Gag A Town

A very disturbing bit of news from northern Saskatchewan is getting some press recently. This was sent to me on the weekend about a gag order issued for Canadian citizens in a northern community named Pinehouse. Pinehouse’s political leadership may sign away their citizens’ constitutional rights (which isn’t legal, obviously), to store nuclear waste.

TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT RESIDENTS OF PINEHOUSE FIGHTING THE CAMECO/AREVA “COLLABORATION AGREEMENT”

Revelations last week that the northern Saskatchewan community of Pinehouse is set to sign a so-called “Collaboration Agreement” with uranium giants Cameco and Areva have sparked outrage in the community due to terms of the agreement that residents say is a blatant attempt to silence opposition to the expansion of uranium mining in the area.

Terms of the agreement include:

§  “Pinehouse is expected to fully support Cameco/Areva’s mining”

§  “Pinehouse will support Cameco/Areva’s Existing Operations,” “Pinehouse will support Cameco/Areva’s Proposed Projects” and will “Support Cameco/Areva’s Future Operations” (emphasis in original)

§  “Pinehouse promises to: Not make statements or say things in public or to any government, business agency that opposes Cameco/Areva’s mining operations.”

§  “Pinehouse promises to: ““Make reasonable efforts to ensure Pinehouse members do not say or do anything that interferes with or delays Cameco/Areva’s mining, or do or say anything that is not consistent with Pinehouse’s promises under the Collaboration Agreement.”

Read the full text of the Term Sheet summary, Cameco-Areva-Pinehouse Collaboration Agreement.

While communities have the right to enter into agreements with industry, many residents of Pinehouse are opposed to the agreement as it currently stands, especially the terms which are nothing more than a blatant attempt to silence residents who are opposed to the expansion of uranium mining in the region, and argue that there has been almost no consultation with community members on this far-reaching agreement.

Despite this, the collaboration agreement states, “The Parties want to sign the Collaboration Agreement by December 31, 2012” and there are indications that it may be signed next week.

Residents of Pinehouse have asked for your support!

Then let’s not forget that this recently happened in northern Saskatchewan too, regarding nuclear waste (not to mention human waste who said it about a boy):

.@_capps A Metis youth was told by nuclear waste consultant he should hang himself because he's just going to end up in jail soon. #fascism—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) October 30, 2012

As Close As We’ll Get

SaskAdapt.ca feels like waving the white flag, but it is an important website, and a project at the UofR. It’s also the closest we’ll get to an admission from the Sask Party government that climate change is real, and is a grave threat to our people (and every living thing today).

Speaking of this, has anyone heard a peep from the Office of Climate Change, touted by the Ministry of Environment about two years ago? I haven’t, but I did give a call to the Climate Change branch of Environment, and they said they are it, the office set up in the wake of the legislation for the Office of Climate Change.

Nuclear Insurance Fraud

Have you wondered why so many people oppose nuclear power generation when there are so many ads claiming there’s a “nuclear Renaissance” and that it’s “green” or “sustainable” and free of greenhouse gas emissions? There are smart people like George Monbiot, and even my dad who think there’s room for nuclear power on our grid. I don’t share their enthusiasm.

The only Renaissance has been in the ability of the nuclear industry to sell greenwashing to the masses through mass media. The only thing green about nuclear power is that its plant life cycle produces less smog and greenhouse gas than coal per Watt. And it’s not cheap; Ontario is still paying for nuclear plants that are not in operation any longer, and nuclear power plants can’t be insured for their true value or risk to public safety. If nuclear plants were instead a car, they wouldn’t be allowed on the road in Saskatchewan!

Recent research by Versicherungsforen Leipzig GmbH , a company that specialises in actuarial calculations, shows that full insurance against nuclear disasters would increase the price of nuclear electricity by a range of values – €0.14 per kWh up to €2.36 per kWh – depending on assumptions made.

A new paper from Zelenicka-Zovko and Pearce (for Queens University in Kingston, Ontario) summarises the full extent of that indirect subsidy – assessed at $33 million (in 2001 $) per reactor per year. They calculate what the economic value would be if that kind of indirect subsidy was transferred to solar PV in the form of equivalent loan guarantees. The conclusion is startling:

“By the year 2110, the money now slated for nuclear insurance premiums in the US could produce an additional $5.3 trillion if invested in solar PV loan guarantees.”

