slow
   energy consumption and shift the economy towards renewables. The biggest
   emission savings, say the authors, will come from capturing and storing
   carbon emissions from coal and gas, and the generation of wave, wind and
   tidal energy. By 2030, the authors expect wood and fuel crops to be heating
   public buildings and housing estates, and up to 36% of all electricity to
   come from renewables, compared with less than 5% today and 10% in 2010. A
   further 15% will come from "on site" micro-generation by buildings and
   appliances.

   A big change in industrial processes and technologies will be needed, and
   reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions will become essential in
   industrial design. Energy demand from appliances may overall stay the same
   but the emissions from air conditioning, refrigerators, computers and mobile
   phones can be greatly decreased.

   By 2050, industry will be located in hubs, so the waste heat from one
   manufacturing process is used by another. It will be far less carbon
   intensive when it uses hydrogen instead of gas and starts generating its own
   renewable electricity. By 2050, hydrogen fuel made from both fossil fuels
   and renewables will be used widely by industry for transport and heating.
   Hydrogen fuel will also be produced at filling stations by a process called
   renewable electrolysis, with huge arrays of solar panels placed on
   embankments.

   Roads

   Cars and cities will have to transform themselves by 2030 if the UK is to
   meet its carbon reduction targets. The biggest emission savings will come
   from the shift from oil to alternative fuels, and as cities effectively ban
   private transport from their centres. By 2030 the Tyndall report says there
   may be 13% fewer cars on the roads a wider choice of fuels including
   electricity, hydrogen, and biofuels.

   A network of "multi-fuel" filling stations will be needed. Cars will
   generally be lighter and more efficient. In the short and medium term, say
   the authors, the government could increase road tax on inefficient vehicles,
   decrease the speed limit on motorways to 60mph, set minimum emission
   standards for company car fleets and encourage public transport.

   By 2050, the authors say most cars will be run on fuel cells or by
   electricity and emissions could have reduced to practically nothing.

   Buildings

   Anticipating population growth, and a shift of people to the south, the
   authors expect roughly 2m new buildings in the next 45 years, but say that
   if high construction standards are introduced they need add little or
   nothing to overall CO2 emissions. But they consider some existing houses to
   be so energy inefficient that they may have to be demolished.

   By 2030, the majority of homes would have highly efficient insulation and
   roofs, and would have begun to generate their own electricity from wind
   turbines and solar panels. In addition, the government could ban the sale of
   inefficient incandescent light bulbs in favour of LEDs. The authors suggest
   that by 2030, all individuals could be part of a carbon emission trading
   scheme, allowing people who do not travel much or burn much energy to trade
   quotas with those who are energy profligate. By 2050, little energy will be
   needed to heat or cool buildings.

   Aviation

   Over the next decade the aviation industry will come under intense pressure
   to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It can achieve big cuts by developing
   lighter planes that burn less carbon-intensive fuels, and could also return
   to more efficient turboprop planes for short flights. Governments could
   demand speed limits on planes, ban larger ones from short haul flights and
   allow them to take off only if they are at least half full.

   The Tyndall authors expect biofuels increasingly to be grown for aviation
   over the next 25 years and suggest that the government could increase the
   tax on flying. In addition, a moratorium could be put on runway building,
   aviation could be brought into an emission trading scheme and the industry
   could be given a cap on emissions.

   By 2050, the authors say, domestic aviation will have greatly decreased as
   people shift to high-speed trains, and a combination of greater fuel
   efficiency and restraint encouraged by personal emission trading could
   reduce greenhouse gases from air travel to about one third of today's level..

   ------- End of forwarded message -------
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   This message has been posted to the Greenleap List by:
   Philip Sutton
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   Messages in this topic (1)
   2. Study Rules Out Sun As Cause Of Climate Change
   Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...  
philipsuttonoz
   Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:40 pm (PST)
   ------- Forwarded message follows -------
   From: "Andrew Marks" <andrewm@...>
   Subject: Study Rules Out Sun As Cause Of Climate Change
   Date sent: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:49:24 +1000

   STUDY ACQUITS SUN OF CLIMATE CHANGE
   Reuters
   September 15, 2006

  
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/09/15/global.warming.sun.reut/index.htm
   l
   or click here.

   OSLO, Norway - The sun's energy output has barely varied over the past 1,000
   years, raising chances that global warming has human rather than celestial
   causes, a study showed on Wednesday.

   Researchers from Germany, Switzerland and the United States found that the
   sun's brightness varied by only 0.07 percent over 11-year sunspot cycles,
   far too little to account for the rise in temperatures since the Industrial
   Revolution.

   "Our results imply that over the past century climate change due to human
   influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the sun's
   brightness," said Tom Wigley of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric
   Research.

   Most experts say emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil
   fuels in power plants, factories and cars, are the main cause of a 0.6
   Celsius (1.1 Fahrenheit) rise in temperatures over the past century.

   A dwindling group of scientists says that the dominant cause of warming is a
   natural variation in the climate system, or a gradual rise in the sun's
   energy output.

   "The solar contribution to warming over the past 30 years is negligible,"
   the researchers wrote in the journal Nature of evidence about the sun from
   satellite observations since 1978.

   They also found little sign of solar warming or cooling when they checked
   telescope observations of sunspots against temperature records going back to
   the 17th century.

   They then checked more ancient evidence of rare isotopes and temperatures
   trapped in sea sediments and Greenland and Antarctic ice and also found no
   dramatic shifts in solar energy output for at least the past millennium.

   "This basically rules out the sun as the cause of global warming," Henk
   Spruit, a co-author of the report from the Max Planck Institute in Germany,
   told Reuters.

   Many scientists say greenhouse gases might push up world temperatures by
   perhaps another 3 Celsius by 2100, causing more droughts, floods, disease
   and rising global sea levels.

   Spruit said a "Little Ice Age" around the 17th century, when London's Thames
   River froze, seemed limited mainly to western Europe and so was not a
   planet-wide cooling that might have implied a dimmer sun.

   And global Ice Ages, like the last one which ended about 10,000 years ago,
   seem linked to cyclical shifts in the earth's orbit around the sun rather
   than to changes in solar output.

   "Overall, we can find no evidence for solar luminosity variations of
   sufficient amplitude to drive significant climate variations on centennial,
   millennial or even million-year timescales," the report said.

   Solar activity is now around a low on the 11-year cycle after a 2000 peak,
   when bright spots called faculae emit more heat and outweigh the
   heat-plugging effect of dark sunspots. Both faculae and dark sunspots are
   most common at the peaks.

   Still, the report also said there could be other, more subtle solar effects
   on the climate, such as from cosmic rays or ultraviolet radiation. It said
   they would be hard to detect.

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   3. Climate expert James Hansen: Only 10 years to act
   Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...  
philipsuttonoz
   Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:42 pm (PST)
   ------- Forwarded message follows -------
   From: "Andrew Marks" <andrewm@...>
   Subject: James Hansen: Only 10 Years To Act
   Date sent: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:54:12 +1000

   WARMING EXPERT: ONLY DECADE LEFT TO ACT IN TIME
   MSNBC News Services
   September 14, 2006

   http://msnbc.msn.com/id/ 14834318/

   SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A leading U.S. climate researcher says the world has a
   10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and
   avert catastrophe.

   NASA scientist James Hansen, widely considered the doyen of American climate
   researchers, said governments must adopt an alternative scenario to keep
   carbon dioxide emission growth in check and limit the increase in global
   temperatures to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

   ³I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate
   change ... no longer than a decade, at the most,² Hansen said Wednesday at
   the Climate Change Research Conference in California¹s state capital.

   If the world continues with a ³business as usual²scenario, Hansen said
   temperatures will rise by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 degrees F) and
   ³we will be producing a different planet.²

   On that warmer planet, ice sheets would melt quickly, causing a rise in sea
   levels that would put most of Manhattan under water. The world would see
   more prolonged droughts and heat waves, powerful hurricanes in new areas and
   the likely extinction of 50 percent of species.

   Clashing with White House

   Hansen, who heads NASA¹s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has made waves
   before by saying that President Bush¹s administration tried to silence him
   and heavily edited his and other scientists¹ findings on a warmer world.

   He reiterated that the United States ³has passed up the opportunity² to
   influence the world on global warming.

   The United States is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, most notably
   carbon dioxide. But Bush pulled the country out of the 160-nation Kyoto
   Protocol in 2001, arguing that the treaty¹s mandatory curbs on emissions
   would harm the economy.

   Hansen praised California for taking the ³courageous²step of passing
   legislation on global warming last month that will make it the first U.S.
   state to place caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

   He said the alternative scenario he advocates involves promoting energy
   efficiency and reducing dependence on carbon burning fuels.

   ³We cannot burn off all the fossil fuels that are readily available without
   causing dramatic climate change,² Hansen said. ³This is not something that
   is a theory. We understand the carbon cycle well enough to say that.²

   Most scientists believe global warming is due in some measure to the
   greenhouse effect, which occurs when so-called greenhouse gases are emitted
   into the atmosphere. These gases trap in Earth¹s heat like the glass walls
   of a greenhouse. Greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are byproducts
   of the burning of fossil fuels.

   Arctic studies

   Hansen spoke as NASA released two studies that found sharp reductions in
   winter Arctic sea ice.

   One of those studies was from Hansen's institute. ³It is not too late to
   save the Arctic, but it requires that we begin to slow carbon dioxide
   emissions this decade,² Hansen said in a statement.

   Scientists and climate models have long predicted a drop in winter sea ice,
   but it has been slow to happen. Global warming skeptics have pointed to the
   lack of ice melt as a flaw in global warming theory.

   The latest findings are ³coming more in line with what we expected to find,²
   said Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice
   Data Center in Boulder, Colo. ³We¹re starting to see a much more coherent
   and firm picture occurring.²

   ³I hate to say we told you so, but we told you so,² he added.

   Serreze said only five years ago he was ³a fence-sitter²on the issue of
   whether man-made global warming was happening and a threat, but he said
   recent evidence in the Arctic has him convinced.

   Summer sea ice also has dramatically melted and shrunk over the years,
   setting a record low last year. This year¹s measurements are not as bad, but
   will be close to the record, Serreze said.

   Shrinking Arctic ice means less sunlight gets reflected and more gets
   absorbed, exacerbating the problem of warming. It also threatens Arctic
   species, notably polar bears, said Claire Parkinson, a research scientist at
   the Goddard center.

   The polar bear population in Canada¹s Hudson Bay has dropped from 1,200 in
   1989 to about 950 in 2004, a decline of 22 percent, Parkinson said at the
   teleconference.

   Polar bears typically hunt on Arctic ice, but when ice is depleted, they
   will forage on land, she said. This has led to more sightings in Inuit
   settlements, but does not mean that the number of polar bears is increasing..

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   4. Global warming: Will the Sun ease the impact for a while?
   Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...  
philipsuttonoz
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:51 am (PST)
   From:
   http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg19125691.100;jsessionid=ECD
   OINEILEBC

   Global warming: Will the Sun come to our rescue?

   18 September 2006
   Stuart Clark

   It is known as the Little Ice Age. Bitter winters blighted much of the
northern
   hemisphere for decades in the second half of the 17th century. The French
   army used frozen rivers as thoroughfares to invade the Netherlands. New
   Yorkers walked from Manhattan to Staten Island across the frozen harbour.
   Sea ice surrounded Iceland for miles and the island's population halved. It
   wasn't the first time temperatures had plunged: a couple of hundred years
   earlier, between 1420 and 1570, a climatic downturn claimed the Viking
   colonies on Greenland, turning them from fertile farmlands into arctic
   wastelands.

   Could the sun have been to blame? We now know that, curiously, both
   these mini ice ages coincided with prolonged lulls in the sun's activity - the
   sunspots and dramatic flares that are driven by its powerful magnetic field..

   Now some astronomers are predicting that the sun is about to enter another
   quiet period. With climate scientists warning that global warming is
   approaching a tipping point, beyond which rapid and possibly irreversible
   damage to our environment will be unavoidable, a calm sun and a resultant
   cold snap might be exactly what we need to give us breathing space to
   agree and enact pollution controls. "It would certainly buy us some time,"
   says Joanna Haigh, an atmospheric physicist at Imperial College London.

   Global average temperatures have risen by about 0.6 °C in the past century,
   and until recently almost all of this has been put down to human activity. But
   that may not be the only factor at work. A growing number of scientists
   believe that there are clear links between the sun's activity and the
   temperature on Earth. While solar magnetic activity cannot explain away
   global warming completely, it does seem to have a significant impact. "A
   couple of years ago, I would not have said that there was any evidence for
   solar activity driving temperatures on Earth," says Paula Reimer, a
   palaeoclimate expert at Queen's University, Belfast, in the UK. "Now I think
   there is fairly convincing evidence."

