Clinging to the Nuclear Option
A Reckless Denial of Reality
By RUDI H. NUSSBAUM | CounterPunch | May 30, 2011
The national organization Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), committed to protecting public health, demands the de-commissioning of all currently operating nuclear plants in the US and urges members of Congress to refuse to subsidize the construction of new ones with loan guarantees and liability insurance. Why? Here is the scientific/common sense justification for such an uncompromising position:
1. After the accident at the Three Mile Island (TMI) plant, the official Columbia U. study found no increased health effects among the surrounding population, consistent with the officially accepted exposure levels as estimated by the TMI plant operators and applying the internationally accepted radiation risk factors, derived from the long-term follow-up of the externally exposed A-bomb survivors. Contradicting these findings, a subsequent study by Wing et al found statistically significant excess cancers. These cancers have affected the lives of real persons. Yet, Wing’s results were angrily dismissed by the radiation establishment and government health agencies because risk assessments, based on “current radiological science,” precluded that the officially accepted, very low levels of population exposures (doses) released from the TMI reactor could induce the observed excess cancers. The possibility that combining flawed dose estimates with flawed risk models could predict flawed numbers of cancers that might be off by several orders of magnitude (factors of ten), was never considered by the Columbia U. investigators.
Following a tradition illustrated nearly 400 years ago by Gallileo’s fate, accepted beliefs and supporting theoretical models, combined with vested interests, trumped observation. Questioning assumptions in adopted radiobiological models and radiation risk assessments would be equivalent to heresy.
2. All over the former Soviet Union increased incidence of cancers and a multiplicity of other serious health detriment, associated with varying levels of environmental radioactivity from the Chernobyl disaster, have been documented by clinical reports and public health statistics. Until recently, the majority of those studies, however, could only be published in Russian scientific/medical journals and these were arrogantly ignored by the Western radiation health establishment. Instead, the nuclear technology promoting United Nation’s (UN) agency: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (the World Health Organization (WHO) is not permitted to conduct independent studies on radiation health) published report after report with estimated numbers of Chernobyl radiation victims that are orders of magnitude smaller than those observed and documented in the recently published compendium of the Russian data in English (Yablokov et al., Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences, 2009, usefully summarized by the German equivalent of PSR). The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) (and the WHO) had accepted IAEA assertions of very low numbers of radiation victims, purportedly based on the world’s most reliable current radiobiological and radiation risk models. Thus, mainstream radiation health scientists proclaim that the variously documented large numbers of radiation-associated health effects after the Chernobyl catastrophe in the former Soviet Union “cannot be caused” by radiation, rather they must be the result of psychosomatic traumas.
Similarly, in far away Western European countries for which UNSCEAR had estimated very low fallout doses after the Chernobyl explosion, a multitude of excess health effects have been reported in refereed medical/scientific journals, such as neo-natal mortality, Down’s syndrome or lowering of child IQ. However, mainstream radiation regulating and protection agencies, quoting the IAEA/WHO reports, deny any causal relationship between Chernobyl fallout and most of those observations. Vested political and financial interests, cherished theoretical models, mixed with intolerable arrogance, again trump reality.
3. Several years ago, the German government commissioned a team of prestigious government-employed health scientists to design a state-of-the-art study of children <5 years who lived in the proximity of any of the 16 German normally operating nuclear power reactors. Presumably, the study was meant to assuage with maximum credibility the continuing citizens’ concerns about observed childhood leukemia clusters around some of these reactors. Therefore, to my knowledge, it is the only government-sponsored radiation study ever that was designed with full input from and oversight by an independent scientific commission, including several members who had publicly supported the citizens’ concerns. Contrary to their expectations, the government scientists found irrefutable evidence that for <5 year old children there exists an association between residence within 10 km of any of these reactors and a more than doubling of risk for contracting leukemia or other cancers. This amazing finding caused quite a stir in the German media (and remains underreported and unacknowledged in the US), but it has never been credibly refuted. Some defensive (“ecologic”) studies with negative outcomes around power reactors in France and England claim to have cast doubt on the German results, but critical analysis of their data shows them to lack the necessary statistical power (i.e. sensitivity to detect an effect) to invalidate the German findings. Desperate for an “out,” the government researchers, the health agencies involved and the German government then declared these excess cases of early childhood leukemia and cancers in the proximity of nuclear plants to be “inexplicable” at this time. They claim that according to “currently accepted radiobiological models” the initiation of these excess malignancies would require levels of radioactive emissions to be three orders of magnitude larger (1,000 times) than what the reactor operators claimed to have been released. However, (1) officially accepted radiation risk factors do not take into account the extreme radio-sensitivity of the developing fetus and of very young children (R.H. Nussbaum and I. Fairlie).
Also, (2) the officially assumed levels of radioactive emissions ignored, e.g., large releases of radioactive Noble Gases (e.g. Krypton) and of Tritium (radioactive hydrogen). Both of these radioisotopes can easily enter the human body via the food chain. Equally important is the fact (3) that the traditional measure of radiation exposure, the concept of dose (absorbed energy averaged over a unit mass of exposed human tissue), which is a fundamental macroscopic concept in current radiation risk estimates, is clearly inadequate to describe a variety of known injurious microscopic cellular/molecular mechanisms that can be triggered, in particular, by internally lodged radioactivity.
Those who deny or deceptively play down the catastrophic threats to public health from all phases of the nuclear power cycle, from mining to the lack of any proven solution to permanent and safe disposal of very long-term deadly spent nuclear fuel, recklessly ignore the medical/scientific lessons we should have learned from current and previous nuclear accidents. The international radiation health science establishments, such as IAEA or ICRP, many of whose members are solidly enmeshed with nuclear arms and nuclear energy production, have for decades deliberately ignored observed detriment from radioactive emissions. Their estimates of the public health impact from environmental radioactivity are based on partially outdated and flawed theoretical models that had been developed decades ago to quantify the effects of exposures to external radiation, such as those suffered by the Japanese A-bomb survivors. In agencies that are mandated to protect public health a mindset that denies reality is intolerable.
In addition to unacceptable long lasting effects on public health, even if operating normally (see section 3), nuclear energy technology can only be financed by taxpayers worldwide because private capital considers it too risky and refuses to underwrite it. The nuclear power industry holds citizens hostage to protect its profits. The industry’s safety claims and its new marketing gimmick of modular design reactors are largely deceptive, since it has nothing to offer in terms of safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel rods.
It is particularly tragic that the current Japanese population is again a study cohort for the devastating effects of a very different mix of environmental radioactive contamination.
Rudi H. Nussbaum is a Professor emeritus of Physics and Environmental Sciences at Portland State University.
TEPCO now confirms nuclear meltdown in Fukushima reactor No. 1
By Mike Adams | NaturalNews | May 12, 2011
TEPCO has now publicly admitted it wasn’t telling the truth about the severity of the damage to Fukushima reactor No. 1. We’re now being told what we’ve suspected all along — that nuclear fuel rods in that reactor are totally exposed and have suffered a nuclear meltdown, releasing vast amounts of radiation comparable to Chernobyl. As Bloomberg now reports, the water level in reactor No. 4 is one meter below the fuel assembly itself. This means, of course, that the water isn’t high enough to cover the fuel rods, which is why those fuel rods have suffered a nuclear meltdown. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-…)
The Associated Press is also reporting that “other fuel has slumped to the bottom of the pressure vessel and is thought to be covered in water.” This statement is astonishing all by itself because it means the fuel rods were in a total meltdown hot enough to cause their metal containment cylinders to “slump” and melt their way down to the lower levels of the coolant pools. Notably, AP carefully avoids using the term “melt” and instead says the fuel rods “slumped.” This is all part of the AP’s determined downplaying of the Fukushima catastrophe (see below).
Not surprisingly, as AP now reports, “The findings also indicate a greater-than-expected leak in that vessel.” But the laws of nuclear physics don’t care what you “expect,” you see. They don’t care about media spin or power company B.S. The laws of physics simply follow their natural course, regardless of what you hope they do.
And in the case of Fukushima, the laws of physics led directly to a core fuel meltdown that now even the mainstream media cannot deny (although they still aren’t calling it a “nuclear meltdown”). As AP reports:
Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency officials said the new data indicates that it is likely that partially melted fuel had fallen to the bottom of the pressurized vessel that holds the reactor core together and possibly leached down into the drywell soon after the March 11 quake and tsunami that struck Japan’s northeastern coast.
Undeniable meltdown
What AP is describing, of course, is a nuclear meltdown. It doesn’t get any more obvious than this: The fuel reached melting temperature and melted down. Along with this, there would have had to be a massive release of radiation into the containment vessel, which just happens to have numerous holes in it that allow highly radioactive water to leak directly into the environment. No wonder TEPCO discovered its radiation detectors had all maxed out there and become non-functional. No wonder TEPCO had to selectively stop reporting radiation releases — it was in the middle of a Chernobyl-like core fuel meltdown!
