“The best thing you could do for the Amazon is to blow up all the roads.” These might sound like the words of an eco-terrorist, but it’s actually a direct quote from Professor Eneas Salati, a forest climatologist and one of Brazil’s most respected scientists.

Many scientists share Salati’s anxieties because we’re living in the most explosive era of road expansion in human history.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that by 2050 we will have 60% more roads than we did in 2010. That’s about 25 million kilometres of new paved roads – enough to circle the Earth more than 600 times.

In new research published today in Nature, we’ve developed a global ‘roadmap’ of where to put those roads to avoid damaging the environment. Our maps are also available to the public on a new website.

Roads today are proliferating virtually everywhere – for exploiting timber, minerals, oil and natural gas; for promoting regional trade and development; and for building burgeoning networks of energy infrastructure such as hydroelectric dams, power lines and gas lines.

Security and development versus biodiversity

Even national security and paranoia play a role. The first major roads built in the Brazilian Amazon were motivated by fears that Colombia or the US might try to annex the Amazon and steal its valuable natural resources.

India’s current spate of road building along its northern frontier is all about defending its disputed territories from an increasingly strident China.

According to the IEA, around nine-tenths of new roads will be built in developing nations, which sustain the most biologically important ecosystems on Earth, such as tropical and subtropical rainforests and wildlife-rich savanna-woodlands.

Crucially, such environments also store billions of tonnes of carbon, harbour hundreds of indigenous cultures, and have a major stabilizing influence on the global climate.

‘Killer roads’ open up forests for logging, farms and hunting

Why are roads regarded as disasters for nature?

Far too often, when a new road cuts into a forest or wilderness, illegal poachers, miners, loggers or land speculators quickly invade – unleashing a Pandora’s box of environmental problems.

For instance, my colleagues and I recently found that 95% of all forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon has occurred within 5 kilometres of roads. Other research has shown that major forest fires spike sharply within a few dozen kilometres of Amazon roads.

Notably, we also found that many Amazonian roads are illegal – for every kilometre of legal road, there were three kilometres of illegal roads.

The Congo Basin is reeling from a spree of forest-road building by industrial loggers, with over 50,000 kilometres of new roads bulldozed into the rainforest in recent years.

This has opened up the forest to a tsunami of hunting. The toll on wildlife has been appalling; in the last decade, for instance, around two-thirds of all forest elephants have been slaughtered for their valuable ivory tusks.

In Peru, a new highway slicing across the western Amazon has led to a massive influx of illegal gold miners into formerly pristine rainforests, turning them into virtual moonscapes and polluting entire river systems with the toxic mercury they use to separate the gold from river sediments.

The first cut is the cruellest

Many road researchers believe the only safe way to protect a wilderness is by ‘avoiding the first cut’ – keeping it road free. This is because an initial road opens up a forest to deforestation, which then spreads contagiously, like a series of tumors.

And that cancer quickly grows. An initial road slicing into a wilderness typically spawns a network of secondary and tertiary roads, allowing deforestation to easily metastasise.

For instance, the first major highway in the Amazon – completed in the early 1970s to link the cities of Belem and Brasilia – was initially just a razor-thin cut through the forest. Today, that narrow incision has grown into a 400-kilometre-wide slash of forest destruction across the entire eastern Amazon.

And yet, for all the environmental perils of roads, they are also an indispensable part of modern societies. Most economists love roads – seeing them as a cost-effective way to promote economic growth, encourage regional trade and provide access to natural resources and land suitable for agriculture.

How do we balance these two competing realities – between road lovers aspiring for wealth and social development, and road fearers hoping to avoid ecological Armageddon?

For those who want to know, a global roadmap

This vexing question has been the focus of a talented group of researchers I‘ve been leading over the past two years, from Harvard, Cambridge, Melbourne, Minnesota, Sheffield and James Cook Universities and the Conservation Strategy Fund.

Our scheme has two components. The first is a map that attempts to illustrate the natural values of all ecosystems worldwide. We built this map by combining data on biodiversity, endangered species, rare habitats, critical wilderness areas, and vital ecosystem services across the Earth.

We added in parks and other protected areas, as these are also high priorities for nature conservation.

The second component is a road-benefits map. It shows where roads could have the greatest benefits for humankind, especially for increasing food production.

Focusing on food is vital because, with continuing rapid population growth and changing human diets, global food demand is expected to double by 2050.

With roads, more food is grown, and reaches those that need it

Roads affect food because large expanses of the planet – especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and expanses of Asia and Latin America – are populated by small-scale farmers who produce much less food than they could if they had new or better roads.

Such roads could give them ready access to fertilizers, modern farming methods and urban markets to sell their crops.

In these regions most of the native vegetation has already been cleared, so intensifying farming shouldn’t have major environmental costs. In these contexts, new or better roads (along with other investments in modern farming methods) are a key way to help struggling farmers to boost their productivity.

A potential bonus of this strategy is that, as farming becomes more productive and rural livelihoods more prosperous, regions with better roads tend to act as ‘magnets’ – attracting people from elsewhere, such as the margins of vulnerable forests.

In this way, investing in better roads in appropriate areas can help to focus and intensify farming, accelerating food production while hopefully helping to spare other lands for nature conservation.

Conflict zones, but reasons to hope

By intersecting our environmental-values and road-benefits maps, we have estimated the relative risks and rewards of road building for Earth’s entire land surface – some 13.3 billion hectares in total.

In our map, green-toned areas are priorities for conservation where roads should be avoided if possible, and red-toned areas are priorities for agriculture.

Dark-toned areas are ‘conflict zones’ – where environmental and agricultural priorities are likely to clash. Light-coloured areas are lower priorities for both environment and farming.

The good news is that there are substantial areas of the planet where agriculture can be improved with modest environmental costs.

But there are also massive conflict zones – in Sub-Saharan Africa, expanses of Central and South America, and much of the Asia-Pacific region, among others. These hotbeds of conflict often occur where human population growth is rapid and there are many locally endemic species – those with small geographic ranges that are especially vulnerable to intensive development.

A global plan for road expansion – in the right places

Our global roadmap is, admittedly, an exceedingly ambitious effort. Yet our hope is that our strategy can be incorporated with finer-scale local information to help inform and improve planning decisions at national and regional scales.

Our effort is a first step toward a vital goal: a global plan for road expansion. We’re not so naïve as to believe everyone will immediately adopt it, but such efforts are unquestionably a crucial priority.

There is precious little time to lose if we don’t want to see the world’s last wild places overwhelmed by an onslaught of roads, destructive development and the roar of fast-moving vehicles.

Bill Laurance is Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate at James Cook University. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council and other scientific and philanthropic organisations. In addition to his appointment as Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate at James Cook University, he also holds the Prince Bernhard Chair in International Nature Conservation at Utrecht University, Netherlands. This chair is co-sponsored by Utrecht University and WWF-Netherlands.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Climate Engineering Conference 2014 (CEC-14) was recently held to discuss technologies for deliberately counteracting climate change.

These include Solar Radiation Management (SRM), for example, adding sulphates to the stratosphere like a volcano, to reflect sunlight; and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) techniques – such as planting new forests to draw down CO₂ from the atmosphere.

These technologies would allow us to exercise a degree of direct control over the climate. Unsurprisingly, the potential exercise of this God-like power is highly controversial.

Advocates say we need to be deploying these technologies urgently to save Earth from catastrophe. For opponents, they are a ‘get out of jail free’ card that would allow a business as usual approach to the profligate burning of fossil fuels, and carry huge risks of their own.

This background of controversy was no surprise to conference participants, who are well-aware that wider opinion of geoengineering is split along logical and ideological fault lines.

Delegates’ big surprise – a ready-made declaration

However knowledge of the necessary methods cannot be erased, so Pandora’s box is already open. Tough choices have to be made about what will be permitted – from basic scientific research to full deployment.

