On 12 July, there was an anti-badger culling event, to launch the Badger Mosaic outside the Houses of Parliament. Team Badger, a large coalition of national, local and grass roots animal and wildlife welfare organisations, was urging the government to abandon the roll out of new badger culling areas, indeed to abandon the culling policy altogether.

Following this, a meeting took place inside Parliament. MPs, journalists and members of various animal-related organisations gathered to hear presentations from three ‘badger experts’, Professors John Bourne, Ranald Munro and Rosie Woodroffe.

Professor Bourne was the Chairman of the Independent Scientific Group in charge of the well-known Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT).

Professor Munro chaired the Independent Expert Panel that was given the task of deciding whether the 2013 pilot badger culls in Somerset and Gloucester were safe, humane and effective.

Professor Woodroffe was an assistant on the RBCT and has since done other badger and bovine TB-related studies.

Following their individual presentations, Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust, posed a challenging question: Why, he asked, does any scientific debate or study about bovine TB always start with badgers? Why do they assume that badgers are a major part of the problem, when there is almost nil evidence that badgers are the cause of TB in cattle?

Dyer said he had only traced one experimental study in which badgers produced TB in cattle, and that took place in very unnatural and manufactured conditions.

This was not what the panel wanted to hear, and the reaction was defensive. But Dyer is correct. There is always this given in any discussion on bovine TB – that badgers are part of  ‘the problem’, when it appears that none of the governmental scientific community wants to seriously study the cattle-to-cattle problem.

But why this assumption – this bias? Where does it come from?

There is, unfortunately, a section of humanity that seeks thrills through blood-lust; that gets its pleasure, its ‘sport’, from killing animals, and in particular wild animals; and that thinks setting dogs onto a hounded, trapped and cornered animal which fights for its life and gets ripped to bloody pieces, is the best thrill ever.

Bear baiting only stopped in Britain because we had killed all our native bears and it became too expensive to import them. Bull baiting was finally outlawed but badgers continued to be persecuted. Over the centuries the population dropped – almost, in some areas, to extinction. They were gassed, poisoned, snared, trapped, baited and their setts were damaged and destroyed. Many farmers still regard them as dirty vermin that need to be cleared from the land.

Despite that, wildlife champions fought for their protection. But in 1971 something happened that took badgers back to square one. The first badger was found with bovine TB. A woman who had worked for a vet during the early 1970s said that she couldn’t understand why farmers were suddenly coming in with dead badgers and other wild animals, demanding that the vet tested them for bTB.

All the measures that had almost eradicated TB in our herds during the 1950s-60s had just been dropped and over the years incidents of bTB started to rise again. But now farmers had something to blame – the badgers themselves.

So the badger was not only a commonly persecuted animal, it was now a scapegoat for a problem that had arisen among cattle. And despite modern science and various studies, it is still the first thing mentioned in any discussion about bTB.

Consider the RBCT. The final report is titled:

Bovine TB: the Scientific Evidence

A Science Base for a Sustainable Policy to Control TB in Cattle

An Epidemiological Investigation into Bovine Tuberculosis

Then why is the whole exercise known as the Randomised Badger Culling Trials?

Professor Bourne makes the point that a lot of their work concerned cattle rather than badgers; that their conclusion was that ‘culling badgers would make no meaningful contribution to controlling TB in cattle’; and that cattle-based measures were the way to go. He supports ‘a determined focus’ on such measures. However, the only cattle-based measures he mentions are vaccination and risk-based trading.

When asked why scientists and the Government weren’t, for example, pushing for the enforcement of biosecurity measures on farms, his reply was: “It would cost the farmers too much.” But bTB is costing the farmers. Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective to install measures that prevent cattle-to-cattle transmission, by far the greatest provable source of bTB in cattle?

It was Professor Woodroffe’s PowerPoint presentation on the perturbation of badgers that highlighted a problem with this whole debate.

The starting point is that culling a significant percentage of badgers will cause the remaining members of any sett/clan to flee their territory and integrate with other badger groups. However, Irish research has shown that the borders of sett territories can be fairly fluid, and that badgers visit other groups in order to mate. How else would they avoid inbreeding?  So ‘perturbation’ of some kind already exists among badgers.

The PowerPoint images Woodroffe uses make the assumption that the badgers which are fleeing their territories are, without exception, infected with TB. The next images go on to assume that the fleeing badger will infect all the badgers in the new group. It is this kind of thinking which allows a study headed by Woodroffe to find that only around 6% of infected cattle catch bTB from badgers, yet the badgers are then judged to be ultimately responsible for around half of cattle infection.

She has now produced another study in which they collared and tracked badgers’ interaction with cattle. Not surprisingly, they found that badgers tend to avoid close contact with cattle (already proven in the Irish study) and cattle also tend to avoid grazing near badger latrines, so there must be some other way that badgers infect cattle. And there is the bias.

Woodroffe is reported as saying “There is strong evidence that badgers transmit bTB to cattle, as well as for cattle to cattle transmission and for livestock to give the disease to badgers.”  Again, badgers are put first as the cause of TB in cattle and where, might one ask is this ‘strong’ evidence?

Most wildlife people would agree with Woodroffe’s conclusion that the infection can lie in the ‘environment’, but talking about possibly infected badger urine and latrines while ignoring the many thousands of acres of pasture covered with cattle slurry every year from herds containing infected cattle, not to mention the possibly infected faeces from cattle grazing in fields, is scientific nonsense.

Whether cattle defecate or slurry is spread, earthworms rise to the surface to feast on the result.  During dry periods when the ground is hard and worms are not close to the surface, digging through cow pats is the badger’s best opportunity to access its favourite food.  The worms may carry the TB bacillus.  Or the badger may ingest some of an infected cow pat.  That is one sure way a badger can become infected.

But what about the cattle?  

They slobber and lick, and breathe heavily over their companions. They graze on grass that has been fertilised by spreading cattle slurry, and a walk over any field with cattle turned out in it will demonstrate how closely they graze to their own droppings.

They eat silage made from grass fertilised with slurry, and in her interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Woodroffe stressed how very long (“…weeks, even months…”) the TB bacillus can last in the environment. One of the ignored findings of the RBCT was that farms that made pasture silage showed a higher incidence of bTB.

Dominic Dyer welcomed the new research “as it adds more weight to previous research that proves cattle and badgers largely avoid each other.”  He outlined his summing-up of the research but said that the message being put out to the media yet again blamed the badgers. And he added: “I think this now largely comes down to the fact that leading scientists and academics in the field of bovine TB research do not want to admit they got it wrong and that badgers cannot easily pass TB to cattle.”