The Telegraph in the UK is refreshingly printing the truth on this story: “One of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant did suffer a nuclear meltdown, Japanese officials admitted for the first time today, describing a pool of molten fuel at the bottom of the reactor’s containment vessel.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor…)
But the mainstream media in the U.S. has obviously been instructed by the White House to avoid using the term “nuclear meltdown” in describing what happened at Fukushima. There is a rather blatant downplaying of the facts going on behind the scenes at the media giants.
Some of this spin can only be called blatant lies, by the way. In the same story linked above, AP claims “Unit 4 contained no fuel rods at the time of the earthquake…”
Huh? No fuel rods in reactor No. 4? This what on Earth is this video showing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKHW…
I love how the media admits it has been misreporting the truth of the situation all along, and then it comes up with new fairytale spin stories in practically the same sentence. They might as well just report, “There was no nuclear fuel in Fukushima at the time of the tsunami, and that’s why governments have stopped monitoring radiation levels.”
TEPCO once again meets Murphy’s Law
In any case, this sudden revelation that reactor No. 4 has already experienced a nuclear fuel meltdown is, not surprisingly, causing considerable setbacks to TEPCO’s plan to have the whole facility deactivated by Christmas. Just as NaturalNews publicly predicted, the Christmas shutdown plan was little more than a combination of fantasyland thinking and industry spin.
“What this means is this is probably going to be a much more difficult cleanup than they originally planned for,” said particle physicist Paul Padley in a Bloomberg story (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-…). The government and Tepco “have consistently appeared to be underestimating the severity of the situation.”
And that’s the story of modern science: Arrogant in its confidence over the laws of nature, yet utterly dishonest in reporting the truth when its Tower of Babel crumbles to the ground. No wonder the reputation of the conventional scientific community continues to plummet as people realize just how dangerous these people really are.
Sources for this story include:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie…
The False Promise of Biomass
Blowing Smoke
By MATTHEW KOEHLER, IAN LANGE and JOHN SNIVELY | CounterPunch | May 5, 2011
Last fall news broke that the University of Montana was planning to construct a $16 million wood-burning biomass plant on campus next to the Aber Hall dormitory. UM officials claimed the biomass plant would save UM $1 million annually and protect Missoula’s air quality by reducing emissions over the existing natural gas heating system.
As interested citizens, we attended the university’s biomass “poster presentation” last December, which, unfortunately, raised more serious questions than it answered. So we continued to ask questions and research the proposal. In March, we even conducted an “open records” search of UM’s biomass project file, pouring over hundreds of documents and emails between UM officials and representatives of Nexterra, a Canadian biomass boiler manufacturer, and McKinstry, a Seattle energy services company. Suffice to say, our records search turned up even more troubling questions, especially related to costs, maintenance and emissions.
As the Missoulian reported last month, information in UM’s air quality permit application to the Missoula City-County Health Department showed that “Contrary to previous claims by UM administrators, the university’s proposed biomass boiler will not reduce emissions to levels below that of natural gas. In fact, UM’s proposed state-of-the-art biomass gasification plant will produce nearly twice as much nitrogen dioxide as its existing natural gas boilers – and in some cases, will release three times as much particulate matter.” The emissions are higher than what McKinstry’s feasibility study predicted.
Our records search also turned up a document showing that the biomass plant would also increase emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds by 40 percent or more over the existing natural gas system.
Obviously, Missoula is prone to severe inversions and air stagnation, especially during winter, when the greatest load would be on the biomass system. We found a UM biomass grant application that stated, “The Missoula Valley’s constrained topography presents ideal research conditions for long term analysis of environmental impacts of efficient woody biomass boiler combustion.” Do we really want to risk Missoula’s air quality for the sake of research?
It’s also been difficult to get an accurate assessment from UM of the biomass plant’s up-front and long-term costs, something all Montana taxpayers deserve. For starters, we noticed in the project file that in April 2010 the cost of the biomass plant was $10 million. By July, the cost went to $14 million. Now it sits at $16 million. UM’s financial pro forma also shows that during the first 20 years the biomass plant would need nearly $10 million for additional operation and maintenance expenses over the existing natural gas system.
The pro forma is also troubling in other aspects. It over-estimates the cost of natural gas, while under-estimating the cost of biomass fuel trucked to campus, especially given rising diesel costs. The pro forma also completely zeros out all natural gas expenses and maintenance costs, even though UM now admits that a natural gas boiler would be used during cold winter days to augment the biomass system, and also used from May to September, when the biomass system is too powerful to use.
Further complicating the picture, UM realized during the permitted process that its existing natural gas boilers are in violation of air pollution limits. The fix will cost around $500,000. And UM’s contract with McKinstry was amended recently, meaning that UM is already contractually committed to McKinstry for $532,000 just for project development.
It is our belief that all of these significant issues need to be fully analyzed and rechecked, not just by the biomass project’s supporters, but also by the Board of Regents, independent of McKinstry and UM. Guarantees of performance by McKinstry need to be carefully scrutinized, as other colleges have paid the price for poorly written contracts or poorly vetted companies.
At the end of the day, Montana taxpayers deserve to see accurate, updated financial information from UM concerning all aspects of the biomass plant, including the initial $16 million price tag and $10 million needed for additional operation and maintenance expenses. And Missoula’s citizens have a right to expect that the University of Montana would not risk Missoula’s fragile air quality by needlessly increasing emissions over present levels.
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Matthew Koehler is executive director of the WildWest Institute; Ian M. Lange is a professor emeritus, Department of Geosciences at the University of Montana; and Dr. John Snively is a retired dentist. All three live in Missoula.
This column was originally published by The Missoulian.
The Future Children of Fukushima
Cancer, Deformities and Chronic Diseases
By JOE GIAMBRONE | CounterPunch | May 3, 2011
“[A] woman in her fourth month of pregnancy was contaminated with 137Cs [radioactive cesium]… The concentration of 137Cs in the mother (0.91 kBq/kg bw) was similar to that in her newborn child (0.97 kBq/kg bw).” 1
Children in Belarus, Ukraine and certain provinces of Russia tell us what to expect from a massive radiation contamination such as Japan is currently experiencing. Radiation attacks the young to a harsher degree than it does adults, and yet we do know that it kills adults. Radioactivity causes numerous illnesses including terminal cancers, and not just from a large initial dose but over time from absorbed emitting particles inside the body.
A senior nuclear adviser to the Japanese Prime Minister, professor Toshiso Kosako resigned in protest from his government. This as the Japanese government raised the level of permissible exposure to schoolchildren twenty fold, from 1mSv/year to 20mSv.
The atomic power industry, it can be proved, has been an unprecedented catastrophe for mankind.
One of the world’s leading experts on radionuclide contamination is Dr. Yury Bandashevsky based in Minsk, Belarus. Near Chernobyl’s “ground zero” Bandazhevsky has published hundreds of scientific papers and has studied the radioactive contamination absorbed by children there for decades.
The parents of northern Japan had best investigate Dr. Bandashevsky’s dietary recommendations. He’s found that apple pectin helps remove radioactive cesium-137 from the body.
However, food grown and animals grazed in contaminated regions will pass along radiation to human populations for centuries. The Japanese reliance on fish will soon produce another shock to their nation as larger fish absorb more radioactive particles up the food chain.
Dr. Bandashevsky has placed hard numbers on the dangers of internal contamination from radiation,
“Chronic Cs-137 levels over 30 Bq/kg body weight is often associated with serious cardiovascular diseases 2.”
For children with cesium 137 in excess of 50 Becquerels/kg body weight, “pathological disorders of the vital organs or systems will occur 3.” These levels can produce grotesque malformations in newborn babies and increase the risk of spontaneous abortions.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) says, “Both 134Cs and 137Cs emit beta particles and gamma rays, which may ionize molecules within cells penetrated by these emissions and result in tissue damage and disruption of cellular function 4.”
Expecting Japanese mothers should flee the north of Japan as quickly as possible. Abandon the region for the sake of their children’s safety. Fetuses are in imminent danger and are many times more vulnerable to radiation than are adults.
How much radiation is Japan bathed in right now?
Nature magazine online reported that soil 40km northwest of the plant contained, “Cesium-137 levels of 163,000 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) and iodine-131 levels of 1,170,000 Bq/kg, according to Japan’s science ministry 5.”
Tellingly, the new official “exclusion zone” is only a 30km radius from the plant. This means that those living atop the irradiated soil described above will not even be prompted to leave. Most will not. They will eventually return to life as usual. Only the colorless, tasteless, odorless radioactive isotopes will poison their families ceaselessly for the rest of their lives. Cesium, strontium, iodine and other radionuclides will continue to attack life forms in that contaminated environment despite any hollow assurances to the contrary.
Plutonium, the most toxic substance on earth, has been detected at eight different monitoring stations in Korea.
