DL: President Obama is fed up with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. He wants to know whose ass to kick, which brings us to “President Obama Ass Kicking Simulation.”
(photo): Barack Obama is seen standing in front of the White House.
(voiceover and flashing subtitle): “PLACE ASS TO SCREEN NOW”
(animation): The President kicks.

@JAMES MCDONALD - I would like to see BP’s assets frozen by the US govt, until the whole ‘rotten mess’ has been attended to. I include compensation to the families of the 11 dead men; compensation to those whose livelihood has been destroyed/finished, and the oceans/rivers attended to - for as many years as necessary. I’d stop the obscene salaries to the CEO’s and introduce legislation to prevent another situation like this. Barack Obama should withdraw his agreement for oil companies to be free of conducting more stringent environmental tests etc. At this time, access to special dispensation is still in operation. The ripple effect of this disaster is probably limitless! Like Bush, Obama talks tough for the media, and acts like a wimp in reality! It’ll happen again if this is allowed to continue!

If Obama could only see it, the unlimited size of really big companies is the best protection against that sort of irresponsibility. If civil law is allowed to work, independent of any concerns about driving BP into administration to pay its debts, then a mega-company is clearly the only thing (apart from the poor old US taxpayer and Treasury bonds) with the capacity to pay for the damages. Assuming of course that any amount of money can repair the catastrophe.

As Roger Clifton noted earlier, when it comes to safety the nuclear power industry stands head and shoulders over the extraction of chemically volatile fossil fuels when it comes to safety and side effects.

Don’t give big business any favours or any special treatment, is my suggestion. No selectively targetted “super profits” taxes which underwrite losses and punish success; and no “too big to fail” protection which undermines the very basis of creative destruction in capitalist free markets.

With the right broad-based incentives, with no protection from civil damages or criminal negligence charges if they stuff up, and with the sort of finance instruments Roger suggests made available for all, in time industry will be able to build safe, efficient, low-emission power plants for Australia.

They are just getting back on their feet.

It is no surprise that they made stuff-ups in the Bush era re the 9/11 site, if this has been the case.

Regarding the cleanup by BP, I took the time a few weeks ago to check the MSDS of the dispersants that BP are using. I agree that they have not been tested for the type of use that is currently the case. There is a long and sad story yet to unfold regarding errors made before the failure and during the cleanup.

It appears quite probable that the dispersant will result in many small particles of oil to be suspended in the ocean and digested by life of all types and sizes. Goodness knows what that will do to their livers, etc. Note that I am not just talking about cancer, which may or may not result.

The next 5 years or more will bring with them a steady stream of researched papers and court cases, I expect, full of expert opinion on every aspect of BP thing, but the dispersant worries me most.

Interesting story on ABC local radio, The World Today re the EPA in the US(environmental protection agency) and its ruling, that the use of the products re the oil spill are OK etc. The New York Senator interviewed was scathing in his attitude to the EPA - he said, that the EPA also said it was OK for the workers to keep on working around the 9/11 site, and now, 40,000 of them are sick.

In Michael Moore’s documentary, ‘Sicko’ he covers the illnesses of about 4-5 of these people - cast aside with awful illnesses. The relevance I hear you ask? This is the same body that decides what the safe level of radiation etc is for the population re nuclear power etc. They’ve had this responsibility for as long as I can recall, and do a shitty job, always on the side of the polluters as they are now with BP! The books I have are riddled with their stuff ups, or to be more precise, their taking sides with big business, big polluters, to the detriment of any concern for the general population. They’re just damned lucky that the ramifications of their actions can’t be seen or tasted, such as cancers etc? No little ‘tags’ to tell what caused them! How convenient!

Nothing has changed to cause me to change my mind about her at all. She owes the world a huge apology for being so wrong-headed, obstinate, aggressive, stupid and for being wasteful of time and emotion.

What, precisely, I should recant from this statement I have no idea. 40 years of being wrong does not somehow make one right.