And here’s why you should be skeptical of claims to the contrary of these findings:

“The new evidence we commissioned for this study suggests that it’s going to be very difficult to estimate the total costs for a new programme based on any new reactor design. All we have to go on are industry estimates, and our evidence clearly demonstrates, on the basis of historical performance, that considerable scepticism is warranted in assessing the reliability of estimates from the industry itself – or indeed from governments that are not acting in a genuinely impartial way.”

AHEM, the Sask Party claimed a “caution light” after the public gave a resounding “NO” to nuclear power expansion here in 2007. Impartial they were not; everyone knew who buttered their bread.

“Finally, the Committee’s estimate also makes no allowance for additional, post-Fukushima cost increases.”

Isn’t that like failing to look at security at airports after 9/11?

“The late John O’Blackburn of Duke University calculated a ‘historic cross-over’ of solar and nuclear costs in 2010 in the US State of North Carolina. Whereas ‘commercial-scale solar developers are already offering utilities electricity at 14 cents or less per kWh. Blackburn estimated that a new nuclear plant would deliver power for between 14-18 cents per kWh”.

And that’s why no more nuclear power plants of the conventional sorts we’ve seen the last 50 years, need to ever be built again.

“It’s still not too late for [insert region here]. But you’ve become a big part of the problem. Your inability (or unwillingness) to track solar cost trends has marooned you in a weird contrarian crusade to undermine the solar industry – even as you volunteer your services as a mouthpiece for the nuclear [or insert other like coal] industry.”

Please, don’t be a mouthpiece for the nuclear industry, and instead join those of us who want 100% renewable energy by 2050 on Earth.

See Inside the Fukushima Nightmare

For the first time, I recently saw photos of the tsunami that hit the nuclear power plant Daiichi at Fukushima Japan. As I predicted soon after the disaster in March, there was going to be a meltdown. The evidence then available to me that TEPCO wasn’t being honest about the severity of the damage were the videos of the hydrogen explosions, the detection of isotopes nearby the plant that shouldn’t have existed unless the fuel was exposed to open air, and the information that corrosive seawater was desperately being applied to the hot reactors. The seawater was a dead giveaway, because if there was any hope of saving the reactors, seawater would not have been used on them.

I don’t trust the American or Canadian governments to be giving us accurate information about radioactive isotope contamination of our food in Canada. I wish I had a Geiger counter, because I’d be testing things here in Regina to see if they have an abnormal number, and eat and drink accordingly. It’s painfully obvious that nuclear power should have been an issue in the last election, but it didn’t even make a blip in the media circus of the campaign. You think they could have taken some of their crack reporters assigned to Harper, and when he told them to piss off after just 5 questions, they could have spent the rest of their day doing some coverage of the issues affecting the health and power bills of Canadians?

For those keeping morbid score at home, check out Gormley’s record, and then look at mine.

Nuclear: Issue That Wasn’t

(The following was to appear on The Real Agenda on canada.com, but due to time or editorial unhappiness with my previous rejected submissions about the state of Canada’s media as an election issue, it never appeared.)

April 26 became a famous date in 1986 for a major catastrophe that destroyed a city and ruined the lives of thousands in Ukraine and surrounding areas. The Chernobyl nuclear reactor went out of control. Decades later humans are still using nuclear power, and we’re still experiencing catastrophes related to our dependence upon high-energy lifestyles. Fukushima’s nuclear disaster in Japan could have triggered a major election issue in Canada like it did in Germany recently, but so far it has not. So too could have the Chalk River isotope reactor crisis, especially after the partisan firing of Linda Keen, the former President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Keen has since endorsed Elizabeth May of the Green Party. For some reason, nuclear power, and Canada’s energy strategy, was given little attention by the media in the 2011 campaign.