   What has won round Reimer and others is evidence linking climate to
   sunspots. These blemishes on the sun's surface appear and fade over days,
   weeks or months, depending on their size. More than a mere curiosity, they
   are windows on the sun's mood. They are created by contortions in the sun's
   magnetic field and their appearance foretells massive solar eruptions that
   fling billions of tonnes of gas into space. Fewer sunspots pop up when the
   sun is calm, and historically these periods have coincided with mini ice ages.

   The number of sunspots and solar magnetic activity in general normally wax
   and wane in cycles lasting around 11 years, but every 200 years or so, the
   sunspots all but disappear as solar activity slumps (see "Field feedback").
   For the past 50 years, on the other hand, the sun has been particularly
   restless. "If you look back into the sun's past, you find that we live in a
period
   of abnormally high solar activity," says Nigel Weiss, a solar physicist at the
   University of Cambridge.

   Fortunately, an indirect record of the sun's moods stretching back thousands
   of years has been preserved on Earth in the concentrations of rare isotopes
   locked into tree rings and ice cores. The story begins way out beyond the
   orbit of Pluto, at the boundary of the sun's magnetic field. While the sun is
   magnetically calm, its field extends around 12 billion kilometres into space,
   but the field puffs up to 15 billion kilometres when the sun is active. Cosmic
   rays - the high-energy particles from deep space that are constantly hurtling
   towards us - are deflected by the field, so at active times far fewer of them
   reach the Earth.
   Cosmic correlation

   The rays that do reach our planet leave traces in the form of carbon-14 and
   beryllium-10, isotopes that are only created when cosmic rays slam into the
   Earth's atmosphere. Plants and trees then absorb carbon-14, while
   beryllium-10 settles onto the polar ice sheets and becomes incorporated into
   that year's ice layer. So by measuring the levels of the isotopes in tree
rings
   and polar ice cores, we can work out how many cosmic rays were reaching
   Earth when the rings or ice layers were formed, and so estimate how active
   the sun was at those times.

   Sami Solanki and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System
   Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, have looked at the
   concentrations of carbon-14 in wood and beryllium-10 in ice as far back as
   back 11,000 years ago. The similarity of the fluctuations in both isotopes
   convinced them that they were seeing effects due to the sun. The peaks and
   slumps showed a recognisable pattern: "Periods of high solar activity do not
   last long, perhaps 50 to 100 years, then you get a crash," says Weiss. "It's a
   boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon."

   Although another crash is likely, predicting the sun's activity with any
   certainty is difficult because of the chaotic way in which the solar magnetic
   field is generated. If anyone can do it, though, it's solar physicist turned
   computer programmer Leif Svalgaard, from Stanford University in California,
   who has been forecasting solar activity for nearly three decades. In the
   1970s, he pioneered the best forecasting method yet devised, which uses
   the strength of the magnetic field at the sun's poles to predict future levels
of
   solar activity.

   He too expects a crash. The sun's polar field is now at its weakest since
   measurements began in the early 1950s, and to Svalgaard, the latest figures
   indicate that the sun's activity will be weaker during the next decade than it
   has been for more than 100 years. "Sunspot numbers are well on the way
   down in the next decade," he predicts. He expects fewer than six new
   sunspots per month, less than half the average number seen over the past
   decade.

   This is hardly the sunspot crash that observations from 1645 to 1715
   suggest. Back then, the appearance of even a single sunspot was major
   astronomical news, sparking hurriedly penned communications from one
   observatory to another. Nevertheless, it's a sign of things to come. "Sunspot
   numbers will be extremely small, and when the sun crashes, it crashes
   hard," says Svaalgard.

   Hot link

   So what does the sun's magnetic activity have to do with the climate on
   Earth? To pin down the connection, Solanki and his colleagues compared
   records of solar activity derived from tree rings with meteorological records
   from 1856 to the present day. They found that the temperature of the Earth's
   atmosphere changed in step with sunspot numbers until 1970. This is the
   evidence that has done more than anything else to convince climatologists
   to take the link seriously. What's more, the most recent calculations by
   Solanki's team suggest that the sunspot crash could lead to a cooling of the
   Earth's atmosphere by 0.2 °C. It might not sound much, but this temperature
   reversal would be as big as the most optimistic estimate of the results of
   restricting greenhouse-gas emissions until 2050 in line with the Kyoto
   protocol.

   There is still a big puzzle, though. Astronomers and climate scientists have
   always struggled to understand exactly how solar activity could influence the
   temperature on Earth. Whatever the variations in the sun's magnetic activity,
   the total energy it emits changes by only 0.1 per cent - too small a change to
   have any direct effect. As a result, the sun's role in climate change is
highly
   controversial. "People have been arguing over this for years," says Reimer.

   What other factor is at work? Important clues have emerged recently from
   solar observatories, including the SOHO spacecraft operated by NASA and
   the European Space Agency for the past 10 years. Although the change in
   overall solar energy is small, measurements made by SOHO and other solar
   observatories have revealed much greater variation in the levels of
   ultraviolet radiation, which can peak at up to 100 times its minimum level.
   "This means that there is scope for ultraviolet to have a much larger effect
   on our atmosphere," says Haigh, who for the past decade has been studying
   the impact of the sun's variability on climate.

   According to computer models she has developed, ultraviolet radiation heats
   the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere by energising atoms and
   molecules there. This drives chemical reactions involving ozone and other
   molecules, which can release still more heat. This heating changes the
   temperature structure of the atmosphere at all altitudes, although the details
   are unclear because of the sheer complexity of Haigh's model. "By varying
   the amount of ultraviolet radiation, solar activity changes the circulation of
   the whole atmosphere," she says. Change the circulation, and you change
   the weather.

   Haigh's work may help to explain one of the most puzzling aspects of the
   Little Ice Age: "Europe was badly hit, but other parts of the world may not
   really have noticed it," says Solanki. This might have been due to the
   different distribution of land masses in the northern and southern
   hemispheres. While Antarctica is surrounded by a wide belt of ocean, the
   distribution of land and oceans in the northern hemisphere is much less
   regular. This means that the interaction between the circulating atmosphere
   and the ground is more complex in the northern hemisphere. It gives rise to
   the North Atlantic Oscillation, an interplay of low and high pressure that
   dictates the movement of storms across the continents bordering the north
   Atlantic.

   Haigh has found that at times of low solar activity the air pressure over the
   North Pole is higher than normal and forces storms south, funnelling colder
   weather to lower latitudes. What happens in the southern hemisphere is less
   well known, but Haigh says she wouldn't be surprised if the reaction here to
   changes in solar activity is different.

   Solar activity might also influence climate through its effect on cosmic rays.
   In another study, Solanki has found an intriguing correlation between the
   temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and the number of cosmic rays
   striking it, with lower temperatures in periods of high numbers of cosmic
   rays.

   How could cosmic rays lead to cooler temperatures? Enter a theory
   proposed by Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen of the Danish
   Meteorology Institute in Copenhagen almost a decade ago. They suggested
   that cosmic rays create an electric charge in particles in our atmosphere that
   then act as seeds for the formation of clouds at low altitudes. A spell of low
   solar activity would mean more cosmic rays and therefore more clouds and
   lower temperatures.

   Svensmark and Friis-Christensen's idea is controversial, however (New
   Scientist, 11 July 1998, p 45). Most climatologists accept that more low
   clouds would reflect more radiation back into space, thus lowering
   temperatures. But many dismiss Svensmark and Friis-Christensen's
   evidence of a link between cosmic rays and cloud cover as coincidence (see
   "Cloud cover"). Others want the theory investigated, if only to rule it out.
To
   this end, an international group of more than 50 scientists have proposed an
   experiment at the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva,
   Switzerland, to begin in 2008.

   No room for complacency

   The coming years could settle the sun's role on temperatures once and for
   all. If the expected sunspot crash does takes place, Solanki's work could
   receive dramatic confirmation. "Having a crash would certainly allow us to
   pin down the sun's true level of influence on the Earth's climate," says
   Weiss.

   None of this means that we can stop worrying about global warming caused
   by emissions into the atmosphere. "The temperature of the Earth in the past
   few decades does not correlate with solar activity at all," Solanki says. He
   estimates that solar activity is responsible for only 30 per cent, at most, of
   the warming since 1970. The rest must be the result of man-made
   greenhouse gases, and a crash in solar activity won't do anything to get rid
   of them.

   What might happen is that the sun gives the planet a welcome respite from
   the ravages of man-made climate change - though for how long, nobody
   knows. During the Little Ice Age, the fall in average global temperature is
   estimated to have been less than 1 °C and lasted 70 years. The one before
   that persisted for 150 years, but a minor crash at the beginning of the 19th
   century lasted barely 30. For now, we will have to keep watching for falling
   sunspot numbers. "The deeper the crash, the longer it will last," Weiss says.

   There is a dangerous flip side to this coin. If global warming does slow down
   or partially reverse with a sunspot crash, industrial polluters and reluctant
   nations could use it as a justification for turning their backs on pollution
   controls altogether, makingmatters worse in the long run. There is no room
   for complacency, Svalgaard warns: "If the Earth does cool during the next
   sunspot crash and we do nothing, when the sun's magnetic activity returns,
   global warming will return with a vengeance."
   >From issue 2569 of New Scientist magazine, 18 September 2006, page 32-
   36
   Field feedback

   Sunspots and solar activity are driven by the strength of the sun's complex
   magnetic field. Although solar scientists are still debating the detail, most
   believe that the magnetic field is generated in a shell of hot gas 35,000
   kilometres thick and buried some 200,000 kilometres deep inside the sun.
   Known as the tachocline, this layer is made of plasma - a gas so hot that the
   atoms break up into charged electrons and ions.

   Material at different latitudes and depths of the tachocline rotates at
different
   rates. This variability moves electric charges and generates the sun's
   magnetic field. Once created, the magnetic field is strong enough to
   influence the movement of the electrically charged gas that creates it, a
   feedback mechanism that can either strongly amplify or diminish the overall
   strength of the field. For the past 50 years the field has been building, and
   the sun has been experiencing a period of unusually high magnetic activity.

   Predicting future solar activity is tricky because of this complexity. The
best
   method in use today was formulated in the 1970s by Leif Svalgaard, then at
   Stanford University. He showed that the magnetic field at the sun's poles is
   the best predictor. "The polar field is the magnetic seed for solar activity,"
   Svalgaard says.

   The polar fields are the accumulation of dead sunspots, transient dark
   patches on the sun's surface that have immense magnetic fields. When a
   spot fades from view, its residual magnetic field is gradually swept
   polewards by a surface current of solar gas known as the meridional flow. At
   the poles, this flow turns down into the sun, where astronomers believe it
   sinks to the tachocline and begins a return journey towards the sun's
   equator. En route, the magnetic field is rejuvenated by the tachocline to
   produce new sunspots.
   Cloud cover

   In 1997, meteorologists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen of the
   Danish Meteorology Institute in Copenhagen analysed weather satellite
   records from 1979 to 1992. This was long enough for the sun's activity to
   complete one of its regular 11-year cycles.

   The researchers found that the Earth was 3 per cent cloudier when the sun's
   activity was at a minimum than when it was at its peak. They also noted the
   influx of cosmic rays at five experiments across the globe and found that it
   was as much as 25 per cent higher at the solar minimum. They called their
   discovery a "missing link in solar-climate relationships" and argued that
   cosmic rays were responsible for increasing cloud formation by electrically
   charging the lower atmosphere.

   Intriguing as this link is, it is far from proof that solar activity and cloud
cover
   are connected. "You have to demonstrate such an effect with an experiment,
   otherwise it is not physics," says Robert Bingham, a physicist at the UK's
   Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, Oxfordshire.

   Bingham is part of an international collaboration building an experiment
   called CLOUD to test the idea that cosmic rays seed clouds. CLOUD will
   start up in 2008 using a particle accelerator at the CERN laboratory near
   Geneva as a source of simulated cosmic rays. The researchers will fire
   charged particles through a chamber holding a mixture of gases similar to
   the Earth's atmosphere to determine how often the particles trigger cloud
   formation. "CLOUD will go a long way towards understanding the
   microphysics of droplet formation," says Bingham.

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   5. Is George W Bush about to backflip on climate change?
   Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...  
philipsuttonoz
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:15 am (PST)
   At item from the most recent Crikey.com.au
   19 Sep 2006

   Is George W Bush about to backflip on climate change?

   Climate commentator Ian McHugh writes:

   Rumours are swirling that an announcement from the Bush administration
   signalling a profound departure from past climate policy may be days away.