Just as valid you say? Well, you wouldn’t think so judging by the comments. Have you read the comments made by JOHN BENNETTS re Dr Helen Caldicott? Or did you just decide to ignore it, like you do other sexist comments made by men?

The fact is, that most of the men on these sites react in an insulting manner when they disagree with women. John Bennetts attitude to Helen Caldicott is case in point; also his attitude to me JUST BECAUSE I disagree re nuclear power! it’s as though he thinks I’m at best, damned stupid for having this view, or, anyone with any intelligence believes that nuclear power is the answer, and anyone, particularly a mere woman is stupid for not ‘seeing the light’? Who came to my aid then? Certainly not you!

You blokes, by your very attitude to me, only reinforce everthing I say, and yes, it is like living in a parallel universe - you live a different life, without the adverse effects! Actions to and about women won’t change until you do - you and your attitudes are part a huge part of the problem!
Go and read some of the posts and the attitude to women by men who disagree with them! The attitude is of smart arsed mouthy blokes who think and act as though they’re AUTOMATICALLY superior! I reject that view and say so! End of story!

@JOHN BENNETTS - You conveniently omit your own barbs, jibes and superior-type language in your deliberations. A sanctimonious and patronising slant to your language - look at how you reacted to Dr Caldicott! Take the rose coloured glasses off your own eyes first!

Obama’s administration is supporting nuclear establishment using “loan guarantees”. It strikes me that a stream of thus-guaranteed repayments spread over 60 years should offer any financier a blue-chip investment. That’s one solution.

(er, friends, let’s reserve our fiercer passions for our common enemies …)

For goodness’ sake, take a deep breath, turn off your chant for a minute and think: When you pre-determine the value of a comment, an action or a thought on the basis of the gender of the doer/speaker/thinker, then you are a sexist.

You do not want your life played with on the basis of your gender any more than males like to be similarly offended against. However, by repeatedly and continually, without need or evidence, you blame the male half of the population for anything which you do not like, you are devaluing your own contribution.

I challenge you to make no sexist remarks to the columns of Crikey for a month. I believe that, even if you accept the challenge, you will fail. Your defective nature in this regard runs too deep.

“@JULIUS - Another bloke! I don’t give a hoot what you say either?”

How far do you think Julius would get if he said the same thing in reverse?

You speak as though strength of feeling, and sheer volume of posts about those feelings, carry greater weight than knowledge and reasoning. You also speak as if every person who disagrees with you is complicit in violence against you. Most people just don’t agree with you about either of those beliefs. You mistake this disagreement for lack of understanding, so you repeat it again, and again, and again.

You’re arguing from a different paradigm than the rest of us — a paradigm just as valid, maybe, but it’s not the paradigm the rest of us are using, so it’s not persuasive. And if it’s not persuasive, what’s the point?

The only thing that has changed in this country re the nuclear industry, is the quantity of uranium exported and the intention of the federal govt to impose a nuclear waste dump on aboriginal people! Nothing has eventuated to make me change my views about nuclear power - in this country there are renewable, self sustainable alternatives, and that is what I support - as do many others I might add!

When I speak of the world and the role that men have played in its demise, I’m criticized? for it - but you haven’t shown any evidence as to why my views aren’t accurate. Almost every violent crime is perpetrated by men; particularly the ugliest of them; the suppression and oppression of women and girls - all laws, rules, attitudes, stereotypes of women and by men. Prove that this is not so, and I’ll apologise, but these are facts. I could list the crimes that have come to light or cases finalised just this last week to 10 days - none of the perpetrators were women.
Then there’s wars, business operations that inflict suffering on the population/s via pollution etc, and the fact that there’s alternatives, but the profit margin wouldn’t be as high.
Nuclear power is a good example of this, and the recent protest in Germany adds proof to this.
Many men I know recognise this, and rather than act in a defensive or abusive manner, they speak out against these behaviours!
It never occurs to you to even wonder what these sorts of environments do to the psyche of those who are on the receiving end? This doesn’t mean, that there aren’t ruthless or destructive women in the world, but when you look at the ‘big picture’ and what invades the lives of the majority, the answer is via men! Wars, prostitution, domestic violence, sexual assaults, pollution, greed, lust for power and all that involves, day to day discrimination/s etc. This is my reality - this is the world I live in, where I have to be very careful where I go and at what time of the day or night? This has been my reality all of my life, as it is for most women and girls that I know, and know of!

