Helen Caldicott speaks at the Copenhagen climate march.

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)

Australia Fights Back U.S. One World Nuclear Order

Part 1



Part 2

Helen Caldicott & Beyond Nuclear Join Forces!

NEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR

Contact:
Linda Gunter, Beyond Nuclear
301.455.5655

Beyond Nuclear and Nuclear Policy Research Institute Combine to Challenge Nuclear Power and Weapons

TAKOMA PARK, MD - The incoming board and staff of Beyond Nuclear are extremely pleased to announce that Beyond Nuclear will now pursue its mission under the auspices of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI).

NPRI was established by Dr. Helen Caldicott, a renowned physician who has devoted the last 35 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction. NPRI is a tax-exempt and tax-deductible organization.

Beyond Nuclear is a new initiative that aims to educate wider audiences about the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear works to promote positive, solutions-focused messages and to provide guides to safer alternatives to these dangerous technologies. Beyond Nuclear was previously undertaken through Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

Beyond Nuclear and NPRI share a synergistic vision: to communicate the grave threats to health, environment and safety implicit in the complexities of the nuclear industry. To that end, Beyond Nuclear will focus its work on the public and the media using dynamic campaigns and its cadre of expert spokespeople to create a consistent high-profile presence for these issues. It will also serve as a resource with which to build and expand the movement for a world beyond nuclear.

Our staff - Paul Gunter, Kevin Kamps, Cindy Folkers and Linda Gunter - has comprehensive expertise in all aspects of nuclear power. In addition, Beyond Nuclear will partner with national and international specialists who can offer information and insight on nuclear weapons and sustainable energy. These specialists will be listed on our Web site (www.beyondnuclear.org).

In announcing the incorporation of Beyond Nuclear into NPRI, Dr. Caldicott said: "I am confident that the distinguished new staff and new board of the Institute will be effective stewards of NPRI. I will continue to be a keen supporter of NPRI for long into the future. Above all, I look forward to the day when we can all celebrate the termination of both the nuclear power and nuclear weapons industries." Dr. Caldicott will not be involved in the daily operation of NPRI although she will remain its founding president.

Collectively, the Beyond Nuclear Board and Staff have all been actively involved in the anti-nuclear movement for many decades.

The founding Board of Beyond Nuclear at NPRI Robert Backus, Esq: Manchester, NH Kay Drey: St. Louis, MO; anti-nuclear activist Lou Friedman: Canton, CT; international consultant; environment and peace Karl Grossman: Sag Harbor, NY; professor and journalist Judith Johnsrud, Ph.D.: State College, PA; radiation and nuclear power specialist

The staff of Beyond Nuclear at NPRI Cindy Folkers; Linda Gunter; Paul Gunter; Kevin Kamps.

The Beyond Nuclear Launch Partners Ed Asner (Honorary Chairman), Ed Begley, Christie Brinkley, Helen Caldicott, Susan Clark, David Cortright, James Cromwell and Joan MacIntosh, Julie Enszer, Judi and Lou Friedman, Keith Gunter, Friedrike Merck, John McEnroe, Susan Sarandon, Marilyn and Steven Strong, Jessica Wilbanks, Gretchen Wyler (1932-2007).

Beyond Nuclear is in transition and will shortly have new offices. In the meantime, if you wish to reach us please call: 301.455.5655 or email: beyondnuclear@gmail.com. We will forward our permanent contact information shortly. The temporary Beyond Nuclear Web site can be found at www.beyondnuclear.org, soon to be replaced by a comprehensive permanent Web site. Please check back often.

Helen Caldicott-Nuclear Not So Green

I know that nuclear is not green, have been trying to make people aware of that with this blog. For my efforts, I have been ridiculed, had hate blogs launched against me, and even received a few well intentioned death threats...how quaint. If there is good news in that, I am in good company, as Helen Caldicott has endured much the same, and yet was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I had to laugh when reading the article below when Helen Caldicott quipped after being questioned about the lack of recent death threats that she just was not talking loud enough.

She has a new book out, "Nuclear Is Not The Answer" that every citizen within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor needs to read. Actually, with the Bush administrations plans to put a nuclear reactor on every street corner, every American Should read this story.

Nuke power not so clean or green

By Elsa Wenzel

Jun 11 2007

Cold War-era nuclear fears have eased in recent decades, replaced by anxieties over global warming. Lately, in some circles, nuclear power has gained a new reputation as a pollution-free cure-all for a world starved for clean energy.