As he suggested at the Westminster meeting, the assumptions about badgers and bTB, like those fabled and non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction that led us to invade Iraq, have become an accepted ‘truth’ on which to build government policies. Defra always claims it is ‘using every tool in the box’ to defeat bovine TB, but badger culling is the only tool that hits the news.

No science properly addresses how badgers could really infect cattle, and science certainly has not produced the hard evidence to support what are at the moment only assumptions. Nor will scientists or Defra seriously address the various ways in which TB in cattle is not only constantly re-infecting the cattle, but is also infecting wildlife. For the sake of our farmers, their cattle and the wildlife, it really is time they did.

And for those of us trying to protect the badger and, incidentally, also wanting to see farms with healthy TB-free cattle, our lobbying must be directed at forcing the government into ending the badger culls and enforcing effective cattle-based measures.

Yes, it may cost the farmers but surely, dealing with bovine TB in their cattle in the current fashion is costing them and the country far more.

This Author:

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites.

Dominic Dyer’s book Badgered to Death (Canbury Press), tearing apart the case for blaming the badger for spreading TB to cattle, has now been published.

Monsanto may not be a household name in the UK but as one of the world’s leading seed and chemical companies, its activities affect us all.

Its best-selling weedkiller is made from a chemical called glyphosate that the World Health Organisation has found to probably cause cancer. Yet its use is now so widespread that traces are found in one out of every three loaves of bread in the UK.

That’s why earlier this year, in the lead up a EU decision about whether to relicense glyphosate, we mounted public pressure on decision makers through our Monsanto honest marketing campaign.

We sent out thousands of spoof labels to individuals which ended up on supermarket shelves across the UK telling the truth about Monsanto’s products and their corporate power. Our campaign was part of widespread opposition across Europe, which resulted in a rejection of the automatic 15-year relicense in the EU, as expected by Monsanto. Instead, glyphosate was only relicensed for 18 months pending further research.

Unbelievably, selling toxic chemicals to the mass market is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Monsanto’s appalling record. Monsanto is at the forefront of pushing a model of agriculture that takes control away from small-scale farmers as well as causes environmental damage. Monsanto maintains it market dominance by getting farmers hooked onto its expensive weedkillers and seeds that have be purchased every year from Monsanto.

Not only is this costly for cash-strapped subsistence farmers, but it’s unnecessary. Scientific evidence shows that organic, non-chemical methods are effective for growing healthy food as well as better for the environment. Being able to keep, save and exchange a wide range of seeds also helps maintain biodiversity, assists with climate adaptation and supports resilience in farming.

Putting Monsanto in the dock

It’s for these reasons that civil society groups from around the world are holding an international ‘people’s tribunal’ to hold Monsanto to account for its impacts on communities and the environment.

Additional ‘crimes’ being put before this people’s tribunal include Monsanto’s history of producing toxic chemicals for warfare, its well-documented manipulation of scientific evidence, misleading and dishonest marketing campaigns and underhand lobbying efforts to promote its products.

The Tribunal will be held at The Hague and conducted by legal professionals and practicing judges. It will consider whether Monsanto is guilty of the following:

• Violating the right to a healthy environment; the right to food; the right to health and academic freedom. These rights are enshrined in legal texts such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2011 Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
• Complicity in war crimes for supplying herbicides to the US military for Operation ‘Ranch Hand’ during the Vietnam War (see photo). This will be considered under the Rome Statute, which allows the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction to try alleged perpetrators of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
• Committing ecocide – this concept, which is gaining currency in international law, is understood as “causing serious damage or destroying the environment so as to significantly and durably alter the global commons or ecosystem services upon which certain human groups rely.” The Tribunal will also examine whether the Rome Statute should include this crime.

Despite the legal frameworks being used in the Tribunal, the outcomes will not be legally binding as there is currently no mechanism to bring criminal charges against a company like Monsanto. Instead, the significance of the Tribunal will be largely symbolic in order to demonstrate how a corporation could be brought to account.

A UN treaty on business and human rights?

The arguments brought against Monsanto will demonstrate the problems of corporate-controlled agriculture, which will apply to other agribusinesses too. The Tribunal’s work will also give victims and their legal counsel the arguments and legal ground for further lawsuits against Monsanto within their national jurisdictions. Experts and witnesses from around the world will come to the Tribunal to give testimony and Monsanto has been invited to give its defence.

Corporate power and the pursuit of profit at the expense of human rights, environmental protection and democratic processes lies at the heart of many of the social and economic injustices that the world faces today. Efforts to constrain this power have been given a fresh impetus through a UN initiative to set up an international, legally binding mechanism to regulate corporations.

A UN treaty on business and human rights could enforce minimum standards for corporations to abide by and failure to do could lead to legal action. The potential for curbing corporate power would be huge but it would also take many years to achieve.

In the meantime, the Monsanto Tribunal will not only expose the consequences of Monsanto’s activities on livelihoods, health, human rights and the environment, but will also demonstrate to the world what could happen if citizens were able to hold corporations accountable.

Heidi Chow works on Global Justice Now‘s agribusiness campaign to challenge the corporate take-over of Africa’s food systems as well as supporting the global movement for food sovereignty. Heidi has previously campaigned on issues such as food speculation, Europe’s bilateral trade deals, the World Trade Organisation and stopping RBS’s unethical investments.

Monsanto Tribunal: The trial will take place in The Hague beginning on 16th August 2016. More information.

Events: Global Justice Now will be bringing one of the witnesses to the UK for a speaker tour in five locations (London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds) alongside a photo exhibition showing the impacts of corporate agriculture on communities in October (dates to be confirmed). This will give audiences in the UK an opportunity to hear some of charges against Monsanto, first-hand.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

Monsanto may not be a household name in the UK but as one of the world’s leading seed and chemical companies, its activities affect us all.

Its best-selling weedkiller is made from a chemical called glyphosate that the World Health Organisation has found to probably cause cancer. Yet its use is now so widespread that traces are found in one out of every three loaves of bread in the UK.

That’s why earlier this year, in the lead up a EU decision about whether to relicense glyphosate, we mounted public pressure on decision makers through our Monsanto honest marketing campaign.

We sent out thousands of spoof labels to individuals which ended up on supermarket shelves across the UK telling the truth about Monsanto’s products and their corporate power. Our campaign was part of widespread opposition across Europe, which resulted in a rejection of the automatic 15-year relicense in the EU, as expected by Monsanto. Instead, glyphosate was only relicensed for 18 months pending further research.

Unbelievably, selling toxic chemicals to the mass market is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Monsanto’s appalling record. Monsanto is at the forefront of pushing a model of agriculture that takes control away from small-scale farmers as well as causes environmental damage. Monsanto maintains it market dominance by getting farmers hooked onto its expensive weedkillers and seeds that have be purchased every year from Monsanto.