In 2008, the election buzzed with climate change as an issue; remember the Green Shift? Whenever you mention energy policy, climate change has to be one of the considerations, since air pollution is a major factor to much of Canada’s energy, especially in my home province of Saskatchewan where most of our power comes from coal burning. Even in 2006, the Conservatives swept to power with one of their promises being a “Made-in-Canada” climate change solution to replace the unfulfilled Kyoto Accord. Now both plans seem forgotten and unapproachable by most politicians, despite their extreme importance to our economy and ecosystems upon which our economy and life relies!

Do we develop the Tar Sands as fast as possible, while potentially missing out on higher oil prices in the future? Do we expand uranium mining in Saskatchewan; build more nuclear power plants; increase hydraulic fracturing for natural gas? Are the parties thinking about thorium reactors as an alternative? Do they have the MP candidates who understand science, and the urgency of solving Canada’s energy and climate change problems? As you can see, questions come easily, but answers do not. What I’d like to see is Canada focus on renewable energy solutions, and try to leave nuclear, coal, oil, and even natural gas in the past as much as scientifically possible.

When people tell me that I’m a dreamer, I’ve started to tell them, “I’m not the only one.” For instance, I think Canada can change its entire vehicle fleet to one that uses 50% less oil, within 5 years. During the last World War, we invented, mass produced, and scrapped entirely new (flying and armored) vehicles in that time frame, while under national pressure to succeed. The same Canadian innovation is possible again to deliver safe and efficient civilian vehicles that have the effect of doubling our transportation oil supply.

We can do the same with making our electrical grids more sustainable by growing our renewable power industries. Legislative support for renewable energy, and home energy efficiency is required to quickly grow the “green collar” job sector of our economy. I look forward to more parties talking about this, and more media coverage of it as well. There are cheaper and healthier alternatives to industries that leave massive tailing pools, kill indirectly with air pollution, or create $132 Billion clean-up projects for future politicians to implement fixes for.

Wind Power – Opportunities in Sask – Live Blog

Pembina Institute is an environmental nonprofit think tank.

CBC TV is here covering too.
7:20 p.m.
Pembina born out of Lodgepole Sour Gas blowout
- how can it be prevented in future?
Tim has worked on blade rerasearch, and efficiency and renewables.
Actual observations have confirmed underestimation of pace for climate change.

Canada and especially SK are notoriously high emitters per capita.

We’re not even close to meeting our 2020 target of being less than 2005 levels, based on current gov’t initiatives.

“There isn’t a silver bullet.”

Gormley Hypothetically Off The Mark

John Gormley spends a great deal of time carrying water for the Saskatchewan Party. He may not be doing so intentionally, his political stripe may simply lead to common ground with the conservative party in our province. Perhaps he sees their majority poll numbers, and figures that if he says things that conservatives like to hear, his radio show will have more listeners as a result, and he’ll be employed doing what he enjoys for longer. It’s just too bad that he doesn’t take his position of influence more seriously by reporting facts, especially about serious subjects like Sask’s role in the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan.

“It is clear that this nuclear disaster falls somewhere between 1979′s Three Mile Island and the much larger 1986 disaster at Chernobyl.”

That’s not yet clear. It currently falls somewhere worse than Three Mile Island, but has not finished yet. When the radioactive dust settles, then let us conclude what Gormley claims is the hypothetical situation. It’s amusing that Gormley in the following lines chides people making predictions.
“Feel free to give little weight to anyone who expresses a point of view prefaced by the words “if,” “in the event of” or “hypothetically.”"
Read more“

And we hope and pray that with the best of technology, expertise, skill -and a bit of luck along the way -a major release of radioactivity will be averted.

But ratcheting down the speculation and hyperbole would be nice too.[...]

The fact is that Japan was aware of the likelihood of disaster if a strong earthquake and tsunami hit a nuclear power plant. How do we know this? WikiLeaks confirms it.

So why does Gormley come to the defense of the black sheep of the power generation family, and label it a swan? Because it makes bloggers write about how wrong he is? Because callers will phone in to contradict his nonsensical position? Or because his buddy in the Premier’s office wants to build nuclear power plants one day in Saskatchewan?

Conservatives have lost touch with what it means to “conserve”. For instance, @EzraLevant is going to look into Ethical Radiation for his next astroturf book. He can co-write with crazy Ann Coulter.