Studying this new-found power is now an important academic endeavour, and both public and academic interest is growing rapidly. CEC-14 was the first public scientific conference in the growing field of climate engineering, and similar events will likely follow.

As an academic discipline, geoengineering is here to stay. As a potential policy option, it is being carefully and publically scrutinised by experts. But sadly, that’s not the story the media reported.

What attracted journalists’ attention – and astonished delegates – was having a controversial document thrust into their hands after one of the first plenary sessions.

Demanding yet more restrictions on experimentation

This text, which became known as the ‘Berlin Declaration’, was not a draft from the conference organisers. Instead, it was a ready-made edict, promoted by attendees from the Oxford Martin School – an offshoot of Oxford University, which concerns itself with the study of socially challenging technologies and trends.

This so-called ‘declaration’ demanded yet another review process on experiments. This would further restrict a field that is already so tightly regulated that almost no faculty researchers have managed to do any outdoor experimentation at all.

In the opinion of many delegates, its effect would be to impose a de facto ‘test ban’ on most geoengineering experiments.

The assembled academics were understandably rattled by these events. A fully-formed ‘declaration’ had appeared. It seemingly awaited only a nod-through before becoming a concrete piece of governance, forever associated with the conference.

Moreover the ‘declaration’ came against a background of much pre-existing restriction on experimentation. Obviously, scientists can’t release a new superbug in a stadium, just to see what happens.

What’s less obvious is that there is a complex system of approvals for many types of experiment. This ensures that both obvious and concealed risks are carefully considered, whenever potentially-dangerous research is proposed.

We need responsible research – not a ban

In practice, this means that even completely harmless experiments in a scary-sounding field such as geoengineering are often nightmarishly difficult to get clearance for.

As Cambridge University’s SPICE project (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering) showed, even squirting a bathtub of ordinary water out of a hosepipe can be pretty controversial if you say the ‘g-word’ anywhere near it.

Other examples of similar controversies exist, with Ocean Iron Fertilisation (OIF) trials being a notable example. In fact, perhaps the most controversial ‘experiment’ – which involved fertilising the ocean with iron – came from outside the mainstream scientific process.

Regardless of whether one is hopeful about geoengineering or not, it’s reasonable to suggest that careful research might be a good idea. Without testing, we lack important practical knowledge, and without that knowledge, we have less ability to appraise the technology, or use it safely.

A test ban would be a very big deal indeed, especially if the banning text ruled out tiny, harmless experiments, as well as big, risky ones. Deliberately closing the door on scientific research would be essentially unprecedented, and this caused significant concern among delegates.

It’s possible that some believed that a new tier of regulation would have the opposite effect, instead facilitating responsible experimentation with a clear and dependable public process. However, this was certainly not a view which was shared widely enough to result in general support for the draft.

Sloppy journalism distorting the truth

A small uproar ensured. When scientists are in uproar, it is often barely detectable to the outside world, as they are polite people. This fretting turned into a ‘Town Hall Meeting’ – an opportunity to criticise the proposals in a thorough, public way.

This would leave the proposers in no doubt about the strength of feeling. The real story should have been this effective demonstration of good governance. But that was also not the story the media reported. As a result of some sloppy journalism, the news hit the internet in a form that was utterly mangled.

The draft declaration was wrongly attributed to the Royal Society – a body which has produced what is probably the World’s seminal report on Geoengineering. What the Royal Society thinks matters. The most influential scientific organisation in the World on the issue of geoengineering was now calling for a de facto test ban. Except it wasn’t.

This newly-invented story also needed a soundbite, and the ‘Berlin Declaration’ was born – despite the fact that the text hadn’t been declared, didn’t originate from a Berlin group, and didn’t contain the word ‘Berlin’.

The name of this sombre-sounding edict was reported and re-reported, as the story took on a life of its own. All this happened without anybody declaring anything, and with the Royal Society having had nothing to do with it at all.

Exciting-but-false stories are hard to replace with dull-but true ones. The true story of the landmark conference and its sensible scrutiny process was relegated to article corrections.

Even the shining beacon of ‘Science‘ magazine had to eat its words. But the original stories, not the corrections, are what will have had the most impact.

Meanwhile, they missed the real story

The Town Hall meeting duly arrived. Senior scientists voiced concerns about many things: how anyone would know what was or wasn’t a ‘geoengineering experiment’; why we needed to have a new tier of regulation on something that is almost regulated out of existence anyway; and why delegates from the Oxford Martin School had turned up at an international conference and promoted a pre-drafted text outside of the formal conference process.

As a result of this public, transparent and logical scrutiny, the proposal died – and nobody declared anything. This story of self-regulation is not as interesting as a formidable-sounding declaration. So that was not the story the media reported.

Without being declared, a ‘declaration’ is therefore no such thing. The grandly-misnamed ‘Berlin Declaration’ left the conference in the way it came – as just a piece of paper.

Despite this, the scientists left the conference just as tied down by the onerous approvals process as they always were. And still, global warming continues – for which we have no effective strategy in place. That is the story. But it is not what the media reported.

So is this all over? Possibly not – because bad reporting can grow legs and walk around. Even without a declaration, people may read and remember the stories, and not the corrections. They may decide that further regulation is A Good Thing. They may then join pressure groups because of it, ask politicians for it, and vote because of it – all in spite of the facts.

As a result, we may lack crucial information on geoengineering. It may end up being deployed in ignorance by future leaders – and may cause chaos as a result.

Let’s hope that’s not the story.

Andrew Lockley is an independent consultant and researcher interested in geoengineering. His current research focuses on the areas of ballistics for SRM particle delivery, methane geoengineering, and the use of computer games to research public opinions.

As aftershocks of the 6.0 Napa earthquake that occurred Sunday in California continued, the Associated Press revealed a secret government report pointing to major earthquake vulnerabilities at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants which are a little more than 200 miles away and sitting amid a webwork of earthquake faults.

It’s apparent to any visitor to the stretch of California where the two Diablo Canyon plants are sited that it is geologically hot. A major tourist feature of the area: hot spas.

“Welcome to the Avila Hot Springs”, declares the website of one, noting how “historic Avila Hot Springs” was “discovered in 1907 by at the time unlucky oil drillers and established” as a “popular visitor-serving natural artesian mineral hot springs.”

Nevertheless, Pacific Gas & Electric had no problem in 1965 picking the area along the California coast, north of Avila Beach, as a location for two nuclear plants.

Geology rocks!

It was known that the San Andreas Fault was inland 45 miles away. But in 1971, with construction already under way, oil company geologists discovered another earthquake fault – the Hosgri Fault, just three miles out in the Pacific from the plant site and linked to the San Andreas Fault.

In 2008 yet another fault was discovered, the Shoreline Fault – just 650 yards from the Diablo Canyon plants.

The Shoreline Fault, and concerns about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to earthquakes in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, are integral to a 42-page report written by Dr. Michael Peck.

For five years Peck was the lead inspector on-site for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at Diablo Canyon. He’s still with the NRC, a trainer at its Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Peck’s report was obtained by the Associated Press, which has done excellent journalism in recent years investigating the dangers of nuclear power, and they issued their story on Monday. In the report

Peck writes: “The new seismic information resulted in a condition outside of the bounds of the existing Diablo Canyon design basis and safety analysis. Continued reactor operation outside the bounds of the NRC approved safety analyses challenges the presumption of nuclear safety.”

“The Shoreline [Fault] Scenario results in SSC [acronym in the nuclear field for Structures, Systems and Components] seismic stress beyond the plant SSE [Safe Shutdown Earthquake] qualification basis. Exposure to higher levels of stress results in an increase[d] likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs. The change also increases the likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs important to safety…”

A ‘reasonable assurance of safety’?