Radioactivity is a highly contested and controversial subject. Vast caches of medical evidence are routinely ignored in the mainstream media. At the nerve center of the controversy is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose entire purpose is to promote the atomic power industry worldwide. Many don’t know, but the IAEA has the authority on all health matters concerning radiation, both military and civil.
The World Health Organization can simply be blocked – by the IAEA – from publishing its findings concerning radioactive disasters like Chernobyl. This exact scenario occurred in 1995 under the tenure of WHO Director Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima 6.
A Swiss documentary team discovered that Dr. Nakajima’s 1995 international conference of “700 experts and physicians” was prevented from publishing its findings on Chernobyl by the IAEA. The 2004 Swiss film Nuclear Controversies documents this battle between doctors and scientists on the scene vs. the IAEA.
Regarding the IAEA, Dr. Nakajima said, “for atomic affairs, military use and civil use, peaceful or civil use they have the authority. They command 7.”
The elephant in the room is that word “military,” and the desire of Western militaries to pummel other lands with “depleted uranium” (sic) munitions. As NATO currently plasters Libya with uranium tipped bombs, it must deny that the uranium contamination will harm the civilian population there. That admission alone would constitute a confession of war crimes, and so the fiction continues.
Radiation attacks DNA and causes horrific malformations, sudden mortality, and diseases that persist for the rest of the person’s life.
Several films have documented the radiation effects on the children of Chernobyl including the Academy Award winning Chernobyl Heart (2003). This film shows harrowing images of deformed infants and numerous teenagers who suffer from thyroid cancers and other thyroid diseases. Fewer than 20% of children in the nation of Belarus can be classified as “healthy,” according to official government studies.
A Ukrainian study found that, “for each case of thyroid cancer there were 29 other thyroid pathologies 8.”
Dr. Bandashevsky found further health effects at even lower levels of cesium contamination. For “children having 5 Bq/kg more than 80% are healthy, while having 11 Bq/kg only 35% of children are healthy 9.”
Chernobyl Heart, The Battle of Chernobyl (2006) and Nuclear Controversies (2004) have been available streaming online for all to see. The evidence that radiation destroys the lives of entire populations is irrefutable.
Official United Nations studies have failed to reflect this reality on the ground. What the UN has fallen back on as a rationale for its behavior is found in the 2008 UNSCEAR report on Chernobyl:
“As discussed previously in the section on the attribution of effects to radiation exposure, because presently there are no biomarkers specific to radiation, it is not possible to state scientifically that radiation caused a particular cancer in an individual 10.”
By their own logic it is also not possible to scientifically rule out that radiation caused the epidemic of cancers found in the highly contaminated regions. But, that’s exactly what the UN has shamelessly done in a series of reports that deliberately under-count the deaths from the Chernobyl catastrophe.
While the IAEA refuses to accept medical consequences of the radioactivity it promotes, it does acknowledge that radiation has spread from the crippled Fukushima plant. Readings as high as 25 Megabecquerels per sq. meter iodine-131, and 3.7 Megabecquerels per sq. meter cesium-137 were reported “at distances of 25 to 58 km 11” from the still out of control plant. These numbers should prompt massive evacuations at much greater distances than the official exclusion zone (read: uninhabitable zone) of 30km.
Facing that reality would render a large chunk of Japan a wasteland with economic costs beyond calculation. The numbers of refugees would surpass anything that the government could possibly manage. The absolute insanity of atomic power would instantly become an unavoidable fact to the entire (sane) world.
All exposures to radiation increase the risks of cancer, and there is no such thing as a “safe dose.” This is the determination of the National Academy of Sciences 12, the EPA 13, NRC 14, CDC 15 etcetera. Thus, when a population is exposed to any increase in radioactive particles, some percentage of people and animals will be adversely affected. The exact number is difficult to determine, but estimates are made through extrapolation.
Dr. Chris Busby has predicted “400,000” cases of cancer for the population within 200 kilometers of Fukushima 16. That includes the suburbs of Tokyo. Studies from Europe after Chernobyl were used in his calculations. Cancers include thyroid, leukemia, pancreas, prostate, lung, skin, bone – every type of cancer that exists. This is what radiation does to living organisms.
The evidence is clear. Children living “in contaminated regions, in a radius of 250 – 300 km from Chernobyl show an increase in mutations 17.” From the years 1987 to 2004, “the incidence of brain tumors in children up to 3 years of age doubled and in infants it increased 7.5-fold 18.”
Thousands of studies from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the surrounding countries were compiled in 2009 by Dr. Alexey Yablokov and Drs. Vassily and Alexey Nesterenko. Chernobyl, Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences and cites 5,000 studies. Forty percent of Europe was dosed with significant radiation. Radioactivity spread across the northern hemisphere where it continues to affect human health to this day.
The most contaminated provinces show human devastation directly correlated to radiation levels. Gomel province in Belarus had 90% healthy children in 1985, the year before the meltdown. By 2000, “fewer than 10% of children were well 19.” Effects were directly related to the levels of contamination, eliminating other possible factors.
Rare deformities in infants increased radically. Severe Congenital Malformations (CMs) “such as polydactyly, deformed internal organs, absent or deformed limbs, and retarded growth increased significantly in the contaminated districts… officially registered CMs increased 5.7-fold during the first 12 years after the catastrophe 20.”
This is what the parents of Northern Japan should expect if they decide to stay. This is what the promotion of high risk atomic power has bequeathed to the next generations of those who live near the contaminated zone.
The IAEA’s methodology showed obvious holes in the counting of victims, post-Chernobyl. Stillbirths aren’t counted at all. The reality is that up to 2004, “the estimated total number of miscarriages and stillbirths in Ukraine as a result of Chernobyl was about 50,000 21.”
Those are fifty thousand human deaths in the single nation of Ukraine that did not even merit a mention in the UN’s so-called “official death toll.”
How many really died from Chernobyl’s meltdown?
The Yablokov/Nesterenko book places the death toll at about one million.
“Thus the overall mortality for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated at 985,000 additional deaths. This estimate of the number of additional deaths is similar to those of Gofman (1994a) and Bertell (2006). 22”
Three independent studies arrived at similar findings.
The atomic energy industry today across many nations displays a reckless disregard for human life bordering on Crimes Against Humanity. The Rome Statute, employed by the International Criminal Court, added the following category to Crimes Against Humanity:
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
As all nuclear plants regularly and routinely discharge harmful radioactive particles, which all governments admit are unsafe, the case is pretty clear. Nuclear power must be abolished while there is still enough uncontaminated arable farmland to sustain us.
In a strictly moral sense, these reckless plants endanger millions of other people’s children, perhaps 12,000 human generations yet to be born 23. Radioactive power generation places us in jeopardy at risk for catastrophic illnesses. This is a gross deliberate violation of millions of people’s human rights.
Plutonium remains a threat to future civilizations. This reckless, uncontrolled release of radioactive isotopes has fouled the earth.
The people of Japan should remember the people of Belarus. Birth defects in children “whose mothers live in contaminated zones is twice as high as compared to those, whose mothers live in clean regions 24.”
Notes
1. World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer IARC, Monographs on the Evaluatiion of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Vol. 78 Ionizing Radiation Part 2: Some Internally Depostited Radionuclides, 2001, IARCPress, Lyon France, p. 343.
2. Yuri Bandazhevsky, Chronic Cs-137 incorporation in children ‘s organs, 488 SWISS MED WKLY, 2003;133:488–490 · www.smw.ch (peer reviewed), Official journal of, the Swiss Society of Infectious disease
the Swiss Society of Internal Medicine, Swiss Respiratory Society
3., 17., 24. The Chernobyl Catastrophe and Health Care, By Dr. Michel Fernex, Professor emeritus, Medical Faculty of Basel, F-68480 Biederthal, France.
4: Center for Disease Control Publication p157-c2, CESIUM, 2. RELEVANCE TO PUBLIC HEALTH, CDC website.
5. Nature Journal Online, Radioactivity Spreads in Japan, March 29 2011, http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110329/full/471555a.html
6., 7. Nuclear Controversies, 2004, Swiss TV, Film by Wladimir Tchertkoff, Feldat Film Switzerland.
8. ,18., 19., 20., 21., 22. Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, Alexey V. Nesterenko, 2009, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol.1181.
9. V.B. Nesterenko’s report at the International conference “Medical Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe: results of 15-year researches”, June 4-8, 2001, Kiev, Ukraine.
10. SOURCES AND EFFECTS OF IONIZING RADIATION, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes, VOLUME II Annex D Health effects due to radiation from the Chernobyl accident
11. IAEA website, Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log, March 30, 2011, http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011/fukushima300311.html
12. National Academy of Sciences, 2006, Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII Phase 2. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11340&page=1#
13. EPA website, Radiation Risks and Realities, “The more radiation dose a person receives, the greater the chance of developing cancer… Current evidence suggests that any exposure to radiation poses some risk, however, risks at very low exposure levels have not been definitively demonstrated.” [“very low” not defined –JG] www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/402-k-07-006.pdf
14. NRC website, Fact Sheet on Biological Effects of Radiation, “This dose-response hypothesis suggests that any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.”