Assange Your Fears – Part 1

Nuclear Power has surged into the news, as the unfortunate consequence of an industry that was literally buffeted and swamped with both seawater and attention due to the tsunami in Japan. Partial to total meltdowns are underway in some rectors affected. It’s not safe to be within at least 30km of the Fukushima power plant, and it’s looking iffy that Japan will be able to get the reaction under control before it does so naturally after a total meltdown in some reactors.
So let me “assange” your fears. The nuclear industry cannot be trusted, not even in the highly respected industrial country of Japan.

(Yes, the real expression is “assuage” your fears, or to make them calmer and less intense. But the truth is not good, and Julian Assange’s name lends itself to this fantastic pun that I simply must use, and use again soon.)

ADDED: Take action in light of Japan’s disaster: Prepare your 72 hour emergency preparedness kit NOW! If you already have one, check and update it with fresher food, water, currency, and medicine.

Explosions – UPDATED

It seemed surreal that only hundreds would have perished in one of the largest earthquakes of recorded time. This morning I heard of an entire village in Japan that was washed away. One reason the estimates and confirmed deaths would be so low, is that when there’s no one left to report death, estimates will be way off. Entire trains and homes are missing.

Also, radiation has been released at a crippled nuclear power plant in the country. You can see a blue shockwave from the blast site, then steam or smoke rises. It will be at least days until we know if a Chernobyl level disaster is underway. If so, much of the Pacific Ocean, or country of Japan could be poisoned to some degree. Many sites I’m reading indicate that a Chernobyl style meltdown is not possible because of the differences in the reactors, but their comments are often qualified by wait and see type qualifications.

ADDED:
It’s absurd the titles the CBC are giving the story. “Radiation threat falls after Japan plant blast -
Explosion destroys building housing nuclear reactor”
“Nuclear worries decline over Japanese power plants
Last updated 11:00 AM EST

Radiation leaks from Japanese nuclear power plants damaged in Friday’s earthquake pose a low risk, says the World Health Organization.”

The only accuracy they have in their headline is that a radioactive steam release is less damaging than an outright meltdown/explosion. The explosion that has already happened has blown the top off of one building at the plant site.

Japan’s nuclear industry is no shining example of perfection. Australians are saying this is already in the top three nuclear plant disasters, and if it keeps progressing toward a full meltdown, it will move up that undistinguished list. This, during the height of a “nuclear Renaissance” that Canadian hacks were promoting in Saskatchewan and on American TV.

UPDATED 2:23 p.m. CST
A meltdown is confirmed, according to this news site. The explosion on video at CBC where you can see a blue shockwave was part of the event. Radioactive material including cesium and iodine were released and are being detected away from the plant.

Follow Jimbobbysez for more updates on Twitter.

UPDATE X 3:29 p.m.: The bad news just gets more and more confirmed as I read. Confirmation bias? Let’s hope so, but don’t get your hopes up. Flooding the reactor building with sea water is a “last ditch” effort, because it will destroy the reactor for future use. The flooding is an emergency measure to prevent a large scale explosion and release of more radioactive material like in Chernobyl’s case. Keep your fingers crossed, and your letters to politicians at home critical of any further nuclear plants – that’s the only thing you can do that’s useful in a situation like this.

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Live video of the explosive protests continuing in Wisconsin this weekend. Republicans forced through their “budget bill” that contained no money provisions in order to force it through without Democratic senators being present. (The real point of the bill was to cripple unions.) Democracy is both flourishing and floundering in Wisconsin, as it is in the rest of American and here in Canada. Wisconsinites are rising up against the anti-democratic governor.

==

In local news, the URSU CFS referendum results were finally released (leaked?) by CFS. The students narrowly approved of continued membership in the left wing (and litigious) Canadian Federation of Students.

==

And why is Stockwell Day (Strahl, and Cummings) stepping down after the Spring election? Jim Prentice also recently departed for greener pastures with CIBC. Will Day end up a banker too? Are they rats fleeing a sinking ship?
Holy crap, and in writing this, I looked back at the story, and another 2 Conservatives have coordinated their retirement notices too. Better to go yourself than to be asked to leave?

…Chuck Strahl — announced Saturday that they’re leaving federal politics.

Day and Strahl, both members of Parliament from B.C., said they won’t run in the next election, which many observers expect is coming soon.