Not only is this costly for cash-strapped subsistence farmers, but it’s unnecessary. Scientific evidence shows that organic, non-chemical methods are effective for growing healthy food as well as better for the environment. Being able to keep, save and exchange a wide range of seeds also helps maintain biodiversity, assists with climate adaptation and supports resilience in farming.

Putting Monsanto in the dock

It’s for these reasons that civil society groups from around the world are holding an international ‘people’s tribunal’ to hold Monsanto to account for its impacts on communities and the environment.

Additional ‘crimes’ being put before this people’s tribunal include Monsanto’s history of producing toxic chemicals for warfare, its well-documented manipulation of scientific evidence, misleading and dishonest marketing campaigns and underhand lobbying efforts to promote its products.

The Tribunal will be held at The Hague and conducted by legal professionals and practicing judges. It will consider whether Monsanto is guilty of the following:

• Violating the right to a healthy environment; the right to food; the right to health and academic freedom. These rights are enshrined in legal texts such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2011 Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
• Complicity in war crimes for supplying herbicides to the US military for Operation ‘Ranch Hand’ during the Vietnam War (see photo). This will be considered under the Rome Statute, which allows the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction to try alleged perpetrators of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
• Committing ecocide – this concept, which is gaining currency in international law, is understood as “causing serious damage or destroying the environment so as to significantly and durably alter the global commons or ecosystem services upon which certain human groups rely.” The Tribunal will also examine whether the Rome Statute should include this crime.

Despite the legal frameworks being used in the Tribunal, the outcomes will not be legally binding as there is currently no mechanism to bring criminal charges against a company like Monsanto. Instead, the significance of the Tribunal will be largely symbolic in order to demonstrate how a corporation could be brought to account.

A UN treaty on business and human rights?

The arguments brought against Monsanto will demonstrate the problems of corporate-controlled agriculture, which will apply to other agribusinesses too. The Tribunal’s work will also give victims and their legal counsel the arguments and legal ground for further lawsuits against Monsanto within their national jurisdictions. Experts and witnesses from around the world will come to the Tribunal to give testimony and Monsanto has been invited to give its defence.

Corporate power and the pursuit of profit at the expense of human rights, environmental protection and democratic processes lies at the heart of many of the social and economic injustices that the world faces today. Efforts to constrain this power have been given a fresh impetus through a UN initiative to set up an international, legally binding mechanism to regulate corporations.

A UN treaty on business and human rights could enforce minimum standards for corporations to abide by and failure to do could lead to legal action. The potential for curbing corporate power would be huge but it would also take many years to achieve.

In the meantime, the Monsanto Tribunal will not only expose the consequences of Monsanto’s activities on livelihoods, health, human rights and the environment, but will also demonstrate to the world what could happen if citizens were able to hold corporations accountable.

Heidi Chow works on Global Justice Now‘s agribusiness campaign to challenge the corporate take-over of Africa’s food systems as well as supporting the global movement for food sovereignty. Heidi has previously campaigned on issues such as food speculation, Europe’s bilateral trade deals, the World Trade Organisation and stopping RBS’s unethical investments.

Monsanto Tribunal: The trial will take place in The Hague beginning on 16th August 2016. More information.

Events: Global Justice Now will be bringing one of the witnesses to the UK for a speaker tour in five locations (London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds) alongside a photo exhibition showing the impacts of corporate agriculture on communities in October (dates to be confirmed). This will give audiences in the UK an opportunity to hear some of charges against Monsanto, first-hand.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

Monsanto may not be a household name in the UK but as one of the world’s leading seed and chemical companies, its activities affect us all.

Its best-selling weedkiller is made from a chemical called glyphosate that the World Health Organisation has found to probably cause cancer. Yet its use is now so widespread that traces are found in one out of every three loaves of bread in the UK.

That’s why earlier this year, in the lead up a EU decision about whether to relicense glyphosate, we mounted public pressure on decision makers through our Monsanto honest marketing campaign.

We sent out thousands of spoof labels to individuals which ended up on supermarket shelves across the UK telling the truth about Monsanto’s products and their corporate power. Our campaign was part of widespread opposition across Europe, which resulted in a rejection of the automatic 15-year relicense in the EU, as expected by Monsanto. Instead, glyphosate was only relicensed for 18 months pending further research.

Unbelievably, selling toxic chemicals to the mass market is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Monsanto’s appalling record. Monsanto is at the forefront of pushing a model of agriculture that takes control away from small-scale farmers as well as causes environmental damage. Monsanto maintains it market dominance by getting farmers hooked onto its expensive weedkillers and seeds that have be purchased every year from Monsanto.

Not only is this costly for cash-strapped subsistence farmers, but it’s unnecessary. Scientific evidence shows that organic, non-chemical methods are effective for growing healthy food as well as better for the environment. Being able to keep, save and exchange a wide range of seeds also helps maintain biodiversity, assists with climate adaptation and supports resilience in farming.

Putting Monsanto in the dock

It’s for these reasons that civil society groups from around the world are holding an international ‘people’s tribunal’ to hold Monsanto to account for its impacts on communities and the environment.

Additional ‘crimes’ being put before this people’s tribunal include Monsanto’s history of producing toxic chemicals for warfare, its well-documented manipulation of scientific evidence, misleading and dishonest marketing campaigns and underhand lobbying efforts to promote its products.

The Tribunal will be held at The Hague and conducted by legal professionals and practicing judges. It will consider whether Monsanto is guilty of the following:

• Violating the right to a healthy environment; the right to food; the right to health and academic freedom. These rights are enshrined in legal texts such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2011 Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
• Complicity in war crimes for supplying herbicides to the US military for Operation ‘Ranch Hand’ during the Vietnam War (see photo). This will be considered under the Rome Statute, which allows the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction to try alleged perpetrators of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
• Committing ecocide – this concept, which is gaining currency in international law, is understood as “causing serious damage or destroying the environment so as to significantly and durably alter the global commons or ecosystem services upon which certain human groups rely.” The Tribunal will also examine whether the Rome Statute should include this crime.

Despite the legal frameworks being used in the Tribunal, the outcomes will not be legally binding as there is currently no mechanism to bring criminal charges against a company like Monsanto. Instead, the significance of the Tribunal will be largely symbolic in order to demonstrate how a corporation could be brought to account.

A UN treaty on business and human rights?

The arguments brought against Monsanto will demonstrate the problems of corporate-controlled agriculture, which will apply to other agribusinesses too. The Tribunal’s work will also give victims and their legal counsel the arguments and legal ground for further lawsuits against Monsanto within their national jurisdictions. Experts and witnesses from around the world will come to the Tribunal to give testimony and Monsanto has been invited to give its defence.

