Benny Zable Takes Manhattan

Sept 7th, 2007 - Australian anti-nuclear performance artist Benny Zable delivers letter from Dr. Helen Caldicott to Rupert Murdoch at News Corp. opposing the relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

I had a security guard yell at me for 5 minutes, three inches from my face, because I wouldn't erase the video I shot of him inside the building... He threatened me, my friends, my family... so much for freedom of the press at the Fox Channel!

See the video HERE

Walt Patterson On Nuclear Energy

Born in Canada in 1936, I came to the UK in 1960, married my English wife Cleone in 1966 and have been here ever since. Trained as a nuclear physicist, I have spent my life teaching, writing and troublemaking.

My first published byline appeared in June 1970, on an article about radioactive waste. Nuclear issues thereafter took up two decades of my life. Four books, countless articles, speeches, letters and testimony rehearsed and refined the analysis. By the beginning of the 1990s I thought that rational argument and cumulative confirmation of our skeptical prognoses had finally carried the day. I was overjoyed to move on to less troubling, more positive topics.

Alas, nuclear proponents have now found a new generation of the gullible. The claims of the proponents, nevertheless, have long since been tested and found wanting. Those interested can find ample historical evidence on this website, and yet more in the Patterson Nuclear Collection.

Beginning in the 1960s I collected popular and semi-popular books on nuclear energy for more than three decades, eventually acquiring some 500 titles. I also accumulated many nuclear ephemera - brochures, posters, pamphlets, badges and other material - from nuclear issues and campaigns around the world. I was delighted when the Science Museum/Imperial College Library in London agreed to accept my collection and keep it together as what must be a unique historical resource.

If you wish to consult the Patterson Nuclear Collection, you can email
smlinfo@nmsi.ac.uk
or telephone +44 (0) 20 7942 4242.

Walt Patterson
Associate Fellow Chatham House
Little Rushmoor
High Bois Lane
Chesham Bois
Amersham Bucks HP66DQ UK
Tel +44 (0) 1494 726748
Mobile +44 (0) 7971 840036
walt@waltpatterson.org

Keeping The Lights On available from Brookings in the USA

The PRO-nuclear agenda of PowerShift2007?

Yesterday I put this question to PowerShift2007 via their MySpace page:
www.myspace.com/235046812

"What's your group's position on nuclear power?"

This is the answer I got:

"Our group is actually a coalition of about 40+ of the nation's leading environmentalist organizations. So we actually do not take a position on nuclear power because the position differs depending on the coalition member. Our main purpose is that global warming needs to be addressed by our government and we need legislation to reduce our carbon emissions."

To which I replied:

PowerShift2007 is affiliated with 2020 Vision which is funded by:
The Energy Foundation
The Ford Foundation
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund
The Rockefeller Family Fund
Rockefeller Financial Services

Who all serve a pro-nuclear agenda.

David Rockefeller owns and operates a 100 acres organic farm in Tarrytown, NY, just a couple of miles from Indian Point. He's been more than a little silent on the issue.

Nuclear is the key defining issue central to the global warming debate. Which is ALL about centralization of energy generation, gross corporate profiteering, has been for over 30 years, ever since the first Earth Day! Everybody is going to have to take a side, sooner or later.

Because we're not going to let anyone sit on the fence. You're either pro-nuclear, or anti-nuclear. You can't be a little pregnant!

To which THEY replied!!!

The 2020 Vision webpage is
www.2020vision.org/powershiftTour.cfm

Our webpage is
www.powershift07.org

I'm sorry but 2020 Vision is a separate organization that does hold conferences called powershift which are about energy security.

However, our organization is the Energy Action Coalition, and our conference is called Power Shift 2007 and is about global warming. You can read more about the coalition at: www.energyaction.net/main

(Well, at least I put the issue on the table! rc)

+++

Sharing this with a colleague I received this interesting comment:

"In general, there does seem to be a very strong anti-coal statement amongst various activist groups and individuals, but no similar anti-nuclear one which I find disturbing. I think the task for us concerned about resurgent nuclear is to look hard at the alleged green groups who are legitimizing this agenda and discredit them. I think the matter of resurgent nuclear would find sympathetic concern amongst the IFG climate conference attendees and for the most part most of the speakers."

INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON GLOBALIZATION
www.ifg.org meeting re climate in DC Sept 14-16

NRC Commissioner Dies of CANCER

The NRC's front page has posted a eulogy for long time Commissioner Edward McGaffigan Junior...in reading it, seems they like to avoid the use of the word CANCER...perhaps because so many cancers are caused by NUCLEAR POWER. Seems almost fitting for their longest serving Commissioner to have died, only 58 years old, succumbed to a cancer that was quite possibly caused by his involvements with the nuclear industry.

Sydney, Australia is in APEC lock-down!

Sydney is in lock-down and hospitals are on standby for a terrorist attack as Australia prepares for the arrival of the world's most powerful leaders.

APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam.

New Zealand is preparing to carve out a separate position on nuclear energy, and, as one of the few Apec countries to commit to emissions reductions under the Kyoto protocol, will push for an acknowledgment of Kyoto's binding targets in the leaders' final statement.

The agreement does not push for binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and its promotion of nuclear energy as a form of clean energy is controversial.

Green groups have accused Australian Prime Minister John Howard of using it in an attempt to derail the Kyoto protocol - an international agreement with binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions - after 2012.

Join Benny Zable, Green Nuclear Butterfly, Rock The Reactors, Wetlands Activism Collective & other members of the newly formed FUSE USA coalition in solidarity & protest with the Australian people this Friday in Manhattan.

For detailed information on the rally, download this flyer.

(Compiled from numerous online news sources)