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/bio-effects-radiation.html
15. Center for Disease Control website, Prenatal Radiation Exposure: A Fact Sheet for Physicians, “However, the human embryo and fetus are particularly sensitive to ionizing radiation, and the health consequences of exposure can be severe, even at radiation doses too low to immediately affect the mother. Such consequences can include growth retardation, malformations, impaired brain function, and cancer.”
16. Dr. Chris Busby, Reuters, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S0H-mtsdsgg.
23. Al Jazeera, April 4, 2011, No safe levels’ of radiation in Japan by Dahr Jamail, quoting Dr. Kathleen Sullivan.
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Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire. He edits the Political Film Blog. He be reached at: polfilmblog at gmail.
No, a Little Radiation Is NOT Good For You
Washington’s Blog | April 30, 2011
Government scientists and media shills are now “reexamining” old studies that show that radioactive substances like plutonium cause cancer to argue that exposure to low doses of radiation is good for us … a theory called “hormesis”.
It is not just bubbleheads like Ann Coulter saying this. Government scientists from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and pro-nuclear hacks like Lawrence Solomon are saying it as well.
Indeed, in virtually every discussion on the risk of nuclear radiation, someone post comments arguing that a little radiation makes us healthier.
However, the official position is that there is insufficient data to support the hormesis theory: As Wikipedia notes:
Consensus reports by the United States National Research Council and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) have upheld that insufficient human data on radiation hormesis exists to supplant the Linear no-threshold model (LNT). Therefore, the LNT continues to be the model generally used by regulatory agencies for human radiation exposure.
***
The notion of radiation hormesis has been rejected by the National Research Council’s (part of the National Academy of Sciences) 16 year long study on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. “The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial.
Most proponents of the hormesis theory claim that data from the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima shows that residents exposed to low levels of radiation (i.e. some miles from the bomb blasts) lived longer than residents who lived so far away that they were not exposed to any radiation.
However, as Reuters noted in 2000:
Japanese survivors of the atomic bomb have their life expectancy reduced by an average about 4 months, which does not support claims that survivors exposed to low levels of radiation live longer than comparable unexposed individuals.
To clarify the question of whether atomic bomb survivors have enhanced or reduced life expectancy, Drs. John B. Cologne and Dale L. Preston from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Hiroshima, Japan, studied 120,321 survivors and estimated their radiation exposure and mortality rates after 45 years of follow up.
They report in the July 22nd issue of The Lancet that median life expectancy fell by about 1.3 years per Gy of estimated radiation dose, and declined faster at higher doses. At doses below 1 Gy, median life expectancy fell by about 2 months, while exposures of greater than 1 Gy resulted in a median loss of life of 2.6 years.
Drs. Cologne and Preston estimate that at a dose of 1 Gy, 60% of those exposed died from solid cancer, 30% from illnesses other than cancer, and 10% from leukemia.
“These results are important in light of the recent finding that radiation significantly increases mortality rates for causes other than cancer,” they write.
A large study of bone cancer in survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima published in March of this year also showed no hormesis, but rather increased cancer risk even at low doses.
Other data has also been misinterpreted by those who advocate that a little radiation is good for you. For example, the above-quoted Wikipedia article notes:
In popular treatments of radiation hormesis, a study of the inhabitants of apartment buildings in Taiwan has received prominent attention. The building materials had been accidentally contaminated with Cobalt-60 but the study found cancer mortality rates more than 20 times lower than in the population as a whole. However, this study compared the relatively young irradiated population with the much older general population of Taiwan, which is a major flaw. A subsequent study by Hwang et al. (2006) found a significant exposure-dependent increase in cancer in the irradiated population, particularly leukemia in men and thyroid cancer in women, though this trend is only detected amongst those who were first exposed before the age of 30. This study also found that rate of total cancer cases was lower than expected.
Even If Hormesis is Real, We’ve Got Too Much of a Good Thing
Even if the accepted scientific consensus is wrong and hormesis is real, we’re getting too much of a good thing.
As I’ve previously noted:
There Are NO Background Levels of Radioactive Caesium or Iodine
Wikipedia provides some details on the distribution of cesium-137 due to human activities:
Small amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Chernobyl disaster. As of 2005, caesium-137 is the principal source of radiation in the zone of alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Together with caesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes with greatest health impact distributed by the reactor explosion.
The mean contamination of caesium-137 in Germany following the Chernobyl disaster was 2000 to 4000 Bq/m2. This corresponds to a contamination of 1 mg/km2 of caesium-137, totaling about 500 grams deposited over all of Germany.Caesium-137 is unique in that it is totally anthropogenic. Unlike most other radioisotopes, caesium-137 is not produced from its non-radioactive isotope, but from uranium. It did not occur in nature before nuclear weapons testing began. By observing the characteristic gamma rays emitted by this isotope, it is possible to determine whether the contents of a given sealed container were made before or after the advent of atomic bomb explosions. This procedure has been used by researchers to check the authenticity of certain rare wines, most notably the purported “Jefferson bottles”.
As the EPA notes:
Cesium-133 is the only naturally occurring isotope and is non-radioactive; all other isotopes, including cesium-137, are produced by human activity.
So there was no “background radiation” for caesium-137 before above-ground nuclear testing and nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl.
Similarly, I’ve pointed out:
The Argonne National Laboratory notes:
Essentially all the plutonium on earth has been created within the past six decades by human activities involving fissionable materials.
***
Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, which ceased worldwide by 1980, generated most environmental plutonium. About 10,000 kg were released to the atmosphere during these tests.
Average plutonium levels in surface soil from fallout range from about 0.01 to 0.1 picocurie per gram (pCi/g).
Accidents and other releases from weapons production facilities have caused greater localized contamination.
So like radioactive cesium and iodide – which I discussed yesterday – plutonium doesn’t exist in nature in any significant quantity, and so “background radiation” is a meaningless concept.
In other words, even if a little radiation is good for us, we have already been getting exposed to a lot more radiation – from nuclear weapons tests, Chernobyl, Japan and other sources – than our ancestors were ever exposed to.
Indeed, even if the studies did show that low level exposure by the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped them live longer, background radiation in 1945 was much lower than after above-ground nuclear tests, Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Other Toxic Exposures
It’s not only apologists for the safety corner-cutting nuclear power industry which is trying to convince us of hormesis. Apologists for all big polluters are arguing hormesis as well.
Wikipedia describes the general theory:
Hormesis … is the term for generally favorable biological responses to low exposures to toxins and other stressors.
Even if radiation hormesis is true, we are exposed to a wide range of toxic chemicals, including BPA in our cans, rocket fuel in our drinking water, mercury in our fish, and many others.
Even if any toxic substances might have a hormesis effect in a vacuum, we are not exposed to chemicals in a vacuum … we are exposed to several chemicals at the same time. Indeed, scientists long ago demonstrated the synergistic effect of toxins – where:
The combined effect of the substances acting together is greater than the sum of the effects of the substances acting by themselves .
For example, smokers are much more likely to get cancer from exposure to radioactive radon gas than non-smokers.
So even if there is hormesis from a chemical at low doses because it causes our body to produce a wave of antioxidants and other cancer-fighters, by the time we get swamped to the myriad of toxic chemicals and radiation exposures present in modern life, our body’s defense mechanisms become so overextended that any hormesis effect would be lost.
Israel appropriating historical sites for colonial ends
Sarah Irving | The Electronic Intifada | 18 April 2011
Orthodox Jews walk past Israel’s wall near Rachel’s Tomb in the occupied West Bank. (Inbal Rose/MaanImages)
Moves by the Israeli government and settler movement to appropriate historical sites undermine Palestinian cultural rights and highlight how Israel exploits archaeological claims for colonial ends.
Last spring, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and the Bilal Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb outside Bethlehem to be “Israeli national heritage sites.” As The Electronic Intifada has reported since, the State of Israel seems to have two approaches to Palestine’s ancient sites. If, like the sites Netanyahu claimed or the remains at Sebastia, they fit into Israeli narratives about the Jewish history of the region, they are appropriated, renovated and incorporated into “archaeological parks.” If, like excavated finds and important buildings in Gaza, they highlight ancient Philistine or more recent Islamic periods of history, they can be bombed along with Gaza’s residents, or simply allowed to decay as vital conservation chemicals are excluded by the blockade. As an American-accented tour guide, overheard in Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif in October 2010, put it: “Having worked on two or three archaeological digs here [in Jerusalem], I can tell you that if anything is between 200 and 500 years old, it just gets tossed. It’s nothing.”