   Will it be enough to send fossil fuel lobbyists in DC scrambling to update
   their résumés? Speculation ranges from the sort of middling policy that will
   succeed only in annoying just about everybody, to a radical program of
   emissions reduction that would draw a cautious smile from the sulkiest
   environmentalists and simultaneous howls of betrayal from conservatives.
   Time will tell.

   It´s difficult to imagine a genuine conversion - if there´s an epiphany to be
   had, it will be a political rather than an environmental one. The governator´s
   siding with the Democrats on a bill to slash California´s emissions hasn´t
   helped matters - there´ll be no Christmas card from the misunderestimated
   Texan this year, unless it reads something like, "Hey Arnold - you sucked in
   Junior! How much you sellin´ that Humvee for?"

   So is the policy shift a knee-jerk response to the inconvenient Gore
   juggernaut? No doubt the film has hit a chord of concern amongst a
   surprising proportion of the public, but there is bound to be renewed
   speculation about those scrupulously structured answers from Mr Gore to
   questions concerning his plans. Two years ago climate change would have
   seemed an unwise platform for a run at the presidency. Will this still be the
   case two years hence? Maybe it all hinges on the next hurricane season.

   Not generally known for his outspoken criticism of Bush administration
   policy, it will be interesting to see the position John Howard takes. This
will
   of course depend on the substance of the proposal, but it´s hard to imagine
   Australia will be entirely taken by surprise. Bush may simply follow a similar
   "virtue of necessity" tack to Howard´s in using his climate change ground
   shift as leverage on the nuclear issue. If so, the lobbyists will know who to
   post their résumés to.

   Still, unlikely as it may seem, there is talk of a Bush proposal to hold
   atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 450ppm, an extremely ambitious, some
   would say impossible, task. Though the devil is in the policy implementation
   details, this would be a historic announcement, one bound to win Bush a
   very different set of friends and enemies.

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   6. Gore Unveils Global-Warming Plan
   Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...  
philipsuttonoz
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:38 am (PST)
   Below is an intriguiging but somewhat frustrating article - it says that Al
Gore
   has unveiled a plan to tackle global warming but gives almost no details of
   the plan and does not say where the details can be found. Hopefully these
   will emerge in the next few days.

   Philip

   From:
  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091801125_\
pf.html

   Gore Unveils Global-Warming Plan
   Cutting Emissions, Restructuring Industry and Farming Urged

   By Michael Powell
   Washington Post Staff Writer
   Tuesday, September 19, 2006; A02

   NEW YORK, Sept. 18 -- Former vice president Al Gore laid out his
   prescription for an ailing and overheated planet Monday, urging a series of
   steps from freezing carbon dioxide emissions to revamping the auto
   industry, factories and farms.

   Gore proposed a Carbon Neutral Mortgage Association ("Connie Mae," to
   echo the familiar Fannie Mae) devoted to helping homeowners retrofit and
   build energy-efficient homes. He urged creation of an "electranet," which
   would let homeowners and business owners buy and sell surplus electricity.

   "This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue -- it affects the
survival of
   human civilization," Gore said in an hour-long speech at the New York
   University School of Law. "Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability
of
   our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours."

   Gore was one of the first U.S. politicians to raise an alarm about the dangers
   of global warming. He produced a critically well-received documentary
   movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," that chronicles his warnings that Earth is
   hurtling toward a vastly warmer future. Gore's speech was in part an effort to
   move beyond jeremiads and put the emphasis on remedies.

   He took a veiled shot at the Bush administration: "The debate over solutions
   has been slow to begin in earnest . . . because some of our leaders still find
   it more convenient to deny the reality of the crisis." But he saluted a
   Republican, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for helping to push
   through sharp reductions in carbon emissions.

   Gore noted that few politicians of any party are willing to step into the "no
   politician zone" of tough steps needed to address global warming.

   Gore cautioned against looking for a "silver bullet" policy reform that would
   address global warming, a view many scientists share.

   "There are things that you can do today and in the midterm, and things to
   tend to in the long term," said Gavin A. Schmidt, a climate scientist at the
   NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "You have to think on all the
   scales at once, and even that will only help you avoid the worst scenarios."

   A spokeswoman for the President's Council on Environmental Quality said
   Monday that the Bush administration has committed $29 billion to climate
   research and programs and has reduced greenhouse gas intensity. That is
   not, however, the same matter as reducing total carbon emissions, which
   continue to rise.

   Gore touched on nuclear power as a palliative for global warming but made
   it clear that this is at best a partial solution. Nuclear power inevitably
raises
   questions of nuclear arms proliferation, he said.

   And he warned against thinking that the recent drop in oil prices offers much
   help: "Our current ridiculous dependence on oil endangers not only our
   national security, but also our economic security."

   Staff writer Juliet Eilperin in Washington contributed to this report.

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   7. Climate and the denial industry
   Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...  
philipsuttonoz
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:39 am (PST)
   From:
   http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1875762,00.html

   The denial industry

   For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has
been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back
action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement
is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three
extracts from his new book, George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new
story:

   The denial industry
   George Monbiot
   Tuesday September 19, 2006
   The Guardian

   ExxonMobil is the world's most profitable corporation. Its sales now amount to
more than $1bn a day. It makes most of this money from oil, and has more to lose
than any other company from efforts to tackle climate change. To safeguard its
profits, ExxonMobil needs to sow doubt about whether serious action needs to be
taken on climate change. But there are difficulties: it must confront a
scientific consensus as strong as that which maintains that smoking causes lung
cancer or that HIV causes Aids. So what's its strategy?

   The website http://www.exxonsecrets.org/, using data found in the company's
official documents, lists 124 organisations that have taken money from the
company or work closely with those that have. These organisations take a
consistent line on climate change: that the science is contradictory, the
scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics, and
if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering
the global economy for no good reason. The findings these organisations dislike
are labelled "junk science". The findings they welcome are labelled "sound
science".

   Among the organisations that have been funded by Exxon are such well-known
websites and lobby groups as TechCentralStation, the Cato Institute and the
Heritage Foundation. Some of those on the list have names that make them look
like grassroots citizens' organisations or academic bodies: the Centre for the
Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, for example. One or two of them, such
as the Congress of Racial Equality, are citizens' organisations or academic
bodies, but the line they take on climate change is very much like that of the
other sponsored groups. While all these groups are based in America, their
publications are read and cited, and their staff are interviewed and quoted, all
over the world.

   By funding a large number of organisations, Exxon helps to create the
impression that doubt about climate change is widespread. For those who do not
understand that scientific findings cannot be trusted if they have not appeared
in peer-reviewed journals, the names of these institutes help to suggest that
serious researchers are challenging the consensus.

   This is not to claim that all the science these groups champion is bogus. On
the whole, they use selection, not invention. They will find one contradictory
study - such as the discovery of tropospheric cooling, which, in a garbled form,
has been used by Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday - and promote it
relentlessly. They will continue to do so long after it has been disproved by
further work. So, for example, John Christy, the author of the troposphere
paper, admitted in August 2005 that his figures were incorrect, yet his initial
findings are still being circulated and championed by many of these groups, as a
quick internet search will show you.

   But they do not stop there. The chairman of a group called the Science and
Environmental Policy Project is Frederick Seitz. Seitz is a physicist who in the
1960s was president of the US National Academy of Sciences. In 1998, he wrote a
document, known as the Oregon Petition, which has been cited by almost every
journalist who claims that climate change is a myth.

   The document reads as follows: "We urge the United States government to reject
the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997,
and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would
harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage
the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence
that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is
causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the
Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is
substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide
produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments
of the Earth."

   Anyone with a degree was entitled to sign it. It was attached to a letter
written by Seitz, entitled Research Review of Global Warming Evidence. The lead
author of the "review" that followed Seitz's letter is a Christian
fundamentalist called Arthur B Robinson. He is not a professional climate
scientist. It was co-published by Robinson's organisation - the Oregon Institute
of Science and Medicine - and an outfit called the George C Marshall Institute,
which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The other authors were
Robinson's 22-year-old son and two employees of the George C Marshall Institute.
The chairman of the George C Marshall Institute was Frederick Seitz.

   The paper maintained that: "We are living in an increasingly lush environment
of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children
will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we
now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial
Revolution."

   It was printed in the font and format of the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences: the journal of the organisation of which Seitz - as he had
just reminded his correspondents - was once president.

   Soon after the petition was published, the National Academy of Sciences
released this statement: "The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this
petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the
manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal. The petition does not reflect
the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."

   But it was too late. Seitz, the Oregon Institute and the George C Marshall
Institute had already circulated tens of thousands of copies, and the petition
had established a major presence on the internet. Some 17,000 graduates signed
it, the majority of whom had no background in climate science. It has been
repeatedly cited - by global-warming sceptics such as David Bellamy, Melanie
Phillips and others - as a petition by climate scientists. It is promoted by the
Exxon-sponsored sites as evidence that there is no scientific consensus on
climate change.

   All this is now well known to climate scientists and environmentalists. But
what I have discovered while researching this issue is that the corporate
funding of lobby groups denying that manmade climate change is taking place was
initiated not by Exxon, or by any other firm directly involved in the fossil
fuel industry. It was started by the tobacco company Philip Morris.

   In December 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency published a 500-page
report called Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking. It found that "the
widespread exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in the United States
presents a serious and substantial public health impact. In adults: ETS is a
human lung carcinogen, responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths
annually in US non-smokers. In children: ETS exposure is causally associated
with an increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis
and pneumonia. This report estimates that 150,000 to 300,000 cases annually in
infants and young children up to 18 months of age are attributable to ETS."

   Had it not been for the settlement of a major class action against the tobacco
companies in the US, we would never have been able to see what happened next.
But in 1998 they were forced to publish their internal documents and post them
on the internet.

   Within two months of its publication, Philip Morris, the world's biggest
tobacco firm, had devised a strategy for dealing with the passive-smoking
report. In February 1993 Ellen Merlo, its senior vice-president of corporate
affairs, sent a letter to William I Campbell, Philip Morris's chief executive
officer and president, explaining her intentions: "Our overriding objective is
to discredit the EPA report ... Concurrently, it is our objective to prevent
states and cities, as well as businesses, from passive-smoking bans."

   To this end, she had hired a public relations company called APCO. She had
attached the advice it had given her. APCO warned that: "No matter how strong
the arguments, industry spokespeople are, in and of themselves, not always
credible or appropriate messengers."

   So the fight against a ban on passive smoking had to be associated with other
people and other issues. Philip Morris, APCO said, needed to create the
impression of a "grassroots" movement - one that had been formed spontaneously
by concerned citizens to fight "overregulation". It should portray the danger of
tobacco smoke as just one "unfounded fear" among others, such as concerns about
pesticides and cellphones.. APCO proposed to set up "a national coalition
intended to educate the media, public officials and the public about the dangers
of 'junk science'. Coalition will address credibility of government's scientific
studies, risk-assessment techniques and misuse of tax dollars ... Upon formation
of Coalition, key leaders will begin media outreach, eg editorial board tours,
opinion articles, and brief elected officials in selected states."

   APCO would found the coalition, write its mission statements, and "prepare and
place opinion articles in key markets". For this it required $150,000 for its
own fees and $75,000 for the coalition's costs.

   By May 1993, as another memo from APCO to Philip Morris shows, the fake
citizens' group had a name: the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. It was
important, further letters stated, "to ensure that TASSC has a diverse group of
contributors"; to "link the tobacco issue with other more 'politically correct'
products"; and to associate scientific studies that cast smoking in a bad light
with "broader questions about government research and regulations" - such as
"global warming", "nuclear waste disposal" and "biotechnology".. APCO would
engage in the "intensive recruitment of high-profile representatives from
business and industry, scientists, public officials, and other individuals
interested in promoting the use of sound science".

   By September 1993, APCO had produced a "Plan for the Public Launching of
TASSC". The media launch would not take place in "Washington, DC or the top
media markets of the country. Rather, we suggest creating a series of
aggressive, decentralised launches in several targeted local and regional
markets across the country. This approach ... avoids cynical reporters from
major media: less reviewing/challenging of TASSC messages."

   The media coverage, the public relations company hoped, would enable TASSC to
"establish an image of a national grassroots coalition". In case the media asked
hostile questions, APCO circulated a sheet of answers, drafted by Philip Morris.
The first question was:

   "Isn't it true that Philip Morris created TASSC to act as a front group for
it?

   "A: No, not at all. As a large corporation, PM belongs to many national,
regional, and state business, public policy, and legislative organisations. PM
has contributed to TASSC, as we have with various groups and corporations across
the country."

