Issue #114 | April 2012 RRP $5.50 The National Magazine of Friends of the Earth Australia www.foe.org.au ukushima fone year on • Occupy Texas Can we save the • Fighting Ferguson’s nuclear dump Murray-Darling? • A smart grid and seven energy sources • How low can uranium export policy go? 1 Chain Reaction #114 April 2012 Contents Edition #114 − April 2012 Regular items Publisher FoE Australia News 4 FoE Australia Contacts Friends of the Earth, Australia Chain Reaction ABN 81600610421 FoE Australia ABN 18110769501 FoE International News 8 inside back cover www.foe.org.au youtube.com/user/FriendsOfTheEarthAUS Features twitter.com/FoEAustralia facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-the-Earth- MURRAY-DARLING NUCLEAR POWER & FUKUSHIMA Australia/16744315982 AND RIVER RED GUMS Fighting Ferguson’s Dump 20 flickr.com/photos/foeaustralia Can we save the Natalie Wasley Chain Reaction website Murray-Darling Basin? 10 Global Conference for a www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction Jonathan La Nauze Nuclear Power Free World 22 Climate change and the Cat Beaton and Peter Watts Chain Reaction contact details Murray-Darling Plan 13 Fukushima − one year on: PO Box 222,Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065. Jamie Pittock photographs 24 email: [email protected] phone: (03) 9419 8700 River Red Gum vegetation Australia’s role in the survey project 14 Fukushima disaster 26 Chain Reaction team Aaron Eulenstein Jim Green Jim Green, Kim Stewart, Georgia Miller, Rebecca Pearse, Who is to blame for the Richard Smith, Elena McMaster, Tessa Sellar MIC CHECK: Fukushima nuclear disaster? 28 Layout & Design OCCUPY CHAIN REACTION Food irradiation push faces Tessa Sellar Occupy Texas 15 court challenge 29 Robin Taubenfeld Printing Robin Taubenfeld Occupy Mum at Occupy Sydney 18 Let the Facts Speak: an indictment Arena Printing and Publishing, Melbourne Bern Ellis of the nuclear industry 30 Printed on recycled paper Occupy Brisbane 19 How low can Australia’s uranium export policy go? 32 Subscriptions Kathy Newnam Jim Green Six issues (two years) A$33 Twelve issues (four years) A$60 See subscription ad in this issue of Chain Reaction (or see website and contact details above). Other Articles Chain Reaction is published three times a year Synthetic biology: playing A peak at Australia’s ISSN: 0312 − 1372 Lego with life 34 energy potential 41 Gregory Crocetti and Bob Phelps Mark Diesendorf Copyright: It is the coal barons, not activists, Rare earth project sparks Written material in Chain Reaction is free of copyright unless who threaten society 37 huge campaign in Malaysia 43 otherwise indicated or where material has been reprinted from another source. Please acknowledge Chain Reaction Shaun Murray Lee Tan when reprinting. A smart grid and seven Art to expose Agent The opinions expressed in Chain Reaction are not necessarily energy sources 38 Orange disaster 46 those of the publishers or any Friends of the Earth group. Giles Parkinson John Percy Chain Reaction is indexed in the Alternative Press Index. Reviews Chain Reaction Advisory Board Dirty Money – the true cost of 47 Psychology for a Better World 48 Australia’s mineral boom Karen Alexander biodiversity campaigner − Vic Greg Buckman author/researcher − Canberra Damian Grenfell Globalism Centre RMIT − Melbourne Geoff Evans sustainability researcher − Newcastle Jo Immig National Toxics Network − Bangalow, NSW Binnie O’Dwyer FoE representative − Lismore James Whelan Change Agency − Brisbane Front cover: Fukushima anniversary commemoration, Melbourne, 11 March 2011. Photo by Tim Wright. 3 Chain Reaction #114 April 2012 Chain Reaction #114 April 2012 3 Friends of the Earth (FoE) Australia is a federation of independent local groups. Friends of the Earth Online You can join FoE by contacting your local www.foe.org.au group − see the inside back cover of Chain Reaction for contact details. youtube.com/user/FriendsOfTheEarthAUS There is a monthly FoE Australia email twitter.com/FoEAustralia newsletter − subscribe via the website: www.foe.org.au facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-the-Earth-Australia/16744315982 To financially support our work, please flickr.com/photos/foeaustralia visit foe.org.au/donate Quit Coal Campaigners with FoE Melbourne’s See the article on Quit Coal campaign collective paid a p.36 of this edition visit to the office of Martin Ferguson, of Chain Reaction. federal minister for coal and uranium, earlier this year. Ferguson supports spying on green groups. Right − Quit Coal held an action to protest against a proposed brown coal mine in Bacchus Marsh on February 6. quitcoal.org.au flickr.com/ photos/quitcoal Pesticides, food and you In February, FoE published a new Detailed research was also carried out report called 'The Dose Makes The by FoE on recently published scientific Poison?' The report fills in some reports concerning pesticides and significant knowledge gaps regarding health. Pesticides regularly found on the consumption of pesticides on food Australian produce have been linked