Hey, hey again Planeteers!
So don’t forget that this is your space to communicate with other interested and/or active enviro types. Anything for the newsletter? Please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it :)
First of all, even though there is no collective meeting during the break (Easter Monday)…there are still some AMAZING, AUDACIOUS and AWE-INSPIRING events happening during and after it! Check them out below :D .
1. Room available Newtown!
2. EVENT: Film screening and discussion – on all things nuclear - Thursday 16 April
3. EVENT: A food co-op crawl by bike or bus! – Friday 17th of April!
4. Nuclear is not the answer – Public meetings, photo exhibitions and PROTEST in Sydney/FORUM in Wollongong!
– Tuesday 21st of April – Wednesday 22nd of April
5. Corroboree at the Alum Mountain Bulahdelah - Friday 24th of April - Sunday 26th of April
1. Room available Newtown
From: Holly Zwalf, Wed 8th of April, Subject: Room available Newtown
Hi,
our lovely big old house is looking for a new housemate. We are in Newtown, just off King St, near Sydney Uni, buses etc. It's a gorgeous old house with three cats, a vegie garden and plenty of space. The room is $185 a week, is really big and fronts on to the upstairs verandah. We're looking for someone:
*female/trans-identifying
*queer
*communal
*vego
*politically aware
*cat-friendly!
If you are looking for more than just a room, please give Holly a call on 0432473915
2. Film screening and discussion – on all things nuclear
Films: Fight for Country and Atomic Footprints (both produced by Pip Starr)
Date: Thursday April the 16th
Time: 7:30pm
Address: STUCCO, 197 Wilson Street, Newtown
Contact: Jazz - 0405 317 787
image from: http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/pipstarr/videos/atomic-footprints.mov/
3. EVENT: Food co-op crawl!
A food co-op crawl by bike or bus!
Friday 17th April
10am from Thoughtful Foods (UNSW)
We'll be jaunting around Sydney to meet the people involved with, and sample the delights offered by some food co-ops in Sydney.
We'll be leaving at 10.00am from Thoughtful Foods at UNSW (see map here).
You can travel by bike, or if you like by public transport - just rock up on the morning and we'll organise the two groups.
10am: Thoughtful Foods, the UNSW Food Co-op which was previously known as Pigweed. Located in the backyard of the Roundhouse, behind Eats@the Round as you head towards the LifestyleCentre (Uni-gym) on Lower Campus.
Phone 02 9385 6097, www.thoughtfulfoods.unsw.edu.au.
12 noon*: Manly Food Co-op, at 21 Whistler St, Manly, phone 02 9977 0177
2pm*: UTS Food Co-op, located on Level 2 of the Tower Building at UTS,
opposite the lifts. Phone 02 9514 1418, fax 02 9514 1157
3pm*: USyd Food Co-op, located in Level 4 of the Wentworth Building,
University of Sydney, Phone 02 9660 5222
4pm*: Alfalfa House Food Co-op (Sydney's oldest food co-op) at 113
Enmore Road, Enmore (just opposite the Enmore Theatre), phone 02 9519
3374, fax 02 9565 5053 www.alfalfahouse.org,
*Times are approximate; call Suzie (number below) on the day for our progress.
Bring: tupperware containers (to put yummy food in!), sunscreen, some money if you want to buy things, and a working bike and a helmet if you're riding.
For more info, or on the day contact: Suzie Hunter, 0451 062 079.
4. Nuclear is not the answer
Break the nuclear chain. Nuclear is no solution to climate change.
Tuesday April 21 PUBLIC MEETING and Photo exhibition
6pm, Old Geography Lecture Theatre, Sydney Uni, near Parramatta Road footbridge
Speakers include:
Muckaty Traditional Owners from the NT- Dianne Stokes and Mark Lane,
Senator Scott Ludlam (Australian Greens),
Dave Sweeney (Australian Conservation Foundation).
Photo exhibition: We are not no-one, this is not nowhere
Wednesday April 22 PROTEST the 2009 World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference
8am, Sheraton on the Park, 161 Elizabeth Street, Sydney (Near St James Station)
Speakers include:
Muckaty Tradititonal Owners Dianne Stokes and Mark Lane, Senator Scott Ludlam (Aust. Greens), Dave Sweeney (ACF), Union reps + YOU!
Featuring Ohms not Bombs sound system for some nuclear free beats.
Wednesday April 22 Wollongong Public Forum
6pm, Illawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre, 22 Kerry St, Wollongong
Speakers include:
Muckaty Traditional Owners
Dootch Kennedy, Chair of Illawarra Aboriginal Land Council chair
Arthur Rorris, Secretary of South Coast Trades and Labour Council
Contact: Natalie Wasley 0429 900 774, Holly Creenaune 0417 682 541, Liv Nigro 0401 955 405
Media alert
April 9, 2009
Muckaty Traditional Owners travel to Sydney to protest World Nuclear Conference.
Traditional Owners from the Muckaty Land Trust in the Northern Territory will travel to Sydney on April 21-23 to protest the ongoing assessment of their land for a federal radioactive waste dump.
The visit is set to coincide with the ‘World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference’, a major nuclear industry event. There will be a community protest on the conference opening on April 22.
