This episode of the Green Flame podcast is a discussion based on the film “Ocean Poubelles.” We talk about nuclear waste, the nuclear waste industry, nuclear waste dumping, and the production of nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and nuclear medicine that results in this highly dangerous and long-lasting radioactive material.
Nuclear waste is a massive issue. It’s actually a much more serious danger in the nuclear industry than a meltdown or some Chernobyl type incident. Nuclear waste is something that is ubiquitous in the nuclear industry and nobody really knows what to do with it. There’s no safe way to store it. There’s nothing that can be done to safely “dispose” of materials that will be deadly for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years into the future. Our discussion this week is on this topic of nuclear waste, which in many ways is a fascinating insight into industrial civilization, how it functions, the mindset of the technocrats that run the largest corporations in the world, the militaries and so on.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
For many years, Deep Green Resistance has argued that it’s not “too late” to stop global warming, because scientific predictions for the future never assume that emissions may fall to zero. Now, science has backed up our assertion.
The following is excerpted from a longer article by Bob Berwyn, published on Inside Climate News, and re-posted here with permission from the author.
This is, in our estimation, the most important climate change story of the decade.
Recent research shows that stopping greenhouse gas emissions will break the vicious cycle of warming temperatures, melting ice, wildfires and rising sea levels faster than expected just a few years ago.
“It is our best understanding that, if we bring down CO2 to net zero, the warming will level off. The climate will stabilize within a decade or two,” he said. “There will be very little to no additional warming. Our best estimate is zero.”
The widespread idea that decades, or even centuries, of additional warming are already baked into the system, as suggested by previous IPCC reports, were based on an
“unfortunate misunderstanding of experiments done with climate models that never assumed zero emissions.”
Another recent article, this one in Columbia Journalism Review, quotes climate scientist Michael Mann discussing this new science:
Scientists used to “treat carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as if it was a simple control knob that you turn up” and temperatures climb accordingly, “but in the real world we now know that’s not what happens,” Mann said. Instead, if humans “stop emitting carbon right now … the oceans start to take up carbon more rapidly.” The actual lag effect between halting CO2 emissions and halting temperature rise, then, is not 25 to 30 years but, per Mann, “more like three to five years.”
All of this reflects a critical understanding. Climate change is a symptom. It is not the root problem. A doctor who treats only symptoms of an illness, without addressing the underlying root cause, can never expect to cure the disease.
The same is true of global warming. The root cause of global warming is the contradiction between civilization and the natural world. More simply, our relationship with nature is broken. This root cause must be addressed if we wish to solve the ecological crisis. This research shows what we have long known to be true: global warming should not be our focus. Rather, we should focus on halting the destruction of the natural world. If we do this successfully, the climate will heal.
As with disease, addressing the root cause is the way to fundamentally resolve an illness.
This news release outlines direct action taken by water protectors.
On Monday morning, Nia Zekan, a water protector, climbed into a pipe trench along the Line 3 Pipeline easement, shutting down work for approximately four hours. Nia halted construction at this Enbridge worksite while dozens more stood around in support of Nia and resistance to Line 3.
The site is located on the Fond Du Lac reservation in so-called northern Minnesota, right next to Camp Migizi, a recently-opened space for water protectors.
The worksite is just a few miles from a cultural site that was promised by Kevin Dupuis (Sr. Chairman of the Tribe) to the people of Fond Du Lac. This cultural site has now been bulldozed. Numerous other sacred and cultural sites also lie in the path of the pipeline corridor.
Line 3 is a tar sands pipeline that, if built, would go through Indigenous treaty territory and put hundreds of bodies of water at risk as well as the lives and cultures of many peoples.
As construction on the pipeline has picked up over the last few months, action against Line 3 has too. This action is but one of many that have taken place on the frontlines over the past months since construction began, temporarily delaying Enbridge construction.
In Nia’s words,
“Climbing down into the trench is love in action.”
For more information, get in touch with Camp Migizi on their Facebook page or email media@resistline3.org. High resolution photos and interviews with movement leaders available upon request.
Lithium is the miracle element powering your smartphone and under the hood of every electric car. Will batteries save the planet or cause more harm? The controversy is heating up in Nevada.
RENO, Nevada
Activists aiming to stop an open-pit lithium mine launched a permanent protest encampment last Friday. They invite supporters to join them.
