Pacific Ecologist - issue 12, winter 2006
Pacific Ecologist - issue 12, winter 2006 - 76 pages
Issue 12, Pacific Ecologist -
74 pages available for $10 - PO Box 12125, Wellington, New
Zealand.
Pirmeditor @ paradise.net.nz
contents
Editorial
Healthy, convivial
communities: averting war & global catastrophe
resource conflicts
Law, resources & war
Excessive consumption of
dwindling finite resources, particularly by wealthy,
powerful countries, and the desire to protect trade and
resource interests, is impoverishing the majority of the
world’s people, threatening war and undermining the
civilised values of international law and justice, writes
DENNIS SMALL. Citizens of the world however can take action.
Crude designs - the plunder of Iraq’s oil
wealth
While the Iraqi state is new and in political
chaos, the fate of its oil wealth is being decided behind
closed doors by an Iraqi elite, influenced by the U.S. and
U.K. governments. Long-term contracts, highly profitable to
foreign companies and disastrous for Iraq are favoured,
writes GREGG MUTTITT, in this summary of a PLATFORM
report.
Gas flaring in Nigeria - a human rights
atrocity
In a colossal human rights atrocity,
continuing over three decades, over 2 billion cubic feet of
valuable natural gas goes up in smoke every day in Nigeria,
as Shell and other multinational companies flare the gas,
despite devastating effects on human and environmental
health, and huge loss of energy and revenue for one of the
world’s poorest country’s. This is an abridgement of a
report by Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth,
Nigeria and the Climate Justice Programme.
Pacific
fisheries under piracy threat
Fishing stocks around
the world are collapsing with over-fishing and pirate
fishing is now plaguing the South Pacific. If it’s not
stopped within two to three years, says JOSEPHINE PRASAD of
Greenpeace, key species will be critically over-fished. She
outlines a plan of action.
China’s role in
laundering PNG timber revealed
A new GREENPEACE
report shows illegally logged timber is being shipped from
Papua New Guinea to China for domestic and global
consumption.
War on terror is war against the people
in the Philippines
In prosecuting the war on terror
on behalf of U.S. President, George Bush, the Philippines’
president is waging war on her country’s people, ROD
PROSSER reports. How is it that a once prosperous country,
rich in natural resources, is now a poor backward one, where
peaceful villages are bombed and invaded by the military to
facilitate the opening up of new mining and logging
operations and state-sponsored killings and corruption are
rampant?
UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT - briefs - 3 pages
nuclear terrorism
From nuclear
deterrence to nuclear terrorism
Far from helping
prevent major wars, the policy of nuclear deterrence,
favoured by the U.S. U.K. and others, has become an
intention to commit state-sponsored terrorism, ROBERT GREEN
reports. There is an urgent need to denuclearise the
security strategies of the Western allies who currently are
inciting fear and the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
U.S./India nuclear deal reckless
The
nuclear cooperation deal between the U.S. and India is
reckless, undermining efforts to stop nuclear proliferation,
says the WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE. And nuclear power is very
costly, with limited capacity to provide much electricity
for either the U.S. India or China. Renewable energy
resources are the practical option and growing at much
greater rates than nuclear.
Energy insecurity: reactor
dreams
There’s danger in the US government basing
its energy policy on nuclear technologies that may never
work and will be very costly, says VICTOR GOLINSKY.
Revisiting French terrorism in the Pacific: Rainbow Warrior
bombing revelations
France’s sabotage of the
Rainbow Warrior more than two decades ago hogged newspaper
headlines during the anniversary last year. But little
coverage was given to the actual cause of the bombing –
nuclear testing in the South Pacific and the impact on
Pacific Islanders. The Rongelapese and Tahitians still
suffer from the legacy of decades of American and French
nuclear tests. DAVID ROBIE looks at the hypocrisy behind
this sordid act of state terrorism in a New Zealand
port.
From nuclear warrior to opponent - how the
murder of Hilda Murrell changed my life
ROBERT GREEN
recounts his path of transformation from British Navy
Commander with experience in operating nuclear weapons, to
anti-nuclear campaigner. The many threats to our security,
he concludes, are increasingly beyond the reach of military
(let alone nuclear) solutions. A new form of patriotism is
urgently needed, embracing the whole earth, to prevent
narrow nationalism destroying humanity and the natural world
on which life depends.
nuclear’s endless nightmare
CHERNOBYL - the continuing
catastrophe
Quotes from several expert sources on the
health, environmental, and social impacts of the Chernobyl
disaster.
