[ RadSafe ] Nuclear Power/ Greenhouse Effect/ Massive African Human Impacts

[radproject at optonline.net]

Hi all,
An interesting note, copied in part below [with a hyperlink],  from Reuters about the G-8 aid package of $25 billion/year to help deal with poverty in Africa being wiped out by the impacts of the Greenhouse effect in Africa due to floods and drought.

As noted, poverty kills a child every 10 seconds in Africa [to be made worse by the impacts of global warming], while organizations like Greenpeace lobby to shut down exiting nuclear plants, and stop new nuclear power plants. Anti-nuclear groups base their opposition on claims of small health effects 10,000 years in the future due to waste disposal from supposed problems like trivial radiation doses integrated over time and space, while children will be dying in Africa at the rate of millions per year.   

As noted in the excerpt below, the poorest nations in the world will suffer the greatest impacts from the Greenhouse Effect and organizations like Greenpeace with their knee-jerk dogmatic opposition to nuclear energy are dooming millions of poor people in Africa and elsewhere to death. We are witnessing the ultimate in hypocrisy where organizations like Greenpeace and unfortunately many other groups pose as being concerned about "public health" and the environment while their actions maximize health impacts and environmental impact.

Unfortunately, the antics of Greenpeace are clever propaganda and are given wide coverage by the media since they make for an "interesting",  superficial story with a good photo as provided to the list by Jaro in a prior post. What a tragedy.

Stewart Farber, MSPH [Air Pollution Control]
Consulting Scientist
=======================
EXCERPT FROM REUTERS 10/26/05

Africa Aid to be Eaten by Climate Change - Scientist 

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33111/story.htm 

"The mounting scientific evidence shows that the consequences of global climate change are the biggest single threat facing the world today," he said. 

G8 leaders -- under the presidency of British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- agreed at their July summit in the Scottish golfing resort to spend $25 billion a year more on Africa where poverty kills a child every 10 seconds. 

They also agreed to take a series of measures to tackle globl warming which scientists predict will put millions of lives at risk -- mainly on the poorest countries -- through increased incidence of floods and drought and rising sea levels. 

However, while acknowledging -- very reluctantly in the case of the United States -- that human activities like burning fossil fuels were a major contributor to emissions of greenhouse gases, they failed to set any targets or deadlines for action. 

Since then, the United States -- which rejected the Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gas emissions -- has set about building an alternative grouping, and there are signs world leaders are contemplating nuclear power as a source of energy. 

May said the time for inaction was long over -- noting the massive destruction wrought by hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma -- the former alone estimated to have cost $200 billion in damages. 

"In short, the scientific evidence now presents a more compelling case than ever before for tackling the threat from climate change by stopping the rise of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere," he wrote, highlighting the potentially devastating impact on Africa -- the world's poorest continent.