It’s against this setting that in October 2010, while researching a guidebook to Palestine, I found myself increasingly confused about a number of historical sites scattered around the occupied West Bank. None of them had the religious and historical importance of the Ibrahimi Mosque or Rachel’s Tomb, but they had their own place in Palestinian history and architecture. They were places mentioned in Palestinian tourism publications such as the locally-published Alternative Tourism Group travel guide Palestine and The Palestinians, the official Palestinian Authority Ministry of Tourism website, Jericho Municipality’s tourist listings or the “Places to Visit” section of the PA’s diplomatic mission to Japan website. This implied that they were recognized by Palestinian sources as being part of the country’s heritage. But the information about them was hazy, as if their existence was being acknowledged but at the same time they weren’t being incorporated into the itineraries of the growing Palestinian cultural tourism industry. Palestinian tour organizers I spoke to dismissed my inquiries, saying only that “I’ve never been there” or “we don’t take groups there.” There was, I soon found, a very good reason for this.
The first site that mystified me is a cluster of remains south of Jerusalem, close to the recently-expanded highway that runs through the occupied West Bank desert toward Jericho and the Jordan River. This comprises three buildings (or groups of buildings), only one of which was visible from the main road. This is an Ottoman caravanserai (most of the building is 16th century, although it may have older Mamluk elements), where merchants and their baggage-trains once took refuge for the night on the bandit-ridden road. It’s known as the Khan al-Ahmar or, in the way that many buildings in Palestine pick up Biblical names, as the Inn of the Good Samaritan, a reference to one of Jesus’ parables.
The other two buildings in the cluster are the monasteries of St. Euthymius and St. Martyrius, both founded in the fifth century. Along with other cells, monasteries and lavras (groups of isolated hermits’ dwellings) of the Desert Fathers, these are some of the most ancient Christian monasteries in existence and immensely important to Palestine’s historical, architectural and religious heritage. In the 2008 edition of The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide From Earliest Times to 1700, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Professor of New Testament at the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise, Jerusalem refers to the Monastery of St. Euthymius as a “forlorn ruin surrounded by graceless factories.” The factories Murphy-O’Connor mentions are those of Mishor Adumim, the industrial section of the sprawling and illegal settlement of Maale Adumim, which is a key part of Israel’s division of the occupied West Bank into unviable bantustans. Assuming that Murphy-O’Connor, researching the 2008 edition of his guide, saw it “forlorn” and abandoned in perhaps 2007, St. Euthymius’ monastery was not to remain a “ruin” for much longer.
Maale Adumim is apparently, like some of the Etzion Bloc settlements (which are increasingly selling themselves as wine tourism destinations), seeking to add heritage tourism to its economic activities. In 2009 an invitation to the opening of a “mosaic museum” at the Inn of the Good Samaritan was circulated around Israeli ministries and media. “On Behalf of the Head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories,” it offered a range of activities at the 4 June launch, including tours by “Civil Administration’s Staff Officer of Archeology and Antiquities.” Tellingly, descriptions of the attractions on offer emphasized Second Temple-era and Byzantine Christian remains, but made no mention of the Ottoman and possibly earlier Islamic buildings of the caravanserai which is the core of the Khan al-Ahmar site. If there was ever any doubt on the subject, Israeli archaeology was exposed as being entirely complicit with the occupation, sidelining Palestine’s Islamic heritage, appropriating its Christian sites (and in doing so also sidelining Palestine’s own historic Christian communities) and highlighting its Jewish remains above those of the main other cultures which have enriched this land.
The website of the Maale Adumim settlement offered an insight into the activities at the three sites over the last couple of years. It declared that “The Municipality of Maale Adumim is developing the Good Samaritan’s Inn and the hills surrounding it as a tourist complex, aiming to meet the demand for modern tourism services without losing the site’s unique ancient nature” (“The Good Samaritan Inn”). The site details plans for “restoration of the existing building to accommodate incoming groups, including a praying and religious studies section. Development will include a motel and restaurant modeled in an authentic ‘khan’ style.” In the future, a 150-room “ecological hotel” will be built on the cliffs overlooking the site.
By February 2011, the final pieces fell into place when the website of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) declared “New Sites’ Opening – The Inn of The Good Samaritan and more.” The INPA runs nature reserves and archaeological parks in both Israel and the occupied West Bank, including the one at Sebastia, which was previously reported on by The Electronic Intifada. According to the website, the Inn of The Good Samaritan, and the Euthymius and Martyrius monasteries are due to open to the public in July 2011. In addition, the mosaic museum and archaeological remains at these sites will also be opened to tourists. The entrance fees for the sites will pour into Israeli state coffers and, as they are situated within a settlement and will very possibly be run by settler staff, Palestinians will most likely be denied even the privilege of paying the 21 shekel ($6 US) ticket price to the Israeli occupation authorities to visit their own heritage.
A second example lies in the green, intricately curving hills of the central West Bank. On the road between Ramallah and Nablus, near the village of Luban al-Sharqiya and the small town of Sinjel, is Khirbet Seilun, or Tel Shilo. The layers of habitation deposits at the tel (an archaeological term referring to a hill made up of centuries of building remains) show that people have lived there since at least the Canaanite Bronze Age, and there are significant Roman, Byzantine and Islamic remains. Khirbet Seilun is regarded as sacred by some Jews because is has been identified by some historians as the Biblical Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept for a period on its travels north from Mount Sinai. Excavations in the early 1980s uncovered remains from the Canaanite and Israelite periods, but nothing resembling the Tabernacle, the building which may have housed the Ark at Shiloh. More recent archaeological digs have been controversial because they have uncovered a spectacular Byzantine mosaic which some settlers want to move so they can continue searching for the Israelite sacred remains they believe lie beneath the three Byzantine churches and two small mosques on the site.
Unlike the Khan al-Ahmar and monasteries of St. Euthymius and St. Martyrius, a visitor center at Tel Shilo is already functioning. Rather than being managed by the INPA, the Tel Shilo site is run by the extremist settlers of Shiloh who, journalists and human rights groups report have been responsible for innumerable attacks, including shootings and arson, against neighboring Palestinian villages and olive farmers. The Shiloh settlement was founded in the 1970s by the Gush Emunim terrorist group, which exploded car bombs against the mayors of several Palestinian cities in 1980, seriously injuring Bassam Shakaa, then mayor of Nablus (see “Shiloh: An Obstacle to Peace,” Time, 13 February 1978 and Nur Masalha, Imperial Israel and the Palestinians, 2000, p 123). Shiloh and the archaeological remains it has appropriated are now marketed as a destination for pilgrimages and religious tourism but, perhaps unsurprisingly given the beliefs of the settlers here, some non-Jewish tourists report being turned away.
Controversy over the archaeological heritage of Khirbet Seilun looks set to escalate. Last month, The Jewish Press reported that the Israeli government had authorized large-scale new excavations at the site. The aims of the excavations were explicitly said by the paper to be “to showcase the life and times of ancient Israel,” which suggests that the archaeologists carrying them out have specific intentions as to what they will find – or not find (“New archaeological effort seeks to unearth Mishkan’s secrets,” 23 March 2011). The article did not name the director of the new excavations, but previous digs at Khirbet Seilun have been led by Rachel Ehrlich, a hard-line settler who, in a profile on one Christian Zionist website, was described as being “determined to put the site [of Shiloh] on the map [as] the place where the people of Israel first entered the land, where religious life for the Jewish people was centered for the 369 years the Tabernacle stood there” (“Uncovering our Past, Christian Friends of Israel Communities).
Tzofia Dorot, the manager of the Shiloh visitor center, made some telling comments to The Jewish Press about the importance to settler public relations of Israel’s appropriation of heritage sites. She claimed that Shiloh has been “seeing more and more local and foreign visitors” and that three companies with proposals for a “major visitor center” had visited the settlement. This activity occurred in spite of the skepticism from archaeologists about whether Dorot’s “headline-making discoveries” were really likely to be made.
Tzofia Dorot’s comments to The Jewish Press illustrate why the expropriation of Palestinian heritage sites – whether by the State of Israel or by settler groups acting as its proxies – has a significance well beyond the loss of individual buildings or artifacts. In the eyes of settlers and their supporters, in Israel and beyond, stealing Palestinian archaeological and architectural heritage isn’t just about attracting tourists with open wallets. It’s about asserting settler claims to the land, by emphasizing Jewish history over and above that of the peoples and faiths who came before and after them in Palestine. It is also about presenting the Jewish people as the legitimate custodians of Palestine’s Christian heritage, diverting attention from Israeli oppression of the world’s oldest and longest-lived Christian communities and reinforcing misconceptions about the Palestinian struggle as a religious rather than anti-colonial movement. As Dorot sees it, the international “effort to discredit and delegitimize our connection to the Land of Israel is gathering steam.” Thus, showing settler archaeology to gullible tourists, she believes, will be vital in countering “the international community’s clamoring for Israel to make concessions.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian heritage organizations such as PACE and Riwaq are increasingly using models of community participation to raise awareness of the value of archaeological remains and the importance of protecting them (Ghattas J. Sayej, “Palestinian archaeology: knowledge, awareness and cultural heritage, Present Pasts, Vol 2, 2010). In Jerusalem, the Centre for Jerusalem Studies and Emek Shaveh are fighting official and settler expropriation of cultural and historical sites. But defending Palestine’s cultural heritage from the Israeli state and settlers is still low on the priority list.
