No Illusions Notes – 16/06/2011

In the news today…

  • WikiLeaks Haiti: The Earthquake Cables – The Nation has some background (via Wikileaks) on what was happening in Haiti after the earthquake. Remember all those troops that the USA sent in with the excuse of “security”? Well it turns out the US troops weren’t there at the request of President Préval or the Haitian government. They might have been sent to protect the assets of US manufacturers with operations in Haiti. Or, just as likely, they were there to prevent a revolution against the US-backed puppet government of President Préval. As I discussed in NIP05, the US has a long history of over-throwing Haitian Presidents who don’t tow the US line, such as democratically-elected Jean-Baptiste Aristide who was ousted in a US-backed coup in 2004. Interesting quote: “But other countries carried out rescue and medical relief efforts without the presence of military troops. For example, in the six months after the quake, the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, a 1,500 member contingent of doctors who graduated from Cuba’s medical school, treated 70,300 patients, and performed more 2,500 operations, all without deploying soldiers or bringing in weapons, according to a Henry Reeve Brigade report in June 2010.”
  • Bitcoin – A Scam? Or Brilliant? – An interesting analysis from various people (some pro-, some con-) about Bitcoin. Worth reading if confusing. Still trying to get my head around Bitcoin. Had to stop running the app yesterday as it was totally taking over my CPU. (HT @willozap)

No Illusions 23 – “Atomic” Rod Adams on Fukushima

As I mentioned on episode #22, Rod Adams (@atomicrod) is a self-professed nuclear energy “obsessive” since 1981. He writes at the Atomic Insights blog and has produced the Atomic Show podcast on TPN since 2005. He chatted with me tonight about Fukushima – why the risk to human health is extremely small, how it’s different from Chernobyl, what to do with nuclear waste (see ‘Traveling wave reactor’ below) and his theories on why we’re seeing so much hysteria about it in the mainstream media.

Shownotes:

The nuclear accident underway in Japan does not raise doubts about the safety of nuclear power, and calls to abandon it altogether are just another example of the strange irrationality that surrounds the issue. – Cosmos Magazine

Traveling wave reactor – Wikipedia

IAEA warned Japan over nuclear quake risk: WikiLeaks

Chernobyl health effects

Whatever Happens Next, Lets Think Clearly About Nuclear Risks

Japan worst-case scenario unlikely to cause catastrophic radiation release

BTW, have you seen Stitcher yet? It’s a great iPhone app that STREAMS podcasts – no need to sync with iTunes! Listen to No Illusions on Stitcher here.

No Illusions 22 – News Roundup for March 15, 2011

Show notes for this episode:

A Different Perspective on Fukushima from Atomic Insights by @atomicrod

Atomtronics, Or Atoms Spun By Laser Beams, Could Replace Electronics

Glenn Greenwald: WH forces P.J. Crowley to resign for condemning abuse of Manning

The liberal game of silencing the messenger by John Pilger

Ross Garnaut says science on climate change is stronger

As we sleep, speedy brain waves boost our ability to learn

Buddhism and the Brain

Melvyn Bragg & The Philosophers on Free Will

The Feds Poisoned Alcohol during Prohibition and Murdered at Least 10,000 People

No Illusions 20 – John Cook from Skeptical Science

My guest IN THE STUDIO today is John Cook, astrophyscist, web developer, and founder of Skeptical Science, an absolutely brilliant resource for anyone needing to refute the common climate change denialist.

We talk about what motivates climat change denialists (and the difference between being a SKEPTIC and a DENIALIST) and some of the refutations of their most common arguments.

Follow John on Twitter at @skepticscience.

Could The QLD Floods Have Been Prevented?

QLD Premier Anna Bligh has been getting a lot of positive comments over the last few days for her leadership during the flood crisis. But the question needs to be asked – could she have done more to prevent it from happening in the first place? It’s not like Brisbane hasn’t suffered massive floods in the past (as we’ve all heard repeatedly over the last couple of weeks).

I’ve copped some flack on Twitter this morning for asking the question – I was called a “cock” and told to shove some cigars up my ass by some of the less erudite members – but I think the true test of leadership isn’t when you clean up after a disaster that costs lives and billions of dollars, but when you prevent the disaster from happening in the first place.

People are dead.

Homes are destroyed.

Businesses are destroyed.

QLD taxpayers are going to have to foot a massive clean-up bill in the billions of dollars.

Could the QLD floods have been prevented?

Obviously the government can’t control the weather (I think that’s coming in IOS4.3), but they are charged with policy regarding water management and building permits in flood zones.

I don’t know anything about water management, but I have some questions.

Did the Bligh Govt do a good enough job managing the amount of water in our dams over the last year?

Did the Bligh Govt do enough to prepare homes and businesses in the flood danger zones for the possibility of major flooding over this period?

Did the Bligh Govt have the right people on the job?

“Seqwater spokesman Mike Foster said yesterday if Wivenhoe’s flood gates were opened, there should be no fears about flooding in Brisbane, because even when full, the dam retained the capacity for an additional 1,450,000 megalitres (almost three Sydney Harbours) in flood storage.” – Courier Mail, March 8, 2010. I wonder what Mike Foster is doing this week?

“Premier Anna Bligh and water managers say there will be no easing of permanent water saving measures. “We can’t be complacent and we must treat water as a precious resource not to be wasted whether our dams are 50 or 100 per cent,” Ms Bligh said.”Courier Mail, March 8, 2010. In retrospect, would better planning have allowed us to keep less reserves in the dams in the lead up to summer, meaning we wouldn’t have had to release so much overflow?

“It is expected that during a flood similar in magnitude to that experienced in 1974, Wivenhoe’s flood mitigation factor will cut flood levels by about 2m.” – Journalist Brian Williams, Courier Mail, March 8, 2010. Nine months later, the actual peak of the Brisbane River scraped in just under the 1974 peak, surprising everyone, as the general consensus for the previous few days had been that it would EXCEED the 1974 peak.

As of October, the dams were all at full or near full – and we knew it was going to be a very wet summer (Courier Mail, “Major Wet Season Tipped For QLD”, October 1, 2010) – but the myth that, in the event of another 1974-scale flood, the Wivenhoe dam would cut 2m of the river levels was still being perpetuated. I wonder who came up with that prediction and what methodology they used? Was it a myth the government wanted to believe because it relieved them from having to do anything?

Lockyer Valley farm owner, Raleigh Davey, recalling the 1974 flood, said back in August 2010 “There is a cycle sequence through drought, flood and fires and even dust storms, it is part of the Australian scene. Should another cycle cross the Coral Sea and the Toowoomba Range gets eight or 10 inches of rain, the Lockyer Creek would get a major flood. If the country is sodden wet with the storm rains, there will be a backsurge on Tenthill Creek and the council workers will be sand bagging the library, you mark my words.” (Gatton Star, 31 August, 2010).

Maybe the Premier should have listened to Farmer Davey instead of Mike Foster?

Should we have built MORE dams? Bigger dams?

(Photo of Anna Bligh from her Flickr page.)