Absolutely. Look at what we can do with computer technology when there’s a real financial incentive. A few major revolutionary leaps, but most of it was a long line of incremental improvements, driven by a voracious market appetite for faster cheaper more powerful computers. Ignoramuses call this “Moore’s Law” as if it were some dictate of nature. But there was nothing natural about the blood, sweat and tears that went into bringing us laptops which can do more than the NASA supercomputers of the 1980s.

Of course, energy isn’t quite the same as computing — the number of joules required to heat a litre of water by 1°C doesn’t change no matter how you jiggle it — but I think you’d have to agree we’re a long, long way from any asymptotic limits on overall usage.

A few campaigns to fit compact flourescent light bulbs just aren’t going to even get us started down that road. When you can say to an architect, “What about air flow?” and he looks at you strangely and asks if you’ve never heard of air conditioning;
- when Australian apartment blocks have a separate AC device for every unit and tenants all turn them on during a 24°C day (it’s more like 30°C around the building, because ACs are not the cooling devices people imagine, they are heating devices with a local cooling effect on one side);
- when Sydney-siders with Humvees won’t take the train or bus even if it’s on their front step because they think it’s uncouth to use public transport;
- when Shell can do the sums and realize it’s cheaper to move petrol across NSW by roads running alongside freight railways, and 90 per cent of Sydney-Melbourne general freight doesn’t even consider using the rail or sea routes;
- when BHP can’t even build its own bulk railways without having them partly nationalized by the ACCC for the sake of “competition”

… well you know, we haven’t even begun. And it’s ludacris to try closing down perfectly good coal power stations before eking out the greatest possible efficiency from our consumption of them. Paying for an energy revolution is going to need lots of spare wealth, which will have to be paid for — and this will seem absurdly paradoxical to those not versed in economics — it will have to be paid for partly by coal exports and, at least initially, without the added burden of generating our own electricity from less-than-optimal sources.

The good news is that nuclear power can in the long term fill the breach, at least once we get over the enormous capex hurdles. It will require international investment, lots of it. So don’t even think about scaring global investors away with a “super profits tax” on a cherry-picked set of the most profitable assets, raising perceptions — rightly or wrongly — of sovereign risk and “nationalization”.

More good news, once Australia gets over its Luddite aversion to nuclear technology, there’s a barely tapped source of wealth in uranium exports and an untapped resource of nuclear waste dumps. And no, I don’t have a problem with it being in my backyard as long as you don’t feed me vegetables grown directly on top of it.

And by the way, John Bennetts is telling the truth about his reluctant conversion to nuclear advocacy. I distinctly remember his earlier opposition to it, as well as the actual blog thread last year in which he announced he was changing his mind in the face of sheer weight of evidence. Evidence about the impossibility of some Bob Brown utopia of windfarms and solar collectors, some idyllic vision out of Aldous Huxley’s Island. (I called him rude on that occasion, but in hindsight he was just coming to grips with something he hadn’t wanted to believe until then.) And he knows a lot more about energy supply than I do.

Surely energy efficiency would be an early consequence of increasing the price of carbon? Consumers faced with a hefty increase in energy costs would start by reducing their consumption. Smaller cars, architected homes etc. Even schoolkids can participate by putting on a jumper instead of the heater.

But would a movement to “reduce consumption” falter after achieving a warm feeling of forgiveness?

This website (*) says that Australians and Australian industry consume 7.6 kW per capita of carbon-based thermal energy. Even if thrift could halve that, we’ld still have a long way to go. We dont want our sinners to feel forgiven before we have reformed their ways.

You agree with yourself absolutely, to the exclusion of all other consideration.

I, on the other hand, have changed my mind radically as I came to recognise the need for nuclear power. Unlike you, I also do not give a flying F what gender person I am sharing a discussion with.