Corporate power and the pursuit of profit at the expense of human rights, environmental protection and democratic processes lies at the heart of many of the social and economic injustices that the world faces today. Efforts to constrain this power have been given a fresh impetus through a UN initiative to set up an international, legally binding mechanism to regulate corporations.

A UN treaty on business and human rights could enforce minimum standards for corporations to abide by and failure to do could lead to legal action. The potential for curbing corporate power would be huge but it would also take many years to achieve.

In the meantime, the Monsanto Tribunal will not only expose the consequences of Monsanto’s activities on livelihoods, health, human rights and the environment, but will also demonstrate to the world what could happen if citizens were able to hold corporations accountable.

Heidi Chow works on Global Justice Now‘s agribusiness campaign to challenge the corporate take-over of Africa’s food systems as well as supporting the global movement for food sovereignty. Heidi has previously campaigned on issues such as food speculation, Europe’s bilateral trade deals, the World Trade Organisation and stopping RBS’s unethical investments.

Monsanto Tribunal: The trial will take place in The Hague beginning on 16th August 2016. More information.

Events: Global Justice Now will be bringing one of the witnesses to the UK for a speaker tour in five locations (London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds) alongside a photo exhibition showing the impacts of corporate agriculture on communities in October (dates to be confirmed). This will give audiences in the UK an opportunity to hear some of charges against Monsanto, first-hand.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

Monsanto may not be a household name in the UK but as one of the world’s leading seed and chemical companies, its activities affect us all.

Its best-selling weedkiller is made from a chemical called glyphosate that the World Health Organisation has found to probably cause cancer. Yet its use is now so widespread that traces are found in one out of every three loaves of bread in the UK.

That’s why earlier this year, in the lead up a EU decision about whether to relicense glyphosate, we mounted public pressure on decision makers through our Monsanto honest marketing campaign.

We sent out thousands of spoof labels to individuals which ended up on supermarket shelves across the UK telling the truth about Monsanto’s products and their corporate power. Our campaign was part of widespread opposition across Europe, which resulted in a rejection of the automatic 15-year relicense in the EU, as expected by Monsanto. Instead, glyphosate was only relicensed for 18 months pending further research.

Unbelievably, selling toxic chemicals to the mass market is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Monsanto’s appalling record. Monsanto is at the forefront of pushing a model of agriculture that takes control away from small-scale farmers as well as causes environmental damage. Monsanto maintains it market dominance by getting farmers hooked onto its expensive weedkillers and seeds that have be purchased every year from Monsanto.

Not only is this costly for cash-strapped subsistence farmers, but it’s unnecessary. Scientific evidence shows that organic, non-chemical methods are effective for growing healthy food as well as better for the environment. Being able to keep, save and exchange a wide range of seeds also helps maintain biodiversity, assists with climate adaptation and supports resilience in farming.

Putting Monsanto in the dock

It’s for these reasons that civil society groups from around the world are holding an international ‘people’s tribunal’ to hold Monsanto to account for its impacts on communities and the environment.

Additional ‘crimes’ being put before this people’s tribunal include Monsanto’s history of producing toxic chemicals for warfare, its well-documented manipulation of scientific evidence, misleading and dishonest marketing campaigns and underhand lobbying efforts to promote its products.

The Tribunal will be held at The Hague and conducted by legal professionals and practicing judges. It will consider whether Monsanto is guilty of the following:

• Violating the right to a healthy environment; the right to food; the right to health and academic freedom. These rights are enshrined in legal texts such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2011 Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
• Complicity in war crimes for supplying herbicides to the US military for Operation ‘Ranch Hand’ during the Vietnam War (see photo). This will be considered under the Rome Statute, which allows the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction to try alleged perpetrators of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
• Committing ecocide – this concept, which is gaining currency in international law, is understood as “causing serious damage or destroying the environment so as to significantly and durably alter the global commons or ecosystem services upon which certain human groups rely.” The Tribunal will also examine whether the Rome Statute should include this crime.

Despite the legal frameworks being used in the Tribunal, the outcomes will not be legally binding as there is currently no mechanism to bring criminal charges against a company like Monsanto. Instead, the significance of the Tribunal will be largely symbolic in order to demonstrate how a corporation could be brought to account.

A UN treaty on business and human rights?

The arguments brought against Monsanto will demonstrate the problems of corporate-controlled agriculture, which will apply to other agribusinesses too. The Tribunal’s work will also give victims and their legal counsel the arguments and legal ground for further lawsuits against Monsanto within their national jurisdictions. Experts and witnesses from around the world will come to the Tribunal to give testimony and Monsanto has been invited to give its defence.

Corporate power and the pursuit of profit at the expense of human rights, environmental protection and democratic processes lies at the heart of many of the social and economic injustices that the world faces today. Efforts to constrain this power have been given a fresh impetus through a UN initiative to set up an international, legally binding mechanism to regulate corporations.

A UN treaty on business and human rights could enforce minimum standards for corporations to abide by and failure to do could lead to legal action. The potential for curbing corporate power would be huge but it would also take many years to achieve.

In the meantime, the Monsanto Tribunal will not only expose the consequences of Monsanto’s activities on livelihoods, health, human rights and the environment, but will also demonstrate to the world what could happen if citizens were able to hold corporations accountable.

Heidi Chow works on Global Justice Now‘s agribusiness campaign to challenge the corporate take-over of Africa’s food systems as well as supporting the global movement for food sovereignty. Heidi has previously campaigned on issues such as food speculation, Europe’s bilateral trade deals, the World Trade Organisation and stopping RBS’s unethical investments.

Monsanto Tribunal: The trial will take place in The Hague beginning on 16th August 2016. More information.

Events: Global Justice Now will be bringing one of the witnesses to the UK for a speaker tour in five locations (London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds) alongside a photo exhibition showing the impacts of corporate agriculture on communities in October (dates to be confirmed). This will give audiences in the UK an opportunity to hear some of charges against Monsanto, first-hand.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

Monsanto may not be a household name in the UK but as one of the world’s leading seed and chemical companies, its activities affect us all.

Its best-selling weedkiller is made from a chemical called glyphosate that the World Health Organisation has found to probably cause cancer. Yet its use is now so widespread that traces are found in one out of every three loaves of bread in the UK.

That’s why earlier this year, in the lead up a EU decision about whether to relicense glyphosate, we mounted public pressure on decision makers through our Monsanto honest marketing campaign.

We sent out thousands of spoof labels to individuals which ended up on supermarket shelves across the UK telling the truth about Monsanto’s products and their corporate power. Our campaign was part of widespread opposition across Europe, which resulted in a rejection of the automatic 15-year relicense in the EU, as expected by Monsanto. Instead, glyphosate was only relicensed for 18 months pending further research.