Archaeologists, including Hamdan Taha, director-general of the PA’s Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, have voiced their concerns. And in March 2010 Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Tunisia submitted a provisional agenda item on Netanyahu’s claims at the Haram al-Khalil and Rachel’s Tomb to the UNESCO executive board meeting, noting that “much of the settlement enterprise is concentrated around archaeological areas where Israel makes claims of exclusive heritage, including the settlements of Shilo, Bet El and Kiryat Arba” (see UNESCO Executive Board, Hundred and eighty-fourth session, Item 37 of the provisional agenda, 19 March 2010 [PDF]). After initial failure to reach an agreement, UNESCO declared that it “regretted” Israel’s inclusion of the Haram al-Khalil and Bilal ibn Rahmeh Mosque on a list of its heritage sites and urged it to remove it; it also “regretted” Israel’s “unilateral actions” regarding historical sites in Jerusalem; no mention was made of Tel Shilo (see UNESCO Executive Board, Hundred and eighty-fifth session, Decisions adopted by the executive board, 19 November 2010 [PDF]). But much greater international recognition of and opposition to Israel’s cultural colonialism is needed, if Palestine’s heritage is to be preserved, both for its cultural significance and economic potential.
~
Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. She now writes full-time on a range of issues, including Palestine. Her first book, Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, co-authored with Sharyn Lock, was published in January 2010. She is currently working on a new edition of the Bradt Guide to Palestine and a biography of Leila Khaled.
THE “NOT-TOO-HIDDEN AGENDA” OF THE IAEA
Nukespeak, and seductive devices, doctrines, dogmas, strategies and fallacies
By Dr F.K. Knelman and Dr. Joan E. Russow
Dr F.K. Knelman is the Vice President of the Whistler Foundation for a Sustainable Environment, and Dr. Joan E. Russow, was the delegate for the Whistler Foundation at the New York Preparatory Committee for UNCED and at the Earth Summit at Rio. The Whistler Foundation and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation had circulated a Declaration that was signed by 37 Nobel Laureates; this declaration called for the phasing out of Nuclear energy. They requested permission to read this declaration at one of the plenary session at Rio Centro; permission was denied.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was initially set up in the 1960’s to regulate Nuclear energy; they have, however, become one of the strongest proponents of nuclear energy. A fundamental regulatory principle of the “separation of function” is that “the agency entrusted for regulating a technology cannot be the same agency that promotes the use of that technology”(Knelman, 1975). The IAEA , through its UNCED document entitled “Nuclear Techniques and Sustainable Development.” acted as a major proponent, not only of the current use, but also of the increased use of nuclear energy.
Agenda 21– the 700-page far-reaching action-plan document from UNCED, was adopted unanimously by the global community represented at the Earth Summit in Rio. In Agenda 21 the following concern about radiation was expressed:
The deterioration of environmental quality, notably air, water and soil pollution owing to toxic chemicals, hazardous wastes, radiation and other sources, is a matter of growing concern. (Chapter 16. subsection 12),
The extent of the consequences of the nuclear industry were also identified in Agenda 21:
Annually about 200,000 m3 of low-level and intermediate- level waste and 10,000 m3 of high-level waste (as well as spent nuclear fuel destined for final disposal) is generated world wide from nuclear power production. These volumes are increasing as more nuclear power units are taken into operation, nuclear facilities are decommissioned and the use of radionuclides increases. (Chapter 22, subsection 1)
Yet at one of the plenary sessions, Mr. Hans Blix, Director-General of the IAEA, was given permission to present a document advocating nuclear energy as being a safe alternative energy for the future. The International Non Governmental Organizations, (NGOs), however, recognized that the fundamental regulatory principle had been violated, and gave IAEA, the dubious honour of being presented with the International NGO Community’s “Most Preposterous Proposal Award” “for presenting nuclear power as the environmental solution in energy and successfully keeping its problems out of the documents”.
We would like to highlight some of the SEDUCTIVE DEVICES, STRATEGIES, DOCTRINES, DOGMAS and FALLACIES that have made the IAEA worthy of this honour. The examples will be drawn from the IAEA document, which was prepared for UNCED. Also references will be made to other UNCED Documents such as Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration– the Earth Charter– 1992, and the Canada’s National Report for UNCED, 1992.
The seductive devices, strategies and fallacies used by the IAEA all draw upon the fundamental language of “nukespeak”. Knelman (1986, 1992) has expanded on the euphemistic nature of Nukespeak:
The rule is sanitizing by euphemism: political euphemism is of course older than nuclear power. How many of us recognize the “elimination of unreliable elements”? There are forbidden words in the language of civil nuclear power. For example, the words “accident”, “pollution” or “disease” are never used. Accidents are either “transients”, “events”, “significant events”, “anomalies’, “occurrences” or “abnormal occurrences”. In the extreme, they become “normal abnormalities”, i.e. truth becomes lies. Explosions are “events of rapid disengagement” or “prompt criticality”. Waste dumps are “residue areas”. Thermal pollution becomes “thermal effects” and pollution becomes “impacts”. Disease becomes “health effects”. This is a euphemism for cancer and genetic malformations. And missing plutonium, which is the link to clandestine acquisition of nuclear explosives is “material unaccounted for” or simply MUF! (Knelman, 1986.)
Other names relating to nuclear accidents are criticality, nuclear excursions, abnormal evolution, normal aberration, plant transients, unnecessary ignition sources. “Nukespeak” is perpetuated through “nuclear acceptance campaigns” by the PR departments of the nuclear establishment, designed to find “palatable synonyms” for “scare words” through the use of “truth squads” in order to remove “undue public concern”, create “pro-energy climate” where “technically qualified persons” would agree that nuclear power poses “no significant threat” and could be “entrusted” for the timely detection of potential abnormalities, or there is “no evidence” of such threat (as though lack of evidence is proof of assertion) and the promises that turned into lies i.e. that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter” providing society with “boundless energy” and save us from “freezing in the dark”, this is the language of Orwell’s 1984, where peace is war and truth is a lie.
Seductive devices, doctrines, dogmas, strategies and fallacies
• The “blatant misrepresentation or expedient omission” device
This device involves the convenient exclusion of any part that could be detrimental to one’s position.
The IAEA through expedient omission (possibly for advantageous “clarification”) has left out a significant section in Agenda 21, which does not include nuclear energy in the list of “safe” technologies for the future.
To “clarify” Agenda 21, the IAEA in its UNCED document stated the following:
The UNCED Agenda 21 notes the need for a transition to environmentally sound energy systems, which will entail major changes in the patterns of energy production and consumption (IAEA Document, p.5, 1992)
In the Atmosphere chapter of Agenda 21, the following [safe] and sound technologies are advocated:
cooperate to increase the availability of capacity, capabilities and relevant technologies …for utilizing and producing environmentally [safe and] sound renewable energy resources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower and biomass,… Each resource should be utilized in a manner that … minimizes environmental stress and health impacts, …. (Section 9. Subsection 9 g Agenda 21, 1992)
Thus, we see that in the Energy section of Agenda 21, Nuclear energy is not mentioned as being one of the [safe] or sound technology.
• The “co-opted terms” strategy
This strategy involves the stipulating of a new definition for a term that would jeopardize one’s own argument.
In the Rio Declaration the following precautionary principle was advocated:
Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” ( Rio Declaration, 1992).
In the following statement, the IAEA redefines the important precautionary principle that was agreed to in the Rio Declaration, 1992.
The basic principles for radiation protection and safety in all applications and activities in nuclear science and technology are precautionary (IAEA Document , p. 2, authors emphasis)
The Rio principle, however, if enacted and truly adhered to, would bring about a moratorium on new nuclear power plants while phasing out currently existing ones.
• The “comparison of convenience” device
This device involves the narrowing down of alternatives so that whatever aspect is compared will appear favourable to the proposed alternative.
In the following statement from the IAEA document, the IAEA narrows the alternatives used for comparison to those, which would appear to be favourable within the terms of reference of their comparison. Thus, for example, they compare the relatively low volume of nuclear wastes to the much larger volume of wastes from fossil fuels. However, it is the volume of wastes multiplied by their toxicity that is significant. Merely comparing volumes is a “comparison of convenience”. The same false comparison is used to compare fuel requirements for the same energy output.
A nuclear plant would require 27 tonnes of slightly enriched uranium each year, which corresponds to a few truckloads. The corresponding quantity of natural uranium is 160 tonnes.