Peck notes that the “prevailing” NRC staff view is that “potential ground motions from the Shoreline fault are at or below those levels for which the plant was previously evaluated and demonstrated to have a ‘reasonable assurance of safety’.”

He disagrees, noting that the NRC staff “also failed to address the Los Osos and San Luis Bay faults”, faults that the Shoreline Fault are seen as potentially interacting with, and that “new seismic information” concludes that “these faults were also capable of producing ground motions.”

In addition, “The prevailing staff view that ‘operability’ may be demonstrated independent of existing facility design basis and safety analyses requirements establishes a new industry precedent. Power reactor licensees may apply this precedent to other nonconforming and unanalyzed conditions.”

“What’s striking about Peck’s analysis”, says AP, “is that it comes from within the NRC itself, and gives a rare look at a dispute within the agency. At issue are whether the plant’s mechanical guts could survive a big jolt, and what yardsticks should be used to measure the ability of the equipment to withstand the potentially strong vibrations that could result.”

It continues: “Environmentalists have long depicted Diablo Canyon – the state’s last nuclear plant after the 2013 closure of the San Onofre reactors in Southern California – as a nuclear catastrophe in waiting.

“In many ways, the history of the plant, located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco … and within 50 miles of 500,000 people, has been a costly fight against nature, involving questions and repairs connected to its design and structural strength.”

Nuclear secrecy

Calling the Peck report “explosive”, the environmental group Friends of the Earth this week described it as having been “kept secret for a year.”

According to Damon Moglen, senior strategy advisor at Friends of the Earth, “Inspector Peck is the canary in the coal mine, warning us of a possible catastrophe at Diablo Canyon before it’s too late. We agree with him that Diablo Canyon is vulnerable to earthquakes and must be shut down immediately.”

“Given the overwhelming risk of earthquakes, federal and state authorities would never allow nuclear reactors on this site now. Are PG&E and the NRC putting the industry’s profits before the health and safety of millions of Californians.”

“Rather than the NRC keeping this a secret, there must be a thorough investigation with public hearings to determine whether these reactors can operate safely.”

Can Diablo Canyon survive an earthquake?

Michael Mariotte, president of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, commented Monday that in “plain English” what Peck’s report acknowledges is:

“The NRC does not know whether Diablo Canyon could survive an earthquake, within the realm of the possible, at any of the faults around Diablo Canyon. And the reactors should shut down until the NRC does know one way or the other.

“Of course, if the reactors cannot survive a postulated earthquake, the obvious conclusion is that they must close permanently. The question is whether the NRC will ever act on Peck’s recommendation or whether the agency will continue to sit on it until after the next earthquake.”

Mariotte adds: “The irony is that this should have been the big news a year ago; Peck wrote his recommendation – in the form of a formal Differing Professional Opionion – in July 2013. And the NRC still hasn’t taken action or even responded to it.”

In his report Peck also states that the NRC is supposed to be committed to a “standard of safety” and “safety means avoiding undue risk or providing reasonable assurance of adequate protection for the public.”

PG&E’s response? Apply to extend the licenses

Meanwhile, PG&E has not only been insisting that its Diablo Canyon plants are safe, despite the earthquake threat, but has filed with the NRC to extend the 40 year licenses given for their operations another 20 years – to 2044 for Diablo Canyon 1 and to 2045 for Diablo Canyon 2.

An analysis done in 1982 by Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC, titled ‘Calculations for Reactor Accident Consequences 2‘, evaluated the impacts of a meltdown with “breach of containment” at every nuclear plant in the US – what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants as a result of an earthquake.

For the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants, it projected 10,000 “peak early fatalities” for each of the plants and $155 billion in property damages for Diablo Canyon 1 and $158 billion for Diablo Canyon 2 – in 1980 dollars.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

You have to hand it to Natural England. Their timing of their authorisation for 2014 badger cull was nothing short of extraordinary.

It comes just as the High Court ponders its judgment on the legality of the cull, following a Judicial Review hearing last week called by the Badger Trust.

It also pre-empts the outcome of a criminal investigation by Gloucestershire Police following serious revelations by a whistle-blowing monitor employed by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA).

As reported on 14th August by The Ecologist, the monitor revealed that last year’s pilot badger culls were not only badly organised – they were also full of dishonesty on the part of all those setting up and running the culls, and criminal behaviour on the part of the contractors doing the killing, seriously threatening the safety of the public.

Why the 2014 cull is unlawful

The Badger Trust set out a powerful case in the High Court last week, on 21st August, that any further culling must have independent monitoring and assessment, and would be unlawful in its absence.

This service was provided in the 2013 cull by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) – but Defra decided against asking them back this year. Instead, Defra has stated it will proceed with the culls without them, and that “lessons have been learned” – so no more monitoring is necessary.

How much time the Defra barrister had to present its defence is not clear. The hearing was scheduled to take a day and as this was just before a Bank Holiday weekend, no one would want it to run over time, including the man who has to decide on the case, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker.

During the morning session, it was clear that the Trust’s barrister was making extensive use of Defra’s own documentation on the culls. Was there anything left for Defra to use in its defence? And could any other facts affect the judgment that will come in due course? As it happened, yes.

The whistle blower report raises serious questions – and a criminal investigation

The very day after the High Court hearing the news was released that Gloucester Police were setting up a criminal investigation, following the claims made by the whistle-blower, more details of which are gradually being released.

If anything should demand proper independent monitoring, it is surely the kind of behaviour that the monitor reported to Defra, which appears to have taken little or no action over the claims.

The Badger Trust had written to Environment Secretary Liz Truss when the whistle-blower report first came out. Like everyone, they want some answers:

“As you will be aware, this article was based on information provided by a whistle blower who worked as a cull monitor for AHVLA during the 2013 pilot culls. It raises serious concerns about the behaviour of both badger cullers and AHVLA contractors, which call into question the safety of the cull as well as the monitoring of its effectiveness.

“We would be grateful if you could confirm if you were aware of these allegations and identify what steps Defra took at the time this information was provided to investigate, including whether it was passed to the Independent Expert Panel for consideration? Please also confirm what measures have been put in place to prevent any such occurrences happening again?”

The Trust is still waiting for answers, but Gloucester Police are finally taking some action over the public safety issue. What took them so long?

Only protestors were arrested – but none charged

Gloucester Against Badger Shooting (GABS) sent them a ‘specimen’ list of 26 incidents of wrongdoing by culling contractors in January.

The list details trespass, physical harassment of protesters (including at least one case of bodily injury) by contractors, and several firearms offences and gun licence infringements. Many of these were reported at the time of the offence to the police.

Gloucester Police did make 39 arrests during the cull, all of them involving protesters, none of whom ended up in court. The same unbalanced policing occurred in Somerset.

Were any contractors in either county arrested, questioned and charged? Not as far as we know. And serious questions have to be asked. As Dominic Dyer of the Badger Trust says:

“The AHVLA monitor provided a full report on the serious public safety breaches by the cull contractor to Defra in January and met with Defra officials to discuss its key findings.

“Did Owen Paterson see this report and if so why did he not bring it to the attention of the Independent Expert Panel and Parliament? Was it covered up to ensure the pilot culls could continue despite the serious risk to public safety?”

Anti-cull campaigners have often said that they feel the police were very uninformed over what contractors could or couldn’t do, what constituted ‘crimes’ and ‘offences’ and when they could, for instance, make arrests.

But as The Ecologist has made clear, this is a serious public safety issue, and one that needs to be urgently addressed before any more culling takes place.

SABC – police and Natural England must review the evidence

In their press release about the criminal investigation, Somerset Against the Badger Cull (SABC) say they are now asking both Avon and Somerset Police and Natural England to “review all the video, audio and written recordings from the AHVLA monitors from last year.” They feel, as many do, that the government is not to be trusted over the safety issue.