Unbelievably, selling toxic chemicals to the mass market is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Monsanto’s appalling record. Monsanto is at the forefront of pushing a model of agriculture that takes control away from small-scale farmers as well as causes environmental damage. Monsanto maintains it market dominance by getting farmers hooked onto its expensive weedkillers and seeds that have be purchased every year from Monsanto.

Not only is this costly for cash-strapped subsistence farmers, but it’s unnecessary. Scientific evidence shows that organic, non-chemical methods are effective for growing healthy food as well as better for the environment. Being able to keep, save and exchange a wide range of seeds also helps maintain biodiversity, assists with climate adaptation and supports resilience in farming.

Putting Monsanto in the dock

It’s for these reasons that civil society groups from around the world are holding an international ‘people’s tribunal’ to hold Monsanto to account for its impacts on communities and the environment.

Additional ‘crimes’ being put before this people’s tribunal include Monsanto’s history of producing toxic chemicals for warfare, its well-documented manipulation of scientific evidence, misleading and dishonest marketing campaigns and underhand lobbying efforts to promote its products.

The Tribunal will be held at The Hague and conducted by legal professionals and practicing judges. It will consider whether Monsanto is guilty of the following:

• Violating the right to a healthy environment; the right to food; the right to health and academic freedom. These rights are enshrined in legal texts such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2011 Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
• Complicity in war crimes for supplying herbicides to the US military for Operation ‘Ranch Hand’ during the Vietnam War (see photo). This will be considered under the Rome Statute, which allows the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction to try alleged perpetrators of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
• Committing ecocide – this concept, which is gaining currency in international law, is understood as “causing serious damage or destroying the environment so as to significantly and durably alter the global commons or ecosystem services upon which certain human groups rely.” The Tribunal will also examine whether the Rome Statute should include this crime.

Despite the legal frameworks being used in the Tribunal, the outcomes will not be legally binding as there is currently no mechanism to bring criminal charges against a company like Monsanto. Instead, the significance of the Tribunal will be largely symbolic in order to demonstrate how a corporation could be brought to account.

A UN treaty on business and human rights?

The arguments brought against Monsanto will demonstrate the problems of corporate-controlled agriculture, which will apply to other agribusinesses too. The Tribunal’s work will also give victims and their legal counsel the arguments and legal ground for further lawsuits against Monsanto within their national jurisdictions. Experts and witnesses from around the world will come to the Tribunal to give testimony and Monsanto has been invited to give its defence.

Corporate power and the pursuit of profit at the expense of human rights, environmental protection and democratic processes lies at the heart of many of the social and economic injustices that the world faces today. Efforts to constrain this power have been given a fresh impetus through a UN initiative to set up an international, legally binding mechanism to regulate corporations.

A UN treaty on business and human rights could enforce minimum standards for corporations to abide by and failure to do could lead to legal action. The potential for curbing corporate power would be huge but it would also take many years to achieve.

In the meantime, the Monsanto Tribunal will not only expose the consequences of Monsanto’s activities on livelihoods, health, human rights and the environment, but will also demonstrate to the world what could happen if citizens were able to hold corporations accountable.

Heidi Chow works on Global Justice Now‘s agribusiness campaign to challenge the corporate take-over of Africa’s food systems as well as supporting the global movement for food sovereignty. Heidi has previously campaigned on issues such as food speculation, Europe’s bilateral trade deals, the World Trade Organisation and stopping RBS’s unethical investments.

Monsanto Tribunal: The trial will take place in The Hague beginning on 16th August 2016. More information.

Events: Global Justice Now will be bringing one of the witnesses to the UK for a speaker tour in five locations (London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds) alongside a photo exhibition showing the impacts of corporate agriculture on communities in October (dates to be confirmed). This will give audiences in the UK an opportunity to hear some of charges against Monsanto, first-hand.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

Monsanto may not be a household name in the UK but as one of the world’s leading seed and chemical companies, its activities affect us all.

Its best-selling weedkiller is made from a chemical called glyphosate that the World Health Organisation has found to probably cause cancer. Yet its use is now so widespread that traces are found in one out of every three loaves of bread in the UK.

That’s why earlier this year, in the lead up a EU decision about whether to relicense glyphosate, we mounted public pressure on decision makers through our Monsanto honest marketing campaign.

We sent out thousands of spoof labels to individuals which ended up on supermarket shelves across the UK telling the truth about Monsanto’s products and their corporate power. Our campaign was part of widespread opposition across Europe, which resulted in a rejection of the automatic 15-year relicense in the EU, as expected by Monsanto. Instead, glyphosate was only relicensed for 18 months pending further research.

Unbelievably, selling toxic chemicals to the mass market is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Monsanto’s appalling record. Monsanto is at the forefront of pushing a model of agriculture that takes control away from small-scale farmers as well as causes environmental damage. Monsanto maintains it market dominance by getting farmers hooked onto its expensive weedkillers and seeds that have be purchased every year from Monsanto.

Not only is this costly for cash-strapped subsistence farmers, but it’s unnecessary. Scientific evidence shows that organic, non-chemical methods are effective for growing healthy food as well as better for the environment. Being able to keep, save and exchange a wide range of seeds also helps maintain biodiversity, assists with climate adaptation and supports resilience in farming.

Putting Monsanto in the dock

It’s for these reasons that civil society groups from around the world are holding an international ‘people’s tribunal’ to hold Monsanto to account for its impacts on communities and the environment.

Additional ‘crimes’ being put before this people’s tribunal include Monsanto’s history of producing toxic chemicals for warfare, its well-documented manipulation of scientific evidence, misleading and dishonest marketing campaigns and underhand lobbying efforts to promote its products.

The Tribunal will be held at The Hague and conducted by legal professionals and practicing judges. It will consider whether Monsanto is guilty of the following:

• Violating the right to a healthy environment; the right to food; the right to health and academic freedom. These rights are enshrined in legal texts such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2011 Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
• Complicity in war crimes for supplying herbicides to the US military for Operation ‘Ranch Hand’ during the Vietnam War (see photo). This will be considered under the Rome Statute, which allows the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction to try alleged perpetrators of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
• Committing ecocide – this concept, which is gaining currency in international law, is understood as “causing serious damage or destroying the environment so as to significantly and durably alter the global commons or ecosystem services upon which certain human groups rely.” The Tribunal will also examine whether the Rome Statute should include this crime.

Despite the legal frameworks being used in the Tribunal, the outcomes will not be legally binding as there is currently no mechanism to bring criminal charges against a company like Monsanto. Instead, the significance of the Tribunal will be largely symbolic in order to demonstrate how a corporation could be brought to account.

A UN treaty on business and human rights?

The arguments brought against Monsanto will demonstrate the problems of corporate-controlled agriculture, which will apply to other agribusinesses too. The Tribunal’s work will also give victims and their legal counsel the arguments and legal ground for further lawsuits against Monsanto within their national jurisdictions. Experts and witnesses from around the world will come to the Tribunal to give testimony and Monsanto has been invited to give its defence.