   There are clear similarities between the language used and the approaches
adopted by Philip Morris and by the organisations funded by Exxon. The two
lobbies use the same terms, which appear to have been invented by Philip
Morris's consultants. "Junk science" meant peer-reviewed studies showing that
smoking was linked to cancer and other diseases. "Sound science" meant studies
sponsored by the tobacco industry suggesting that the link was inconclusive.
Both lobbies recognised that their best chance of avoiding regulation was to
challenge the scientific consensus. As a memo from the tobacco company Brown and
Williamson noted, "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing
with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public. It is
also the means of establishing a controversy." Both industries also sought to
distance themselves from their own campaigns, creating the impression that they
were spontaneous movements of professionals or ordinary citizens: the
"grassroots".

   But the connection goes further than that. TASSC, the "coalition" created by
Philip Morris, was the first and most important of the corporate-funded
organisations denying that climate change is taking place. It has done more
damage to the campaign to halt it than any other body.

   TASSC did as its founders at APCO suggested, and sought funding from other
sources. Between 2000 and 2002 it received $30,000 from Exxon. The website it
has financed - JunkScience.com - has been the main entrepot for almost every
kind of climate-change denial that has found its way into the mainstream press.
It equates environmentalists with Nazis, communists and terrorists. It flings at
us the accusations that could justifably be levelled against itself: the website
claims, for example, that it is campaigning against "faulty scientific data and
analysis used to advance special and, often, hidden agendas". I have lost count
of the number of correspondents who, while questioning manmade global warming,
have pointed me there.

   The man who runs it is called Steve Milloy. In 1992, he started working for
APCO - Philip Morris's consultants. While there, he set up the JunkScience site.
In March 1997, the documents show, he was appointed TASSC's executive director.
By 1998, as he explained in a memo to TASSC board members, his JunkScience
website was was being funded by TASSC. Both he and the "coalition" continued to
receive money from Philip Morris. An internal document dated February 1998
reveals that TASSC took $200,000 from the tobacco company in 1997. Philip
Morris's 2001 budget document records a payment to Steven Milloy of $90,000.
Altria, Philip Morris's parent company, admits that Milloy was under contract to
the tobacco firm until at least the end of 2005.

   He has done well. You can find his name attached to letters and articles
seeking to discredit passive-smoking studies all over the internet and in the
academic databases. He has even managed to reach the British Medical Journal: I
found a letter from him there which claimed that the studies it had reported "do
not bear out the hypothesis that maternal smoking/ passive smoking increases
cancer risk among infants". TASSC paid him $126,000 in 2004 for 15 hours' work a
week. Two other organisations are registered at his address: the Free Enterprise
Education Institute and the Free Enterprise Action Institute. They have received
$10,000 and $50,000 respectively from Exxon. The secretary of the Free
Enterprise Action Institute is Thomas Borelli. Borelli was the Philip Morris
executive who oversaw the payments to TASSC.

   Milloy also writes a weekly Junk Science column for the Fox News website.
Without declaring his interests, he has used this column to pour scorn on
studies documenting the medical effects of second-hand tobacco smoke and showing
that climate change is taking place. Even after Fox News was told about the
money he had been receiving from Philip Morris and Exxon, it continued to employ
him, without informing its readers about his interests.

   TASSC's headed notepaper names an advisory board of eight people. Three of
them are listed by Exxonsecrets.org as working for organisations taking money
from Exxon. One of them is Frederick Seitz, the man who wrote the Oregon
Petition, and who chairs the Science and Environmental Policy Project.. In 1979,
Seitz became a permanent consultant to the tobacco company RJ Reynolds. He
worked for the firm until at least 1987, for an annual fee of $65,000. He was in
charge of deciding which medical research projects the company should fund, and
handed out millions of dollars a year to American universities. The purpose of
this funding, a memo from the chairman of RJ Reynolds shows, was to "refute the
criticisms against cigarettes". An undated note in the Philip Morris archive
shows that it was planning a "Seitz symposium" with the help of TASSC, in which
Frederick Seitz would speak to "40-60 regulators".

   The president of Seitz's Science and Environmental Policy Project is a
maverick environmental scientist called S Fred Singer. He has spent the past few
years refuting evidence for manmade climate change. It was he, for example, who
published the misleading claim that most of the world's glaciers are advancing,
which landed David Bellamy in so much trouble when he repeated it last year. He
also had connections with the tobacco industry. In March 1993, APCO sent a memo
to Ellen Merlo, the vice-president of Philip Morris, who had just commissioned
it to fight the Environmental Protection Agency: "As you know, we have been
working with Dr Fred Singer and Dr Dwight Lee, who have authored articles on
junk science and indoor air quality (IAQ) respectively ..."

   Singer's article, entitled Junk Science at the EPA, claimed that "the latest
'crisis' - environmental tobacco smoke - has been widely criticised as the most
shocking distortion of scientific evidence yet". He alleged that the
Environmental Protection Agency had had to "rig the numbers" in its report on
passive smoking. This was the report that Philip Morris and APCO had set out to
discredit a month before Singer wrote his article.

   I have no evidence that Fred Singer or his organisation have taken money from
Philip Morris. But many of the other bodies that have been sponsored by Exxon
and have sought to repudiate climate change were also funded by the tobacco
company. Among them are some of the world's best-known "thinktanks": the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation,
the Hudson Institute, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the Reason Foundation
and the Independent Institute, as well as George Mason University's Law and
Economics Centre. I can't help wondering whether there is any aspect of
conservative thought in the United States that has not been formed and funded by
the corporations.

   Until I came across this material, I believed that the accusations, the
insults and the taunts such people had slung at us environmentalists were
personal: that they really did hate us, and had found someone who would pay to
help them express those feelings. Now I realise that they have simply
transferred their skills.

   While they have been most effective in the United States, the impacts of the
climate-change deniers sponsored by Exxon and Philip Morris have been felt all
over the world. I have seen their arguments endlessly repeated in Australia,
Canada, India, Russia and the UK. By dominating the media debate on climate
change during seven or eight critical years in which urgent international talks
should have been taking place, by constantly seeding doubt about the science
just as it should have been most persuasive, they have justified the money their
sponsors have spent on them many times over. It is fair to say that the
professional denial industry has delayed effective global action on climate
change by years, just as it helped to delay action against the tobacco
companies.

   · This is an edited extract from Heat, by George Monbiot, published by Allen
Lane. To order a copy for £16.99 with free UK p&p (rrp £17.99), go to
Guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0875.

   · George Monbiot's film on this issue will be broadcast tonight on BBC2's
Newsnight, starting at 10.30pm.


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   Messages in this topic (1)
   8. Oct 15-17:Workshop "Regions 2048 - Balancing Societal Needs and
   Posted by: "Prof. Walter Leal" lealfilho@...
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:44 am (PST)
   Dear Colleagues,
   We cordially invite you to participate in the
   workshop "Regions 2048 - Balancing Societal Needs and
   Nature ". This workshop will be held from Oct. 15,
   2006 until Oct. 17, 2006 in Austria, Schloss Seggau
   (Castle of Seggau) near Graz., Austria

   Please find further information on the rationale
   behind the event, the aims, the program and
   organisational details can be seen at:
   http://rns.tugraz.at/index.php?lang=&node=&scheme=10700

   The workshop builds directly on the research
   activities that have been initiated by the symposium
   series REGIONS - CORNERSTONES OF SUSTAINABLE
   DEVELOPMENT. Research within the framework of ENSURE
   (European Network for Urban and Regional Sustainable
   Development Research) and in the project REGIONET,
   commissioned by the European Commission, has
   established the unique role that regions play for the
   implementation of sustainable development. The recent
   SHARE conference (with a follow up in 2007 and 2009)
   has focused on the link between regional sustainable
   development and the goals of the Gothenburg and Lisbon
   council resolutions in the European context.

   An increase in economical as well as societal and
   cultural activities on the regional level however has
   dramatic repercussions on the interaction between
   nature and society as regions will strengthen their
   reliance on natural resources within their own
   borders. This fact will only be exacerbated by the
   need to broaden the raw material base for industry, as
   fossil raw materials, especially crude oil, becomes
   increasingly costly and scarce. The management of
   natural resources in a way that allows reinvigorated
   regional development and at the same time increases
   the non-fossil supply of society with energy and
   industrial raw materials will put considerable strain
   on the ability of regions to chart their sustainable
   development. The competition for regional resources
   from various sectors like the food sector, the energy
   sector and industry will require careful planning as
   well as new political approaches to reconcile
   development dilemmas on the regional level. The
   natural endowment of regions and especially their
   ability to wisely utilize it will decide about their
   position in the global market just in the same way as
   their knowledge base.

   The workshop will address this hot spot of sustainable
   development by bringing together experts from
   different fields and providing the platform for an
   interdisciplinary discussion about the options regions
   have at their disposal to meet these challenges.
   Further details are available at:
   http://rns.tugraz.at/index.php?lang=&node=&scheme=10700

   Prof Walter Leal, TuTech Innovation, Harburger Schlossstrasse 6-10, D-21079
Hamburg, Germany.


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   Messages in this topic (1)
   9a. Re: Advice sought on social change in the face of intransigent
   Posted by: "Luke Reade" luke_reade@...   luke_reade
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:46 am (PST)
   Hi Mark

   I cant coment on its relevance quality or content as I havent read it, but you
could chack out 'Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we
tell it better' by the Institute for Public Policy Research
(http://www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=485).

   Luke

   ----- Original Message ----
   From: Mark Diesendorf <mark@...>
   To: greenleap@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Sunday, 10 September, 2006 1:53:17 AM
   Subject: Re: [greenleap] Advice sought on social change in the face of
intransigent governments

   Dear Greenleapers,

   In the context of trying to work out how to get some real action from
   governments, both federal and state, and business to slash
   Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, I am searching the literature
   on strategies that community, professional and other NGOs can use to
   apply pressure non-violently to obtain social change. I would
   appreciate your advice on readings and websites.

   So far, the most useful material I have found is very simple
   practical guidelines from activist groups, such as the Movement for a
   New Society (USA), and the inspiring accounts of the work of some
   people who have won Right Livelihood Awards.

   In addition to practical strategies and tactics, I'm seeking
   scholarly theoretical insights that can be applied to the current
   greenhouse response stalemate in Australia. However, I want to avoid
   the kind of pretentious nonsense, entitled "The collective dynamics
   of social systems: guiding social transition", that was posted on
   Greenleap on 8 Sept. As a former applied mathematician, I see this
   stuff as impressing some of the more gullible non-mathematicians with
   fancy jargon, without adding any real insights.

   Cheers,

   Mark
   --
   Dr Mark Diesendorf
   Director, Sustainability Centre Pty Ltd
   PO Box 521, Epping, Sydney NSW 1710, Australia
   phone: +61 2 9801 2976
   email: mark@sustainability centre.com. au
   web: www.sustainabilityc entre.com. au






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   Messages in this topic (4)
   9b. Re: Advice sought on social change in the face of intransigent
   Posted by: "Paul Martin" Paul_M@...
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:57 am (PST)
   Hi Mark

   Whilst not being able to provide what you are looking for, if you look on the
   website http://www..une.edu.au/aglaw/publications.php in the download area you
   will see a report entitled "50,000,0000 Australians: Is sustainability
   possible?", where we attempted to outline a systems focused approach to
   thinking about generating change strategy. We took it a bit further in the
book
   "Sustainability Strategy" (Federation Press, 2006", trying to put down a sort
   of how to do it approach to integrated strategies. Not the answer but some
   possible tools and a starting point.

   I also think that the Community Based Social Marketing webside (cbsm. com) is
a
   useful place to look at for case studies that are heading in this direction..

   Whilst the systems literature (particularly the social systems materiall) can
   be dense and sometimes more style than substance, it does seem to me that the
   direction of system wide change and multiple interventions at various parts of
   the system is the only way to go, unless we can invent a new saviour who is
   sufficiently charismatic to generate a radical shift in the values of a
society
   where the driving force is to make people unhappy with what they have so that
   they will be driven to buy and consume more.

   I will be interested to see what you come up with - the concepts of social
   change strategy are still pre-paradigmatic and evolving, so if there are
people
   who are well advanced then it would be good to learn as quickly as possible..

   Cheers

   Paul Martin
   Director, Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law
   University of New England
   Mobile 0416015161


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   Messages in this topic (4)
   9c. Re: Advice sought on social change in the face of intransigent
   Posted by: "Lionel Boxer" lionel.boxer@...
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:01 am (PST)
   Hello Mark

   I did a PhD asking how CEOs deal with Sustainability Issues. I
   interviewed a number of CEOs for large corporations (including one
   petrochemical) that were known for behaving in a responsilble way with
   regard to sustainability. I interviewed a local government CEO, who was
   at the time known for their "sustainability" success. One participant
   was the CEO of a research team that was funded by government and
   industry. He faced a periodic challenge of gaining funding from the
   funding partners.

