Nuclear Power: Climate Chiller or Silent Killer? August 12th

Tony Gosling tony at cultureshop.org.uk
Sun Jul 28 23:47:41 BST 2013 

Dear Friends,

July 8th saw the first of our cafe discussion 
events which are preparing for the Breaking The 
Frame gathering next May.  We have had a lot of 
good feedback on the event, which was well 
attended. See below for a report of the meeting 
and forthcoming technology politics events. Our 
next meeting on August 12th will focus on nuclear power.

On July 9th, Luddites200 and Biofuels Watch 
joined forces to send a message to synthetic 
biologists meeting in London. You can read the 
text of our message at 
<http://luddites200blog.org.uk/2013/07/open-letter-to-synthetic-biologists/>http://luddites200blog.org.uk/2013/07/open-letter-to-synthetic-biologists/, 
or watch Dave King of Luddites200 speaking about 
the issues at 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27D1P5mqeVo>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27D1P5mqeVo.

And don't miss the bonus track at the end of this message about the monarchy!

Breaking the Frame 2: Nuclear Power: Climate Chiller or Silent Killer?

megamachinetoplow


Nuclear power is not a new technology, but it is 
perhaps the most dangerous technology we have at 
present, as the Fukushima disaster has shown. The 
UK government is still pressing ahead with plans 
for new nuclear reactors at Hinkley and SIzewell, 
plans which have sparked fierce local resistance. 
Is the nuclear power the answer to climate change 
or is it sure to lead to further disasters and 
nuclear weapons proliferation?  Is there a basic 
problem with nuclear technology? There will be 
plenty of time for informal discussion
>When: 7pm August 12th 2013
>Where: Fairly Square Bar & Cafe, 51 Red Lion St London WC1R 4PF
>
>Introductions from:
    * Nikki Clarke - <http://stophinkley.org/>Stop Hinkley Campaign
    * Atsuko Kamura - 
<http://januk.org/english/about.html>Japanese Against Nuclear
    * Speaker on nuclear technology, tbc
>    For more information and the full list of 
> upcoming events visit 
> <http://uk-mg42.mail.yahoo.com/neo/>www.breakingtheframe.org.uk 
> or contact 
> <mailto:luddites200 at yahoo.co.uk>luddites200 at yahoo.co.uk. 
> In September, our focus will be on issues 
> related to gender and the politics of 
> technology. We're still open to further 
> suggestions for speakers and topics for this 
> event, so please get in touch if you have any ideas.

Report on BTF 1: 'Technology out of control? 
Drones, killer robots and the arms trade' July 8th 2013

The first BTF meeting was a resounding success 
with a very lively discussion and a general 
appreciation of Fairly Square's food and drink!

Ann Marie O'Reilly of Campaign Against the Arms 
Trade gave an introduction to general issues 
related to military technology, including the 
astonishing cost of, for example, the £100 
billion Trident missile system. She highlighted 
ongoing efforts in the UK government to promote 
arms sales, often to repressive regimes, and 
pointed out that, although the arms trade is 
often promoted as creating jobs, twice as many 
jobs could be created by investing in transport, 
because military budgets are dominated by 
hardware rather than jobs for people. She also 
highlighted the crossover of military technology 
and general surveillance of the population, which 
the recent revelations about the US National 
Security Agency internet surveillance program has 
underlined. Finally, she asked for people's 
responses to the recent announcement that an arms 
company is developing a new hybrid bus: should we 
applaud this? This led into issues that will be 
discussed at our meeting next January on the 
politics of alternative technology and workers’ plans.