Corporate power and the pursuit of profit at the expense of human rights, environmental protection and democratic processes lies at the heart of many of the social and economic injustices that the world faces today. Efforts to constrain this power have been given a fresh impetus through a UN initiative to set up an international, legally binding mechanism to regulate corporations.

A UN treaty on business and human rights could enforce minimum standards for corporations to abide by and failure to do could lead to legal action. The potential for curbing corporate power would be huge but it would also take many years to achieve.

In the meantime, the Monsanto Tribunal will not only expose the consequences of Monsanto’s activities on livelihoods, health, human rights and the environment, but will also demonstrate to the world what could happen if citizens were able to hold corporations accountable.

Heidi Chow works on Global Justice Now‘s agribusiness campaign to challenge the corporate take-over of Africa’s food systems as well as supporting the global movement for food sovereignty. Heidi has previously campaigned on issues such as food speculation, Europe’s bilateral trade deals, the World Trade Organisation and stopping RBS’s unethical investments.

Monsanto Tribunal: The trial will take place in The Hague beginning on 16th August 2016. More information.

Events: Global Justice Now will be bringing one of the witnesses to the UK for a speaker tour in five locations (London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds) alongside a photo exhibition showing the impacts of corporate agriculture on communities in October (dates to be confirmed). This will give audiences in the UK an opportunity to hear some of charges against Monsanto, first-hand.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

The warm October sea breeze ripples our t-shirts as we stand on the sand, gazing out to the magnificent caldera of Santorini.  The deep mineral reds and rich golden yellows of the exposed volcanic soil create a kaleidoscope of colors in a striking crescent backdrop. A drone whirring overhead records the dramatic cliffs sheltering us on the Red Beach, giving us that too rare notion of being miniscule in the world.  We are the only souls in sight, in stark comparison to this scene during the tourist season.  Humbled by nature, our presence on this mission to preserve our seas and honor the marine world at once is validated.  Wild nature seems to sing and wink all around us, beckoning for us to answer its mysterious call.

Pierre-Yves Cousteau, the youngest son of legendary Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the famous oceanographer, stood balancing on a rock at the shoreline, a beacon of hope, luminous against the landscape. It was he who ultimately brought us all together in Santorini. Guardians of the Aegean is a new film about overfishing in the Aegean Sea and the collective efforts of committed environmentalists to create a Marine Protected Area in Santorini. Director/producer is environmentalist Omiros Evangelinos and other key players include Dr Paraskevi Nomikou, Dr Maria Salomidi, Dr Sylvaine Giakoumi and Peter Nicolaides of the Aegean Institute. 

Omiros lives full time in Mykonos and is determined to create positive environmental changes through his documentary film-making. Four years ago, he set sail from the popular holiday island on his traditional Caique the “Odyssey” (formerly an artisanal fishing boat) with a team of environmentalists to film interviews around the Cyclades with artisanal coastal fishermen, as well as industrial-scale fishermen, local politicians and marine researchers, most of whom would become major players and stakeholders in the proposed Marine Protected Area of Santorini. His aim was to depict the struggle of small, coastal, artisanal fishing communities against catastrophic industrial-scale fishing and the adverse effects of the monoculture of tourism. But what he could not have forseen was that the documentary suddenly proposed a real solution: that of establishing Marine Protected Areas. This would require the support of the Presidents of professional coastal fishermen’s unions in the islands of Andros, Paros, Koufonissi and Santorini. And Pierre-Yves Cousteau would use the weight of his family name to support this proposal.

Pierre-Yves’ love of Greece and passion for activism to protect the seas is inherited, of course, from his famous father who spent many years here, sailing on the famed ‘Calypso’ and discovering what lay beneath the Aegean. Veteran Calypso diver, Peter Nicolaides, has been a key player in Pierre-Yves understanding of the challenges ahead and the two men have become a dynamic force, which has been able to approach both authorities and fisherman alike in this new venture.

Unfortunately, and unlike his famous father, Pierre-Yves has had to set his focus on the ocean’s protection rather than its discovery as its destruction is already upon us. A Marine Protected Area is the only solution for restoring marine life diversity and animal populations in areas overfished such as in the Cyclades, which is the worst case both in the Mediterranean and in the world. 

Postcard images of traditional Greek fisherman untangling fishing nets on their fishing boats perpetuate a myth of the wealth of the Aegean Sea. One thinks ‘abundance’, ‘preserved traditions’, ‘honor’, and ‘pride’.  Certainly not ‘scarcity’, ‘recent history’, ‘shame’, and ‘fear’. 

The government offers subsidies to artisanal fisherman to destroy their fishing Caiques as their livelihood is threatened by the devastating practices of industrial fisherman. As the seas and the fishing nets go empty, consumers are left in the dark, totally ignorant of where their fish is coming from, how it was fished and the dreadful consequences of over-fishing. 

The new film Guardians of the Aegean reveals how overfishing, insufficient regulations, weak enforcement, ‘pirate’, unreported and illegal fishing, are among the main causes for the significant depletion in fish stock. Solutions to this problem are well understood but hard to implement for a number of reasons, including cultural resistance, total lack of awareness about the real benefits of such solutions, insufficient government resources and of course, corruption. 

The film captures stories from the Greek fishermen themselves, scattered throughout the Cyclades, further validating these harrowing facts. Marine Protected Areas lead to an increase in biodiversity, reproduction rates of marine life, healthier sized organisms, improved population density and an increase in biomass.  Preserving and restoring biodiversity enhances the productivity and reliability of services provided by the sea for humanity. 

Despite the abundance of evidence of the benefits to people, the local economy, and the environment, there are no functional marine reserves in the Aegean Sea to date. While the creation of a Marine Protected Area in Santorini has local benefits, its widespread success would give this project further weight by setting an example that would be copied throughout Greece. 

Pierre-Yves proposes something seemingly radical – that we imagine not just having many Marine Protected Areas, but all of the sea registered as a protected area and instead implement distinct fishing zones. The Marine Protected Area in Santorini is a step towards that ultimate vision which he believes is the key to the survival of these seas.

The signing of a first document of good intentions by Pierre-Yves Cousteau on behalf of Cousteau Divers and President Kyriakos Prekas on behalf of the professional Fisherman’s Union took place earlier this year on the island of Santorini, as documented in the film. 

Four years has been spent convincing the deeply suspicious fishermen that the intention of the MPA was not malicious nor to erect mega-hotels on the surrounding beaches. The campaigners had gradually earned the confidence of the local communities, meanwhile liaising with several Ministries and investigating new legislation as currently, and unlike other European Union Mediterranean countries, there are no specific laws for MPAs in Greece. Sadly, to date, no further development towards the establishment of the MPA has been seen.

