SEA SHEPHERD & ORWELL: ADY GIL/EARTHRACE SPEEDBOAT = ACOUSTIC NIGHTMARE for WHALES!!!

Earthrace/Ady Gil skipper Pete Bethune says that the boat is so loud that the crew would be deafened if they didn't wear ear-plugs....'One passenger likened the deafening din of the engines reverberating around the carbon-fibre cabin to standing by the speakers at a Led Zeppelin concert.'"

Discovery Channel's Animal Planet show has aired "Whale Wars" for the past two seasons, showing "reality" footage shot on-board Sea Shepherd's boats as the intrepid "eco-warriors" try to shut down the 'clearly evil' Japanese whalers. The second season generated Discovery's second-highest-ever ratings, reaching millions of people around the world. As I predicted last year, viewers may soon see Capt. Watson's face followed immediately by an advert for Coca-Cola!

As I see it, Sea Shepherd's main function has become entertainment and being tv celebrities; 'saving the whales' is now secondary, but it's their "ticket to success." If helping whales was their primary concern, why on Earth...or any other planet...would they invite a monstrous SPEED BOAT like something out of Batman to join them in the Antarctica whale sanctuary? The boat's purpose is to go as fast as possible for as long as possible; the captain himself, kiwi Pete Bethune says that the boat is so loud that the crew would be deafened if they didn't wear ear-plugs.

WHAT WILL IT SOUND LIKE TO THE WHALES...WHO ARE ALREADY UNDER ATTACK FROM NOISE POLLUTION FROM MANY SOURCES? SOUND TRAVELS MUCH FASTER AND WITH GREATER INTENSITY IN WATER THAN IN AIR. AND SOUND IS THE WHALES' PRIMARY MODE OF INFORMATION EXCHANGE.

"Noise pollution disrupts whale communication"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7003587/

CHECK THIS OUT:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activityandadventure/738950/Earthrace-the-green-machine.html

"For all its sleek looks, it was only when the engines started up that you realised the raw power of Earthrace. And the noise. One passenger likened the deafening din of the engines reverberating around the carbon-fibre cabin to standing by the speakers at a Led Zeppelin concert."

AND THIS...in Guatemala the Earthrace hit a fishing boat, killed a fisherman, then hired 'high-powered lawyers' to take care of it, and then was 'experiencing hostilities' in Guatemala!

http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6701997099/m/87319619101

"It’s a good thing for Watson Bethune is rich enough to avoid prosecution. I wonder how much it cost to kill someone in Guatemala while questing for a world speed record? You can see how broke up Bethune is over the death he didn’t even mention his victims by name they were just generic faceless “guys” to him...Yes hiring “High Power” lawyers to fight the victims you killed and injured is the compassionate thing to do. I sure am glad the crew was fine they might have mounted a credible legal challenge against Bethune unlike some poor local fishermen working to survive."

Shutting down whalers is of course admirable, and I used to be Sea Shepherd's biggest fan...until I started looking a little deeper into the reality of what is going on. Having been involved in dolphin research myself, and being a big whale-lover myself for decades, I realized that Sea Shepherd, whose purpose is "defending ocean wildlife and habitats worldwide", seemed to be avoiding the REAL global threats to the cetaceans while focusing on "giving the media what it wants." Capt. Paul Watson himself says that this is their strategy, in lieu of creating any media of their own, which was the approach taken by Sir Peter Blake, kiwi yachtee turned environmental activist killed in the Amazon. After meeting Watson and top Sea Shepherd people in Belgium last year, I had a few questions, for example, why does Sea Shepherd never even talk about global threats to ALL whales like marine toxicity, marine noise pollution, and U.S. Navy's LFA-sonar, that explodes their inner-ear? Sure, the Jap whalers are an atrocity...but whaling only affects a tiny number of the whale populations. Finally Rosalind Peterson was able to verbalize what I'd been thinking:

"The new motto of most environmental groups is even when an environmental disaster is eminent. Money has overridden ethics for many of these groups. Another environmental group motto, which has been around for years: "…thus ensuring that money is raised, without generating too much controversy, for their corporate headquarters."

http://www.newswithviews.com/Peterson/rosalind120.htm

This pretty much sums it up for Watson and crew: they are in fact "really trying to stop the Japanese whalers"...BUT they never even mention the GLOBAL threats to whales; their self-stated "obsession" with stopping the whalers has been replaced by their obsession with being tv stars; and, now, in true Orwellian fashion, they have invited a BATMAN NOISE MACHINE to join them in the Antarctica whale sanctuary! Why? Because it MAKES GREAT TELEVISION! Ratings are where it's at..."just go to the instant donor button on our web-site!"

"Australian National University marketing lecturer Andrew Hughes said it was not just awareness Sea Shepherd had created. The organisation was generating "a lot of money" by linking its powerful images, blog updates, and promise of instant action to online donations."

http://www.mediaman.com.au/profiles/sea_shepherd.html

When you realize that Sea Shepherd apparently owns over $100,000 in Exxon/Mobile (formerly Rockefeller's Standard Oil)...see link below:

http://community.discoverychannel.co.uk/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/877103074/m/330105015

...and that Discovery Communications also hosts the Military Channel...the picture is becoming all too clear. Mainstream media. TV stars! Big Money pouring in! "Eco"-speed boats there to...what was that again? Oh, yeah...save the whales!