   My thesis explains the journey and can be read in MSWord:
   htto://intergon.net/phd , but there is a lot of academic necessity
   burying the important stuff. To make my learning more accessible, I
   developed a practical frame see this single page:
   http://intergon.net/tsw/sustainableCEOs.pdf and then I wrote a short
   novel to explain how CEOs convince themselves and others to create some
   real action from government and business. http://intergon.net/tsw

   In short, to convince people to create some real action about
   sustainability you need to do four things (the CEOs I interviewed all
   did this):
   1. Help them to realise that they do not have the right to ignore the
   sustainability issue
   2. Help them to determine the duties they have to take action
   3. Help them to establish a moral order of what is right and wrong
   4. Help them to take actions that support (and not undermine) the
   previous 3 things on this list.

   Interestingly, several of the CEOs explained that they had to do these
   four steps on themselves first. However, this is the same message I
   received from many CEOs 15 years ago when the issue was quality
   management. Then again, quality and sustainability are very closely
   aligned and similar issues.

   Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
   Research Fellow - lionel.boxer@...
   Centre for Management Quality Research
   My ICSB risk mgt paper: http://intergon.net/risk
   OSJ charity dinner: http://intergon.net/events.html
   Visit: http://www.nontoxiclife.com.au


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   Messages in this topic (4)
   10. the long term view of nuclear waste
   Posted by: "Cameron Neil" cameronneil@...   c_j_neil
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:04 am (PST)
   i was intrigued to read a question posed - how do you design a
   nuclear waste storage facility warning sign so that the 'future
   generations' sustainability is about can recognise and understand it
   in 10 000 years time!

   check it out:

   http://blog.wired.com/nucleardump/

   Ten thousand years from now, the last remaining momument of the U.S.
   military-industrial complex could well be the Waste Isolation Pilot
   Plant. And it will be marked by an elaborate keep-out sign. Planners
   building underground storage for radioactive military waste hope to
   develop a universal warning system that will communicate its message
   to future societies, regardless of language, custom or even species.

   there is a related article here too:

   http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,71724-0.html?tw=wn_index_20

   cameron

   ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
   Join the International Young Professionals Foundation
   http://www.iypf.org/membership.htm
   ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
   International Young Professionals Foundation
   Cameron Neil Chief Executive Officer
   0402 072 452 cameronneil@...
   www.iyps.org www.iypf.org
   http://profiles.takingitglobal.org/cjneil
   http://updates.takingitglobal.org/read/cjneil
   ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
   "if you want to build a ship, don't gather your people and
   ask them to provide wood, prepare tools, assign tasks...
   Just call them together and raise in their minds a longing
   for the endless sea." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery


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   Messages in this topic (2)
   11. Invitation to Students: iNet Student Online Conferences
   Posted by: "Debra Brydon" brydon@...
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:06 am (PST)
   iNet is hosting four online conferences which will allow students around the
world to learn about
   global issues.

   More importantly, it will provide students with the opportunity to share their
ideas with other students
   and develop a global perspective on life on our planet.

   The online conferences are based on material produced by students and by
participating in these
   conferences students will be able to develop their roles as global citizens
and discuss:

   'What does it mean to be a global citizen?' We need students help to make the
conferences a success. We invite students to use their imagination
   and creative skills to tell us what they think about their role in the world -
today and tomorrow.
   This might include short stories, essays, letters, mindmaps, drawings, videos
or audio files. We have
   provided questions as a starting point, but they are only a guide - we want
students to be honestand submit resources on the issues that matter to them. The
resources may then be discussed by
   students from around the world.

   Dates for your diary

   1. Global citizens. Are you a global citizen?
   11 December - 17 December 2006

   * Deadline for papers / presentations: Monday 23 October 2006

   2. Global equality. We are the first generation who can eradicate poverty.
   How can we make this happen?
   5 February - 11 February 2007
   * Deadline for papers / presentations: Monday 11 December 2006

   3. Global resources. How can we protect our planet?
   12 March - 18 March 2007
   * Deadline for papers / presentations: Monday 29 January 2007

   4. Global peace. How can we bring peace to our planet?
   14 May - 20 May 2007
   * Deadline for papers / presentations: Monday 2 April 2007

   Note: adults are not able to participate in the student online conferences

   Register

   Students (and teachers who intend to forward access details on to a large
number
   of participating students) may register online for the set of four
conferences, for no
   cost, at:

   http://www.cybertext.net.au/studentreg2.htm

   Find out more

   Visit: http://www.ssat-inet.net/Default.aspx?page=55 to find out more about
   participating in the conferences and providing resources. The website includes
detailed
   information about the first topic, extra resources and full guidelines for
getting involved.

   If you have any questions, email Online Conference Manager,
   Ms Debra Brydon, at brydon@...
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   Messages in this topic (1)
   12. Re: Thanks for advice on social change in the face of intransigent
   Posted by: "Mark Diesendorf" mark@...
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:09 am (PST)
   Dear Greenleapers,

   I received 17 replies to my enquiry -- most were sent to me
   personally rather than to the Greenleap list. Although I'm still
   digesting them, it is already clear that several emails suggested
   valuable writings and websites on strategies for collective
   nonviolent action for social change (my principal focus right now).
   Others gave examples of inspiring individual achievements in reducing
   greenhouse gas emissions. I haven't yet had time to thank everyone
   individually, so I'd like to express my thanks to you collectively in
   this email.

   In due course I'll send the Greenleap list a brief summary of the
   recommended sources for collective action and I'll also incorporate
   some of the materials that Greenleapers recommended in my own
   writings (with proper citations).

   Cheers,

   Mark

   --
   Dr Mark Diesendorf
   Director, Sustainability Centre Pty Ltd
   PO Box 521, Epping, Sydney NSW 1710, Australia
   phone: +61 2 9801 2976
   email: mark@...
   web: www.sustainabilitycentre.com.au


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   Messages in this topic (1)
   13. Help? re application of compressed air as a fuel
   Posted by: "Alan Marshall" anakial@...   altassie
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:09 am (PST)
   Chris Mardon, thanks for your interesting data regarding bio-fuels....
certainly food for thought.

   I am hoping to gather around me a very small group of people, to help me sort
out some innovative ideas which are "crowding" my mind. These ideas are
principly concerned with developing compressed air as a storable energy source.

   There are at least a couple of people around the world who are working on
engine designs which utilise compressed air as a fuel. My focus is on being able
to provide the compressed air in the first place.

   My scientific background is very general, but with a fair amount of
comprehension. There would hopefully be five people within my network, including
myself:- maybe an engineer familiar with aerodynamics; an electrical engineer;
an engineer familiar with compressors and related technologies; and finally
someone who is really well-versed in general physics.

   We would communicate via an email address, and gradually explore ways in which
we can share info/ideas.

   The emphysis is on positive ways to help in our needs for sustainable energy,
rather than worrying, complaining, whinging about the problems.


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   Messages in this topic (5)
   14. Job: Waste management education officer: Gippsland Vic: apply by 4 O
   Posted by: "Lisa Crisp" lisacrisp@...
   Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:30 am (PST)
   Dear Sir/ Madam
   POSITION VACANT: REGIONAL EDUCATION OFFICER POSITION VACANT

   The Gippsland Regional Waste Management Group currently have a position
available for a Regional Education Officer.

   Click here to view the Advertisement.
   http://www.grwmg.vic.gov.au/images/stories//reo%20position%20advertisement.pdf

   Click here to view Position Description
  
http://www.grwmg.vic.gov.au/images/stories/attachment%2022b%20model%20reo%20posi\
tion%20description.pdf

   Click here for Position Information.
  
http://www.grwmg.vic.gov.au/images/stories/060831%20reo%20position%20information\
%20for%20applicants.pdf

   Closing date for applications is Wednesday 4 October 2006
   Kind regards
   Lisa Crisp
   Regional Education Officer
   Gippsland Regional Waste Management Group
   PO Box 1123
   BAIRNSDALE VIC 3875
   Phone (03) 5153 1707
   Mobile 0429 172 889
   Fax (03) 5153 1767
   Back to top Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
   Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bob wrote:
Yes, but too little too late as always. The emergency is STILL upon us.
:(
Bob

Hiya Bob :-)

Yes we know of how bad it is going to get... that's why our little group was
formed.
Our collective minds have done some great things already, there is a lot of
(hard) work ahead to ensure survival of our own species and (the many)
others we have effected in our clumsy attempts to control and rule the
planet to date.

and to add fuel to our collective fire, little lights of hope continue to
shine out of the darkness... nothing can extinguish hope when just one of us
survives. When projects like the one below continue to blossom (and bear
fruit).... I see a wonderful future for us all.
:-)
via www.bluegreenearth.com

this project does not have to be exclusive to the place it is happening.
I have 41 acres to grow stuff on...
i just need (quite a few) willing helpers, already, they come...
a quick phone call to my local council could add a lot of unused land to
that 41 acres.
When you open your eyes to the possibilities before us...
there are so many lawned over parks and so much "waste" land everywhere...
projects like this one are the way forwards.

If we can feed the people...
We will survive this crisis.

Warmest regards
Anne
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8126-2337359,00.html

"How to grow a healthy society"
A community project that provides free organic fruit and veg for schools,
the unemployed and refugees deserves its plaudits, says Jayne Dowle

Andrew Boardman is pottering about in his shed, like a mad professor with a
Lancashire accent. He has lined up a row of test tubes containing old chip
oil in varying stages of decomposition. Andrew, 42, is trying to find the
most efficient way of recycling the oil into car fuel.

This former council gardener is a volunteer with the Bolton Gathering of
Organic Growers (Gog), a green collective of individuals and groups
dedicated to growing their own healthy produce. And the fuel that Andrew
produces powers Gog's van, a former Parcelforce vehicle, which volunteers
are planning to fill with organic fruit and vegetables grown on their own
allotments. The van will call at school playgrounds to offer free healthy
alternatives to tuckshop sweets.

This is the latest project spearheaded by Alan Brown, 42, a health
improvement specialist working for Bolton Primary Care Trust (PCT), who this
week jointly took the prize for the Local Food Initiative of the Year,
sponsored by the Soil Association and Highland Spring Natural Mineral Water.
Under the scheme, Alan works with Gog and other groups to help individuals
to find land to grow on - often unused land and derelict allotments - to
organise training in organic growing and help with funding applications. The
produce grown is not only distributed to schools; the unemployed, asylum-
seekers and refugees also get free fruit and veg.

What the Soil Association judges picked up on was the way that each project
that Alan oversees is driven by the needs and ideas of more than 100
volunteers, who are themselves mainly refugees, asylum-seekers and people
from other hard- to-reach groups, such as teenagers who have been excluded
from school.

"I think it was the ordinariness of the project that made it extraordinary,"
says Lynda Brown, a food writer, organic campaigner and a judge of the Soil
Association Awards. "It really was a totally inspirational example of a
grass-roots movement that is coming from local people and not being handed
down to them from on high."

Alan, through Bolton PCT, and with help from volunteers from Gog,
co-ordinates a variety of healthy eating initiatives: community cafés,
organic kitchen gardens in 13 schools, and cookery classes for young men.
"The Kurdish kids work in fast-food shops, then come over and cook healthy
stuff with us," he says. "They were wary at first but when I had a go, they
saw that it was OK for a bloke to cook, and got into it."

Alan's initial remit with the PCT was to introduce the Government's
Five-A-Day scheme, which encourages us all to eat five portions of fruit or
vegetable a day. But his interest in growing and eating healthy food goes
much deeper. His dream is to obtain a large plot of land in Bolton where
food can be grown and sold, like a proper market garden.

At the Haslam Park allotments, where there are three community plots,
Marie-Louise, 43, an asylum-seeker from Burundi, is wielding a right-angled
hoe with tremendous force. "We call this an African hoe now," she explains.
"It's what we would use in Africa but most people here hadn't seen one
before. It's so much better at breaking up the soil, as you can see, so we
managed to get hold of them to use here."

Marie-Louise, who has two teenage daughters, was a French teacher in
Burundi. She had little experience of growing her own food. "But when I came
here, in June 2003, it was awful," she says.
"I realised that I had to do something. You go mad just sitting in the
house, reading the latest letter from the Home Office, crying. Being here
allows you to think, gives you space and people to share your troubles with.
I started working as a volunteer with various groups, and met Malcolm and
Jessie, who are from Zimbabwe. Together, we came up with the idea to get
this plot going with the support of Gog. We grow the food; what we don't eat
ourselves we give away to those who can't work."

