No Nuclear Submarines No Matter Who Owns Them! For a Nuclear-free World! For a Weapons-free World!

And where have all the anti-nuclear peace protesters gone?

Apexing

 

As the propaganda

unfurls to make a complaisant

audience even more pliable,

we hear of the unsighted

sonar world of insight

into the call of whales,

the sea creature speech

that is a privilege to eavesdrop

on, to warm the soul

the deeper and colder

it gets. ‘Brothers and sisters’

in the new regime, precise

as torpedoes, concise

as thirty-second showers,

intimate as cramped

living conditions in which

‘sex’ is off the menu (‘steak

and lobster’ is on). The massaging

of reception as the Virginia-class

fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota

slips in to ease the transfer

of nuclear reactors

so friendly to oceans

and surface, to all that earth

is and will no longer be.

Rockingham hugs the ‘apex

predator’, Fremantle hugs

the apex predator, Perth

hugs the apex predator.

Don’t call these places

by their Indigenous names

in such a context as this —

those names are forever

and not temporary.

Where have the protesters

gone? Where have the flotillas

of peace boats sailed? As easy

as economics the safety

of world as we know it in

back yards, front yards, down

the street, across the water,

high up in the tainted atmosphere.

 

 

            John Kinsella

Germany Closes Down Its Last Operating Nuclear Power Plants!

This is a great moment! The last three operating nuclear reactors in Germany shut down at midnight last night. Germany is still surrounded by reactors in other countries, but it's a start. It is deeply frustrating and offensive to hear the pro-nuclear lobby try to claim that they are environmentalists, saying that without nuclear more fossil fuel will be used. Fact is, it doesn't have to be a case of no nuclear meaning more coal or gas. Renewables are a large percentage of German power production, and increasing. But more to the point, we all need seriously to reduce our power consumption and find less-impacting ways of living. For the world to be manipulated by an industry that could mean mass devastation, and whose contaminations are legion, is obscene. So, we celebrate the closing of the plants. A serious step towards a safer planet.

Final Nuclear Power Plant Shutdowns in Germany: a heuristic for celebration

Energy consumption as fait accompli is the big stick 

those who would control us wield... Use less!

Neckarwestheim II nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — froh!

Isar II nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — froh!

Emsland nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — froh!

It is raining today, but we probably won’t need to take iodine.

Under forests, roots say, No nuclear doesn’t foment coal mines.’

Neckarwestheim II nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — glücklich!

Isar II nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — glücklich!

Emsland nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — glücklich!

From a beech tree, a blue jay makes a universal declaration.

‘One small step’ needs to be reclaimed. Recalibrate the slogans.

Neckarwestheim II nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — hooray!

Isar II nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — hooray!

Emsland nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — hooray!

From the UK nuclear lobby we hear the specious tra-la-la of consumption:   

‘...environmentally damaging, economically  illiterate and deeply  irresponsible’. Say again?

Neckarwestheim II nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — hooray!

Isar II nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — enfin!

Emsland nuclear reactor

shut down at midnight last night — endlich!

While French media trace the sadness of a nuclear town

in losing its raison d’être, we say, dance to Nena’s ’99 Luftballons’.

John Kinsella

Note: "Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the UK’s Nuclear Industry Association, said the phaseout would worsen carbon emissions and ‘for a country supposedly renowned for its logical and evidence-driven approach is environmentally damaging, economically illiterate and deeply irresponsible’". See The Guardian.