SABC “congratulates Gloucestershire police in taking this matter seriously and urges Avon and Somerset Constabulary to apply the same rigour before shooters such as these are let loose in our countryside again.”

Avon & Somerset have already announced that in future culls representatives of the National Farmers Union and the culling company HNV Associates Ltd will not be present in the police control room, something that caused outrage when it became known.

But it was one more sign that the setting up of the culls had been a shambles; that the people involved were poorly trained; that no proper safety assessments had been done; and very that little thought had been given to the role the police were expected to fulfil.

The police have failed – so far

The police are there to prevent crime, to investigate wrongdoing and arrest the perpetrators, and to protect the public from criminal behaviour.

They had been given so little information that they were unable to perform any of these duties during the cull. Adding to the problem they had received the impression (from both Defra, the NFU and the contracting companies) that anything the contractors did was lawful.

The second phase of the badger culls was supposed to have started this week. Things are on hold. The culls cannot be policed because of the NATO summit in Newport, which will require 9,000 of their officers to be on duty.

And will the government be foolhardy enough to go ahead without waiting for the result of the Judicial Review? Given their sheer arrogance, they may go ahead. But a wise man or woman, which the government apparently lacks, would wait.

And now Natural England gives the go-ahead

Surely now, before any further badger culling takes place, the issue of public safety must be faced and addressed by the government.

To have irresponsible gunmen, using high-powered rifles with bullets that can travel up to a mile with lethal effect and with little apparent knowledge of either our wildlife or the terrain within which they are operating, arrogantly bumbling out of control in the dark is simply not to be allowed.

Under such circumstances the police cannot ensure public safety and they need to make that clear to the government before someone gets shot.

And now that Natural England has issued its authorisations for the 2014 culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire, that could be sooner than we thought.

NE insists that Defra and the AHVLA have developed a robust monitoring regime. They appear not to have noticed that the whistle-blower was employed by the AHVLA.

To announce this just after the whistle-blower revelations; while the Judicial Review judgment is still to come; and when the police investigation has only just started demonstrates all too clearly how keen Natural England, Defra and their affiliates are to kill, regardless.

It’s enough to make me weep.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist on the badger cull and other environmental subjects.

See her other articles for The Ecologist.

The Climate Engineering Conference 2014 (CEC-14) was recently held to discuss technologies for deliberately counteracting climate change.

These include Solar Radiation Management (SRM), for example, adding sulphates to the stratosphere like a volcano, to reflect sunlight; and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) techniques – such as planting new forests to draw down CO₂ from the atmosphere.

These technologies would allow us to exercise a degree of direct control over the climate. Unsurprisingly, the potential exercise of this God-like power is highly controversial.

Advocates say we need to be deploying these technologies urgently to save Earth from catastrophe. For opponents, they are a ‘get out of jail free’ card that would allow a business as usual approach to the profligate burning of fossil fuels, and carry huge risks of their own.

This background of controversy was no surprise to conference participants, who are well-aware that wider opinion of geoengineering is split along logical and ideological fault lines.

Delegates’ big surprise – a ready-made declaration

However knowledge of the necessary methods cannot be erased, so Pandora’s box is already open. Tough choices have to be made about what will be permitted – from basic scientific research to full deployment.

Studying this new-found power is now an important academic endeavour, and both public and academic interest is growing rapidly. CEC-14 was the first public scientific conference in the growing field of climate engineering, and similar events will likely follow.

As an academic discipline, geoengineering is here to stay. As a potential policy option, it is being carefully and publically scrutinised by experts. But sadly, that’s not the story the media reported.

What attracted journalists’ attention – and astonished delegates – was having a controversial document thrust into their hands after one of the first plenary sessions.

Demanding yet more restrictions on experimentation

This text, which became known as the ‘Berlin Declaration’, was not a draft from the conference organisers. Instead, it was a ready-made edict, promoted by attendees from the Oxford Martin School – an offshoot of Oxford University, which concerns itself with the study of socially challenging technologies and trends.

This so-called ‘declaration’ demanded yet another review process on experiments. This would further restrict a field that is already so tightly regulated that almost no faculty researchers have managed to do any outdoor experimentation at all.

In the opinion of many delegates, its effect would be to impose a de facto ‘test ban’ on most geoengineering experiments.

The assembled academics were understandably rattled by these events. A fully-formed ‘declaration’ had appeared. It seemingly awaited only a nod-through before becoming a concrete piece of governance, forever associated with the conference.

Moreover the ‘declaration’ came against a background of much pre-existing restriction on experimentation. Obviously, scientists can’t release a new superbug in a stadium, just to see what happens.

What’s less obvious is that there is a complex system of approvals for many types of experiment. This ensures that both obvious and concealed risks are carefully considered, whenever potentially-dangerous research is proposed.

We need responsible research – not a ban

In practice, this means that even completely harmless experiments in a scary-sounding field such as geoengineering are often nightmarishly difficult to get clearance for.

As Cambridge University’s SPICE project (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering) showed, even squirting a bathtub of ordinary water out of a hosepipe can be pretty controversial if you say the ‘g-word’ anywhere near it.

Other examples of similar controversies exist, with Ocean Iron Fertilisation (OIF) trials being a notable example. In fact, perhaps the most controversial ‘experiment’ – which involved fertilising the ocean with iron – came from outside the mainstream scientific process.

Regardless of whether one is hopeful about geoengineering or not, it’s reasonable to suggest that careful research might be a good idea. Without testing, we lack important practical knowledge, and without that knowledge, we have less ability to appraise the technology, or use it safely.

A test ban would be a very big deal indeed, especially if the banning text ruled out tiny, harmless experiments, as well as big, risky ones. Deliberately closing the door on scientific research would be essentially unprecedented, and this caused significant concern among delegates.

It’s possible that some believed that a new tier of regulation would have the opposite effect, instead facilitating responsible experimentation with a clear and dependable public process. However, this was certainly not a view which was shared widely enough to result in general support for the draft.

Sloppy journalism distorting the truth

A small uproar ensured. When scientists are in uproar, it is often barely detectable to the outside world, as they are polite people. This fretting turned into a ‘Town Hall Meeting’ – an opportunity to criticise the proposals in a thorough, public way.

This would leave the proposers in no doubt about the strength of feeling. The real story should have been this effective demonstration of good governance. But that was also not the story the media reported. As a result of some sloppy journalism, the news hit the internet in a form that was utterly mangled.

The draft declaration was wrongly attributed to the Royal Society – a body which has produced what is probably the World’s seminal report on Geoengineering. What the Royal Society thinks matters. The most influential scientific organisation in the World on the issue of geoengineering was now calling for a de facto test ban. Except it wasn’t.

This newly-invented story also needed a soundbite, and the ‘Berlin Declaration’ was born – despite the fact that the text hadn’t been declared, didn’t originate from a Berlin group, and didn’t contain the word ‘Berlin’.

The name of this sombre-sounding edict was reported and re-reported, as the story took on a life of its own. All this happened without anybody declaring anything, and with the Royal Society having had nothing to do with it at all.

Exciting-but-false stories are hard to replace with dull-but true ones. The true story of the landmark conference and its sensible scrutiny process was relegated to article corrections.

Even the shining beacon of ‘Science‘ magazine had to eat its words. But the original stories, not the corrections, are what will have had the most impact.

Meanwhile, they missed the real story

The Town Hall meeting duly arrived. Senior scientists voiced concerns about many things: how anyone would know what was or wasn’t a ‘geoengineering experiment’; why we needed to have a new tier of regulation on something that is almost regulated out of existence anyway; and why delegates from the Oxford Martin School had turned up at an international conference and promoted a pre-drafted text outside of the formal conference process.