But the nuclear industry hasn't cleaned up its act, according to Helen Caldicott, who spearheaded the nuclear disarmament movement in the 1980s. (Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling nominated Caldicott for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.) Caldicott, a pediatrician by training, has devoted 35 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the health hazards of nuclear power.

Not only is atomic energy inefficient, but it adds to greenhouse gas emissions while releasing deadly radiation for countless generations, argues Caldicott. Her recent work is summed up by the title of her book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer.

She is working with the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, which she founded, to convince Congress that solar and wind power instead can mitigate global warming.

Caldicott is known for courting controversy, whether by debating with world leaders, marching naked in the streets of San Francisco, or implying that Hershey sold radioactive chocolates containing milk produced near the Three Mile Island disaster. While she no longer receives death threats as she did in the 1980s, Caldicott told CNET that just proves that her voice hasn't been loud enough lately.

Nuclear Power-Why it is Dangerous, Costly and Unnecessary

by Hattie Nestel
2-07

The colossal failure of nuclear power became apparent to most of the world more than 30 years ago. By the end of the seventies it was well known that the economics, safety and reliability issues associated with nuclear power had failed the test. By 1992 the building of 121 reactors had been cancelled. The last reactor was ordered over 30 years ago and took 23 years to complete."The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale," reported Forbes magazine in 1985. "The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out, and only the blind or the biased, can now think that most of the money was well spent."

Despite being a dangerous, financial disaster the industry found opportunity to create a nuclear renaissance predicated on the erroneous premise that nuclear power will prevent global warming. The government and nuclear corporations commandeer hundreds of millions of dollars to sell us on the idea that nuclear power will combat global warming. Today we see Entergy¹s ads throughout Vermont saying,"Green-not Greenhouse" and Entergy hiring PR spokespersons like Patrick Moore to twist the facts and try to convince us that nuclear energy is clean, reliable, and sustainable.

It is simply not true. The entire nuclear fuel chain beginning with mining uranium, transporting and processing the fuel, construction and storing wastes are heavily fossil fuel dependent. However, the most important issue remains that nuclear power is inherently dangerous. It has always been known in the scientific community that there is no accident free reactor and no safe level of exposure to radiation. The National Academy of Science has now confirmed this in their 2005 BEIR V11 report. (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation). The dangers include the daily release of radioactive emissions from every reactor. "Each day, a nuclear reactor releases more than 100 chemical into the air," states Joseph Mangano, national coordinator of Radiation and Public Health Project. "These chemicals, which are created only in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, are radioactive and cause cancer by damaging cells. After entering the body through breathing and food, each chemical affects the body in a different way. Iodine 131 attacks the thyroid gland, strontium 90 seeks out bone and cesium 137 disperses throughout soft tissues.

The fetus and infant with undeveloped immune systems and rapidly dividing cells are most affected." These illnesses are passed on to future generations through the sperm, ovum and mothers milk til the end of time.As nuclear power produces electricity it also produces radioactive waste which is now stored on site in spent fuel rods. Exposure to spent fuel rods means instant death. "The magnitude of the radiation generated in nuclear power plants is almost beyond belief. The original uranium fuel that is subject to the fission process becomes 1 billion times more radioactive in the reactor core. A thousand megawatt nuclear power plant contains as much long-lived radiation as that produced by the explosion of one thousand Hiroshima bombs." writes Helen Caldicott. Much of the radioactive waste generated by nuclear power has an extremely long half-life ranging from plutonium 239 with a half-life of 24,000 years to iodine 129 with a half-life of 15.7 million years. We are told that reprocessing will solve the problem. However, reprocessing results in the separation of weapons usable plutonium which adds significantly to the risks of proliferation.

Presidents Carter and Ford outlawed reprocessing in the United States in 1976-1977 due to the environmental and proliferation risks. Since there are no repositories qualified to take this waste, they must remain on-site at each of the 103 reactors in the U.S. The Yucca mountain repository in Nevada costing $9 billion taxpayer dollars over 20 years is generally acknowledged to be geologically unstable and unsuitable for long-term radioactive waste. There is no solution in sight.Nuclear power is the stepping-stone to all nuclear weapons. Nuclear power is totally interdependent and interconnected to nuclear weapons. Because uranium can be used in both nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs, nuclear power has significant impacts on proliferation.

Mohamed ElBaredi, the director general of the IAEA, noted, "The technical barriers to mastering the essential steps of uranium enrichment- and to designing weapons-have eroded over time, which inevitably leads to the conclusion that the control of technology, in and of itself, is not an adequate barrier against further proliferation."Preventing global warming through the use of nuclear power is no more true than the previous rationale promoted by president Eisenhower in 1953 that using nuclear power will create electricity "too cheap to meter".