Despite winter conditions at Thacker Pass, the site of the proposed $1.3 billion Lithium Americas mine, protestors have erected tents, a wood stove, and protest signs. Lawyer Will Falk, who is on site, says they mean to stay for as long as it takes to protect this old-growth sagebrush mountainside.
“Environmentalists might be confused about why we want to interfere with the production of electric car batteries, but, it’s wrong to destroy a mountain for any reason – whether the reason is fossil fuels or lithium.” Says Falk
Activists are prepared to remain in place and block all construction, mining, and road-building activities until Lithium Americas abandons their plan to destroy Thacker Pass. They are demanding:
The establishment of a protected area at Thacker Pass preserved for the enjoyment of future generations, for wildlife including the Kings River pyrg, and for water quality.
An immediate abandonment of the Thacker Pass lithium mine project by Lithium Americas corporation.
A sincere apology from Lithium Americas Corporation for claiming that Thacker Pass is a “green” project.
The Mine Proposal
The Thacker Pass mine proposal, located roughly 130 miles northeast of Reno, is one of a handful of large mining and energy projects fast-tracked by the outgoing Trump administration in what a December article in the New York Times called an “intense push” to “find ways to increase domestic energy and mining production.”
Though Lithium Americas claims they “strive to build a business where the well-being of the local community is essential to its success,” this fast-tracking comes despite objections from local residents, ranchers, and environmental groups, who are concerned about project impacts on wildlife and rural quality of life.
Project documents detail potential harm to many species.
The threatened Greater sage grouse, whose populations have been reduced by between 97% and 99% from historic levels, and for whom the Thacker Pass area represents the best remaining habitat in Nevada. Thacker Pass is located in the Lone Willow population management unit, which is home to between 5 and 8% of the entire global population. This project would sever a key connectivity corridor between portions of the habitat;
Lahontan cutthroat trout, a federally “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act which exists in only a small fraction of its historic range, including the Quinn River basin downstream of Thacker Pass;
Pronghorn antelope, whose migration routes would be severed by the mine; and
A critically imperiled endemic snail species known as the Kings River pyrg that is known to reside in only 13 isolated springs. According to one group of scientists, “the Thacker Pass Project area might contain the entire known population of Kings River pyrg, thereby putting the species at risk of extinction.
Other species who will be harmed by the project include Burrowing owls, Golden eagles, several bat species, native bees and other pollinators, Crosby’s Buckwheat, and rare old-growth big sagebrush. Impacts on the community include increases in heavy truck traffic, noise and light pollution, air quality issues, and reductions in the water table.
Lithium Americas has already built roads, drilled boreholes, constructed a weather station, and dug a 2-acre test pit. They plan to build large tailing ponds for toxic mine waste, drill new wells, build a sulfuric acid processing plant, import more than 170 semi-loads of sulfur (a byproduct from oil refineries) per day, and dig an open pit of more than 2 square miles into the pristine Thacker Pass mountainside.
The encampment went into place on Friday, the same day the Bureau of Land Management handed down the permit for the mine. For now it is home to only a few people. But Max Wilbert, another organizer of the protest and author of Bright Green Lies, a book looking at the environmental harms of renewable energy projects, expects that more people will come as the weather improves.
Wilbert states,
“Many see Nevada as a wasteland, but in truth it’s one of the last wild places left. Where else can you find silence, clean air, starry nights, and solitude? As soon as people spend time in these wild lands, they fall in love with them, and want to protect them.”
Join the Occupation
For more information, to support the campaign, or to join the occupation, visit www.ProtectThackerPass.org. Feel free to reproduce this press release in your publication.
Contact: Max Wilbert and Will Falk
contact@protectthackerpass.org
This news article describes the impact of corrupt legislation on ordinary working people. The organised protests and solidarity of the public with farmers is an excellent example of how coordinated resistance can enable change.
Editor’s note: DGR strongly opposes the three new farm laws that have inspired the farmer’s protests in India. However, we do not necessarily agree with all of the demands of the protestors.
On 12th January, 2021, the Supreme Court of India suspended the ‘Three Contentious Farm Laws, amidst large scale protests from farmers in India. The three farm laws continue to be hailed by the ruling party as a means on giving farmers more autonomy over selling of their crops and will break big monopolies. Yet, it is the farmers who have mobilized and organized the mass-scale protests against the laws.