As a result of this public, transparent and logical scrutiny, the proposal died – and nobody declared anything. This story of self-regulation is not as interesting as a formidable-sounding declaration. So that was not the story the media reported.

Without being declared, a ‘declaration’ is therefore no such thing. The grandly-misnamed ‘Berlin Declaration’ left the conference in the way it came – as just a piece of paper.

Despite this, the scientists left the conference just as tied down by the onerous approvals process as they always were. And still, global warming continues – for which we have no effective strategy in place. That is the story. But it is not what the media reported.

So is this all over? Possibly not – because bad reporting can grow legs and walk around. Even without a declaration, people may read and remember the stories, and not the corrections. They may decide that further regulation is A Good Thing. They may then join pressure groups because of it, ask politicians for it, and vote because of it – all in spite of the facts.

As a result, we may lack crucial information on geoengineering. It may end up being deployed in ignorance by future leaders – and may cause chaos as a result.

Let’s hope that’s not the story.

Andrew Lockley is an independent consultant and researcher interested in geoengineering. His current research focuses on the areas of ballistics for SRM particle delivery, methane geoengineering, and the use of computer games to research public opinions.

As aftershocks of the 6.0 Napa earthquake that occurred Sunday in California continued, the Associated Press revealed a secret government report pointing to major earthquake vulnerabilities at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants which are a little more than 200 miles away and sitting amid a webwork of earthquake faults.

It’s apparent to any visitor to the stretch of California where the two Diablo Canyon plants are sited that it is geologically hot. A major tourist feature of the area: hot spas.

“Welcome to the Avila Hot Springs”, declares the website of one, noting how “historic Avila Hot Springs” was “discovered in 1907 by at the time unlucky oil drillers and established” as a “popular visitor-serving natural artesian mineral hot springs.”

Nevertheless, Pacific Gas & Electric had no problem in 1965 picking the area along the California coast, north of Avila Beach, as a location for two nuclear plants.

Geology rocks!

It was known that the San Andreas Fault was inland 45 miles away. But in 1971, with construction already under way, oil company geologists discovered another earthquake fault – the Hosgri Fault, just three miles out in the Pacific from the plant site and linked to the San Andreas Fault.

In 2008 yet another fault was discovered, the Shoreline Fault – just 650 yards from the Diablo Canyon plants.

The Shoreline Fault, and concerns about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to earthquakes in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, are integral to a 42-page report written by Dr. Michael Peck.

For five years Peck was the lead inspector on-site for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at Diablo Canyon. He’s still with the NRC, a trainer at its Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Peck’s report was obtained by the Associated Press, which has done excellent journalism in recent years investigating the dangers of nuclear power, and they issued their story on Monday. In the report

Peck writes: “The new seismic information resulted in a condition outside of the bounds of the existing Diablo Canyon design basis and safety analysis. Continued reactor operation outside the bounds of the NRC approved safety analyses challenges the presumption of nuclear safety.”

“The Shoreline [Fault] Scenario results in SSC [acronym in the nuclear field for Structures, Systems and Components] seismic stress beyond the plant SSE [Safe Shutdown Earthquake] qualification basis. Exposure to higher levels of stress results in an increase[d] likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs. The change also increases the likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs important to safety…”

A ‘reasonable assurance of safety’?

Peck notes that the “prevailing” NRC staff view is that “potential ground motions from the Shoreline fault are at or below those levels for which the plant was previously evaluated and demonstrated to have a ‘reasonable assurance of safety’.”

He disagrees, noting that the NRC staff “also failed to address the Los Osos and San Luis Bay faults”, faults that the Shoreline Fault are seen as potentially interacting with, and that “new seismic information” concludes that “these faults were also capable of producing ground motions.”

In addition, “The prevailing staff view that ‘operability’ may be demonstrated independent of existing facility design basis and safety analyses requirements establishes a new industry precedent. Power reactor licensees may apply this precedent to other nonconforming and unanalyzed conditions.”

“What’s striking about Peck’s analysis”, says AP, “is that it comes from within the NRC itself, and gives a rare look at a dispute within the agency. At issue are whether the plant’s mechanical guts could survive a big jolt, and what yardsticks should be used to measure the ability of the equipment to withstand the potentially strong vibrations that could result.”

It continues: “Environmentalists have long depicted Diablo Canyon – the state’s last nuclear plant after the 2013 closure of the San Onofre reactors in Southern California – as a nuclear catastrophe in waiting.

“In many ways, the history of the plant, located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco … and within 50 miles of 500,000 people, has been a costly fight against nature, involving questions and repairs connected to its design and structural strength.”

Nuclear secrecy

Calling the Peck report “explosive”, the environmental group Friends of the Earth this week described it as having been “kept secret for a year.”

According to Damon Moglen, senior strategy advisor at Friends of the Earth, “Inspector Peck is the canary in the coal mine, warning us of a possible catastrophe at Diablo Canyon before it’s too late. We agree with him that Diablo Canyon is vulnerable to earthquakes and must be shut down immediately.”

“Given the overwhelming risk of earthquakes, federal and state authorities would never allow nuclear reactors on this site now. Are PG&E and the NRC putting the industry’s profits before the health and safety of millions of Californians.”

“Rather than the NRC keeping this a secret, there must be a thorough investigation with public hearings to determine whether these reactors can operate safely.”

Can Diablo Canyon survive an earthquake?

Michael Mariotte, president of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, commented Monday that in “plain English” what Peck’s report acknowledges is:

“The NRC does not know whether Diablo Canyon could survive an earthquake, within the realm of the possible, at any of the faults around Diablo Canyon. And the reactors should shut down until the NRC does know one way or the other.

“Of course, if the reactors cannot survive a postulated earthquake, the obvious conclusion is that they must close permanently. The question is whether the NRC will ever act on Peck’s recommendation or whether the agency will continue to sit on it until after the next earthquake.”

Mariotte adds: “The irony is that this should have been the big news a year ago; Peck wrote his recommendation – in the form of a formal Differing Professional Opionion – in July 2013. And the NRC still hasn’t taken action or even responded to it.”

In his report Peck also states that the NRC is supposed to be committed to a “standard of safety” and “safety means avoiding undue risk or providing reasonable assurance of adequate protection for the public.”

PG&E’s response? Apply to extend the licenses

Meanwhile, PG&E has not only been insisting that its Diablo Canyon plants are safe, despite the earthquake threat, but has filed with the NRC to extend the 40 year licenses given for their operations another 20 years – to 2044 for Diablo Canyon 1 and to 2045 for Diablo Canyon 2.

An analysis done in 1982 by Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC, titled ‘Calculations for Reactor Accident Consequences 2‘, evaluated the impacts of a meltdown with “breach of containment” at every nuclear plant in the US – what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants as a result of an earthquake.

For the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants, it projected 10,000 “peak early fatalities” for each of the plants and $155 billion in property damages for Diablo Canyon 1 and $158 billion for Diablo Canyon 2 – in 1980 dollars.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

You have to hand it to Natural England. Their timing of their authorisation for 2014 badger cull was nothing short of extraordinary.

It comes just as the High Court ponders its judgment on the legality of the cull, following a Judicial Review hearing last week called by the Badger Trust.

It also pre-empts the outcome of a criminal investigation by Gloucestershire Police following serious revelations by a whistle-blowing monitor employed by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA).

As reported on 14th August by The Ecologist, the monitor revealed that last year’s pilot badger culls were not only badly organised – they were also full of dishonesty on the part of all those setting up and running the culls, and criminal behaviour on the part of the contractors doing the killing, seriously threatening the safety of the public.

Why the 2014 cull is unlawful

The Badger Trust set out a powerful case in the High Court last week, on 21st August, that any further culling must have independent monitoring and assessment, and would be unlawful in its absence.

