Following on from this year's successful 900-mile Nuclear-Free Future Walk from Dublin to London, organised by Footprints for Peace, the same group will be staging another this year from London to Geneva, through France. The UK stretch will go from London to Portsmouth, starting on 26 April, the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
Help us tell Gordon Brown and the EU: NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE OR ENERGY SECURITY
Help us tell Gordon Brown and the EU: NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE OR ENERGY SECURITY
For details on this year’s walk from London to Geneva, go to:
http://footprintsforpeace.tripod.com/E08/EW/NFFWindex.htm
For details of last year’s walk from Dublin to London, go to:
http://peacehq.tripod.com/peacehq_2007/act/000016/act000016-000.html
The walk will aim to raise awareness of the issues surrounding all aspects of the nuclear industry, from uranium mining on sacred aboriginal land in Australia to nuclear power, nuclear contamination and waste, the devastation caused by the use of 'depleted' uranium (DU) weapons in places like Iraq and Kosovo, and the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation.
Last year's walk was joined by a man who worked for the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria for seventeen years, before walking out due to safety concerns. He had some horrific tales to tell about gross negligence and corruption by British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL), who operate the site. He has recently been diagnosed with a form of cancer rare for someone of his age, and has been given just a few years to live by doctors. He is looking into taking legal action against BNFL.
We also heard how communities on the east coast of Ireland have been devastated by fallout from Britain's worst nuclear disaster to date, the fire at Windscale (on the current Sellafield site) - which commemorated its fiftieth anniversary last year - and how in affected areas the rates of cancer and Down's syndrome far exceed the national average.
We heard how the Irish Sea contains more manmade radioactive material than any other sea in the world, due to nuclear waste dumped there by the UK.
We heard how communities in Scotland and the north of England and Wales are still suffering economic damage from fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster over twenty years ago, and how a similar disaster could happen in Britain because of flooding of nuclear power stations in coastal areas due to rising sea levels and more extreme weather conditions as a result of global warming.
We heard how beaches in Cumbria have been closed for years due to plutonium particles found on the sand.
We heard about the childhood leukaemia clusters in western Scotland, near the 'depleted' uranium test range at Dundrennan, near Kircudbright - data which the British government has been doing everything in its power to suppress.
Help us tell Gordon Brown and the EU: NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE OR ENERGY SECURITY
http://footprintsforpeace.tripod.com/E08/EW/NFFWindex.htm For details of last year’s walk from Dublin to London, go to:
http://peacehq.tripod.com/peacehq_2007/act/000016/act000016-000.html The walk will aim to raise awareness of the issues surrounding all aspects of the nuclear industry, from uranium mining on sacred aboriginal land in Australia to nuclear power, nuclear contamination and waste, the devastation caused by the use of 'depleted' uranium (DU) weapons in places like Iraq and Kosovo, and the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation.
Last year's walk was joined by a man who worked for the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria for seventeen years, before walking out due to safety concerns. He had some horrific tales to tell about gross negligence and corruption by British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL), who operate the site. He has recently been diagnosed with a form of cancer rare for someone of his age, and has been given just a few years to live by doctors. He is looking into taking legal action against BNFL.
We also heard how communities on the east coast of Ireland have been devastated by fallout from Britain's worst nuclear disaster to date, the fire at Windscale (on the current Sellafield site) - which commemorated its fiftieth anniversary last year - and how in affected areas the rates of cancer and Down's syndrome far exceed the national average.
We heard how the Irish Sea contains more manmade radioactive material than any other sea in the world, due to nuclear waste dumped there by the UK.
We heard how communities in Scotland and the north of England and Wales are still suffering economic damage from fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster over twenty years ago, and how a similar disaster could happen in Britain because of flooding of nuclear power stations in coastal areas due to rising sea levels and more extreme weather conditions as a result of global warming.
We heard how beaches in Cumbria have been closed for years due to plutonium particles found on the sand.
We heard about the childhood leukaemia clusters in western Scotland, near the 'depleted' uranium test range at Dundrennan, near Kircudbright - data which the British government has been doing everything in its power to suppress.
Help us tell Gordon Brown and the EU: NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE OR ENERGY SECURITY
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Gordon Won't listen
10.01.2008 12:02
gordonbrownadamsmiththemance
Nuclear Power is Insane
10.01.2008 14:22
And that's just for starters... more here:
Some good listening on this matter:
IS NUCLEAR POWER COMING BACK?
A four-part mini-series based on a briefing, on November 7 and 8, 2005, by Dr. Helen Caldicott's organization, the Nuclear Policy Research Institute
Anti nuclear campaigner Dr. Helen Caldicott invited scientists, members of the Bush administration, and journalists for a two-day conference to address the following issues: What is the connection between nuclear power and war, what is the safety record of nuclear power plants, and what is their effect on the people living around them? And what lies behind the claim of the Bush administration that nuclear power plants are being brought back to ward off global warming?