Chris Cole from the Drone Wars blog gave an 
overview of the increasing importance of drones 
in UK and US strategy, which is driven in part by 
the lower cost of drones compared to fighter 
aircraft. Other reasons driving the increased use 
of drones is that they can stay airborne longer 
than jets, due to pilot fatigue, and the 
increasing availability of military hardened 
satellites.  2000 institutions in the UK have 
permission to fly drones (generally much smaller 
than armed military drones). These are currently 
restricted in their flying areas, in order to 
protect people from the dangers of crashes but 
there is lobbying to remove these restrictions. 
Chris highlighted a number of reasons for 
concern. Firstly, drones can make going to war 
more likely, since they avoid the political cost 
of service personnel fatalities. Drones are the 
perfect weapon for the 'war on terror', because 
they encourage the belief that 'we can just take 
out the bad guys' - the glamour of technology 
encourages an unfounded belief in their 'magical' 
precision.  Secondly, because the distancing of 
the operators from the actual battlefield a 
'Playstation mentality' may operate: according to 
an inquiry into a 2010 incident in Afghanistan 
which 24 civilians were killed, one factor in the 
incident was that the drone operators were 
suffering from boredom. One comment that was made 
was that drones are an example of 'asymmetrical 
warfare', ie they are used against adversaries 
with a much lower level of technological 
sophistication and firepower. They are of 
relatively little use in conflicts between 
hi-tech military powers because they can be easily shot down.

Richard Moyes of the Campaign to Stop Killer 
Robots, raised the issue of the next step in 
military strategy, involving drones and other 
weapons systems including eventually robot 
soldiers: making these systems 'autonomous', i.e 
allowing the systems to choose targets to strike 
without any human intervention. He pointed out 
that the Phalanx System for shooting down 
incoming missiles in naval situations already 
allows the on-board computer to choose the 
target, and there are other current examples of 
this. This obviously raises the specter of 
Terminator robots, but also creates more 
immediate problems, such as how to write an 
algorithm that can distinguish between a civilian 
and a combatant, and who is responsible when 
these weapons commits an atrocity. It's 
encouraging that, in contrast to the situation 
with other weapons, there is already an 
international campaign building up to ban these 
weapons before they are ever developed, and there 
is progress at the UN towards international 
treaty. Some of the issues raised by these robots 
are discussed in 
<http://breakingtheframe.org.uk/?p=30>Richard's 
post on the Breaking The Frame blog.

Forthcoming technology politics events

Earth First! Summer Gathering 2013 7th-11th 
August 
<http://efgathering.weebly.com/index.html>http://efgathering.weebly.com/index.html

Anti-fracking events in August: there are many 
local meetings against fracking - see 
<http://frack-off.org.uk/events/2013-08>http://frack-off.org.uk/events/2013-08

17 August - Campaign Against the Arms Trade 
direct action training: 
http://www.stopthearmsfair.org.uk/events/direct-action-training-2013-08-17/

7-14 September - STOP THE ARMS FAIR A massive 
arms fair is planned to take place in the UK in 
September 2013. The UK government plans to invite 
human rights abusing regimes, such as China, 
Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Bahrain, Russia and Saudi 
Arabia, to the London arms fair to court them and 
sell them weapons. A week of action is planned 
from 7-14 September to expose the arms fair and 
make its business as difficult as possible. If 
you only do one thing, join us on Sunday 8th 
September for a huge protest as arms dealers 
arrive and try to set up at the fair. More on this: www.stopthearmsfair.org.uk

Drones Week of Action 5 – 12 Oct

The Drone Campaign Network is organising the 
third annual Week of Action on drones to promote 
understanding and resistance to the growing use 
of drones and remote warfare.  The Drones 
Week  of Action is also part of the International 
Keep Space for Peace Week.  For more info visit 
http://dronecampaignnetwork.wordpress.com/

12th October (World Food day) March Against 
Monsanto 
<https://www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto?fref=ts>https://www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto?fref=ts

--------------------------

AND FINALLY

Since the royals are in the news at the moment, 
the poet Heathcote Williams has just sent us a 
link to this interesting video 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcZqt7UhVAU>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcZqt7UhVAU. 
We can't vouch for the accuracy of the facts, but 
it will make you think again about the monarchy 
and their role in technology politics.












-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20130728/60508217/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/x-ygp-stripped
Size: 213 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20130728/60508217/attachment.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
+44 (0)7786 952037
www.thisweek.org.uk
www.dialectradio.co.uk
Fear not therefore: for there is nothing covered that shall not be 
revealed; and nothing hid that shall not be made known. What I tell 
you in darkness, that speak ye in the light and what ye hear in the 
ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:26-27

www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org
www.mediafor911truth.org
www.pilotsfor911truth.org
www.mp911truth.org
www.ae911truth.org
www.rl911truth.org
www.stj911.org
www.l911t.com
www.v911t.org

More information about the Diggers350 mailing list