A coal-fired plant would need 2.6 million tonnes of coal each year… which corresponds to the load carried by 5 trains, each transporting 1400 tones. Every day an oil-fired plant would require 2 million tonnes of fuel oil per year, which is about 10 super-tanker loads. (IAEA document, 1992, p.12)
The nuclear establishment never fails to compare coal and nuclear as competing energy sources, always claiming the inherent superiority of nuclear. Usually this is accomplished by failing to include the entire fuel cycle over its full life of impacts, social and environmental. They conveniently exclude safety factors, production of wastes, disposability of wastes, degree of potential for bioaccumulation, lifetimes of wastes, toxicity and proliferation problems associated with nuclear.
Yet no bombs are built of coal, no terrorist is interested in hijacking coal or in the clandestine acquisition of coal weapons, coal plants do not have to be decommissioned and mothballed after some 30 to 50 years of operation, their hazardous wastes do not have to be guarded for 100,000 years, coal dust is easier to contain than radon and coal plants do not require liability subsidies by acts of parliament” ( Knelman, 1992)
• The “lull and lure of the technological fix” syndrome, the “misleading assurance” device or the fallacy of “technological omnipotence”
This syndrome, device or fallacy involves the revealing of the seriousness of the problem and the offering of a “solution” which is usually worse than the problem
The proponents of a potentially dangerous act indicate that they recognize the danger and focus on one area for which they can offer a technological fix
In the following statement from the Radioactive Wastes section of Agenda 21, into which it appears that the IAEA had input, the following situation is recognized:
Annually about 200,000 m3 of low-level and intermediate-level waste and 10,000 m 3 of high-level waste ( as well as spent nuclear fuel destined for final disposal) is generated world wide from nuclear power production. These volumes are increasing as more nuclear power units are taken into operation, nuclear facilities are decommissioned and the use of radionuclides increases. The high level waste contains about 99 percent of the radionuclides and thus represents the largest radiological risk. ( Agenda 21, Radio Active wastes, 21.1.)
In the IAEA document the authors affirm the certainty of the technological fix.
There is nevertheless a consensus among experts that safe geological disposal of high level wastes, including spent nuclear fuel, is technically feasible. ( IAEA Document, p.17)
The view of experts in the field is that safe technological solutions exist for managing the waste. (IAEA Document, 1992, p. 15)
Knelman (1992) points out that:
The assumption behind the notion of permanent disposal of High level wastes deep in a stable geological formation is false because this assumption relies on the mistaken belief that anything we do technologically can be permanent. This assumption of permanence is particularly false when we are dealing with the lithosphere over some 100,000 years and when we must first disturb the geological structure by digging a very deep hole. AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) has dug a deep hole near Lac du Bonnet in Manitoba which is totally inappropriate for such so-called “permanent” disposal. For one thing you must, in all events, avoid water. Yet, The AECL hole must be soaked. Walt Patterson, a nuclear critic described this AECL research as follows: A drunk has lost his keys and is discovered by a police officer crawling around a street light. When questioned, the drunk admitted that he had lost his keys in front of a dark building, a block away. When asked why the drunk was then searching around the streetlight, the drunk said “you see, officer, the light is better here” and as Dr Martin Resnikoff, an expert on geological waste disposal has put it “the earth does not stand still. In other words, experts in the relevant fields do not agree. (Knelman, 1992, in progress)
• The “rhetoric of notwithstanding clause” doctrine
This doctrine allows for the indulging in strong statements about deep concern and the need for significant change and then including a notwithstanding clause that negates the strong statement.
In the Rio declaration (1992) there is a strong statement about third world dumping:
States should effectively cooperate to discourage or prevent the relocation and transfer to other States of any activities and substances that cause sever[e] environmental degradation or are found to be harmful to human health. (Principle 14 Rio Declaration, 1992)
There are, however, disturbing “notwithstanding clauses” that appear such as in the following statements:
Develop regulatory and non-regulatory measures and procedures aimed at preventing the export of chemicals that are banned, severely restricted, withdrawn or not approved for health or environmental reasons, except when such export has received prior written consent from [t]he importing country or is other wise in accordance with the PIC procedure; ( Section 19. subsection 53 f , Agenda 21, 1992)
In the following statement in the IAEA document, the IAEA energetically adopts the spirit of the “rhetoric of notwithstanding clauses”:
The IAEA in 1990 promulgated a Code of Practice on the International Transboundary Movement of Radioactive Waste as a basis for harmonization of national legislation and policies. The code lays down the conditions and principles for international waste transfers, such as that movement must be made in a manner consistent with the international safety standards, that there must be prior notification and consent of the sending, receiving and transit States, and that each State involved should have a regulatory authority… ( IAEA Document, 1992, p. 20
• The “flamboyant absurdity” doctrine or dogma
This doctrine or dogma carries the concerns of one’s opponents to the point where the regulations governing the opponents concerns should become the standard by which other potentially lesser concerns will be addressed.
The IAEA appears to advocate that, what is considered to be the most dangerous industry, just because it is dangerous, has developed stringent standards, and that they who contribute to possibly the greatest uncontrollable hazard are the ones who should assist the community in dealing with other hazards.
The basic principles for radiation protection and safety in all applications and activities in nuclear science and technology are precautionary and are so well founded in science and so widely accepted that they are now also being regarded as a source of guidance in controlling pollutants and impacts arising from other human activities. Their wider application would undoubtedly contribute towards sustainable development. (p.2)
• The “justification through dire consequences of alternatives” device
This device involves the revealing of the dire consequences of the current practices and offering one’s own practice as the salvation for the problem.
In the following statement the IAEA cites the dire consequences of the other alternatives to justify their proposed alternative:
The problem of acid rain, which is linked to emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, has been recognized for decades. … the primary concern about the continued and increasing use of fossil fuels is the problem of CO2 emission and the potential impact on world climate. … World conference on the Changing Atmosphere… need to reduce CO2 emission (IAEA document, p. 5)
climate change in connection with fossil fuels (p. 9)
•The “benevolent outcome exploitation” strategy
This strategy involves the selection of the outcome which the opposition to the proposed alternative would advocate and the subsequent attempt to demonstrate that the proposed alternative, which the opposition would condemn, would be the best way of achieving that outcome.
In the following statements from the IAEA document, the IAEA focuses on the desired outcomes of reducing acid rain and limiting greenhouse gas to justify the selection of their proposed alternative:
Several governments have already made commitments to reduce carbon emission, while recognizing that this will be hard to achieve except through drastic policy decisions in the energy sector. (IAEA Document, 1992, p.6)
Nuclear power plants in normal operations cause very little environmental detriment and are beneficial when they replace plants which would emit CO2, SO2, and NO2 (p. 12). In this resects they would help to reduce acid rain and limit greenhouse gas emissions (IAEA Document 1992 , p. 12)
To accomplish the above, IAEA and other nuclear proponents are recommending the construction of some 4000 to 5000 new commercial nuclear power plants. […]
Conclusion
The “nukespeak” and the seductive devices, strategies, syndromes used by the Nuclear Industry involve the language of delusion and distortion. Hopefully, through continued revealing and categorizing of these words of delusion we could, in some small way, counteract the impact of the not too-hidden-agenda of the IAEA, and the rest of the nuclear establishment and their government supporters.
New peer reviewed analysis: “worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years”
By Anthony Watts | WattsUpWithThat | March 28, 2011
The paper is currently in press at the Journal of Coastal Research and is provided with open access to the full publication. The results are stunning for their contradiction to AGW theories which suggest global warming would accelerate sea level rise during the last century.
“Our first analysis determined the acceleration, a2, for each of the 57 records with results tabulated in Table 1 and shown in Figure 4. There is almost a balance with 30 gauge records showing deceleration and 27 showing acceleration, clustering around 0.0 mm/y2.”
…
The near balance of accelerations and decelerations is mirrored in worldwidegauge records as shown in Miller and Douglas (2006)
Abstract:
Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses
J. R. Houston† and R. G. Dean‡ †Director Emeritus, Engineer Research and Development Center, Corps of Engineers, 3909 Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS 39180, U.S.A. james.r.houston@usace.army.mil
‡Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Coastal Civil Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, U.S.A. dean@coastal.ufl.edu
Without sea-level acceleration, the 20th-century sea-level trend of 1.7 mm/y would produce a rise of only approximately 0.15 m from 2010 to 2100; therefore, sea-level acceleration is a critical component of projected sea-level rise. To determine this acceleration, we analyze monthly-averaged records for 57 U.S. tide gauges in the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) data base that have lengths of 60–156 years. Least-squares quadratic analysis of each of the 57 records are performed to quantify accelerations, and 25 gauge records having data spanning from 1930 to 2010 are analyzed. In both cases we obtain small average sea-level decelerations. To compare these results with worldwide data, we extend the analysis of Douglas (1992) by an additional 25 years and analyze revised data of Church and White (2006) from 1930 to 2007 and also obtain small sea-level decelerations similar to those we obtain from U.S. gauge records.