The formation of an MPA in Santorini would be a “bottom-up” policy where the fishermen choose their own fate – to agree and contribute to the MPA formation or to stifle it. Pierre-Yves, along with Peter Nicolaides (who has been working towards this goal since 1980) and other individuals and organizations, had managed to bring together fishermen, marine researchers and local politicians to finally agree on establishing and operating/managing an MPA. This culminated in the formation of an essential trilateral committee (Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Fishermen’s Union and the Municipality) as advised by Dr Manel Gazo of Submon, the MPA consultants in Spain, commissioned to produce a Management Plan for the specific MPA. This Management Plan as well as the Special Scientific Report produced by the HCMR diving-scientists team, following their detailed investigation of the area, was made possible with the funding from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. 

The journey into the conservation of our sea is a journey into the heart; naturally wondrous surroundings acquire deeper meaning after learning more truths and meeting those people dedicated and intrinsically linked to their preservation.  We communicate our reality by telling our stories and then have the chance to gain a more global perspective.  With this film and its goal, we celebrate humanity; step by step we gain local supporters as a hybrid of people open themselves to new ideas and information, voice their support, and spread the word. 

www.cousteaudivers.org

WEBSITE & FACEBOOK PAGE FOR “GUARDIANS OF THE AEGEAN’: www.guardiansoftheaegean.com

www.facebook.com/Guardians-of-the-Aegean-796949370363759/ 

Links on FACEBOOK FOR THE MPA:
www.facebook.com/groups/MarineLifePreservesThira/

www.facebook.com/pages/Santorini-MPA-friends/250258921813496

Amidst all the fuss about Hinkley C and other planned nuclear power plants in the EU and US, does anyone knows where the stuff that keeps these reactors buzzing comes from? Here’s a fun fact: no other country supplies so much uranium to the EU than … Russia. Putin has more than the gas valve if he wants to play games with Europe. And the degree to which the US has become dependent on non-stable foreign sources of uranium is also unprecedented.

Let’s churn on a couple of numbers first. The US now depends on imports of uranium for 94% of their total demand. For the EU it’s even 97%. More than a quarter of all uranium used in the EU comes from Russia, up from 10% in 2005 – when more befriended countries like Australia and Canada used to supply 46% of all uranium to the EU. Their combined share of exports to the EU has dropped to under 30%. These trends have geopolitical implications.

One issue is security. Reciprocal sanctions between Russia and the EU are now in place for over two years. If some recent polls in the US become reality and Trump becomes the new US president, things will get worse for the EU. Trump already hinted that a grim scenario (or much worse) could play out in Latvia or Estonia, EU countries with a Russian minority of over a quarter of the whole population. How hard can the EU bite in the hand that feeds it with the gas and uranium it so desperately needs? Putin will answer: not that hard.

Another issue is the future supply risk. Any power plant envisaged today will need uranium in 40 years from now. But both Russia and Kazachstan, the two biggest uranium exporters to the EU have plans to build new nuclear power plants for themselves. Kazachstan has gone from zero to hero: in 20 years it went from no production to supplying 40% of the world’s uranium. But aside from their own future needs, and those of nearby befriended Russia, analysts fear that mismanagement is likely to lead to a collapse in exports.

The great outsourcing to the “underpolluted” countries

But the bigger issue should be that uranium mining is just a very dirty business that we didn’t clean up but source out. France used to have 200+ uranium mines but thanks to better care for environment and workers the last one closed in 2001. Instead, new ones were opened in places like Niger, Namibia and Malawi. In short: places where we can shift the real costs from uranium mining to the people and environment. As a matter of fact, CEOs in the business are quite frank about that. The former CEO of Paladin, John Borshoff, an Australian uranium producer who opened mines in Namibia, said that Canadian and Australian environmental norms are “over-sophisticated“. What he actually means is that in African countries you don’t need to pay much or anything at all to “protect” either your workers or the people living in the vicinity from dying from cancer due to exposure to uranium.

He’s just implementing the Lawrence Summers Principle. This ‘principle’ originates from a 1991 memo written or dictated by Summers whilst he was the World Bank’s chief economist. In this memo, he promoted dumping toxic waste in the Third World for economic reasons: “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Least Developed Countries]? […] A given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.”

The uranium sector squared up to that. But for how much longer will it get away with that?

Last time rebels in Mali came too close to the AREVA mines in Niger for comfort, France suddenly sent in their army. Under some humanitarian pretext. And if rebels don’t succeed in capturing these remote mines, the global environmental justice movement might just succeed in closing a couple of them down.

The legacy from uranium mining

Being part of that movement, I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of making a toxic tour around a now closed uranium mine in Bulgaria. Massive amounts of toxic sludge were stored behind a weak dam that showed signs of distress after heavy rains caused a spill in 2009. Old EU money was still keeping the dam up but as we’re talking about radioactive waste, money will need to keep flowing to dam repairs for millennia to come.

Since 1992, when the mines closed, and for time immemorial, that will be public money. And that’s how it goes with uranium mines in places with weak or no legislation: short-term private profits followed by perpetual public losses. In Bulgaria the people are still lucky enough to be in the EU with at least some environmental regulations and EU money for environmental protections. The same goes for other EU countries like France, which has dozens of zombie mines: dead but still active. The US also has plenty more zombie mines. The lands of the Navajo Nation include over 500 abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) as well as homes and drinking water sources with elevated levels of radiation. Despite the fact that they stopped operating in 1986, new and related lung cancers, bone cancers and impaired kidney functions keep appearing.

But while EU and US now have enough safeguards to keep their own uranium safe under the ground, there’s nothing of that in Namibia or Niger. These two countries are rising players on the uranium market, both exporting their uranium to the EU. Niger has now produced more uranium than France ever did in it’s whole history. It’s here that UK-Australian and French companies are doing the dirty digging that destroys local environment and populace.

Three reports from the EU-funded EJOLT project deal with the environmental and social issues related to uranium mining. One deals with the impacts, one concentrates on a mine in Malawi and the third dwells on the examples of successful resistance to big mining in general.

Bruno Chareyron, a French nuclear engineer who authored most of these reports, has been carrying out toxic tours along uranium mines for the last two decades. That’s not always an easy job, with for example the police confiscating most of your measuring equipment upon arrival in Niger. Nevertheless, Bruno was able to measure that radioactive scrap metal from the mines and mills is sold on the market. Waste rocks from the mines were used to pave roads, build homes and even at the local hospital where the radiation was 100 times above normal. Piles of radioactive waste were left in open air, unprotected, next to two cities with a total population of 120.000.