This service was provided in the 2013 cull by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) – but Defra decided against asking them back this year. Instead, Defra has stated it will proceed with the culls without them, and that “lessons have been learned” – so no more monitoring is necessary.

How much time the Defra barrister had to present its defence is not clear. The hearing was scheduled to take a day and as this was just before a Bank Holiday weekend, no one would want it to run over time, including the man who has to decide on the case, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker.

During the morning session, it was clear that the Trust’s barrister was making extensive use of Defra’s own documentation on the culls. Was there anything left for Defra to use in its defence? And could any other facts affect the judgment that will come in due course? As it happened, yes.

The whistle blower report raises serious questions – and a criminal investigation

The very day after the High Court hearing the news was released that Gloucester Police were setting up a criminal investigation, following the claims made by the whistle-blower, more details of which are gradually being released.

If anything should demand proper independent monitoring, it is surely the kind of behaviour that the monitor reported to Defra, which appears to have taken little or no action over the claims.

The Badger Trust had written to Environment Secretary Liz Truss when the whistle-blower report first came out. Like everyone, they want some answers:

“As you will be aware, this article was based on information provided by a whistle blower who worked as a cull monitor for AHVLA during the 2013 pilot culls. It raises serious concerns about the behaviour of both badger cullers and AHVLA contractors, which call into question the safety of the cull as well as the monitoring of its effectiveness.

“We would be grateful if you could confirm if you were aware of these allegations and identify what steps Defra took at the time this information was provided to investigate, including whether it was passed to the Independent Expert Panel for consideration? Please also confirm what measures have been put in place to prevent any such occurrences happening again?”

The Trust is still waiting for answers, but Gloucester Police are finally taking some action over the public safety issue. What took them so long?

Only protestors were arrested – but none charged

Gloucester Against Badger Shooting (GABS) sent them a ‘specimen’ list of 26 incidents of wrongdoing by culling contractors in January.

The list details trespass, physical harassment of protesters (including at least one case of bodily injury) by contractors, and several firearms offences and gun licence infringements. Many of these were reported at the time of the offence to the police.

Gloucester Police did make 39 arrests during the cull, all of them involving protesters, none of whom ended up in court. The same unbalanced policing occurred in Somerset.

Were any contractors in either county arrested, questioned and charged? Not as far as we know. And serious questions have to be asked. As Dominic Dyer of the Badger Trust says:

“The AHVLA monitor provided a full report on the serious public safety breaches by the cull contractor to Defra in January and met with Defra officials to discuss its key findings.

“Did Owen Paterson see this report and if so why did he not bring it to the attention of the Independent Expert Panel and Parliament? Was it covered up to ensure the pilot culls could continue despite the serious risk to public safety?”

Anti-cull campaigners have often said that they feel the police were very uninformed over what contractors could or couldn’t do, what constituted ‘crimes’ and ‘offences’ and when they could, for instance, make arrests.

But as The Ecologist has made clear, this is a serious public safety issue, and one that needs to be urgently addressed before any more culling takes place.

SABC – police and Natural England must review the evidence

In their press release about the criminal investigation, Somerset Against the Badger Cull (SABC) say they are now asking both Avon and Somerset Police and Natural England to “review all the video, audio and written recordings from the AHVLA monitors from last year.” They feel, as many do, that the government is not to be trusted over the safety issue.

SABC “congratulates Gloucestershire police in taking this matter seriously and urges Avon and Somerset Constabulary to apply the same rigour before shooters such as these are let loose in our countryside again.”

Avon & Somerset have already announced that in future culls representatives of the National Farmers Union and the culling company HNV Associates Ltd will not be present in the police control room, something that caused outrage when it became known.

But it was one more sign that the setting up of the culls had been a shambles; that the people involved were poorly trained; that no proper safety assessments had been done; and very that little thought had been given to the role the police were expected to fulfil.

The police have failed – so far

The police are there to prevent crime, to investigate wrongdoing and arrest the perpetrators, and to protect the public from criminal behaviour.

They had been given so little information that they were unable to perform any of these duties during the cull. Adding to the problem they had received the impression (from both Defra, the NFU and the contracting companies) that anything the contractors did was lawful.

The second phase of the badger culls was supposed to have started this week. Things are on hold. The culls cannot be policed because of the NATO summit in Newport, which will require 9,000 of their officers to be on duty.

And will the government be foolhardy enough to go ahead without waiting for the result of the Judicial Review? Given their sheer arrogance, they may go ahead. But a wise man or woman, which the government apparently lacks, would wait.

And now Natural England gives the go-ahead

Surely now, before any further badger culling takes place, the issue of public safety must be faced and addressed by the government.

To have irresponsible gunmen, using high-powered rifles with bullets that can travel up to a mile with lethal effect and with little apparent knowledge of either our wildlife or the terrain within which they are operating, arrogantly bumbling out of control in the dark is simply not to be allowed.

Under such circumstances the police cannot ensure public safety and they need to make that clear to the government before someone gets shot.

And now that Natural England has issued its authorisations for the 2014 culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire, that could be sooner than we thought.

NE insists that Defra and the AHVLA have developed a robust monitoring regime. They appear not to have noticed that the whistle-blower was employed by the AHVLA.

To announce this just after the whistle-blower revelations; while the Judicial Review judgment is still to come; and when the police investigation has only just started demonstrates all too clearly how keen Natural England, Defra and their affiliates are to kill, regardless.

It’s enough to make me weep.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist on the badger cull and other environmental subjects.

See her other articles for The Ecologist.

As aftershocks of the 6.0 Napa earthquake that occurred Sunday in California continued, the Associated Press revealed a secret government report pointing to major earthquake vulnerabilities at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants which are a little more than 200 miles away and sitting amid a webwork of earthquake faults.

It’s apparent to any visitor to the stretch of California where the two Diablo Canyon plants are sited that it is geologically hot. A major tourist feature of the area: hot spas.

“Welcome to the Avila Hot Springs”, declares the website of one, noting how “historic Avila Hot Springs” was “discovered in 1907 by at the time unlucky oil drillers and established” as a “popular visitor-serving natural artesian mineral hot springs.”

Nevertheless, Pacific Gas & Electric had no problem in 1965 picking the area along the California coast, north of Avila Beach, as a location for two nuclear plants.

Geology rocks!

It was known that the San Andreas Fault was inland 45 miles away. But in 1971, with construction already under way, oil company geologists discovered another earthquake fault – the Hosgri Fault, just three miles out in the Pacific from the plant site and linked to the San Andreas Fault.

In 2008 yet another fault was discovered, the Shoreline Fault – just 650 yards from the Diablo Canyon plants.

The Shoreline Fault, and concerns about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to earthquakes in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, are integral to a 42-page report written by Dr. Michael Peck.

For five years Peck was the lead inspector on-site for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at Diablo Canyon. He’s still with the NRC, a trainer at its Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Peck’s report was obtained by the Associated Press, which has done excellent journalism in recent years investigating the dangers of nuclear power, and they issued their story on Monday. In the report

Peck writes: “The new seismic information resulted in a condition outside of the bounds of the existing Diablo Canyon design basis and safety analysis. Continued reactor operation outside the bounds of the NRC approved safety analyses challenges the presumption of nuclear safety.”

“The Shoreline [Fault] Scenario results in SSC [acronym in the nuclear field for Structures, Systems and Components] seismic stress beyond the plant SSE [Safe Shutdown Earthquake] qualification basis. Exposure to higher levels of stress results in an increase[d] likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs. The change also increases the likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs important to safety…”

A ‘reasonable assurance of safety’?

Peck notes that the “prevailing” NRC staff view is that “potential ground motions from the Shoreline fault are at or below those levels for which the plant was previously evaluated and demonstrated to have a ‘reasonable assurance of safety’.”