Nuclear power construction is a prohibitively costly and lengthy process. It is dangerous both in the present and during the next million years when the waste generated today must be safeguarded by our descendents. The risks of catastrophic reactor accidents, the potential for the nuclear fuel cycle to enable nuclear weapons proliferation and the impossibility of managing highly radiotoxic nuclear waste for the long-term, should make it clear that nuclear power is not a viable energy option for now or ever.We can have safe, reliable, sustainable and locally generated energy at affordable prices without nuclear power. Energy efficiency is the cheapest and safest way of reducing greenhouse emissions. Conservation practices including improved insulation and passive solar will greatly reduce our emissions. A combination of passive solar systems, thin-film solar cells and wind power will also greatly reduce our emissions. The entire transportation industry is responsible for most of our carbon dioxide emissions. Creating safe, efficient, economical public transportation will go a long way toward reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

The U.S. Office of Technology Assessment estimated we could reduce our electricity usage by 20% to 45% through energy efficiency. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory report shows that between 99% and 124% of the nations electricity can be supplied by renewables by 2020. President Bush's Energy Policy Act of 2005 allocates billions for the nuclear industry. That money can be used to create sustainable safe energies. Decentralized, sustainable technologies work and are becoming ever more efficient and cost effective. Throughout Europe they are implementing those technologies successfully. Let's step up to the plate and say a resounding NO to nuclear power, nuclear weapons and a clear YES to wind, solar, conservation and energy efficiency. It is time to lobby elected officials not to relicense Vermont Yankee when its 40 year license expires in 2012 and get serious about providing efficiencies, conservation and safe, sustainable, renewable energy solutions.

HattieShalom@verizon.net
978-249-6224
Member of CAN
www.nukebusters.org

Radioactive Farming? by Hattie Nestel

How are farmers to know if their fields are radioactive? Radioactivity is not discernible through our usual senses of taste, hearing, sight, smell, or touch. The Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, five miles from Massachusetts and New Hampshire borders in southern Vermont, emits radiation that impacts the health and safety of all three states.

“Each day, a nuclear reactor releases more than 100 chemicals into the air,” states Joseph Mangano, national coordinator of the Radiation and Public Health Project. “These chemicals, which are created only in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, are radioactive and cause cancer by damaging cells. After entering the body through breathing and food, each chemical affects the body in a different way. Iodine 131 attacks the thyroid gland, strontium 90 seeks out bone and cesium 137 disperses throughout soft tissues. The fetus and infant with undeveloped immune systems and rapidly diving cells are most affected.”

Radioactive elements from a nuclear reactor enter water of adjoining rivers or lakes or are released into the air. Airborne releases can land in agricultural fields hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their source. Unwitting organic farmers or their customers have little knowledge that foods certified “organic” are actually grown on contaminated soil. Ingesting contaminated crops or animal products can cause leukemia, thyroid diseases, cancers, heart disease, infertility, Down Syndrome, spontaneous abortions, immune deficiency diseases, and congenital birth defects which will be passed on to succeeding generations.

Rosalie Bertell, a cancer research scientist, has spent much of her life studying low-level radiation including ten years writing a comprehensive book entitled, No Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth. She states that there is a general nuclear illiteracy in the U.S. and “. . . only scientists are fully aware of the subtle cumulative nature of damage from low-level radiation.”

In the 2005 Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation report, the National Academy of Sciences state that there is no safe level of exposure to radiation. However, the public is kept in the dark about ongoing radioactive emissions, the dangers they pose, and the health consequences suffered by exposed populations. Federal and local governing agencies tend to protect corporate interests rather than public health. There are little accountability and few avenues for public input.

At stake are another twenty to forty years of relicensing for every reactor in the country. Forty-seven have already applied and received this extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A broad-based coalition needs to unite and say a resounding NO to nuclear power and a hearty YES to sustainable, safe, locally controlled energy options that will allow farmers to have truly organic crops.

Resources: Nuclear Power is Not the Answer by Helen Caldicott, 2006 Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of Using Nuclear Power to Combat Global Climate Change by Brice Smith, 2006 (publ. IEER)

Deadly Deceit: Low level Radiation, High Level Cover-up by Gould and Goldman, 1990.

Author Hattie Nestel lives in Athol, Ma. 25 miles from Vermont Yankee. She works with Citizens Awareness Network, CAN@NUKEBUSTERS.ORG to shut down Vermont Yankee.

Hattieshalom@verizon.net
978-249-6224