A third Conservative MP from the province, John Cummings…

Gwynne Dyer UofR Liveblog

Gwynne Dyer

John Conway gives introduction. Mentions Dyer is blacklisted in most major Canadian newspaper chains!

7:49 Dyer starts. He’s a journalist, making sense of history without the benefit of looking back or having time to gather facts like historians do.

“Last 10 years have been dark times.”
“Wading through an ocean of lies, and stupidity, and brutality.” and why?
Likes the current Russian regime more than the Soviet one.
End of the cold war.
Vanishing of the threat of thermonuclear war. Was optimistic in the 1990s. Made amazing progress on climate change in ’80s.

RPIRG.org and SCIC sponsoring his talk tonight.

“The whole world gets turned over…”
September 11, 2001. It’s silly, it was a terrible day and a big deal, but it didn’t have to make it a miserable decade of dark times.
“it’s not a really big thing in the view of history.” every month, 3000 Americans are killed in mundane ways too.
2 wars in the Middle East.
“We’re nearing the end of the tunnel”.

Now let’s look at what happened.
9/11 was a strategic action by terrorists, they are “wicked, but not stupid” “they are political actors”
So ask what the strategy was!
He’s intentionally skipping the conspiracy theories. Assuming Arabs did organize attack.
They were Arabs, don’t think of them as Muslims. All hijackers were Arab.

Every generation in Middle East has been poorer than those in the 1960s.
Mubarak was the American’s man, not Egypt’s.
“People don’t like being pawns in somebody else’s game” and some turned into revolutionaries because of that. Dyer figures he’d be one if he grew up there.

Islamist ideology, how to explain it, “simple minded would be a compliment”. They call themselves Muslims because the ideology requires it. “We have lost God’s support because of the way we live.” “We’re half westernized.”
So they want a gov’t with God’s Will in mind instead.
The Taliban had no foreign policy, they were “OCD” about beard length and making female skin vanish from public.

“You can make an enormous nuisance of yourself as a terrorist, but you never ‘win’.”
Actual support for Islamists in Arab world was maybe only ever as high as 15%. Mobs wouldn’t come out to install theocracies everywhere, was easier to watch TV.

“In the terrorist strategy handbook for dummies, it’s item 1A” – drive people into the arms of revolutionaries. 9/11 worked. 2 American invasions into the Arab world, legitimizing Osama’s message.
“The Americans did everything Bin Laden wanted them to.”
“It’s really dangerous to be near the American army, even if you’re their friend.” (Recall Canadians dying in friendly fire bombing?)
Abu Ghraib humiliated Iraqis. Americans kept firepower to protect themselves, and let Iraqi innocents die around them. (Imagine if the same were done in Holland 1944?)

“Interesting Obama didn’t shut down Guantanamo Bay” he can’t do it. Military industry is too powerful.

Climate change biggest casualty of 2000s. Everything put on hold until the Americans straighten up.
Canada may emerge too, but internationally looking up. “transformation in the Arab world” exhilarating

Arab region second poorest in the world. Democracy won’t cure poverty right away. Feels like 1989, beginning a decade of hope.

Russia 1989, few weeks after Tienanmen in China. Big demo not organized by state in Moscow. He stayed on the sidewalk, keeping eye on doorway to duck into should it need to be escaped. He saw the Army in the crowd, participating really. Knew it was going to be okay at that sight.
Same in Egypt, but days later gov’t hired thugs. Army announced it would not fire on the people. Didn’t happen in Libya. Mercenaries from elsewhere with no regard for the nation.
Bahrain.
Many Arab armies in Arab world. In sufficient numbers, secret police will be overwhelmed, not backstopped by armies.
“Has the makings of an Arab 1989.” “Tastes like it.”

He bought a Canadian newspaper, for 2 pages of international news. Every story about Middle East!
(WTF. 3% of the economy of the world is there. Where’s coverage of elsewhere?)

8:28 – Ripples around the world when change happens in Arab world because we watch them so closely.

The West should not intervene in North Africa. No right to order young men and women here to die in Libya.
Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, active demos in town squares.
Tomorrow scheduled day of rage in Saudi Arabia! Not in Syria, army would likely open fire.