Her fellow volunteers include several Congolese people, a woman with
Ukrainian/Israeli
nationality, young Iraqis and Phil, an IT specialist who likes gardening.
Other volunteers include Gulcan Mizra, who came to Bolton from Turkey to
marry a local man, and Roy and Kathleen Swannick, Bolton-born-and bred, the
wise elders of the group. "We've been doing this since the Second World
  War," says Kathleen, 86. "It was Dig For Victory then." Roy, 80, who had a
distinguished career in park maintenance and horticulture, says that in
return for his advice, some of the lads from the allotment come and dig over
his garden at home because he can no longer manage it himself.

Teamwork is the key to being a produce gardener. "People turn up and do what
they can," says Kath Baron, a project worker and Andrew Boardman's partner.
"We understand that sometimes their commitments mean that they can't come.
But there's always somebody around to step in and help out."

The Haslam Park group grow potatoes, carrots, cabbage, sweetcorn, pumpkins,
rhubarb, tomatoes, strawberries, beetroot . . . There are plans to introduce
Japanese vegetables and salad crops. Yet it seems a fairly conservative
selection, given the range of nationalities that toils here and the exotic
species with which they must be familiar.

"You've got to think about the soil and what will thrive," says
Marie-Louise. "Although, look over there at the amaranth grain. That's from
Africa but it's doing really well. You can get it in healthfood shops, but
it costs a lot. We use the leaves like spinach back home."
"And we use all these vegetables in traditional Turkish cooking," calls out
Gulcan, 31, who is pulling up new potatoes. Point to a vegetable, and will
give you a recipe for it. Runner beans? "Slice them with onions and
tomatoes, cook them with salt in their own water, add black pepper," she
says. "We call it fasulye."

Red cabbage? "Slice and chop thinly. Mix in vinegar, salt, oil and lemons.
You can also add peeled garlic. Put it a container, and the following day,
the cabbage will have absorbed all the juices. It's crunchy and soft at the
same time."

Gulcan jokes that her husband, who works as a painter and decorator, doesn't
get involved because he hates worms. For her though, with no family of her
own in Britain, this allotment has provided solace and support, as well as
plentiful healthy food. "When I had my daughter Zaynab, now 2, I wanted her
to eat the best food possible," she says. "I used to shop in the market, but
it can't be healthier than this. We pick it, and take it straight home to
cook it."
"There's all that war and fighting in the world," says Kathleen, sitting on
a bench with a cup of tea, as little Zaynab toddles after nine-year-olds
Joanne and Edwin, from Zimbabwe and Bolton respectively. "Yet look here, it's
so quiet, so peaceful. You can't even begin to imagine why all the bloodshed
happens." Food then, for the mind, as well as for the body.

Getting your own allotment

Contact your local council, which will either allocate you a plot or add
your name to the waiting list. A typical allotment is 250sq m (2,700sq ft).
You can apply to rent half a plot or share with a friend.

Rent varies depending on the location, council policy and site costs. It can
be as little as £10 a year for a small plot, up to about £50 for a large
plot.

In some areas, selling off allotment land for housing is a big issue. There
are three types of
allotment: statutory allotments cannot be sold or used for other purposes;
temporary allotments are not protected from disposal; and allotments leased
on private land are not protected from disposal.

No allotments in your area? The National Society of Allotment and Leisure
Gardeners advises that if you can get together a group of six like-minded
residents who are registered on the electoral roll you can put your case to
the local council. It has a statutory duty to provide a sufficient quantity
of allotments and to lease them to people living within its remit.

For links to your local council and information on how to rent an allotment,
visit
www.directgov.co.uk. The National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners
offers advice at www.nsalg.org.uk

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8126-2337359,00.html

www.bluegreenearth.com / www.europeansocialecologyinstitute.org
global community, ecological, environmental and social
reportage, opinion and analysis + news, views and facts

Yes, but too little too late as always. The emergency is STILL upon us.
:(
Bob
------------------------------------------------
Dr Bob Rich bobrich@...
http://bobswriting.com
http://anxietyanddepression-help.com
http://mudsmith.net
"Whether you believe yourself to be a success or a failure, you are
correct."
Henry Ford
------------------------------------------------

feels like we on a roll here :-D
a

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Bright" <hobart_quiet@...>
To: <ClimateChangeAction@...>
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 9:20 AM
Subject: [ClimateChangeAction] The awareness of Al Gore


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0917-06.htm







Yahoo! Groups Links

For your interest,

John Hill
....................................


Published on Sunday, September 17, 2006 by the lndependent/UK
Inconvenient Truths (for Al Gore and the Rest of the Planet)
The truth behind Gore's extraordinary documentary about the perils of global
warming is that he might have become President had he campaigned in office.

Geoffrey Lean traces the conversion of one man, his country and a reluctant
world

Suddenly global warming has come in from the cold. A potent combination of
startling natural events, growing public pressure, and pioneering political
commitments has brought it storming up the agenda.

Even many of the previously sceptical are now convinced. For example, who would
have thought the leader of the Conservative Party would become Britain's most
potent champion of radical action to combat climate change, or that he would
share platforms with the leader of Friends of the Earth?

And who would have imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger - famous as for his devotion
to the Humvee, the greatest of the gas guzzlers - would defy his party, as
Governor of California, to drive through the world's most ambitious programme
for cutting the pollution that causes global warming?

And as we report (right), even the "Toxic Texan" himself - President George W
Bush, who set out to kill the Kyoto Protocol and all international attempts to
tackle the problem - is laying the ground for a U-turn.

These dramatic changes of heart are not happening among scientists. There has
long been more unanimity in the scientific community about the reality of global
warming than over any other environmental issue I have known; a recent survey of
928 scientific papers found not a single one that dissented.

Nor are they occurring in public opinion, which is becoming steadily more
convinced, and alarmed - even in the United States. A recent CBS/New York Times
poll shows that four in every five Americans (including three out of every five
Republicans) believe it is a serious, or very serious, threat - and that
three-quarters of Americans (and more than half of Republicans) insist that
action must be taken to counter it "right away."

No, it has been the political and media establishments that have lagged behind,
both here and in the United States. A survey of US media articles, in contrast
with the one on scientific papers, found a majority cast doubt on the reality of
global warming. Even here, climate change sceptics are two a penny in Islington,
if almost impossible to find in the laboratory.

Though Tony Blair has made much of his praiseworthy achievement in putting the
issue at the top of the agenda of last year's G8 summit, emissions of carbon
dioxide have actually risen since Labour came to power. But now the born-again
conversions are coming faster than at a revivalist rally.

Last week The Economist - bible of businessmen and right-of-centre politicians
on both sides of the Atlantic - abandoned years of lordly scepticism to call on
President Bush to lead the way in taking action.

And on Friday, Gerard Baker - a columnist on The Times much admired by Rupert
Murdoch - confessing his own scepticism, concluded, "the only prudent course is
to act now to reduce emissions...". The old man's youngest son, James, chief
executive of BSkyB, is already on board, pressing for change like an old green
campaigner.

And talking of conversions, how about this? An alliance of US Envangelical
Christians - God gave humanity dominion to exploit nature as it wished - is
calling for action in climate change as "a moral and spiritual issue". The
catalyst for much of this is an unlikely box-office success, with an even less
likely star. An Inconvenient Truth, fronted by former vice-president Al Gore,
which was released in Britain on Friday, has already become the third most-seen
documentary in US film history; it has even overtaken Truth or Dare (aka In Bed
With Madonna).

So far, some 2.3 million Americans have gone to see a two-hour illustrated
lecture by a man with a reputation as one of the most wooden politicians ever to
run for public office.

Most have been blown away. Partly by Gore, who is warm, human, witty, at times
moving, and who gives the best explanation of the issue I have seen. Partly by
some spectacular photography and some stunning graphics. But mostly by the
compelling evidence he presents.

Gore worries why politicians and governments have been so slow. Such was his
"faith in the democratic system", he says, that he thought the mere emergence of
the facts would be enough to spark a "sea-change in Congress.

He comes to a somewhat charitable conclusion: "If an issue is not on the tip of
their constituents' tongues it is easy for them to ignore it". But there is a
hole at heart of the argument, a huge opportunity missed, for Gore tells us
nothing of his failure when he himself was in power.

He tells us how he was one of the first people to become concerned about global
warming, as a university student taught by one of the scientists who first
identified what was happening. And he recounts how he held Congressional
hearings on the issue and ran for President partly to highlight it.

But he glosses over his own time in office, when he was put in charge of
environmental policy by President Clinton. Even then, the US dragged its feet in
the climate negotiations. Worse, its carbon dioxide emissions shot up far faster
than at any time in modern history - by 15 per cent, compared to just 1.65 per
cent during the Toxic Texan's first term.

If Gore had stuck to his principles, however, he would almost certainly now have
been President; Ralph Nader would not - and could not - have run against him on
a green ticket, so denying him Florida.

His friends say that he has figured this out, and he has certainly worked his
penance - trudging round the country to give the lecture now featured in the
film at least a thousand times.

But it is important that he comes clean. Not just for the cause of truth he
espouses, but because a new generation of politicians - including David Cameron
- are making the issue their own. Who better to teach them about the
difficulties they may face in office, and about the costs - both to themselves
and the world - of failing to implement their beliefs?

© Copyright 2006 Independent News and Media Limited


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0917-06.htm

Sorry to continue with all the grim news, but this may be of interest to your
readers.

John Hill

..............................................................................
http://www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=m26649&hd=0&size=1&l=e

The Middle East : Lethal Legacy.
Felicity Arbuthnot
September 13, 2006

   'You do not die because you are created or because you have a body,
    you die because you are the future.'
        -Samih al-Qasim, Palestinian poet, from 'Victims of a Map',
        an anthology of Arab poetry.

As the list of countries America is to 'liberate' grows, the dollar
plummets and millions of them are pledged to the Iyad Allawis and Ahmed
Chalabis (let's be blunt here, traitors) from Venezuela to Iran, Bolivia
to Syria ('no country too small, too poor, too far away, not to be a
threat, a threat to the American way of life' - William Blum : 'Rogue
State') it has to be wondered (again) as all spins out of control into a
madness that threatens the very planet, life on earth, how history (if
we have one) will record the politics of the insane asylum, since 11th
September 2001.

Consider this. An allied nation based on the displacement of people
across the globe, their homes stolen, their Biblical and Mohammedan
land, heritage, nurtured, tilled, revered, was donated (by western
governments) to a people who had suffered an historic horror: the
Holocaust, to which we now, rightly, have a memorial day. Yet in
Israel's invasion of Lebanon, bombardment of Palestine the depleted
uranium (DU) weapons used, are so lethal, that Israel, as well as the
region, now has the soil in which they plant, the water they drink, the
air they breathe, poisoned for a potential four and a half billion
years. With the use and release of other lethal toxins, so is genetic
damage to haunt future generations : 'until the sun goes out.' Israel's
actions have set the region's yet to be conceived, on potential self
destruct. It is only needed to view pictures of Iraq's congenital birth
deformities after the use of depleted uranium (DU) weaponry there in the
1991 war - and those of the children conceived by returning US and UK
soldiers, to look humanity's annihilation in the face. The bombs rushed
to Israel (via the UK) were also DU, designated unanimously, a weapon of
mass destruction by three UN sub-committees. 'Depleted' uranium is a
misnoma. Uranium weapons are a product of the nuclear fuel cycle, thus
contain all the lethal radioisotopes which should be stored in a high
level nuclear waste facility, not disposed of over populations. 'Nuclear
waste with fins on', is how one expert describes DU missiles. Saddam
Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction which Prime Minister
Blair assured Britain: 'could be launched in forty five minutes', but
Britain, the US and Israel do - and did.

Dr Doug Rokke was Pentagon Advisor on the clean up of the 1991 war in
Kuwait and southern Iraq and principal author of the US Army manuals on
disposal of DU and other myriad toxics (including chemical and
biological weaponry residue) released by bombing and destruction. His
time spent in the region with a team of one hundred was at huge cost.
Their months there resulted in half dying of the radiation-related and
toxicity-related diseases they were trying to prevent; those who
survived are all chronically ill (including Dr Rokke) with the exception
of the one operative who insisted on wearing full radiological
protective clothing, in spite of the searing heat. The clean up was
abandoned, the task impossible and the expense prohibitive. Cancers in
Iraq have risen up to tenfold and birth deformities, some believed never
before recorded, stalk Iraq's future generations. Kuwait and northern
Saudi Arabia are known to be affected, but statistics from America's
allies are hard to come by.