He disagrees, noting that the NRC staff “also failed to address the Los Osos and San Luis Bay faults”, faults that the Shoreline Fault are seen as potentially interacting with, and that “new seismic information” concludes that “these faults were also capable of producing ground motions.”

In addition, “The prevailing staff view that ‘operability’ may be demonstrated independent of existing facility design basis and safety analyses requirements establishes a new industry precedent. Power reactor licensees may apply this precedent to other nonconforming and unanalyzed conditions.”

“What’s striking about Peck’s analysis”, says AP, “is that it comes from within the NRC itself, and gives a rare look at a dispute within the agency. At issue are whether the plant’s mechanical guts could survive a big jolt, and what yardsticks should be used to measure the ability of the equipment to withstand the potentially strong vibrations that could result.”

It continues: “Environmentalists have long depicted Diablo Canyon – the state’s last nuclear plant after the 2013 closure of the San Onofre reactors in Southern California – as a nuclear catastrophe in waiting.

“In many ways, the history of the plant, located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco … and within 50 miles of 500,000 people, has been a costly fight against nature, involving questions and repairs connected to its design and structural strength.”

Nuclear secrecy

Calling the Peck report “explosive”, the environmental group Friends of the Earth this week described it as having been “kept secret for a year.”

According to Damon Moglen, senior strategy advisor at Friends of the Earth, “Inspector Peck is the canary in the coal mine, warning us of a possible catastrophe at Diablo Canyon before it’s too late. We agree with him that Diablo Canyon is vulnerable to earthquakes and must be shut down immediately.”

“Given the overwhelming risk of earthquakes, federal and state authorities would never allow nuclear reactors on this site now. Are PG&E and the NRC putting the industry’s profits before the health and safety of millions of Californians.”

“Rather than the NRC keeping this a secret, there must be a thorough investigation with public hearings to determine whether these reactors can operate safely.”

Can Diablo Canyon survive an earthquake?

Michael Mariotte, president of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, commented Monday that in “plain English” what Peck’s report acknowledges is:

“The NRC does not know whether Diablo Canyon could survive an earthquake, within the realm of the possible, at any of the faults around Diablo Canyon. And the reactors should shut down until the NRC does know one way or the other.

“Of course, if the reactors cannot survive a postulated earthquake, the obvious conclusion is that they must close permanently. The question is whether the NRC will ever act on Peck’s recommendation or whether the agency will continue to sit on it until after the next earthquake.”

Mariotte adds: “The irony is that this should have been the big news a year ago; Peck wrote his recommendation – in the form of a formal Differing Professional Opionion – in July 2013. And the NRC still hasn’t taken action or even responded to it.”

In his report Peck also states that the NRC is supposed to be committed to a “standard of safety” and “safety means avoiding undue risk or providing reasonable assurance of adequate protection for the public.”

PG&E’s response? Apply to extend the licenses

Meanwhile, PG&E has not only been insisting that its Diablo Canyon plants are safe, despite the earthquake threat, but has filed with the NRC to extend the 40 year licenses given for their operations another 20 years – to 2044 for Diablo Canyon 1 and to 2045 for Diablo Canyon 2.

An analysis done in 1982 by Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC, titled ‘Calculations for Reactor Accident Consequences 2‘, evaluated the impacts of a meltdown with “breach of containment” at every nuclear plant in the US – what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants as a result of an earthquake.

For the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants, it projected 10,000 “peak early fatalities” for each of the plants and $155 billion in property damages for Diablo Canyon 1 and $158 billion for Diablo Canyon 2 – in 1980 dollars.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

You have to hand it to Natural England. Their timing of their authorisation for 2014 badger cull was nothing short of extraordinary.

It comes just as the High Court ponders its judgment on the legality of the cull, following a Judicial Review hearing last week called by the Badger Trust.

It also pre-empts the outcome of a criminal investigation by Gloucestershire Police following serious revelations by a whistle-blowing monitor employed by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA).

As reported on 14th August by The Ecologist, the monitor revealed that last year’s pilot badger culls were not only badly organised – they were also full of dishonesty on the part of all those setting up and running the culls, and criminal behaviour on the part of the contractors doing the killing, seriously threatening the safety of the public.

Why the 2014 cull is unlawful

The Badger Trust set out a powerful case in the High Court last week, on 21st August, that any further culling must have independent monitoring and assessment, and would be unlawful in its absence.

This service was provided in the 2013 cull by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) – but Defra decided against asking them back this year. Instead, Defra has stated it will proceed with the culls without them, and that “lessons have been learned” – so no more monitoring is necessary.

How much time the Defra barrister had to present its defence is not clear. The hearing was scheduled to take a day and as this was just before a Bank Holiday weekend, no one would want it to run over time, including the man who has to decide on the case, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker.

During the morning session, it was clear that the Trust’s barrister was making extensive use of Defra’s own documentation on the culls. Was there anything left for Defra to use in its defence? And could any other facts affect the judgment that will come in due course? As it happened, yes.

The whistle blower report raises serious questions – and a criminal investigation

The very day after the High Court hearing the news was released that Gloucester Police were setting up a criminal investigation, following the claims made by the whistle-blower, more details of which are gradually being released.

If anything should demand proper independent monitoring, it is surely the kind of behaviour that the monitor reported to Defra, which appears to have taken little or no action over the claims.

The Badger Trust had written to Environment Secretary Liz Truss when the whistle-blower report first came out. Like everyone, they want some answers:

“As you will be aware, this article was based on information provided by a whistle blower who worked as a cull monitor for AHVLA during the 2013 pilot culls. It raises serious concerns about the behaviour of both badger cullers and AHVLA contractors, which call into question the safety of the cull as well as the monitoring of its effectiveness.

“We would be grateful if you could confirm if you were aware of these allegations and identify what steps Defra took at the time this information was provided to investigate, including whether it was passed to the Independent Expert Panel for consideration? Please also confirm what measures have been put in place to prevent any such occurrences happening again?”

The Trust is still waiting for answers, but Gloucester Police are finally taking some action over the public safety issue. What took them so long?

Only protestors were arrested – but none charged

Gloucester Against Badger Shooting (GABS) sent them a ‘specimen’ list of 26 incidents of wrongdoing by culling contractors in January.

The list details trespass, physical harassment of protesters (including at least one case of bodily injury) by contractors, and several firearms offences and gun licence infringements. Many of these were reported at the time of the offence to the police.

Gloucester Police did make 39 arrests during the cull, all of them involving protesters, none of whom ended up in court. The same unbalanced policing occurred in Somerset.

Were any contractors in either county arrested, questioned and charged? Not as far as we know. And serious questions have to be asked. As Dominic Dyer of the Badger Trust says:

“The AHVLA monitor provided a full report on the serious public safety breaches by the cull contractor to Defra in January and met with Defra officials to discuss its key findings.

“Did Owen Paterson see this report and if so why did he not bring it to the attention of the Independent Expert Panel and Parliament? Was it covered up to ensure the pilot culls could continue despite the serious risk to public safety?”

Anti-cull campaigners have often said that they feel the police were very uninformed over what contractors could or couldn’t do, what constituted ‘crimes’ and ‘offences’ and when they could, for instance, make arrests.

But as The Ecologist has made clear, this is a serious public safety issue, and one that needs to be urgently addressed before any more culling takes place.

SABC – police and Natural England must review the evidence

In their press release about the criminal investigation, Somerset Against the Badger Cull (SABC) say they are now asking both Avon and Somerset Police and Natural England to “review all the video, audio and written recordings from the AHVLA monitors from last year.” They feel, as many do, that the government is not to be trusted over the safety issue.

SABC “congratulates Gloucestershire police in taking this matter seriously and urges Avon and Somerset Constabulary to apply the same rigour before shooters such as these are let loose in our countryside again.”