No, Liz - you do not even know what a disagreement is. The word is without meaning if there is no acknowledgement from the frozen mind that there is another perspective. Why, lady, do you spend your afternoons doing yourself and your causes such a disservice?

Why?

As for my supposed superior attitude or whatever - if you think that this comparison is true, so what? get used to your own insignificance. I am truly much humbler than you suspect, it is just the extreme comparison which you draw which seems to have upset you so much.

You know… If the shoe fits…

So we disagree! So what? It matters not to me!

Lady, there are female engineers in the power industry, there are no reasons to discriminate.

Now that I have this off my chest, you have not yet come close to justifying the increased transport load vcan be transferred to renewables, 50% of current power consumption can be transferred to renewables, natural growth can be transferred to renewables, yet somehow the maximum availability of renewables, as calculated by the converted, is about 50% of current national usage.

Even with heroic demand management, which I doubt very much will happen, and substantial carbon price, which must happen, and everything else optimised, I do not see the current fossil carbon load being less than about 2/3rds of its current load.

Unless, to your disgust and dismay, nuclear saves the day - about 10 x 880MW units by 2020 or thereafter and a similar number to follow soon after.

Howard, the little, scheming, toad, had one thing right… start thinking of 25 nuclear power station sites.

I am thinking of spreading them equidistant down the East Coast, to share the job opportunities fairly. Perhaps they would cost us a few golf courses on headlands, but so what! They look great, with all those well kept grounds and well-designed domes and chimneys. Kind of Yin and Yang of architecture.

@James McDonald, you’ve been missed. However, I think you’re being a little unfair with “environmental lobby groups have been asleep at the wheel as far as demand side goes”. My recollection is that many such groups have been pointing to the low-hanging energy efficiency fruit for quite some time; at least since the Lake Pedder and Gordon-below-Franklin dam days. Of course, advocating it and coming up with practical proposals to achieve it are two different things.

As far as energy demand side - efficient homes, air conditioners and so on - I think it’s fair to say that for forty years since the energy crisis, a vast number of opportunities for demand reduction have been missed. Motorcars underwent a fuel-efficiency revolution in the 90s, and that’s about it (and much of that has been offset by the rise of 4WDs). Modern housing burns most of its energy just in making up for poor design, even though most of the passive heating and cooling technologies were mature centuries ago, and with emerging research and technologies since the 1970s, the majority of Australian homes could have dispensed with air conditioning years ago (I don’t have any AC in my home, nor do I miss it). Instead of stabilizing temperature, builders are flat out complying with the building codes and meeting the new architectural fashions, which are based on pretending that houses are not physical objects, just abstract “space” and “flow”. Having a few energy-rating stars on our washing machines and switching incandescent light bulbs doesn’t really amount to diddly.

Isn’t it amazing that in the age of taxpayer subsidies of domestic photovoltaic cells, it took forty years for someone even to suggest painting roofs white?

I believe the environmental lobby groups have been asleep at the wheel as far as demand side goes. And I think this is because they were too busy looking for the grand masterstroke that would transform all our power supply to renewable, making all energy usage suddenly free of any consequences whatsoever.

Now that the discussion on supply side is coming down to earth a bit, and people begin to see that everything has costs, maybe now’s a good time to attempt some serious demand-side reform. Give supply reform a bit of breathing space.

If we start acting smarter, and reduce our energy demand, combined with renewables, I can’t see why it can’t work. If we WANT it to work, and put the time and money into it, why not?

May I suggest that you put Donald Rokke into your search engine; also Depleted Uranium; watch ‘Depleted Uranium, the doctor, and the dying children of Iraq’ and then research the effects on British ex-servicemen and women who were exposed to depleted uranium bombs in the 1991 invasion of Iraq. Their jobs were varied, but some just loaded the bombs onto the aircrafts etc. There have been many babies born in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo with genetic mutations, and also a marked increase in cancers. Investigations have shown alarming levels of radiation.

This is not a world that I want, and I certainly don’t want it repeated here.