Monarchy ok if you have a functional democracy in real control.

No long term oil price impact on turnover in ME.

Israel, our “protege”. What becomes of it when surrounded by democratic countries? Then they can’t act superior, saying worse countries surround them. They’ll find themselves on their own, more than now. USA is only country they look to. “rapidly eroding position” to give money to every American political elite.

Arab countries gave up decades ago to try military attacks on Israel.
Palestinians have some rights too. “Takes a long time, but even Americans pick up on that.”
Israel has two years at most to come up with a two state solution and make it work, left.
Rabin was a strategist, tough as an old boot. Give Palestinians something, but they lose, was his deal.

15-20% people in Palestinian territory are Israeli settlers.
“Many of the settlers are fanatics,” “they’d fight.”
Palestinians are deciding to wait. Higher birth rate. Go for a one state solution with the vote.
The Israel gov’t wouldn’t yield in a lost vote, and would find themselves in the exact same position as the South African apartheid regime.

(Ah yes, this lecture is part of the Israeli Apartheid Week events.)
Two state solution will fade out if not implemented. Hamas and Fatah split. Fatah was two state focused.

There’s a clock ticking here. “Many staring into the headlights.”
Step back and look one more time.
“The world is in better shape internationally than its ever been. No great power fears attack by another, when in human history has that happened?”
These are ideal circumstances to deal with big problems. Climate change. Everybody is together all the time. Global media.
Who watched Al Jezeera? About half of hall’s hands go up! 10 years ago not the case certainly.

“No country will cut emissions on its own”. Cost disadvantage. Do not expect people to behave responsibly on their own.
80% air pollution today is due to industrialized countries doing pollution for 200 years, and we got rich because we did it first. China doesn’t have room to develop the same way we did it.

Only way to solve the mess gracefully:
Old industrial countries take deep cuts 40% in first 10 years. Others come up maybe 10% in emissions to let new coal plants to be finished. All new energy built need to be non-fossil fuel; everywhere.
All the alternative sources are now more expensive. Who pays the difference? We do, our penance for early development. Shovel out money for clean power elsewhere. Lopsided in appearance. “Virtually impossible”.

If Harper had signed in Copenhagen, he’d say: We saved the world. Requires scarifies, taxes going up, tar sands being shut down by me personally, and $30B going overseas. “Vote for me!”

Democracies have a job to do, they have to understand the situation. Public education, decent media, good politicians.
“Not much good being a failed politician. Good luck to them, and us.”

Questions
9:03
Iran was never carved up, not Arab, is Persian. “More like a real country”
Iran hasn’t attacked anybody, it was attacked by Iraq with American support. No acts of terrorism, it does support Hezbollah, but Dyer doesn’t say they are normal terrorists as we think of them.
Oil production, declining. Fooling around with nuclear weapons. Surrounded by powers with them. Wants a “threshold capability”.

Islamists hate Iran. If something goes wrong in Pakistan, Iran wants a deterrent.

Q. economics driving this all? Corps like Haliburton, and debt?
A. 7 Times global GDP being traded daily. Debt is huge problem.
Debt has been tackled before, in 5 years. 10 to unwind American debt, but not past impossible.
Haliburton is a filthy organization, but not in the top 10 of problem making corporations. Didn’t cause Iraq, is just parasitic.
“General problem of capitalism.
Can you fix the world without fixing capitalism first”? Not enough time to do both it seems.

Q. Afghanistan?
A. Dumb war. A trap Bin Laden laid.
Canadians are going home one way or another soon.
Taliban may not have known what Bin Laden planned. They were in power, why risk an invasion?

Dyer mocking theoretical call from Bin Laden to Kandahar Sept. 6 2001. “Hi, it’s me Osama. We’re going to kill 3000 Americans, just giving you a heads up, hope that’s okay.” The Taliban would have shipped Osama off rather than take the fall for his deed.

-1 troop for 200 Afghanis, and we don’t speak their languages, and we’re going to change their society!? Yeah right!

Obama may be speaking over heads of media, to Taliban, asking them to give appearance of American victory so he can pull out.
Taliban are not going to follow us home.

Wrapped up by Jenn Bergen.