Avon & Somerset have already announced that in future culls representatives of the National Farmers Union and the culling company HNV Associates Ltd will not be present in the police control room, something that caused outrage when it became known.

But it was one more sign that the setting up of the culls had been a shambles; that the people involved were poorly trained; that no proper safety assessments had been done; and very that little thought had been given to the role the police were expected to fulfil.

The police have failed – so far

The police are there to prevent crime, to investigate wrongdoing and arrest the perpetrators, and to protect the public from criminal behaviour.

They had been given so little information that they were unable to perform any of these duties during the cull. Adding to the problem they had received the impression (from both Defra, the NFU and the contracting companies) that anything the contractors did was lawful.

The second phase of the badger culls was supposed to have started this week. Things are on hold. The culls cannot be policed because of the NATO summit in Newport, which will require 9,000 of their officers to be on duty.

And will the government be foolhardy enough to go ahead without waiting for the result of the Judicial Review? Given their sheer arrogance, they may go ahead. But a wise man or woman, which the government apparently lacks, would wait.

And now Natural England gives the go-ahead

Surely now, before any further badger culling takes place, the issue of public safety must be faced and addressed by the government.

To have irresponsible gunmen, using high-powered rifles with bullets that can travel up to a mile with lethal effect and with little apparent knowledge of either our wildlife or the terrain within which they are operating, arrogantly bumbling out of control in the dark is simply not to be allowed.

Under such circumstances the police cannot ensure public safety and they need to make that clear to the government before someone gets shot.

And now that Natural England has issued its authorisations for the 2014 culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire, that could be sooner than we thought.

NE insists that Defra and the AHVLA have developed a robust monitoring regime. They appear not to have noticed that the whistle-blower was employed by the AHVLA.

To announce this just after the whistle-blower revelations; while the Judicial Review judgment is still to come; and when the police investigation has only just started demonstrates all too clearly how keen Natural England, Defra and their affiliates are to kill, regardless.

It’s enough to make me weep.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist on the badger cull and other environmental subjects.

See her other articles for The Ecologist.

As aftershocks of the 6.0 Napa earthquake that occurred Sunday in California continued, the Associated Press revealed a secret government report pointing to major earthquake vulnerabilities at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants which are a little more than 200 miles away and sitting amid a webwork of earthquake faults.

It’s apparent to any visitor to the stretch of California where the two Diablo Canyon plants are sited that it is geologically hot. A major tourist feature of the area: hot spas.

“Welcome to the Avila Hot Springs”, declares the website of one, noting how “historic Avila Hot Springs” was “discovered in 1907 by at the time unlucky oil drillers and established” as a “popular visitor-serving natural artesian mineral hot springs.”

Nevertheless, Pacific Gas & Electric had no problem in 1965 picking the area along the California coast, north of Avila Beach, as a location for two nuclear plants.

Geology rocks!

It was known that the San Andreas Fault was inland 45 miles away. But in 1971, with construction already under way, oil company geologists discovered another earthquake fault – the Hosgri Fault, just three miles out in the Pacific from the plant site and linked to the San Andreas Fault.

In 2008 yet another fault was discovered, the Shoreline Fault – just 650 yards from the Diablo Canyon plants.

The Shoreline Fault, and concerns about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to earthquakes in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, are integral to a 42-page report written by Dr. Michael Peck.

For five years Peck was the lead inspector on-site for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at Diablo Canyon. He’s still with the NRC, a trainer at its Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Peck’s report was obtained by the Associated Press, which has done excellent journalism in recent years investigating the dangers of nuclear power, and they issued their story on Monday. In the report

Peck writes: “The new seismic information resulted in a condition outside of the bounds of the existing Diablo Canyon design basis and safety analysis. Continued reactor operation outside the bounds of the NRC approved safety analyses challenges the presumption of nuclear safety.”

“The Shoreline [Fault] Scenario results in SSC [acronym in the nuclear field for Structures, Systems and Components] seismic stress beyond the plant SSE [Safe Shutdown Earthquake] qualification basis. Exposure to higher levels of stress results in an increase[d] likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs. The change also increases the likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs important to safety…”

A ‘reasonable assurance of safety’?

Peck notes that the “prevailing” NRC staff view is that “potential ground motions from the Shoreline fault are at or below those levels for which the plant was previously evaluated and demonstrated to have a ‘reasonable assurance of safety’.”

He disagrees, noting that the NRC staff “also failed to address the Los Osos and San Luis Bay faults”, faults that the Shoreline Fault are seen as potentially interacting with, and that “new seismic information” concludes that “these faults were also capable of producing ground motions.”

In addition, “The prevailing staff view that ‘operability’ may be demonstrated independent of existing facility design basis and safety analyses requirements establishes a new industry precedent. Power reactor licensees may apply this precedent to other nonconforming and unanalyzed conditions.”

“What’s striking about Peck’s analysis”, says AP, “is that it comes from within the NRC itself, and gives a rare look at a dispute within the agency. At issue are whether the plant’s mechanical guts could survive a big jolt, and what yardsticks should be used to measure the ability of the equipment to withstand the potentially strong vibrations that could result.”

It continues: “Environmentalists have long depicted Diablo Canyon – the state’s last nuclear plant after the 2013 closure of the San Onofre reactors in Southern California – as a nuclear catastrophe in waiting.

“In many ways, the history of the plant, located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco … and within 50 miles of 500,000 people, has been a costly fight against nature, involving questions and repairs connected to its design and structural strength.”

Nuclear secrecy

Calling the Peck report “explosive”, the environmental group Friends of the Earth this week described it as having been “kept secret for a year.”

According to Damon Moglen, senior strategy advisor at Friends of the Earth, “Inspector Peck is the canary in the coal mine, warning us of a possible catastrophe at Diablo Canyon before it’s too late. We agree with him that Diablo Canyon is vulnerable to earthquakes and must be shut down immediately.”

“Given the overwhelming risk of earthquakes, federal and state authorities would never allow nuclear reactors on this site now. Are PG&E and the NRC putting the industry’s profits before the health and safety of millions of Californians.”

“Rather than the NRC keeping this a secret, there must be a thorough investigation with public hearings to determine whether these reactors can operate safely.”

Can Diablo Canyon survive an earthquake?

Michael Mariotte, president of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, commented Monday that in “plain English” what Peck’s report acknowledges is:

“The NRC does not know whether Diablo Canyon could survive an earthquake, within the realm of the possible, at any of the faults around Diablo Canyon. And the reactors should shut down until the NRC does know one way or the other.

“Of course, if the reactors cannot survive a postulated earthquake, the obvious conclusion is that they must close permanently. The question is whether the NRC will ever act on Peck’s recommendation or whether the agency will continue to sit on it until after the next earthquake.”

Mariotte adds: “The irony is that this should have been the big news a year ago; Peck wrote his recommendation – in the form of a formal Differing Professional Opionion – in July 2013. And the NRC still hasn’t taken action or even responded to it.”

In his report Peck also states that the NRC is supposed to be committed to a “standard of safety” and “safety means avoiding undue risk or providing reasonable assurance of adequate protection for the public.”

PG&E’s response? Apply to extend the licenses

Meanwhile, PG&E has not only been insisting that its Diablo Canyon plants are safe, despite the earthquake threat, but has filed with the NRC to extend the 40 year licenses given for their operations another 20 years – to 2044 for Diablo Canyon 1 and to 2045 for Diablo Canyon 2.

An analysis done in 1982 by Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC, titled ‘Calculations for Reactor Accident Consequences 2‘, evaluated the impacts of a meltdown with “breach of containment” at every nuclear plant in the US – what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants as a result of an earthquake.

For the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants, it projected 10,000 “peak early fatalities” for each of the plants and $155 billion in property damages for Diablo Canyon 1 and $158 billion for Diablo Canyon 2 – in 1980 dollars.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.