Really excited about the fact that Unison and TUC have taken the step of working together with Green Alliance on a new booklet about trade unions and climate change Called "Working on Change" which can be downloaded from the Green Alliance website!
What is key from the union perspective and I believe to be key for moving forward is that I quote "It is essential to focus on creating the industries and jobs that will succeed in the low carbon economy" this is vital if we are to address the public sector in a rational way. What is clear is that the UK needs to be proactive. We can not allow jobs and work to slip away in its current guise in the name of climate change to be done by other countries implementing Green jobs to meet the market or demand sited in the heading "ensuring a just transition"
However I find it hard to agree with Paul Noon from the Union Prospect on the issues of Nuclear. I agree that nuclear generation should not be considered as an alternative to renewables but to go on and advocate that the UK throw its self willingly in to building more stations is not an answer to climate change it is creating a ticking time bomb for climate destruction and toxic waste management for the future! Nuclear is not an answer it is a loaded gun waiting to go off. It is no surpise that the Nuclear companies operating in the UK have forced the government to shelf wind farm production
"This bare conflict between nuclear and renewables, facilitated by the government, but perpetuated by companies like EDF and EON, is now becoming ever more apparent. For example, nuclear utility EDF has been campaigning for the UK to reduce its renewable energy target, which the company claims will constrain nuclear development." - Stop climate chaos
I hope the Government and the Union Prospect will re-think this area and work for a future with out Nuclear.
What is needed is for all public sectors and private sectors to take ownership of the responsibility of green investment for the future. Laws are coming in that will nudge but may not bite, and while it is important that they are enforced willing participation is the key to change for climates sake.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Green Wash by UK MPs and EDF
Is any body else worried about the Green Washing that is being done by this government and the company EDF? I was appalled at the comments printed in UNISON Active (The magazine for activists in Yorkshire and Humberside) that has an article on Hilary Benn talking about safe nuclear energy, like it is some Green initiative! I have booed this man twice at the Leeds Town Hall for these same comments, and for reference he is not a patch on his father, as Tony publicised on his web site the mistakes he made believing in nuclear power:
“I was told, believed and argued publicly that civil nuclear power was cheap, safe and peaceful and it was only later that I learned that this was all untrue since, if the full cost of development and the cost of storing long-term nuclear waste is included in the calculations nuclear power is three times the cost of coal when the pits were being closed on economic grounds.
Nuclear power is certainly not safe as we know from accidents at Windscale (now renamed Sellafield), from Three Mile Island in America and Chernobyl in the Ukraine, dangers which the authorities have always been determined to downplay.
Nor are Britain's civil nuclear power stations peaceful as for many years, and still possibly today, the plutonium they produce was sent to fuel the American nuclear weapons programme, making them into - what were in effect - bomb factories.
At no stage, as a minister, could I rely on being told the truth either by the Industry itself or by my own civil servants who may or may not have known it themselves.
Some dramatic examples of misinformation which made a deep impression on me converted me from being a supporter to a very strong opponent of the whole nuclear power programme.
Once, in Japan, a Japanese minister asked me how we were getting on with the task of clearing up the fire at Windscale years before, of which I was wholly unaware.
- Tony Benn
Please remember that UNISON's green charter states: UNISON does not believe that new nuclear build is the right solution to our need for secure, low carbon energy.
http://www.unison.org.uk/green/pages_view.asp?did=7775
So why are we printing such rubbish in a UNISON Activist magazine?
As for EDF Energy the so called first sustainability partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, announces the inaugural Green Britain Day, taking place on 10 July 2009. In 2009, EDF Energy took control of the UK nuclear generator, British Energy, buying share capital from the government. This made EDF Energy the UK's largest generator, as well as the largest distribution network operator. There is nothing Green about nuclear it is a disaster and a very long term mess that is being left behind.
Let us also not forget that Andrew Brown (Gordon’s brother) just happens to be Head of Media Relations in the UK for the French-owned utility company EDF Energy since 2004.
http://dizzythinks.net/2008/01/silence-on-andrew-brown-explained.html
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/movers_and_shakers/article4446279.ece
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/scale-back-investment-wind-edf-and-eon-tell-miliband-20090317
“I was told, believed and argued publicly that civil nuclear power was cheap, safe and peaceful and it was only later that I learned that this was all untrue since, if the full cost of development and the cost of storing long-term nuclear waste is included in the calculations nuclear power is three times the cost of coal when the pits were being closed on economic grounds.
Nuclear power is certainly not safe as we know from accidents at Windscale (now renamed Sellafield), from Three Mile Island in America and Chernobyl in the Ukraine, dangers which the authorities have always been determined to downplay.
Nor are Britain's civil nuclear power stations peaceful as for many years, and still possibly today, the plutonium they produce was sent to fuel the American nuclear weapons programme, making them into - what were in effect - bomb factories.
At no stage, as a minister, could I rely on being told the truth either by the Industry itself or by my own civil servants who may or may not have known it themselves.
Some dramatic examples of misinformation which made a deep impression on me converted me from being a supporter to a very strong opponent of the whole nuclear power programme.
Once, in Japan, a Japanese minister asked me how we were getting on with the task of clearing up the fire at Windscale years before, of which I was wholly unaware.
- Tony Benn
Please remember that UNISON's green charter states: UNISON does not believe that new nuclear build is the right solution to our need for secure, low carbon energy.
http://www.unison.org.uk/
So why are we printing such rubbish in a UNISON Activist magazine?
As for EDF Energy the so called first sustainability partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, announces the inaugural Green Britain Day, taking place on 10 July 2009. In 2009, EDF Energy took control of the UK nuclear generator, British Energy, buying share capital from the government. This made EDF Energy the UK's largest generator, as well as the largest distribution network operator. There is nothing Green about nuclear it is a disaster and a very long term mess that is being left behind.
Let us also not forget that Andrew Brown (Gordon’s brother) just happens to be Head of Media Relations in the UK for the French-owned utility company EDF Energy since 2004.
http://dizzythinks.net/2008/
http://business.timesonline.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