Rokke has written a detailed paper ('Required Actions In Lebanon and
Israel') advising on actions which should be taken by Lebanon, Israel
and Palestine, to protect their people, though contamination will spread
on the wind, he warns 'for hundreds of kilometres'. Syria, Jordan,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the region are all likely victims of the recent
invasion, as they, with Kuwait doubtlessly were in the thirteen years of
(and ongoing) bombing of Iraq. In context, the UK based Low Level
Radiation Campaign (www.llrc.org.uk) measured a nine-fold rise in
uranium in the air in London six days after the start of the 2003
bombing of Iraq. 'Hazardous materials have and will cause air, water and
soil contamination and may be re-suspended and travel great distances ...
throughout the region...' states Rokke.

Further, additional contaminants may include : phosphorous, mercury,
napalm, nitro-glycerine, ammonium nitrate and a host of other life
threatening and genetically altering poisons. With numerous reports
also, of 'new chemical and biological weapons' having been used in
Lebanon and Gaza and the additional lethal cocktail of toxic substances
released by bombing of oil, industrial and chemical installations. Paola
Manduca, Professor of Genetics at the University of Genoa, is so alarmed
that she is covening a team of international experts of all relevant
disciplines, to travel to the region at their own expense, to offer
their scientific and analytical skills. 'Every destroyed building and
destroyed equipment will be contaminated with uranium' says Rokke,
adding: 'the operational risk of clearance is equivalent to that found
in combat.' As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expresses his 'concern'
to Iran's leaders over their legitimate development of nuclear power, it
would be interesting to know if bleated his 'concern' in Tel Aviv a few
days ago about their illegitimate use.

The 1977 Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Convention, Article 35,
states that is prohibited to employ methods and means of warfare which
are intended, or may be expected to cause widespread, long term and
severe contamination to the environment. Article 55 states: 'Care should
be taken in warfare to protect the natural environment against
widespread, Long term and severe damage (prohibiting) means of warfare
which are intended or may be expected, to cause such damage ... and
thereby prejudice the health and survival of the population.... attacks
against the natural environment by way of reprisals are prohibited.'
Whilst Saddam (like it or not, still Iraq's legitimate President, say a
raft of international law experts) stands trial in a kangaroo court,
three rogue states have thrown international law books out of the window
and committed crimes of historically unprecedented enormity.

Given the extraordinary speed with which all factions of Lebanese
society have mobilised to survey, then clear countless tons of rubble,
Rokke's instructions have a tragic irony, as roads clog with hundreds of
trucks, loaded with the debris of homes, businesses and the remains of
all that was the industrial lifeblood of civil society. 'Cannibalisation
of (damaged) equipment must be forbidden; soils, damaged building
materials, asphalt should not be reused. Transported materials should
follow procedure for radioactive waste ... should not be locally
disposed of in burial sites, by submersion, incineration or destruction
on site.'

'Exact location and nature of disposed materials should be noted.' Given
that Lebanon and Palestine are blockaded, captive states, as Iraq was
during the embargo years (now simply a vast US concentration camp)
Lebanon and Palestine have little option but to do as Iraq did : to
innovate, rebuild from the radioactive rubble, cannibalise every viable
part from equipment and breathe in lethal air as they construct, drink
contaminated water, eat contaminated food. Children and those with
medical conditions 'are at great risk' concludes Rokke. In Israel too. A
silent holocaust across the region.

Read more from Felicity Arbuthnot on her website:
http://arbuthnot4iraq.blogspot.com/

---------------------
http://arbuthnot4iraq.blogspot.com/

Friday, September 08, 2006
Spread of Uranium Reaches Food
Torcuil Crichton and Felicity Arbuthnot

Depleted uranium from shells fired by British and American forces during the
Balkan wars has found its way into the food chain and has been detected
among the civilian populations of Kosovo and Bosnia.A study of the local
population in three locations in the two Balkan regions has found samples of
the highly radio active particles in the urine of all those tested.

The investigation comes amid growing concern about the possible effects of
depleted uranium in the Balkans both on foreign troops and on the local
population.A survey for the Sunday Herald has found that depleted-uranium
weaponry has been used or tested in 41 countries worldwide.

where DU shells are test-fired on the Solway Firth - to Japan, where
unauthorised firing by the United States military led to a massive clean-up
operation. Eleven of the countries affected by DU are in the Balkans.

Nato warplanes dropped 10,000 rounds of DU ammunition in Bosnia in 1994 and
1995. Soldiers from several troop-contributing countries - including Italy,
Portugal and France - have fallen ill with what is being called Balkan
syndrome but this is the first time that the civilian population has been
tested for contamination.

Spain has reported at least eight cases of cancer among personnel deployed
in Bosnia and Kosovo. Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Poland are
among other countries to have acknowledged a problem. There was an outcry in
Portugal when Hugo Paulino, a young corporal, died of cancer three weeks
after returning from duty in Kosovo.

The health of returning Italian personnel was of such concern that five
different regions have appointed senior judiciary to open inquiries.

The civilian study was carried out by Professor Nick Priest of Middlesex
University, for E~rpa, BBC Scotland's European-affairs programme. It looked
at people in one location in Bosnia and two locations in Kosovo.

"So far, all the results for every single one of the samples collected in
Kosovo is showing some depleted uranium in the urine," he said. "That is
completely abnormal because normally you would expect no DU to be in the
urine samples."

Priest's conclusion was that it was likely that the metal was present in the
food chain. The study did not investigate possible health problems.

Previous studies have found no evidence of a link, although a recent United
Nations report acknowledged that there remain "considerable scientific
uncertainties". Despite that concern, a proposed voluntary testing programme
for Kosovan civilians has been shelved following the intervention of the
World Health Organisation.

Campaigners against the use of DU, which will remain radioactive for
four-and-a-half billion years, argue the tiny particles of DU dust emitted
from shell explosions will still be mutating genetics of fauna, flora and
humanity "when the sun goes out". Teenager Vlora Marleku told the programme
makers: "I am worried. I don't know what to say. This is something that
touches you very deeply."

Civilian populations and refugees returning to the Balkans are also
experiencing severe health problems, according to local reports.

Journalist Svetlana Stankovic Lala of Greece's Athens News said: "In
Kosovska Mitrovica, [in the] north of Kosovo, the number of malignant
diseases increased 200% in 2000 compared to 1998, the year before the
bombing."Doctors in the area estimate that birth deformities have increased
by 250% over 1998 figures.

Dr Aleksandra Veljovic, of the Cancer Foundation in Yugoslavia, talked of "a
doubling of incidence of cancer" by June 2000 - exactly a year after the
war's end.In January 2000, she said, "almost 2000 people died from a flu
pandemic, corpses [remained unburied] for 10 or more days and in numbers
from pneumonia".

Like Iraq, medication and facilities were unavailable due to sanctions.Like
Iraq, an epidemic occurred shortly after the bombing. In Iraq, at least 5000
people died of measles within months of the end of the Gulf war.Radiation
damages the immune system - a link that the Gulf veterans have made with
their proven immune deficiencies.

No studies have been made in bordering countries, although there are
concerns that radiation travels via the wind, water and fauna.

An A-10 Thunderbolt, which carries DU weapons, crashed in Albania. A missile
thought to be carrying DU landed in Bulgaria. Another landed in Macedonia,
which has hosted nearly one million refugees and has already removed 10
tonnes of DU-contaminated topsoil from its border region.

Britain's Ministry of Defence insisted that the levels of depleted uranium
found in the tests for the E~rpa programme posed no risk to public health
and represent only a tiny fraction of naturally occurring background
radiation. Defence minister Dr Lewis Moonie said: "It is a very interesting
result and one that needs to be followed up."

Copyright 2001 Sunday Herald


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Anne - it looks really excellent to me - here's hoping they actually read it and
that (are we really naive to hope?) they might actually try to address some of
the many important issues you have outlined so well.

Here's hoping!

Thank you for your hard work in producing such an impressive document.

Cheers and best wishes,

John Hill
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: Anne Goddard
   To: Group 1
   Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 10:53 AM
   Subject: [ClimateChangeAction] SUPER URGENT - Uranium supply from Australia to
China - Submission Feedback Request


   :-) thanks John,
   and Peter,
   This has to be in by tomorrow morning...
   My apologies for not sticking to my proposed timeline, i have been very busy
over the last few days.

   John, your alterations are on the 2nd draft (i took out the words "so called"
prior to "depleted uranium"- as these words seemed superfulous), and i reworded
your paragraph slightly to change it from a question to a statement - to address
(in the paragraph Public Safety & Environmental Concerns. which you started with
the word 'Additionally') the issue of local accidents and there likely increase
if increases in storage, mining and transportation are required to supply this
market... I also fixed the typo's you noted (THANK YOU)... and also added a bit
right at the end... in the addition to your final comment.

   URGENT - more alterations/additions/feedback welcome.
   I am off work all day today, but have a lot to catch up on...

   If everyone is happy with it and there are no further changes... PLEASE LET ME
KNOW IMMEDIATELY... i will convert it to a word document and put in an index if
i have time.


   2ND DRAFT

   Submission to Joint Standing Committee on Treaties:

   Inquiry into Proposed Uranium Sales to China

   I oppose uranium sales to China for the reasons outlined below.

   Name: Climate Action Group
   Address: C/- PO Box 316, Gin Gin, Qld, 4671
   Date: Monday September 4, 2006

   Introduction

   Nuclear power is the only energy source with a direct and 
repeatedly-demonstrated connection to the production of Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD). Four or five countries have used supposedly peaceful  nuclear
programs to develop arsenals of nuclear weapons - Israel, India, Pakistan, South
Africa, and possibly North Korea.


   Even the by-products of nuclear power, such as "depleted uranium," can be used
to manufacture horrific weapons with long-lasting and poorly understood effects.

   The five 'declared' nuclear weapons states - the US, the UK, Russia, France,
and China;  routinely transfer personnel from their 'peaceful' nuclear programs
to their WMD programs, and the USA uses a power reactor to produce tritium for
use in  nuclear weapons.

   The contribution of ostensibly peaceful nuclear programs to WMD proliferation
has underpinned strong and sustained public opposition to uranium mining and
export:

     * A May 30, 2006 Newspoll of 1,200 Australians found that 66% are opposed to
any new uranium mines in Australia (including a clear majority for all
major-party voters - 53% of Coalition voters and 78% of ALP voters).

   Therefore, based on this survey, to go ahead with expansion of the nuclear
industry in Australia would be to go against the wishes of the overwhelming
majority of voters.

   * A 2005 survey of 1,020 Australians carried out by the International Atomic
Energy Agency found that 56% considered the Agency's 'safeguards' inspection
system to be ineffective.

   Therefore, to go ahead with the expansion of the nuclear industry in Australia
would be to ignore the views of the majority of people (based on this survey)
who regard our safeguard inspection system is ineffective.

   * A September 2005 SBS-commissioned Newspoll of 1,200 Australians found that
53% were opposed to uranium exports to China, with 31% in favour.

   These figures speak for themselves. The majority surveyed are AGAINST uranium
exports to China.

   Inadequate IAEA Safeguards.

   IAEA Director-General Mohamed El Baradei has described the IAEA's basic
inspection rights as "fairly limited", complained about "half-hearted" efforts
to improve the system, and expressed concern that the safeguards system operates
on a "shoestring budget" ... comparable to a local police department.

   Yet the Australian government and the so-called safeguards office ASNO
continue to peddle the fiction that there is no risk of diversion of Australian
uranium to nuclear weapons production.

   Australia is entirely reliant on the IAEA's flawed and under-resourced
safeguards system to prevent Australian uranium and its by-products
(collectively known as Australian obligated nuclear materials - AONM) being used
in Chinese nuclear weapons.

   The treaty text makes no provision for Australian inspections of AONM in China
or of Chinese nuclear facilities using AONM.

   As a 'declared' nuclear weapons state, China is not subject to full-scope IAEA
safeguards. Nuclear facilities using AONM would only be subject to voluntary
inspections, but even this is no simple matter since Australian uranium is
indistinguishable from, and [easily be] mixed with, uranium from elsewhere.

   Given that Australian uranium is indistinguishable from, and [can be] mixed
with, uranium from elsewhere, no attempt is made to track Australian uranium per
se. Indeed, all of Australia's uranium exports to China could be used in nuclear
weapons without even breaching the terms of the agreement - so long as an
equivalent amount of nuclear material is transferred into "safeguarded
material."

   This reality is directly at odds with statements made by Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer.

   Prime Minister John Howard has conceded that ultimately Australians must put
our faith in the Chinese regime not to use Australian uranium in nuclear
weapons. We need more than "faith and trust" when exporting uranium to any other
nation.