In domestic and foreign policy, in legislation and funding priorities, the Bush administration has begun a major shift towards building new nuclear power plants and nuclear fuel reprocessing sites; technologies that were abandoned in the US decades ago. The energy bill, passed in the fall of 2005,, set aside $8.7 billion for the nuclear, oil, and coal industries while offering only $1.3 billion for alternative fuels. Some have asked why the oil industry, with record high profits needs a $1.6 billion subsidy. Not enough critics have investigated the biggest line item of them all: the unprecedented $4.3 billion to the nuclear industry.
A281/Part ONE:
IS NUCLEAR POWER COMING BACK?
Congressman Ed Markey (D. Mass.)
Rep. Ed Markey on the status of waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, on the Bush administration's violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and on massive subsidies to the nuclear industry.
Congressman Ed Markey was first elected to Congress in 1976, and has fought against nuclear proliferation and for environmental protection. Rep. Markey and Dr. Caldicott are friends and have worked together on the Nuclear Freeze and in the aftermath of the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania.
A281/Part TWO:
NUCLEAR RADIATION'S IMPACT ON LIFE
Dan Hirsch (Committee to Bridge the Gap), Dr. Helen Caldicott (Nuclear Policy Research Institute), and David Richardson (School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina)
On the efforts of Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to raise allowable exposure levels, and on the biological effects of radiation. We now have ample evidence, gathered in the last 60 years, of how nuclear radiation harms life. All radiation is cumulative; there are no safe levels. Radiation causes cancers in organs, glands, bones and blood.
But this issue is about more than the individual deaths from cancer. Radiation affects by mutation the genetic heritage each of us carries in our DNA. The future of life is present today within the bodies of living people, animals and plants -- the whole seed-bearing biosphere. We are now altering these carefully evolved seeds by randomly damaging them, and passing on that damage to future generations.
Dan Hirsch is president and co-founder of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nuclear watchdog group that provides technical and legal assistance to communities near existing or proposed nuclear power projects.
Dr. Helen Caldicott explains in detail how radiation damages life. She is president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute and the author of numerous books on nuclear and environmental issues. Her book, Nuclear Power is not the Solution to Global Warming will be published in the fall of 2006.
David Richardson is assistant professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He specializes in long-term effects of radiation exposure.
A282/Part THREE
ROUTINE RELEASES FROM NUCLEAR REACTORS
Kay Drey (NIRS), and David Lochbaum (Union of Concerned Scientists)
Very few people know that nuclear power plants routinely release highly radioactive substances into the environment. Even accidents at the 103 U.S. plants hardly ever get reported.
Kay Drey is a Board member of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). Since 1974 she has worked on hazards from so-called routine releases of radioactive gases and wastewater from nuclear power plants. You can find out more about her work at
David Lochbaum began his career as nuclear engineer a few months after the Three Mile Island meltdown. For the next 17 years he worked at nuclear power plants in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut. Now he is a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists where he monitors the performance of all US nuclear power plants.
A282/Part FOUR
NUCLEAR POWER FOR A POLICE STATE
Or: A Police State for Nuclear Power?
Dr. Arjun Makhijani and David Freeman
When David Freeman became the head of the Tennessee Valley authority 30 years ago he halted construction of eight nuclear power plants. Today he warns that nuclear power is a failed technology and that it takes a police state to live with it.
Freeman has dealt with nuclear power plants and public utilities all his life. An engineer and lawyer, he was energy adviser to President Jimmy Carter. He held top positions at the New York Power Authority, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Lower Colorado River Authority and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). During his tenure in Sacramento Freeman initiated the nation's most intensive utility conservation program, including electric vehicle, wind and solar programs.
Dr. Arjun Makhijani holds a degree in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked on plasma physics and controlled nuclear fusion. He is the principal editor and co-author of Nuclear Wastelands, the first global assessment of the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons production. Dr. Makhijani addresses the issue of nuclear proliferation and why nuclear technologies have spread in spite of the efforts, begun in the early 1960s, to dismantle existing weapons stockpiles.
No Nukes
The super-vote (STV) would make politicians listen.
29.05.2008 17:48
Of course, he wont.
But there are other courses of action than are usually appreciated.
There is the super-vote, that is the single transferable vote, an
election that actually elects. This system would give public opinion
much greater leverage over politicians and their decisions.
For instance, STV orders choice of candidates on the issues most
important to you, with a good choice of candidates proportionly elected
in multi-member constituencies, allowing preference of the best
environmentalists in all parties or as Independents.
That way you can by-pass the First Past The Post choice between two
party manifestos both for more nuclear power.
Dare I say it, you have to educate yourselves and the public on the
truth that in STV there is such a thing as democratic voting system.
Scottish local elections got STV in 2007. Both Sunderland and Richard
reports were rebuffed in seeking STV for Wales.
Britain has half a dozen undemocratic voting systems where one
democratic method would do.
My website has pages against nuclear power, as well as on
constitutional reforms.
Richard Lung
e-mail:
voting@ukscientists.com
Homepage:
http://www.voting.ukscientists.com