Peace and Environment

On this Special Edition of Enviro:

The Enviro team discuss PEACE and ENVIRONMENT.

PEACE ARMAMENTS:

Pope Francis- welcomed members of the disarmament symposium called ‘Perspectives for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament’. The pope addressed Nobel peace laureates, UN and NATO officials and diplomats from countries with the bomb. He said “International relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation, and the parading of stockpiles of arms”.

• Norway has purchased three F-35 fighter jets manufactured by Lockheed-Martin, and has agreed to buy 40 more at a cost in the region of 8.36 billion dollars.
• Korea: Irish Government ministers cannot go on a peace mission to North Korea but can go to South Korea to promote trade in Agriculture. On the basis of the carbon miles in making trade deals with such far away countries this is contrary to what is required.
• Remembrance Day 12/11/17-Passchendaele-  around a third of a million British and Allied soldiers were killed or wounded in some of the most horrific trench warfare of the First World War.
  Yemen-Today genocide is being perpetrated by the Saudis who have blocked all access to that country. Millions may starve (UN).

ECOLOGY: WILDLIFE

• A total ban on neonicotinoids (neonics), which are deadly to bees the pollinators, is now possible in the EU since the UK dropped its opposition.
  The minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has announced a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses.
• Tree felling; A horse chestnut tree in the centre of the Naul, the main feature of the village has been felled as well as twenty healthy mature trees in Bayside Sutton Dublin.
• The Glyphosate debate- the EU are due by the 15 December 2017 to decide on whether to renew the licence for glyphosate the main constituent of the herbicide Roundup.
• A nuclear cloud has appeared over Europe from a nuclear accident of some kind, with the release of ruthenium 106. Joe Dunne explained what he understood to be its origin.

CLIMATE: POLLUTION

• The Bonn COP 23 Climate Change summit in Bonn Germany findings and resolutions not yet available.
• Laura Burke director general of the environmental Protection Agency has pointed out that poor air quality caused by the burning coal turf and wood and the results of people driving cars run on fossil fuels are leading to about 1,500 premature deaths in Ireland each year.
• The Citizens Assembly. Between January and October 2017 124,000 new cars were registered in Ireland but only 4% were hybrid or electric (EV). Assembly recommendations; including that the State should spend at least twice as much on the funding of public transport as it does on the road infrastructure; make solar panels more cheaply available; retrofitting buildings; as farming accounts for some 35% of CO2 emissions they recommended carbon taxes on them. Also they recommended the prompt phasing out of turf fired stations.

PUBLICATION:

• ‘ Nama Land’-Naom Chomsky, a leading academic and political activist in the US and worldwide has endorsed Frank Connolly for his new investigative book Nama Land saying “Frank Connolly’s careful and penetrating investigative research had exposed critical truths about malfeasance in high places and often ugly workings of political power generally, actions that have caused great harm to the general population.”

MUSIC/SONGS: Special Edition of ENVIRO with an anti-war theme.

• Edwin Starr- ‘Stop the War Now’ Zack De La Rocha ‘We Want it All’ System of a Down ‘Boom’ The Night Watchman ‘No One Left’ John Denver ‘Let Us Begin –What are we making Weapons For’.

Presenter/Producer- John Haughton
Panellist: Joe Dunne