Oooops! Sorry, I messed this up! I was distracted and had to go in a hurry! This bit belongs with the renewable energy article!

TUESDAY JUNE 22nd 2010! THE WORLD TODAY! abc radio!
100 PER CENT RENEWABLE BY 2020!
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2933567.htm“Matthew Wright is the Executive Director of Beyond Zero Emissions. He says the ten year road map focuses on technologies that are already commercially available such as wind and large scale solar thermal.

MATTHEW WRIGHT: The inherent design of a solar thermal plant is that it stores its heat away for night time. We’ve modelled that from our 12 solar regions across the country and our 23 wind sites that we get 100 per cent of our power needs, 365 days a year, 24 by seven.”
****************
I’m not apologising for having a different ‘slant’ on things than a lot of men. I don’t particularly like the world that men have ‘created’? I think there’s a better way!
It can’t be denied, that men have all the power when it comes to these issues, and too many others. I don’t think history will show, that they’ve made the planet a better place to live! If that’s an unhealthy attitude? Tough! Men deserve the criticism that is owed to them. I don’t see many on these sites who’ve a vastly different point of view, or have learned from their bombastic control/s over almost everything! Don’t harshly judge me, look at ‘the form’?

Men who acknowledge the past and the present, who understand the damage that has and is still being done, want change also. These are men who are OK in their own ‘skin’ without feeling a need to dominate, abuse and denigrate in order to fulfill some desire for superiority. It’s the men who denigrate womens’ views, without even attempting to understand them, or at least to acknowledge, that women like me have the same right to express them.
Perhaps it’s because I spent two of my pregnancies vomiting my heart up almost every day for 9 months and the 3rd one - I had a life threatening condition. I don’t take my kids’ lives for granted, or their kids either, and I’m damned sure no greedy multinational corporate arrogant bastard is going to stuff up all my ‘hard’ work, or some paranoid power hungry insignificent politician/s either for that matter! I don’t want other peoples’ kids harmed either!
There are lots of people who think like me!

It’s imperative that we take control over what happens. I think it’s weak to just say it’s too hard, so we’ll just hand over all the decision making powers to them, and sit back and have a martini! It amazes me, that so many men, who like to think that they’re in control of their present, and have planned for their future and that of their family, are quite content to just allow it all to happen? I find this incredibly lazy! Not the actions of intelligent beings at all! Look after your kids; send them to good schools etc but not take part in a safe and healthy future, without empire building, or making wealthy people disgustingly more wealthy!
What a cop out!

The Beyond Zero Emissions folk and their friends at Zero Carbon Australia have decided as a matter of faith that, in addition to the direct costs of installing wind, solar thermal, etc at a huge cost, somebody else will provide $92,000,000,000 Ninety Two Billion Dollars worth of new high voltage transmission lines and switchyards to support this.

They don’t propose to replace 100% of the electrical load - they propose to equal 50% of the current load, to add substantial transport load in the ofrm of electric cars, trains, etc. They also allow no increase in the number of consumers or even the historical 3% long term average growth in power consumption.

In other words, for each 100 units of electrical energy consumed at present in Australia, then 10 years in the future, when we will be needing (that 3% growth) 134, these groups plan to provide only 50 units.

Well done, ZPE and ZCA. I won’t be holding my breath waiting for this dream to be achieved. I may turn off my pool pump. Perhaps reduce my reverse cycle air conditioner. I’m not perfect, but just how I reduce the energy consumption by, for example, my roof water pump, is beyond me. I have, this past couple of years, reduced the incandescent light globes in my home and improved the insulation of windows by high tech curtains. But I cannot envisage a 2/3rds effective reduction domestically, any more than most industries will be able to achieve this within 10 years, if at all.

This simply will not be achieved in my country, to save my planet, in my lifetime. That is what is needed.

In effect, what ZPE and ZCA have said is that, flat out, Australia can achieve about 1/3 renewable power out of the propable 2020 demand.

Thus, even the strongest proponents of renewable power admit that the best that they can do is only one third of that which is needed.