Resistance against the farm bills has been mainly organized by farmer’s unions, ongoing across different areas of the country, since the bills were first introduced. The protests intensified after the bills were passed by the parliament and signed by the President in late September. At the time of writing this, thousands of farmers are on the streets, demanding central government repeal the three acts. In the past five months, about 70 protestors have lost their lives to heart attacks, cold, accidents and suicides.
What does the laws mean for the farmers?
State governments in three states of India – Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan – have established a marketing board (APMC). Under this system, the first sale of agricultural produce (i.e. from the farmer to the middlemen) could happen only in the mandis (market yards) of APMC. The mandis in turn operate under a Minimum Support Price (MSP) system that ensure certain crops are sold at a minimum price set by the government at the beginning of the season.
By ensuring a minimum price for their produce, The APMC and MSP system act as a safeguard for farmers, against unexpected price drops, as well as exploitation by large retailers or local moneylenders.
Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, one of the new laws, remove the APMC system, and allow for sale of agricultural produce to private buyers without any government oversight. While the ruling party claims that this would liberate the farmers to sell their produce to the highest bidder, the farmers fear otherwise.
The direct dealings of farmers with large retailers will put the farmers in a vulnerable position No laws in India or any of the states consider the MSP system to be legally enforceable. The new laws also do not mention MSP in regards to direct dealings with retailers, and will likely dismantle the MSP system. Although the members of ruling party have verbally assured that the system will be intact, the farmers have demands a more formalized pledge to the continuity of MSP.
What if farmers are exploited?
On top of that, certain sections of the laws strip citizens’ right to legal recourse. One law grants complete immunity for any act performed in the process of implementation of the law as long as the act was performed in “good faith.” Another strips civil courts of jurisdiction over proceedings related to the laws. The judicial power is transferred to new institutions created by the laws, which will remain under the executive control.
In effect, anyone who can claim to be acting in “good faith” in their implementation of the rules could easily acquire legal immunity, with little to no consequences for their actions. A study of the impacts of deregulation policies across the world clearly demonstrate that it is the corporations who will enjoy this impunity, while the so-called beneficiaries of the policies (in this case, the farmers) will be further repressed under corporate control. It is clear for everyone to see that this ‘gift of legislation’ offers working people zero protection and could cause significant harm.
Responses to the protests
The protests have received overwhelming support from the public, celebrities, and even opposition parties. Whilst the motives behind the latter’s support are, of course, contentious, it is at this time welcome given what is at stake. Incredibly, approximately 250 million people participated in a nationwide general strike organized by farmer unions on November 26, 2020.
Unsurprisingly, from the governmental side, the peaceful protests have been met with water cannons, batons, tear gas, barricades and sand barriers to stop the protestors from crossing state borders. A youth who turned off a police water cannon, being used against the protestors, was later charged with attempted murder.
The members of the ruling party have used a number of tactics to discredit the organizers. Baseless accusations that the movement is led by “privileged” farmers, or secessionists, or even terrorists have been made and reported by the mainstream media.
Need for radical changes
The new laws will render the farmers vulnerable to big businesses. However, these are not the only problems that farmers in India have faced. It is estimated that ten farmers kill themselves everyday.
Majority of the problems that the farmers face can be traced back to the 1960s when India became an experimental ground for the Green Revolution, which introduced hybrid seeds, monoculture, chemical fertilizers and pesticides in India. The results of the experiments are horrifying.
In Punjab (ground zero of the Green Revolution in India), pesticide residues were found in a quarter of breast milk samples in 2014. “Cancer trains” carry pesticide related cancer victims from Punjab to Rajasthan. Farmers’ suicides (considered a national catastrophe) is a result of the increasing spiral of debt that the farmers cannot escape from. Testimonies of a few of the protesting farmers shows that a majority of their expenses is spent on pesticides and fertilizers.
The movement against the new farm laws are a significant blow to the exploitative and oppressive system. The farmers can build on this movement to reverse the devastating effects of the Green Revolution.
The food sector of India (as it is now) serves no one in the longer term. The food producers are trapped in inescapable spirals of debt. The consumers are ingesting toxins in their bodies. The landbase upon which we depend is getting poisoned by chemical toxins. Aquifers have started drying out. The diversity of crops and plants in India have been lost
This should be replaced by a system that serves both the ecology and the local communities should be established, through reindigenization of agriculture practices` and localization of food production.
Salonika is an organizer at DGR Asia Pacific and is based in Nepal. She believes that the needs of the natural world should trump the needs of the industrial civilization.