The missing piece of the puzzle

Where is uranium in the whole debate about nuclear energy? It’s usually only mentioned when the industry says: uranium is only a tiny part of the total cost of our energy model, unlike the situation in the gas and oil industry.

Well, there’s a reason why it’s only a tiny part of the total cost and it’s called cost shifting.

Ecological economists have given names to processes witnessed in the uranium sector: accumulation by contamination, ecologically unequal exchange and ecological debt. More and more, people all over the world are coming together to resist against environmental justice.

Our EU and US based nuclear power is currently coming at the cost of poisoning people in Africa. But it begs the question: are we ready to face that reality?

This Author:

Nick Meynen is one of The Ecologist New Voices contributors. He writes blogs and books http://www.epo.be/uitgeverij/boekinfo_auteur.php?isbn=9789064455803 on topics like environmental justice, globalization and human-nature relationships.

When not wandering in the activist universe or his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/nick.meynen
is dead, he’s probably walking in nature.   

@nickmeynen

The New York State Public Service Commission – in the face of strong opposition – has this week approved a $7.6 billion bailout of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – who appoints the members of the PSC – has called for the continued operation of the nuclear plants in order to, he says, save jobs.

The bailout would be part of a ‘Clean Energy Standard’ advanced by Cuomo. Under it, 50% of electricity used in New York by 2030 would come from “clean and renewable energy sources” – with nuclear power considered clean and renewable.

“Nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable”, testified Pauline Salotti, vice chair of the Green Party of Suffolk County, Long Island at a recent hearing on the plan.

“Without these subsidies, nuclear plants cannot compete with renewable energy and will close”, declared a statement by Jessica Azulay, program director of Alliance for a Green Economy, based in upstate Syracuse with a chapter in New York City.

“But under the guise of ‘clean energy,’ the nuclear industry is about to get its hands on our money in order to save its own profits, at the expense of public health and safety.”

Moreover, she emphasized, “Every dollar spent on nuclear subsidies is a dollar out of the pocket of New York’s electricity consumers residents, businesses and municipalities” that should instead go towards backing “energy efficiency, renewable energy and a transition to a clean energy economy.”

Twice as much money for nuclear as for wind and solar

The ‘Clean Energy Standard’ earmarks twice as much money for the nuclear power subsidy than it does for renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

Its claim is that nuclear power is comparable because nuclear plants don’t emit carbon or greenhouse gasses the key nuclear industry argument for nuclear plants nationally and worldwide these days because of climate change.

What the industry does not mention, however, is that the ‘nuclear cycle’ or ‘nuclear chain’ the full nuclear system is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Numerous statements sent to the New York PSC on the plan pointed to this.

“Nuclear is NOT emission-free!” Manna Jo Greene, environmental director of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, wrote the PSC. “The claim of nuclear power having ‘zero-emission attributes’ ignores emissions generated in mining, milling, enriching, transporting and storing nuclear fuel …

“New York no longer needs nuclear power in its energy portfolio, now or in the future. Ten years ago the transition to a renewable energy economy was still a future possibility. Today it is well underway.”

“Nuclear power is not carbon-free”, wrote Michel Lee, head of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy based in Scarsdale. While the operation of reactors “produces minimal carbon”, he said, “every other stage produces prodigious amounts.”

Thus the nuclear industry is a “big climate change polluter … Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes which combined consume large amounts of fossil fuels and generate potent warming gasses. These include: uranium mining, milling enrichment, fuel fabrication, transport” – and her list went on.

“The State of New York and its energy officials have a genuine opportunity to alter the course of history. You have the chance to help direct America and the world towards a more secure and prosperous future … With vision and resolve, our state can be at the vanguard of a new global energy era.”

2,000 nuclear jobs or 82,000 renewable energy jobs?

In opposing the New York nuclear subsidy, Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Atmosphere / Energy Program at Stanford University, wrote in an op-ed in Albany Times Union, the newspaper in the state’s capitol, that he was “shocked” by the PSC’s “proposal that the lion’s share of the Clean Energy Standard funding would be a nuclear bailout.”

Allowing the upstate nuclear plants to close now and replace them with equal energy output from offshore wind and solar power “would be cheaper and would create more jobs”, he said. The closure of the upstate plants “would jeopardize fewer than 2,000 jobs”.

Meanwhile, he added, based on a peer-reviewed study he has completed, “converting New York State to 100 percent clean, renewable energy – which is entirely possible now would create a net of approximately 82,000 good, long-term jobs.”

The upstate nuclear power plants to be bailed out under the plan would be FitzPatrick, Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 and Ginna. The money would come over a 12-year period through a surcharge on electric bills paid by residential and industrial customers in New York State.

Cuomo “directed the PSC to create subsides for upstate reactors”, reported Tim Knauss of the Post-Standard of Syracuse. “Industry watchers say New York would be the first state to establish nuclear subsidies based on environmental attributes, a benefit typically reserved for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

“The ‘zero emission credits’ would be paid to nuclear plants based on a calculation of the economic value of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.”

A model for other states to bail out failing nuclear plants?

Reuters has reported that the nuclear “industry hopes that if New York succeeds, it could pressure other states to adopt similar subsides” for nuclear plants. The headline of the Reuters story: “New York could show the way to rescue U.S. nuclear plants.”

The two Indian Point nuclear power plants 26 miles north of New York City are not now included in the plan but it “leaves the door open to subsidies” for them, says Azulay of Alliance for a Green Economy. If they were to be included, he said, the costs of the bailout would rise to “over $10 billion.”

Cuomo has called for a shutdown of the Indian Point plants in the densely populated southern portion of the state, although boosting the continued operation of the nuclear plants in less populated upstate.

“Nuclear has a role”, he declared at a press conference last month. “Unless we’re willing to go back to candles, which would be uncomfortable and inconvenient, we need energy generation.”

Still, the consequences of a Fukushima or Chernobyl-level accidents at the upstate plants could have major impacts. In a 1982 report, ‘CRAC-2’, done at Sandia National Laboratories for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the consequences of a meltdown with breach of containment at every nuclear power plant in the United States were estimated.

These included these in upstate New York. The analysis projected early fatalities, early injuries, cancer deaths and the ‘scaled costs’ of “lost wages, relocation expenses, decontamination costs, lost property, and interdiction costs for property and farmland” (in 1980 dollars).

The projections for the upstate plants are:

• FitzPatrick (Scriba): 1,000 early fatalities, 16,000 early injuries, 17,000 cancer deaths and $103 billion in scaled costs.
• Nine Mile Point 1 (also in Scriba: 1,400; 26,000, 20,000 and $66 billion.
• Nine Mile Point 2: 1,400, 26,000, 20,000 and $134 billion.
• Ginna (in Ontario, NY): 2,000, 28,000, 14,000 and $63 billion.

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‘.