I suggest that the next best option is for nuclear, Type III+ or better, generation should supplement the renewables and that coal powered generation should be phased out. This is quite possible by 2030 but effectively impossible by 2020.

Odd selection of sources there from Liz. Beyond Zero Emissions has been named for the result they hope to achieve. Having determined the outcome, they are now in search of a mechanism. I wish them luck, I really do. The problem is that, even though I am engaged in construction of zero emission energy, I have little faith that progress come even close to 100% replacement of existing power plants by 2020, let alone provide for anticipated growth.

ZCA - similar comment. Lofty goals, but to my mind, doomed to fall far short of their goal. If the alternatives are more coal or more but modern nuclear, I happen to be prepared to consider that nukes arepreferable to fossil fuels.

Depleted uranium weaponry, which I do not advocate, are at least depleted. They thus contain less, not more, radioactivity than would be the case with native uranium. I am not sure just what the for and against situation is, but it is pretty hard to be FOR modern weapons of any type.

Having worked in the electricity industry for a few decades, I have lost friends due to asbestos. It is not really where this thread was heading, but at least asbestos in all of its forms and uses has been outlawed in the NSW power generation industry since the early 1980’s, when it was also outlawed in the building industry generally, except under very specific circumstances.

I will review the couple of links which Liz provided. Many thanks for them.

.

These are just a couple of the things in recent weeks, that have renewed my opposition to nuclear power - in fact, the whole nuclear industry - from mining to????

TUESDAY JUNE 22nd 2010! THE WORLD TODAY! abc radio!
100 PER CENT RENEWABLE BY 2020!
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2933567.htm

“Researchers from Melbourne University and Beyond Zero Emissions have modelled, costed and tested whether introducing 100 per cent renewable energy in the next ten years is feasible.

The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan was launched in Canberra this morning by Senator Judith Troeth from the Coalition, Independent senator Nick Xenophon and Greens Senator Christine Milne.”

Go to the above link to read the rest, and to listen to the interview!

GERMANS FORM HUMAN CHAIN IN NUCLEAR PROTEST! APRIL 24 2010
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2933567.htm
BERLIN — Tens of thousands of Germans joined hands to form a human chain to protest against nuclear energy Saturday, two days before the 24th anniversary of the worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine.

“The chain is almost complete,” a police spokeswoman in the northern German region of Schleswig-Holstein told AFP.

She estimated that more than 100,000 people took part in the human chain which stretched for 120 kilometres (75 miles) along the Elbe river through the port city of Hamburg. Organisers put the turnout at more than 120,000.

Matthew Wright is the Executive Director of Beyond Zero Emissions. He says the ten year road map focuses on technologies that are already commercially available such as wind and large scale solar thermal.

MATTHEW WRIGHT: The inherent design of a solar thermal plant is that it stores its heat away for night time. We’ve modelled that from our 12 solar regions across the country and our 23 wind sites that we get 100 per cent of our power needs, 365 days a year, 24 by seven.”

MUCKATY TRADITIONAL OWNERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP!

“We want them to stop it! We don’t want them to come back and ask again!
They should have done it right the first time. And we would have told them no, from the beginning.
People from the Muckaty Land Trust say no to a nuclear waste dump.” Diane Stokes

Sydney 27th July 2010 6.30PM Surry Hills.

ABORIGINAL PEOPLE ARE AGAINST THE URANIUM MINE AT OLYMPIC DAM!
“….the devastation caused by the Olympic Dam uranium mine to the Arabunna people.”
At the BHP Billiton building, one protester, a former BHP employee, poured green slime outside the building to represent the destruction being caused in leaking uranium mines.”

GreenLeft Number 844 - July 14 2010.

Thirty odd years ago, I helped organise the first Hiroshima Rally in the city adjoining mine. The Minister of the Uniting Church participated, and was our guest speaker. We had a ‘die in’ in the main street outside the church. There has been nothing in the intervening years that has made me change my mind re the whole nuclear cycle - whether it’s safety, weapons, waste, mining, milling, enrichment etc - nothing! In fact, if anything, I’m even more against than then. There’s now Depleted Uranium weapons, and the ramifications of them are hideous.
There’s enough weapons in the world, but nobody is even talking about dismantling any!