Dianne Stokes, Mark Lane and Mark Chungaloo represent three of the five family groups in the Muckaty Land Trust-Yapa Yapa, Ngapa and Milwayi- and have travelled extensively over the last two years to speak out against the proposal.
Ms Stokes, from the Yapa Yapa group of Muckaty says “Top to bottom we got bush tucker right through the country. Whoever is taking this waste dump into our country needs to come back and talk to the Traditional Owners. We’re not happy to have all of this stuff. We don’t want it, it’s not our spirit. Our spirit is our country, our country where our ancestors been born. Before towns, before hospitals, before cities. We want our country to be safe”
www.beyondnuclearinitiative.wordpress.com
Supported by the Sydney Uni Environment Collective and UTS Environment collective.
image from: http://onfinite.com/libraries/1278344/b78.jpg
The World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference is meeting in Sydney April 21-23. This forum will be used to promote and further entrench Australia’s involvement in the global nuclear industry.
‘Nuclear Renaissance’?
As people around the world demand action on climate change, governments continue to use the climate crisis to push forward regressive and corporate driven policies.
In Australia, the Rudd ALP government is increasing funding for clean coal research, promoting an emissions trading scheme (the CPRS) which will reward big polluters and justifying an expansion of uranium mining as helping the world move toward “green energy” industries.
There is an aggressive global push to rebrand nuclear power as a ‘green, clean’ solution to climate change, with claims a ‘nuclear renaissance’ is ahead.
Nuclear Power is No Solution to Climate Change: too dirty, too dangerous.
However, the nuclear chain is a carbon emission intensive process when considered in its entirety; uranium mining, processing, transportation, construction and de-commissioning of reactors and radioactive waste disposal and management.
Electricity production accounts for only 25% of carbon emissions globally; doubling nuclear power would reduce greenhouse emissions by less than 5%. In Australia, building a nuclear reactor to supply the capital cities in all six states would reduce national emissions by just 4%.
Further, there is still no method for storage or disposal of high level radioactive waste that can guarantee to isolate it from the environment, workers and communities for the hundreds of thousand of years it remains dangerous.
And despite ‘safeguards’ on uranium exports, as Minister Anthony Albanese has said, “you can guarantee that uranium mining will lead to nuclear waste, but you can't guarantee it won't lead to nuclear weapons”.
Diverse renewable technologies and energy efficiency measures can address the energy needs of contemporary societies, yet governments and industry groups worldwide, in fora like the WNFC meeting in Sydney, continue to promote expansion of the dangerous nuclear fuel chain.
Australia’s Role: Beginning and Ending the Global Nuclear Fuel Chain
Since the ALP dropped its ‘no new uranium mines’ policy in April 2007, there has been a plethora of uranium exploration applications across the NT, SA and WA. Olympic Dam Uranium Mine in SA, is proposed to expand four – fold to become the biggest uranium mine in the world.
At APEC in 2007, the Australian government became a signatory to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), further entrenching its role in the global nuclear fuel chain. Australia has 38% of the world’s known uranium deposits and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has expressed a wish for Australia to become “the largest miner and exporter of uranium in the world”.
Remaining a signatory of GNEP will increase pressure for Australia to take back high level radioactive waste produced in overseas reactors in a ‘lease’ style arrangement.
Nuclear Waste – Community Resistance
The ALP government is plowing ahead with the plan to force a radioactive waste dump on communities in the NT, despite promising to repeal Howard era legislation- the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act- that makes the dump possible.
Increasing economic disadvantage in remote areas means many Aboriginal communities are feeling pressure to accept nuclear projects on their country as a source of jobs and income- sometimes in exchange for essential infrastructure like roads and housing. Despite this pressure, communities continue to resist the expansion of the nuclear industry in Australia.
Successful community campaigns fought the uranium mine proposed for Jabiluka in Kakadu National Park. Traditonal Owners continue to resist the expansion of the Olympic Dam and Beverly uranium mines. Central Australian residents are mobilising against uranium exploration at Angela Pamela, 25 km south of Alice Springs in the town’s water catchment area.
There is continued and strong opposition to the planned federal radioactive waste dump, already over a year behind schedule.
It is important for national awareness and mobilisation to support communities directly targeted by the industry and workers whose health has been impacted. The Rudd Government must be held accountable for its radioactive rollout.
image from: http://bristol.indymedia.org/attachments/mar2009/socialchange.jpg
5. Corroboree at the Alum Mountain Bulahdelah
| You are invited to a |
CORROBOREE AT THE ALUM MOUNTAIN BULAHDELAH
FRIDAY 24 April to SUNDAY 26 APRIL 2009
CEREMONIES
MUSIC
STORY TELLING
HUNTING & GATHERING
CAMPING
WALKS
TRADITIONAL FOOD
& MORE
The Alum Mountain Bulahdelah is a very significant Aboriginal Sacred Site. The site contains: A Guardian Healing Tree, Healing Stream, Bora Ceremonial Ground, Ochre Ground, Numerous Scared Trees, Burial Trees and Stone Artefact Sites.
The RTA (Roads and Traffic Authority) are planning to construct a six lane highway through the base of this Sacred Site. Please come along to this gathering to further protect it from destruction from the RTA.
Indigenous and non Indigenous People Welcome
Bookings & Enquires
Please contact Malcolm Carrall