Received: October 5, 2010; Accepted: November 26, 2010; Published Online: February 23, 2011
Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses, J. R. Houston and R. G. Dean
Discussion: (excerpt)
We analyzed the complete records of 57 U.S. tide gauges that had average record lengths of 82 years and records from1930 to 2010 for 25 gauges, and we obtained small decelerations of 20.0014 and20.0123 mm/y2, respectively. We obtained similar decelerations using worldwide-gauge records in the original data set of Church andWhite (2006) and a 2009 revision (for the periods of 1930–2001 and 1930–2007) and by extending Douglas’s (1992) analyses of worldwide gauges by 25 years.
The extension of the Douglas (1992) data from 1905 to 1985 for 25 years to 2010 included the period from 1993 to 2010 when satellite altimeters recorded a sea-level trend greater than that of the 20th century, yet the addition of the 25 years resulted in a slightly greater deceleration.
Conclusion:
Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in U.S. tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each time period we consider, the records show small decelerations that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of worldwide-gauge records. The decelerations that we obtain are opposite in sign and one to two orders of magnitude less than the +0.07 to +0.28 mm/y2 accelerations that are required to reach sea levels predicted for 2100 by Vermeer and Rahmsdorf (2009), Jevrejeva, Moore, and Grinsted (2010), and Grinsted, Moore, and Jevrejeva (2010). Bindoff et al. (2007) note an increase in worldwide temperature from 1906 to 2005 of 0.74uC.
It is essential that investigations continue to address why this worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years, and indeed why global sea level has possibly decelerated for at least the last 80 years.
Full paper available online here
Censorship in Academia – Cornell University
By Henry Hansteen | 9/11Blogger | February 9, 2011
I’ve been a Cornell Staff member for about thirty years, and pretty much every work day, I work with metal. Mostly machining, but also, bending, shearing, welding, annealing, heating, heat treating, etc.. One thing I’ve learned through my experience, is that gradually heated steel loses its strength gradually, not instantly. Since WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop displayed all the characteristics of a controlled demolition, and none of a fire induced collapse, I’ve always been skeptical of the government’s “explanation” – that gradual heating of parts of the steel frame due to limited office fires caused WTC7’s drop.
Now that free fall acceleration has been well documented and finally acknowledged by government hired researchers at the NIST, this explanation also seems to be at odds with the findings of Sir Isaac Newton. With that in mind, for the past year or so, I’ve been trying to solicit opinions regarding WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop from professors in Cornell’s engineering department. All of my initial email inquiries were ignored, and followup inquiries produced only one response, which was limited to a few words of condescension and sarcasm. None of the professors would address the actual research and evidence I provided, or respond to my questions. Brief, polite, and detailed phone messages were also ignored.
So, I decided to submit a guest column to Cornell’s student run paper, The Cornell Daily Sun. Again, my first submission was ignored, but my followup submission did receive a reply, which stated only that my piece would not not be published. No reason was given. I explained to the editors that I would be willing to make some changes if there are some key words or phrases that prompted the censorship, but no explanation for the censorship was forthcoming. I find censorship at a University particularly troubling, since this is an institution where the free and open exchange of ideas, information, and knowledge are not only encouraged, but the very reason for the institution’s existence.
My hope now is that members of the 9-11 Truth community will contact the Cornell Daily Sun by email and phone, and politely explain why 9-11 Truth is such and important and relevant topic, and that by censoring the open discussion of the facts related to 9-11-01,and perpetuating the government’s 9-11 myth, the Sun is also perpetuating the government’s 9-11 wars – wars that come with a very heavy price, in lives, taxpayer dollars, and our economic stability. And of course, these wars reduce rather than increase global security.
The editors at the Sun can be reached as follows:
Keenan Weatherford, editor in chief: editor@cornellsun.com
Tony Manfred, associate editor: associate-editor@cornellsun.com
The phone number at the Sun is 607-273-3606
Here is my censored guest column. If you decide to contact the Sun, please let me know.
Thanks,
Henry Hansteen
9-11-01: Myth vs Physics 10-15-10
Over the past few years, I’ve probably sent a dozen or so emails to Cornell engineering professors, asking them what I believe are clear and reasonable questions. Most of the professors do not reply at all, a few replied just to tell me that they are unable to answer my questions, and one reply was spiced with condescension and sarcasm. I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in them. My Grandfather was a Cornell Professor, and he left me with a much different impression . The question is basically this – what can and what can’t cause a 47 story, hurricane and earth quake resistant, steel framed high rise to suddenly crush itself with near perfect symmetry, while accelerating at a rate that is indistinguishable from free fall? That’s what video evidence, government hired researchers from the NIST, and independent 9-11 truth researchers all agree took place on 9-11-01 when World Trade Center 7 dropped. The entire perimeter frame transitioned from standing straight to accelerating downward at the same rate it would have fallen through air. This building was supported by over forty massive interconnected steel columns that extended from bedrock to the roof, and the vast majority of them were never even exposed to any fire. According to the government’s final report, issued by NIST in November of 2008, structural damage from debris impacts didn’t contribute to WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop. It is now blamed on nothing but ordinary office fires that occupied only a few floors in a small area of the building. The steel frame was designed to easily support several times the weight of the building. Like all steel framed high rises, it was designed with incredible reserve strength.
An object can only accelerate at the rate of free fall if all of its gravitational energy is converted to motion, and none is used to move, bend, crush, or break other objects. Believing that WTC7’s massive steel frame could accelerate through itself at free fall while bending, breaking, and shearing tens of thousands of tons of undamaged structural steel is, in effect, little different than claiming that a car will accelerate down Buffalo Street hill at the same rate whether it’s on the open road or rolling directly through a long row of parked cars. I’ve heard a few people speculate about “buckling”, and how quickly a vertical steel column will fail once it has buckled. This theory doesn’t hold up to analysis, though. Video evidence shows that most of the steel columns in WTC7 were never exposed to any fire, so obviously, gradual heating could not have caused them all to fail at the same instant. Also, steel columns in the process of buckling still have far more structural integrity than air, and could not cause the entire structure to suddenly accelerate at free fall. And even if the entire structure had been engulfed in a raging inferno, the steel would lose it strength gradually, rather than instantly. Revisiting my auto analogy, auto bodies and frames are specifically engineered to buckle, because buckling absorbs tremendous amounts of energy, which rapidly reduces the speed of a vehicle during an impact, and would have reduced (or stopped) the rate of WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop. The structural integrity of the parked cars is not reduced to that of air once they begin to buckle. This is true even if some of the parked cars are on fire. Gradual heating cannot reduce the integrity of steel to that of air in an instant, and neither office fires nor buckling can explain how the structural integrity of all of WTC7’s exterior columns vanished in an instant.
What can explain WTC7’s free fall and symmetric drop, along with the extremely high temperatures and the molten and vaporized steel? What can explain the instant, total, and simultaneous failure of all of WTC7’s steel columns in an instant, the government’s refusal to test for incendiaries of any type, and its rapid destruction of the forensic evidence? Demolition explains all the evidence, and a team of nine scientists have discovered highly refined military grade nano thermitic material in dust and steel samples. I suggest reading http://www.911research.com and http://www.911speakout.org for those interested in verifying the points I’ve made here. If you think the points I’ve made here are valid, please present them to Cornell’s engineering professors and encourage them to take get informed and take a stand. This is too important an issue to be ignored, and the price for perpetuating the government’s impossible 9-11 conspiracy theory and the resulting 9-11 wars is too high. There comes a time when silence is complicity.
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Iran UN ambassador calls for destruction of all nuclear weapons
Iran’s ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo
Press TV – March 29, 2017
Iran’s ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo has called for the total eradication of nuclear weapons.
Khoshroo reiterated Iran’s call during a UN conference aimed at creating a nuclear weapons ban treaty in New York on Tuesday.
“Iran, as a victim of chemical weapons, strongly feels the danger posed by the existence of weapons of mass destruction and is determined to engage actively in international diplomatic efforts to save humanity from the menace of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Khoshroo stressed that Iran is committed to its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, which include negotiations based on effective nuclear disarmament measures.
He added that several countries continue to ignore international calls and treaties for nuclear disarmament and even continue to increase their nuclear stockpiles. “They do not have political determination to abandon doctrines of nuclear deterrence and nuclear terror,” he went on to say.
Iran’s UN ambassador noted that boycotting the talks by many countries, including the US, shows that the world’s nuclear powers are by no means committed to the eradication of nuclear arms. Britain and France were also among the some 40 countries that did not join the talks.
“We note that prohibition of nuclear weapons must be accompanied by the elimination of such weapons. There can be no doubt that without complete abolition of nuclear weapons, there will be no absolute guarantee against the danger of nuclear war and the use of such weapons,” Khoshroo added.
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