I’ve read books such as, Nuclear Power, by Walt Patterson(I think)
Just Testing
The Menace of Atomic Energy - Ralph Nader
Plus others! such as Only One Earth etc

Asbestos-Work as a Health Hazard? What’s the connection I hear you ask?
This was an ABC special broadcast made up of several different Background Briefing radio programs in 1977 - the journalist was Matt Peacock. He put the interviews in a book, and hence the above title. What it clearly illustrated, was, that those who were using the stuff, or employing people to mine the stuff, or transported it, or loaded it, like wharfies, had been dying and/or getting sick from this material. The thing that struck me then, and still to this day, was that those making money out of it knew how dangerous it was. In fact, the Navy had known since the 1930’s.

Matt Peacock has since written another book - ‘The Killer Company’, about James Hardie.

I’ve also heard a program on Radio National - Background Briefing(a couple of months ago) about another company, Gillard or ??? - same stroy! They knew, and let people get ill and die awful deaths.
The association between the nuclear industry and the asbestos industry is the secrecy. The absolute lack of a conscience when there’s money to be made. Human beings are a commodity - their lives, loves, families are not important. It’s all about wealth, and lots of it!
Lang Hangcock’s descendants are using money, gained from the horrific deaths of workers!

I’ve read where up to 75% of uranium miners in underground mines died from lung cancer.(menace of atomic energy).
I have no confidence in either politicians or mining companies or those pushing the nuclear industry to protect human beings, and other living creatures including rivers, oceans etc.

My mate has asbestosis! He was a waterside worker, and can recall being in the ship where you couldn’t see across the ‘room’ due to the fibres floating around! The men were working in singlets and shorts - loading this stuff!

I am 65 years old. From the time I was aware of the Hiroshima bomb and Nagasaki, I’ve taken an interest in this issue. I don’t want a nuclear world for my kids or grandkids. Yes, I get emotional - funny, that’s how love is! I’d say, that on my death bed I won’t be thinking of how much money BHP Billiton has made, or BP or Hardies - it will be the emotional things in life that will be important! I’ve seen and listened to over 40 yrs of politicians and others, speaking ‘rationally’ about the things that endanger the lives of others - like wars for example! They always make sure, that they are far away from the danger - the same applies to the nuclear industry. Far away!

Govts can use the Anti-Terror Legislation to silence opposition. Howard introduced it by using the ‘gag’ and ‘guillotine’ and could use it again - whenever they please! I’m not going to make it easy for them!

THERE ARE PLENTY MORE ARTICLES, INSTANCES ETC THAT TELL THE TRUE STORY ABOUT THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY. If you choose not to read them, so be it! I really don’t give a damn!

People have been sacked for being whistleblowers, whether it was about Lucas Heights safety issues, or the invasion of Iraq, or another man who was charged with blowing the lid on lack of security at Mascot Airport! Cost him thousands of dollars, lost his job, his home etc!

Add this gender bias to your quite clear bias against both facts and knowledge of any kind and you are actually causing the distaff half of the population much reputational harm.

And, for the record, no - I am not as driven by the Almighty Dollar as you think. Again, you simply have made accusations without the slightest knowledge of the facts.

On all levels - I don’t approve of nuclear power, nor do I think it’s either necessary or a good idea for Australia. You think differently? Whatever!

You, Liz45 might like to consider the minimum requirements for demonstrating that anyone should go on taking any notice of what you say. Knowledge and the ability to understand when you lack it wouldn’t be a bad start. But perhaps the most important is that you actually pay attention to what other’s say.

John Bennetts so patently doesn’t care about money in the way you refer to so abusively, or possibly at all. Indeed I have never even read him whinging about what he gets by transfer payments from other members of the community as you have done. So…..

JB, the effort to get something into Liz’s mind that she is resistant to could be better spent on other things.