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WHAT'S NEW IN INES? |
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No. 5/2002 |
Dateline: February 14, 2002 |
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This is the weekly electronic information service of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility
Editor: Tobias Damjanov, e-mail:
WNII is archived at: http://inesglobal.org/archive.htm
INES homepages: http://inesglobal.org http://www.inesglobal.com/
INES International Office
INES Chair: Prof. Armin Tenner [Please note that the first "1" in q18 is the number one, while the last "l" is an "L"]
CONTENTS of WNII No. 5/2002
USA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), The Sunflower, No. 57, February 2002
Back issues: http://www.wagingpeace.org/sf/backissues.html Events are listed at: http://www.wagingpeace.org/calendar/events_current.html
The February 2002 issue of The Sunflower covers the following:
To read "The Sunflower", please send an email to Carah Lynn Ong, Director of Research and Publications: < > or goto: http://www.wagingpeace.org/sf/index.html (The newsletter is also available in pdf format online)
USA: New reports and resources from the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA) http://www.comw.org/pda
UK: Scientists for Global Responsibility: Climate Change: the UK is better than the Americans, but is that good enough? (SGR Press Release, 14 February 2002
George W. Bush today [14 February 2002; the ed.] announced his plans for dealing with climate change by setting US emissions controls for greenhouse gases which are linked to economic growth - thus allowing the US to continue to increase emissions. Meanwhile, the Government here published its Energy Review, which calls for concerted efforts in the UK to improve energy efficiency and expand renewable energy in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change in the long-term.
Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) condemns the Bush Administration for producing a plan which will do very little to help tackle one of the most important environmental problems facing the world. On the UK Energy Review, SGR gives a guarded welcome. The recommendation that 20% of the UK's electricity should be supplied by renewable energy by 2020 together with targets on conserving household energy [1] is good start, but these targets could be more ambitious if more investment was directed into this area. For example, proposed increases in the UK research and development budget for renewable energy will only bring it back up to the levels of the early 1990's, and will not be that much greater than the present funding for nuclear fusion (which even optimists admit will not be economic for many decades) [2]. Further, this R&D will still be less than 1% of the annual UK R&D spending for military purposes [3]. Since renewables offer particular security advantages over fossil fuels and nuclear fission power, SGR calls for at least 10% of the military R&D budget to be redirected towards renewable energy R&D to speed the development of technologies such as solar photo-voltaics and tidal/ wave energy.
In terms of nuclear (fission) power, the Energy Review considers it important 'to keep the option open'. However, nuclear power facilities are potential terrorist targets (with potentially devastating consequences if hit by an aircraft or sabotaged by other means) [4], the nuclear industry has yet to deal effectively with its radioactive waste, and despite fifty years of research and development nuclear power plants are still not economic [5]. There is also the problem that if the UK builds new nuclear power plants, it will encourage other countries to do so with the increased probability that this could contribute to nuclear weapons proliferation. If the UK is to pursue the nuclear option, the Government must outline convincingly how it will deal with these problems.
SGR Chair, Dr Stuart Parkinson said "George Bush's climate strategy is wholly inadequate and he can learn many lessons from UK energy policy. However, the UK needs to be more ambitious in its targets for renewables and energy conservation, and it could afford to do so if it redirected finance from its mammoth military R&D budget."
Notes:
[1] The Energy Review recommends that the Government should implement a programme to increase domestic consumers' energy efficiency by 20% by 2010 and by 20% again between 2010 and 2020.
[2] Proposed increases to research and development funding for renewables will take it up to approximately £20 million a year. Annual funding in the early 1990's hovered around £20 million. Annual funding for R&D on nuclear fusion in 2000 was £14 million [International Energy Agency statistics: http://www.iea.org/stats/files/rd.htm ]
[3] Annual R&D spending by the Ministry of Defence is £2.1 billion. [Office of Science and Technology SET statistics, http://www.dti.gov.uk/ost/setstats/ ]
[4] For example, see SGR press release, 'Could terrorists turn the UK into a nuclear wasteland? http://www.sgr.org.uk/nuclear_terrorists_pr.html
[5] When construction and decommissioning costs are taken into account electricity generation costs of nuclear fission power are uneconomic, as demonstrated by fact that the UK Government wrote off these costs when the more modern nuclear power stations were privatised. As admitted by the Energy Review, this is still the case.
SPECIAL SECTION ON US MISSILE DEFENSE POLICY
"The President, the Constitution and the ABM Treaty"
This is a comment by Peter Weiss (US Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy) which examines the 1979 Goldwater v. Carter case regarding Carter's withdrawal from the mutual defense treaty with Taiwan without Congressional approval, and finds that that case does not prevent Congress from asserting its rights with respect to Bush's announced withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. Weiss' analysis concludes: "Many have questioned the wisdom of terminating the ABM treaty, both within the Congress and in the community at large. In these days of ever closer relationship between international and national affairs, Congress has a duty to examine not only the substance of the issue but also its constitutional procedural aspects, lest 'the accretion of dangerous power' take another giant step forward."
http://www.lcnp.org/disarmament/abmtreaty3.htm
Abolition 2000 homepage: http://www.abolition2000.org Grassroots News: http://www.napf.org/abolition2000/news/
Petition for a Missile Freeze online available (see WNII 4/2002:C1)
The Petition for a Missile Freeze, initialized by the Moving Beyond Missile Defense project, is online available at:
http://www.mbmd.org/missilefreezepetition.html
"Out of the Nuclear Shadow"
This is the title of an anti-nuclear handbook edited by INESAP member Zia Mian together with Smitu Kothari (Delhi: Lokayan and Rainbow, 2001; and London: Zed Books, 2001). It contains a unique collection of some 30 essays, as well as anti-nuclear statements by groups right across the region.