Behind the cover-up - a conservative
assessment of the full Chernobyl death toll
Poor
records and methodology, omissions, and the failure of
various committees to consider all health issues resulting
from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986,
have meant the real consequences for the many millions of
affected people have been hidden from public scrutiny, DR.
ROSALIE BERTELL reports. Using a report from a U.N. science
committee in 2000, Dr Bertell identifies the many omissions
and makes a very conservative, preliminary estimate of the
eventual death toll from the Chernobyl disaster to be 1 to 2
million.
BOOK
REVIEWS
The Great Work: Our Way into the Future by
THOMAS BERRY
* Weather Makers: The Past & the Future
Impact of Climate Change By TIM FLANNERY
* CHERNOBYL: 20
YEARS ON - Health effects of the Chernobyl accident - Eds
C.C. Busby & A.V. Yablokov
* PLANET EARTH: The Latest
Weapon of War: A Critical Study into the Military and the
Environment By Dr ROSALIE BERTELL
* The Long Emergency -
Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first
Century
By JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
* Rule of Power or
Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions
Regarding Security-Related Treaties by IEER and Lawyers'
Committee on Nuclear Policy
* AFFLUENZA : When too much
is never enough by CLIVE HAMILTON & RICHARD DENNISS
*
REMOTELY CONTROLLED - How television is damaging our lives -
& what we can do about it
By ARIC SIGMAN
* Happiness:
lessons from a new science by RICHARD
LAYARD
climate hotspot
Australia’s ‘greenhouse mafia’
exposed
CLIVE HAMILTON, Executive Director of the
Australia Institute, reports on recent revelations about the
revolving door between government officials and fossil-fuel
industry lobby groups, who call themselves the “greenhouse
mafia.” Inside knowledge and connections give the
greenhouse mafia an extraordinary influence over
Australia’s climate change policy, ensure favourable
treatment for polluting fossil fuel industries, and the
undercutting of renewable energy. Meanwhile, democracy is
undermined and Australia’s greenhouse gases are rising
steeply. But the Environment Minister says: “the main
thing is not to alarm people!”
Climate expert says
NASA tried to silence him
NASA’s top climate
scientist, James E. Hansen, says the Bush administration
tried to stop him from speaking out after he gave a lecture
in December calling for prompt reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions linked to global warming, reports ANDREW C.
REVKIN.
policy pathways to sustainability
From global dependence to local
interdependence
With increasing urbanisation and
globalisation of the world economy, causing a range of
environmental and social problems, there is growing support
for a shift towards smaller scale, more localised
production, HELENA-NORBERG-HODGE of the International
Society for Ecology and Culture, observes. This shift in
direction would bring many benefits to both North and South,
including reduction in environmental pollution and the
creation of meaningful work and fuller employment
everywhere
Less long distance trade - tackling climate
change & poverty
DR VANDANA SHIVA and COLIN HINES put
the case for Europe leading the way and the replacement of
the WTO’s free market trade rules with a General Agreement
for Sustainable Trade which would conserve the environment
and protect and diversify national economies. This would
ensure a more secure economic future everywhere and meet the
desires of people worldwide seeking to Make Poverty
History.
sustainable initiatives
Small wind systems, many
purposes
Small wind turbines are providing energy for
a surprising and increasing variety of purposes, from micro
turbines for many thousands of nomadic Mongolians to boil
tea, to turbines for heating, pumping water, and generating
electricity at remote sites. PAUL GIPE explains in a brief
introduction to his book, “Wind Power: Renewable Energy
for Home, Farm, and Business
Sustainable
architecture - getting our homes in
order
Sustainability begins at home, writes FLISS
BUTCHER. NOW is the time to start. By making our homes
sustainable, we can all help reduce global warming
emissions, energy use, urban sprawl, waste, the destruction
of nature, financial costs,AND at the same time revitalise
our neighbourhoods.
Keeping the seeds strong: an
appeal for gardeners & biodiversity
With the great
decline of food biodiversity, seed saving and gardening is
vital work if humanity is to survive into the future, writes
KAY BAXTER, co-founder of KOANGA GARDENS
Strengthening
local food security in the Solomons
Recently,
dramatic scenes of discontent in Honiara, the Solomon
Islands capital were
flashed around the world. But on
the weather coast, in an isolated area with a difficult
climate, a community group has started up an independent
training centre to teach young people livelihood skills and
to help communities develop capacities to survive times when
food is scarce. LOUISE HUNT reports.