products in Australia. to possible problems with human Whilst compiling the research for this endocrine function, ADHD (Attention report it was interesting to note that Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), there is no source of information in learning and behavioural problems, Australia which clearly states which lower IQ and possible increases in foods are the most risky to eat in terms lymphoblastic leukemia in children. of pesticides and which pesticides Also of concern is that some pesticides are commonly ingested by consumers are suspected endocrine disruptors of non-organic food. It was also − chemicals that interact and disrupt interesting to note that the only state human and animal hormones which producing information concerning regulate reproduction, metabolism, pesticide residues on food was Victoria. developmental behaviour, immune In terms of published residue results, function, stress and growth. the following foods have produced The report can be purchased from the most positive pesticide detections FoE for $12 or downloaded for no over the past decade: apples (15.2% charge from foe.org.au/pesticides- of all detections), wheat (13.2%), and-toxic-chemicals strawberries (10%), pears (9.5%), Anthony Amis grapes (6.4%), and lettuces (4.1%). [email protected] 4 Chain Reaction #114 April 2012 Walking for a future In February and March, activist June Norman was joined by a growing number of people during her 29-day walk of almost 500 kms from Kumbarilla to Gladstone in Queensland. The purpose of the walk was to highlight the impacts of the coal seam gas industry on people, landscapes and climate and followed the route of a proposed gas pipeline to the port town of Gladstone. Norman said: "I've seen the impacts of the mining industry and I am really concerned, where will my grandchildren source their food and what quality will their water be? This industry needs to be slowed down and managed in a more sustainable manner." The walk was an initiative of Friends The group of walkers arrived in of the Earth and the Lock the Gate Gladstone the same day that UNESCO Alliance campaign. was meeting to assess the impacts Photos and reports: that the coal and gas industries are having on the World Heritage Listed facebook.com/groups/ Great Barrier Reef and the surrounding walk4afuture Marine Park. flickr.com/photos/foeaustralia Adele, June and Janet − Walking for a future Anti-wind power front group’s junk science Documents released in January main organisation opposing wind "The documents from NSW Health cast under a Freedom of Information (FOI) energy on health grounds, spent considerable doubts over the fear- request to NSW Health cast doubt much of 2011 lobbying state health based claims of the Waubra Foundation. on the credentials of anti-wind farm departments around the country. The assessment finds the claims of the campaigners who have been whipping Via an FOI request, FoE uncovered anti-wind energy group to be of the up fears in communities around a critical assessment of the Waubra 'lowest category of scientific evidence', the country. Foundation's claims made to the NSW and having major methodological flaws. The Waubra Foundation, a front public health authority, NSW Health. "Despite claims that the Foundation group created by Landscape Guardian Cam Walker, Friends of the Earth maintains complete independence activists, and which has become the campaigns co-ordinator, said: from advocacy groups, it shares a post office box with the Landscape Guardians. The Foundation was set up by a long term anti-wind campaigner with financial interests in oil, gas, uranium and, recently, coal." A national coalition of health groups, the Climate and Health Alliance, released a Position Statement on wind turbines and human health in January, rejecting claims that wind power poses a threat to health. The statement is posted at: www.caha.org. au/publications Contact Cam Walker for copies of the documents received under FOI: [email protected], ph (03) 9419 8700 5 www.foe.org.au Chain Reaction #114 April 2012 Chain Reaction #114 April 2012 5 Protesters given the green light in Queensland On January 20 in the Brisbane courts, a magistrate gave the green light to environmental protesters in Queensland to take action to protect the environment from coal and coal seam gas development. "This is a great day for Queensland, and a great outcome for the environment" said Derec Davies from FoE Brisbane. "Gladstone Harbour is sick, and protest action from the community has been validated today." On November 9 last year, Davies boarded and temporarily stopped the dredging in Gladstone Harbour, gaining national media attention and connecting dredging impacts to the Great Barrier Reef and the activities of Queensland's coal and coal seam gas industries. At the January 20 court hearing, there was no fine, no conviction, and Gladstone Port Corporation's $35,000 damages claim was thrown out. "The risk to the Great Barrier Reef from 34 new coal mines and four coal seam gas ports is far too high," Davies said.