Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study – The Guardian – Ian Sample, science correspondent February 2, 2007 - “Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today
.Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered…………………………………….
Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the ‘overwhelming scientific evidence’on global warming. ‘It’s a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims,’said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia……………………..On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report.”
‘Emailgate’ probe could cost $25 million - Pahrump Valley Times 2/2/07 DEMOCRATS MAY CHOP $50 MILLION FROM YUCCA PROJECT -STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU – WASHINGTON – “Federal agencies plan to spend more than $25 million to retrace key Yucca Mountain research that became tainted after the discovery of emails that suggested documents may have been falsified, according to a report made public Tuesday.
The report by the Government Accountability Office puts a price tag on an email scandal that rocked the Department of Energy almost two years ago, and that contributed to delays in the nuclear waste repository effort. Costs of $25.6 million, compiled by the GAO from figures supplied by the Energy Department and other federal agencies, include replacing an important computer model of how water might infiltrate the mountain and erode canisters of highly radioative spent nuclear fuel. DOE personnel also randomly sampled and reviewed 14 million worker emails for evidence of deeper problems in the Yucca program.
This long article illustrates the secrecy of this industry. The public in Australia, Russia, are unaware of the secret manouverings of the industry
Busting the Russian domestic uranium mining monopoly – Mineweb John Helmer ‘03-FEB-07 “MOSCOW -The last time a major international miner attempted to fly secretly into Moscow, make his deal, and depart unnoticed was more than forty years ago, when Harry Oppenheimer sent his man to offer the Soviet Union membership of the De Beers diamond trade cartel, and signed an agreement for what came to be known as the “single marketing channel”………….
Now, on January 17 of this year there was no keeping the secret that Charles (”Chip”) Goodyear, chief executive of BHP Billiton, had alighted from his corporate jet, and was sped to a meeting with Sergei Kirienko, head of the Russian Agency for Nuclear Power (Rosatom), plus a group of men belonging to the newly created United Uranium Mining Company (UMC)
. ……………………..The Russians have provided Mineweb with the details; the Australian miner is trying to keep them secret. So what exactly is “the matter” that has BHPB’s mouth choking on its gag? The answer is a very sensitive mineral — uranium. ……………………….Today, BHPB is pursuing Russia for cooperative ventures on both Australian and Russian territory that may not look like a cartel move, but whose secretiveness stems partly from that concern; and partly from the tactics BHPB and Australian government officials have used to persuade the Russians. ……………………………….see whole article at: http://www.mineweb.net/energy/610148.htm
When is a secret not a “secret”? ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL by John Fleck 17 January 2007 -”……………………”secret” has a very specific meaning in the world of DOE jargon, which is different than the way you and I use the word.For us, secret means “kept from public knowledge” (Webster’s New World, Fourth Edition), which pretty clearly applies in this case.
The details of the first shipment of remote-handled waste are being “kept from public knowledge” until it has safely arrived at WIPP.
At the DOE, there are whole classes of information that is “kept from public knowledge” that doesn’t meet the agency’s legal/bureaucratic definition of “secret.”
Emerging Energo-Fascism – Big Brother and the Nuclear Renaissance –
TomPaine.common sense Michael T. Klare – January 17, 2007
-“…………. the inevitable rise in state surveillance and repression attendant on an expected increase in nuclear power.
………..there’s another danger in the spread of nuclear power: that it will require a systematic increase in state surveillance of everyone even remotely connected with commercial nuclear energy.
After all, every uranium enrichment facility, nuclear reactor, and waste storage site-and any of the linkages between them-is a potential source of fissionable materials for terrorists, black-market traffickers, or rogue states like Iran and North Korea.
This means, of course, that all of the personnel employed in these facilities, and all their contractors and sub-contractors (and all their families and contacts) will have to be constantly vetted for possible illicit ties and kept under strict, full-time surveillance.
The more reactors there are, the more facilities and contractors who will have to be subjected to this sort of oversight-and the more the security staff itself will have to be subjected to ever higher levels of surveillance by state security agencies
. It’s a formula for Big Brother on a very large scale.
New Publishing Rules Restrict Scientists - washingtonpost.com By JOHN HEILPRIN – “WASHINGTONThe Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the US Geological Survey,
the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.
New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming.
The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.”
Nuke Watchdog Urges New Look at Whistleblower Case - The New Standard by Catherine Komp ” Newly uncovered documents show discrepencies between what managers told two different federal agencies before and after firing an employee who raised safety concerns at Fitzpatrick nuclear plant.
Nearly three years after Entergy Corporation dismissed engineer Carl Patrickson from his position at its FitzPatrick nuclear power plant near Oswego, critics also say the company and federal regulators have failed to adequately address the ‘chilled work atmosphere’ that resulted.
According to transcripts of interviews conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Labor, and reviewed by The NewStandard, three FitzPatrick managers gave conflicting testimony to the federal agencies about whether they knew Patrickson had reported safety problems before he was fired……
.CAN wants the NRC to suspend the three Entergy managers who apparently gave false testimony in the case, as well as reinstate Patrickson’s job. …..Patrickson described in court testimony a long of period of worker intimidation for reporting possible safety hazards and violations.”
Some Indian Point workers afraid to raise safety issues, NRC says - NewsDay.com 21/12/06 By JIM FITZGERALD Associated Press Writer WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Some workers at the Indian Point nuclear power plants are reluctant to raise safety concerns because they fear retribution, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday. During an inspection in September, “We found out that there were workers who perceived that they would be treated negatively by management for raising issues and consequently some of the workers expressed reluctance to raise issues under certain circumstances,” said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. “We refer to it as a chilling effect, a situation when workers do not feel comfortable raising safety concerns……..”
¶ May 07 UK White Paper on nuclear power – locals not able to object on environmental grounds... ¶ April 07 Secret deal uranium enrichment Russia-Iran¶ Feb 2 2007 Falsified data re Japan’s reactors ¶ Feb 2007 Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study ¶ Feb 07 Yucca waste plan documents falsified ¶ December 2006 The Canadian Nuclear Association’s $1.7 million ad campaign
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