At the beginning of this year, a very good review of this must-read book was published in "The Hindu" which should be online at: http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/lr/2002/01/06/stories/2002010600250300.htm
(If deleted, this reviewing article is available from the WNII Editor as an rtf-formatted email attachment.)
Assessment of the Indian Nuclear Doctrine
N.D.Jayaprakash of the Delhi Science Forum has recently made available his in-depth assessment of the Draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine. The evaluation is entitled "The Sanctification of Nuclear War: Implications of the Draft "Indian" Nuclear Doctrine" and is available from the WNII Editor as an rtf-formatted email attachment.
The Draft itself is available at: http://www.meadev.nic.in/govt/indnucld.htm
David Krieger: Nuclear Weapons: What Is Our Responsibility? (posted on 11 February 2002)
1. Responsibility to recognize we have a responsibility. (Why is it that US citizens are for the most part so indifferent to this responsibility?)
2. Responsibility to understand the moral implications of complacency and silence. (Perhaps it would be easier to understand this responsibility if the question was: Gas Chambers: What is Our Responsibility? Mob Lynchings: What is Our Responsibility? Slavery: What is Our Responsibility? Global Hiroshima: What is Our Responsibility?) Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "There comes a time when silence is betrayal." We are past that time.
3. Responsibility to imagine the results of inaction. If terrorists destroyed just one city with one nuclear weapon, it would change our country and our world, perhaps irreparably. Current US policies make it likely that this will happen.
4. Responsibility to care enough to act to preserve and protect humanity, future generations and life itself.
5. Responsibility to take risks on behalf of humanity.
6. Responsibility to learn and to educate. (A good starting point for this is the Foundation's www.wagingpeace.org web site.)
7. Responsibility to say No, to protest and to demand an end to the nuclear threat.
8. Responsibility to organize and lead.
9. Responsibility to persevere.
10. Responsibility to succeed.
----- David Krieger is president of the US-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Vice-Chair of INES. He can be contacted at: < >
More on the new US Nuclear Posture Review (see also the last two WNII issues)
The US-based Natural Resources Defense Council hast just published a report at a US Senate hearing on the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) on 14 February 2002. Entitled "Faking Nuclear Restraint: The Bush Administration’s Secret Plan For Strengthening U.S. Nuclear Forces", it is available from the WNII Editor as an rtf-formatted email attachment. Along with this document goes an Excel-formatted file witch contains three tables: 1) Nuclear Forces (January 2002) 2) Nuclear Forces (end-FY 2006; conceptual) 3) Nuclear Forces (2012; conceptual)
2002 WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT NEWS
Financing for Development: "Monterrey Consensus" Draft
For the Conference at Monterrey, Mexico, 21-22 March 2002, an agreed draft text has been circulated. The document is entitled "Confronting the Challenges of Financing for Development: A Global Response", and is either available from the WNII Editor as an rtf-formatted email attachment, or from the following website: http://www.un.org/ffd
The draft "Monterrey Consensus" has the following sections:
Information Ecology Recommendations for the WSSD
The Information Ecology Caucus has made available a Preliminary Draft of Information Ecology Recommendations for the WSSD, which is available from the WNII Editor as an rtf-formatted email attachment.
NOTE: The Information Ecology Caucus is operating a mailing list, to which you can subscribe by sending a blank email message to: < >
2002 Disarmament and Arms Control Meetings
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom project "Reaching Critical Will" has made available a calendar of Intergovernmental Disarmament and Arms Control Meetings, January – December 2002, which you can find at: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/disarmcal.html
UNIDIR "disarmament forum" one/2002
"NGOs as Partners: Assessing the Impact, Recognizing the Potential" is the subject of this year's first issue of "disarmament forum" in 2002 which is published by the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.
It is available in English at: http://www.unog.ch/unidir/e-df2-1.html and in French at: http://www.unog.ch/unidir/f-df2-1.html
"Trust & Verify" No. 100/January-February 2002
The latest issue of "Trust & Verify", published by the London-based "Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC)", is a special issue devoted to the publication's 10th anniversary carrying the following:
Chemical Weapons Inspections under the Chemical Weapons Convention; by John Hart (no. 1) and
The Biological Weapons Convention Protocol: Politics, Science and Industry; by Henrietta Wilson (no. 2)
"Verification Matters", priced £10, may be ordered at: http://www.vertic.org
"Trust & Verify" can be ordered from: < >
CONFERENCES, MEETINGS, SEMINARS
Engineering Education in Sustainable Development http://www.odo.tudelft.nl/conference.html
The final programme has not been set yet but key note speakers include: Prof. Manuel Heitor (TU Lisboa), Prof. Charles Hendriks (DUT), Prof. Leo Jansen (Netherlands Sustainable Technological Development program and DUT), Prof. David Marks (MIT), and Prof. Karl-Hendrik Robért (The Natural Step and Chalmers University)
For more details, mailto:
7th International Conference on Applied Photochemistry and Solar Energy Conversion and Storage (SOLAR '03) combined with the 4th International Workshop on Environmental Photochemistry (ENPHO 2003)
For more details, contact Dr. Sabry Abdel-Mottaleb, Director, Photoenergy Centre: < > http://www.photoenergy.org
All INES e-mail addresses and homepages are available upon request from:
New email: INES EC member Prof. Matousek
INES Executive Committee member Prof. Jiri Matousek (Czech Republic) has the following new email address:
New email: INES Council member Ramona Piciu
INES Council member Ramona Piciu (Romania) has the following new email address:
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