   There are numerous plausible scenarios which would make it difficult or
impossible to safeguard AONM:
   * The Chinese regime might be expected to permit safeguards so long as it
wants further uranium from Australia. But Australian uranium exports to China
will not last forever and could be terminated at any point in time for a variety
of reasons.
   * The Chinese regime promises military action in the event that Taiwan
declares Independence, and Washington promises a military reaction in which
Australia could become embroiled.
   In those circumstances, it would be all but impossible to prevent AONM being
used in Chinese nuclear weapons.

   The US has ALREADY USED nuclear weapons on our Asian neighbours (and
"depleted" uranium weapons both in Europe and Asia.)

   * There is serious concern that the NPT/IAEA system could collapse. For
example, the 2004 report of the UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel on
Threats, Challenges and Change noted: "We are approaching a point at which the
erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in
a cascade of proliferation." In such circumstances, it is unlikely that IAEA
safeguards would continue to apply [anywhere]. Moreover, in such circumstances,
there is no certainty whatsoever that fallback provisions,
   such as Australian inspections, would be feasible.

   Australia's Meaningless Bilateral Agreements.

   Provisions in bilateral uranium export agreements between Australia and
customer countries have been gradually and repeatedly weakened since the basic
framework was established in 1977 by the Fraser government. The provisions
certainly do not guarantee that there will be no diversion of nuclear materials
to WMD production.

   The bilateral provisions are in some cases meaningless. For example,
Australian consent is required before reprocessing spent nuclear fuel produced
using Australian uranium. But consent to reprocess has never once been withheld
by any Australian government - even [where] it leads to the stockpiling of
plutonium [with] consequent regional tensions, as with Japan's enormous
plutonium stockpile.

   It is particularly disappointing that the treaty text envisages reprocessing,
i.e. separation of weapons-useable Australian-obligated plutonium from spent
nuclear fuel irradiated in China.

   The Australian government has been obliging to facilitate plutonium separation
- it plans to grant 'programmatic' consent to the Chinese regime to separate
Australian-obligated plutonium from spent fuel rather than requiring Australian
consent on a case-by-case basis (or refusing consent altogether).

   Moreover, there does not seem to have been any consideration made to assess
how safe the facilities which will use Australian uranium might be. Will they
have any protection against terrorist attack or theft? Will they be sited in
geologically stable regions? What safegurads are there against spills,
contamination of the environment, etc?

   China's Nuclear Weapons Program.

   China's Communist regime maintains an active nuclear weapons program and
refuses to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The 2002 US Nuclear Posture
Review refers to China's "ongoing modernization of its nuclear and non nuclear
forces".

   Last year, Zhu Chenghu, a general in the Chinese People's Liberation Army,
said: "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition onto
the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with
nuclear weapons."

   "We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east
of Xian. Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of
cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

   China's WMD and Military Exports.

   The Chinese regime has an appalling record of military exports.  In 2001, the
CIA reported that China had provided missile technology to North Korea and Libya
as well as "extensive support" to Pakistan's nuclear program.

   In 2003, the US government imposed trade bans on five Chinese firms for
selling weapons technology to Iran.

   The Chinese regime has recently expressed some willingness to follow WMD
export norms. But that cannot be expected to last, especially given that the USA
is undermining those norms with proposed nuclear transfers to non-NPT state
India.

   Indeed there is little reason to believe that the Chinese regime's professed
support for export norms can be trusted or held as true or lasting. The same
holds true for any other state Australia may consider exporting uranium to.

   Amnesty International released a report in June 2006 criticising the Chinese
regime for fueling conflicts with "irresponsible", secret and growing
conventional arms exports to a range of human-rights abusers.

   According to Amnesty: "Its record in supplying arms to countries such as Iran,
Myanmar (Burma), Pakistan and Sudan suggests ... a dangerously permissive
approach to licensing arms exports." The report notes that China is the only
major arms exporter not to sign up to any multinational agreements on arms
export control.

   Amnesty estimates that China exports at least $A1.33 billion worth of arms
annnually although the regime's extreme secrecy makes it difficult to estimate
the scale of its arms exports.

   In June 2006, the US government accused four Chinese firms of illicit military
exports, thus beginning a process "potentially leading" to a freeze of any
assets the firms have under US jurisdiction.

   US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Stuart
Levey said the four Chinese firms supplied Iran with missile-related and
dual-use components.

   A US Treasury statement said: "The Chinese firms have provided, or attempted
to provide, financial, material, technological or other support for, or goods or
services in support of "Iranian missile programs that are capable of delivering
weapons of mass destruction".

   The statement said the exports included the Fateh-110 missile, with a range of
200kms, and the Fajr rocket systems, with ranges of 40-100kms. The four Chinese
firms are: Beijing Alite Technologies Company, Ltd. (ALCO), LIMMT Economic and
Trade Company, Ltd., China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), and China
National Precision Machinery Import/Export Corporation (CPMIEC).

   Uranium Displacement.

   China has insufficient uranium for both its civil and military nuclear
programs, as the Chinese ambassador to Australia acknowledged in a December 2005
speech.

   Therefore, Australian uranium sales would free up China's limited domestic
reserves for the production of nuclear WMD.

   To argue otherwise - as the government and the so-called safeguards office
ASNO do, is simply dishonest.

   As the Taipei Times editorialised on January 21, 2006: "Whether or not Aussie
uranium goes directly into Chinese warheads - or whether it is used in power
stations in lieu of uranium that goes into Chinese warheads - makes little
difference. Canberra is about to do a deal with a regime with a record of
flouting international conventions."

   Human rights violations.

   China is not a signatory to many international human rights and labour
protection conventions and treaties.

   According to Amnesty International, the Chinese regime is responsible for five
out of every six executions carried out around the world. At least 2,468
executions were carried out in 2001 alone. Civil society safeguards such as
whistleblower protections are absent.

   There are examples of persecution of nuclear industry whistleblowers, such as
Sun Xiaodi, who was concerned about environmental contamination at a uranium
mine in north-west China and was abducted in April 2005 immediately after
speaking to a foreign journalist.

   Media Censorship.

   The Chinese regime continues to tightly control the media. Of the 167
countries surveyed by Reporters Without Borders in 2005, China ranked 159th for
press freedom, and China has more jailed journalists than any other country in
the world.

   If diversion of Australian uranium to China's WMD program took place, it is
highly unlikely that the media would be able to uncover and report on the
diversion.

   Adverse Precedent.

   Uranium sales to China would set a poor precedent. Would Australia then sell
uranium to all repressive, secretive, military states ... or just some ... or
just China?

   Negotiations over uranium sales to China have already been used to justify
proposed sales to India, and proposals to sell to India have led to suggestions
that uranium might also be sold to other countries which have not signed the
NPT, namely Pakistan and Israel.

   Already, Australia exports uranium to:

     * nuclear weapons states (USA, UK, France)
     * states which refuse to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (e.g. USA)
     * states blocking progress on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (e.g. USA)
     * states which use supposedly peaceful nuclear facilities to produce
     material for nuclear weapons (USA - tritium production), and
     * states with a history of secret nuclear weapons research (e.g. South
     Korea).

   The government has also approved uranium sales to one non-NPT state - Taiwan.

   Public Safety & Environmental Concerns.

   There are other serious concerns in addition to the potential use of
Australian uranium in Chinese nuclear weapons. Wang Yi, a nuclear energy expert
at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told the New York Times in
January last year: "We don't have a very good plan for dealing with spent fuel,
and we don't have very good emergency plans for dealing with catastrophe."

   Additionally, adequate safeguards at Australian mine sites and for the
transportation of uranium must be adequately addressed in an open and public
manner. Already there have been a number of very worrying "incidents" reported
at our three existing mines including leaks, watertable contamination, and
radioactive contamination of workers. Whether all incidents have been reported
is questionable - given government secrecy about such issues. Further mining and
transportation can only increase the risk of some very serious incident or
incidents.

   The Drug Dealer's Defence.

   It is claimed that Australia applies stricter safeguards than some other
uranium supplier nations. However, all countries are reliant on the flawed and
under-resourced safeguards system of the IAEA. Credit cannot be claimed for
bilateral provisions since the key provisions - on enrichment and reprocessing -
have never once been invoked.

   Which leaves apologists of uranium exports to the Chinese regime with one last
argument - that 'we' might as well sell uranium to the Chinese regime since the
only alternative is that other suppliers will fill the gap.

   Australia must encourage the Chinese regime to pursue renewable energy options
and energy efficiency measures rather than nuclear expansion as should the
Australian Government be actively persuing and investing in the development of
renewable, clean and sustainable energy supply options at home (such as: solar,
tidal, wave, wind, geothermal).

   The Chinese regime plans to increase the contribution of renewable energy to
15% by 2020 and nuclear's contribution is expected to grow from 2% to 4% over
the same period.

   Australia ought to encourage the Chinese regime to abandon the nuclear
expansion and to increase the renewable target to 100%.

   There are various mechanisms to facilitate this course of action - the Clean
Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, the AP6 Climate Change Framework,
bilateral relations, export industry support, etc.

   Commercial Interests.

   Mike Rann noted in his 1982 book: "Again and again, it has been demonstrated
here and overseas that when problems over safeguards prove difficult, commercial
considerations will come first."

   That pursuit of profit regardless of WMD proliferation risks clearly underpins
the proposal to export uranium to China.

   It is frequently claimed that the sale of uranium to China will be a major
source of export revenue. The claim is false - even the industry-funded Uranium
Information Centre (UIC) envisages that Australia might obtain an export market
to China of only about 3,000 tonnes annually compared to total current uranium
exports to all countries of 10-12,000 tonnes. The UIC predicts that Australia
might supply about one third of a predicted Chinese uranium demand of about
10,000 tonnes - and that assumes that the nuclear expansion proceeds as planned.
Current demand in China is just 1,500 tonnes.

   Uranium accounts for less than one third of one percent of Australia's total
export revenue - $573m/$176,700m in 2005. Even with exports to China, and an
expansion of Roxby Downs, and new mines, the likelihood of uranium accounting
for more than 1% of export revenue is vanishingly small.

   Providing the Incentive and the WMD Feedstock.

   The major driver of China's nuclear weapons program is the US-led so-called
missile defence program.

   By actively supporting the US missile defence program, the Australian
government is partly responsible for encouraging nuclear proliferation in China.

   By supplying uranium, we will potentially provide the WMD feedstock - or free
up Chinese uranium for WMD.

   So the government is encouraging nuclear proliferation in China and now plans
to supply the regime with nuclear WMD feedstock. This is not a logical or
defensible course of action. In fact, the Climate Change Action Group is clear,
we beleive that such an action as to supply China with Uranium is both wrong and
very, very dangerous.

   The Climate Change Action Group with 60 Global Members (with the majority
being Australians) do not support the supply of Uranium to China.

   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

FYI

John Hill

--------------------
U.S. Has Been Stockpiling Banned Pesticide
  --------------------

  The U.N. hadn't known the size of the reserve -- about a year's worth --
when it gave exemptions to make ozone-depleting methyl bromide.

  By Marla Cone
Times Staff Writer

  September 15 2006

  The United States has stockpiled millions of pounds of methyl bromide, a
pesticide that depletes the ozone layer, according to newly public documents
— information that could create a stir during international
negotiations next month, when the Bush administration seeks permission to
produce more.

  The complete article can be viewed at:
 
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ozone15sep15,0,5761786.stor\
y?coll=la-home-nation Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com

This is my submission to the enquiry:

I oppose the sale of uranium to China.
     This is the government with the worst human rights abuse record of our
times, working towards genocide in Tibet, using live prisoners of conscience
for 'mining' organs for transplant, and so on.
     This government has sold weapons technology to various other countries,
including those Australian soldiers have opposed.
     There is a long history of Communist China not honouring agreements with
other countries. This is quite acceptable from within a Chinese ethic:
agreement with another person is sacrosanct -- unless the other person is a
barbarian. Anyone not of Chinese culture is a barbarian.
     Therefore, Australian uranium is very highly likely to end up in nuclear
weapons, to be used or sold in whatever way suits the Chinese government.

     The Chinese record of care for the environment, and for the safety and
wellbeing of workers, is also the worst in the world. I am horrified by the
thought of Chinese possibly mining, handling and transporting radioactive
materials within Australia. If they don't care for their own land and
people, are they likely to be any better with ours?
Sincerely,
Bob Rich
------------------------------------------------
Dr Bob Rich bobrich@...
http://bobswriting.com
http://anxietyanddepression-help.com
http://mudsmith.net
"Whether you believe yourself to be a success or a failure, you are
correct."
Henry Ford
------------------------------------------------