Right! If Sea Shepherd and Earthrace REALLY cared more about the whales than about "making great television" there's NO WAY that they'd bring a 'wavepiercing' noise-generator into the Southern Ocean. At those speeds, how would they know if THEY hit a whale? It's just like the situation we encountered in Shark Bay WA a few months ago. We went on a 'whale-watching' excursion thinking it was going to be on a sailboat, but it turned out to be a military-style speed boat. Excessive speed made us all feel endangered, not to mention the marine life, who could barely get out of the way! We told the owner/operator that he shouldn't be allowed to operate in a World Heritage area teeming with life. We asked him if he'd ever hit anything. "Not that I know of" was his response. Only later we learned that a few months before, he had hit and killed a snorkeler...AND DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT until the tourists told him to stop! And he's still in operation! Conccerning Earthrace being an 'eco' boat...this is just as Orwellian as the Shark Bay "Aquarush" being 'eco'...it's just a marketing gimmick. The Earthrace may run on B100 biofuel, but since when is 'biofuel' any less damaging than fossil fuels? Read up on the real ecological cost of "biofuels."

Read this interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva on how the production of "biofuels" is literally taking food out of the mouths of millions of malnourished third-world people.

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/shiva.html

Two Earthrace crew members even underwent liposuction and had the fat from their own bodies mixed in with the fuel...JUST AS A PUBLICITY STUNT! Many clear thinkers on the global energy scenario have observed that new cheap, renewable and readily-available energy sources are at this point in time THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN...because look at what we are doing with it?

In today's world, what could be stupider than trying to see how fast you can go around the world? In my circle of friends, the whole enterprise of vehicular "racing" and "speed" records is an example of some of the most ignorant and regressive practices humans still practice...almost as ignorant and regressive as WHALING.

Maybe soon we'll Sea Shepherd enshrined as an official branch of the UN and going around with biofuel-powered "green" tanks to enforce bio-region mandates? Pardon me, folks, but am I missing something here? It's the WHALES I am interested in, NOT Paul Watson, the Sea Shepherd celebs, Peter Bethune, the Earthrace celebs, nor Discovery Communications, Animal Planet and the Military Channel!

Jeff Phillips
New Zealand
18 October 2009

"AUSTRALIAN DUST STORMS: 'RADIO-ACTIVE' WAKE-UP CALL" Jeff Phillips

"In summary, the nature and potential effects of these dust storms are very similar to the problems that have been created in places like Iraq, Yugoslavia and Lebanon by the use of DU (depleted uranium), which is mine-tailings mixed with high-level waste from reactors, made into bullets and artillery shells. When fired they vaporize into clouds of radioactive nano-particles and spead on the wind."

"AUSTRALIAN DUST-STORMS: 'RADIO-ACTIVISM' WAKE-UP CALL"

Jeff Phillips
7 October 2009 Despite mainstream media response to the recent Australian equinoxious dust-storms, in particular, the ABC, assuring the public that this dust was 'safe', the reality is that enormous amounts of highly radioactive materials ARE in that dust. Film-maker and activist David Bradbury was Australia's only audible voice drawing attention to this scenario, affecting health both locally and globally. Thanks to the Coober Pedy Times for being the only Australian paper to give significant coverage to this, as well. For the full text of this article, focussing on Bradbury and his wake-up call, see http://cooberpedyregionaltimes.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/filmmaker-david-bradbury-red-dust-dump-originating-at-woomera-is-grave-concern-for-public-health/

"FILMMAKER DAVID BRADBURY: RED DUST DUMP ORIGINATING AT WOOMERA IS GRAVE CONCERN FOR PUBLIC HEALTH"

Bradbury relates how these storms originated in the Woomera area, a remote desert area in the far north of South Australia, where the British government conducted above-ground nuclear tests. According to authorities involved in the tests and responsible for the after-math, around 18 kilograms of plutonium remaining from these detonations is unaccounted for. Translation: after the tests, it seems to have disappeared from where it was 'supposed to be' at the sites. Plutonium is a man-made element and is THE most potent and deadly substance known; it is lethal at the level of millionth of a gram. The dust was also known to contain large amounts of tailings from uranium mines in the path of the storm, including the Roxby Olympic Dam mine, scheduled for expansion into the world's largest extraction cavity diameter of 3 kms. Currently consuming/contaminating 30 million liters of ground water from the subterranean Great Artesian Basin PER DAY, this figure will rise to 100 million liters per day with the expansion. Australia is the driest continent, and severe drought is wide-spread. Bradbury's been generating nuclear awareness for years with excellent films like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "A Hard Rain", both state-of-the-art investigative journalism with some basic science education. He may not be a 'scientist' per se, but he's FAR MORE INFORMED than the 'mining industry patsy' that the ABC wheeled out to counter Bradbury's warning about radioactive materials in the dust. See the story for more details... So far abnormal levels of radiation HAVE been detected. Sources in Coober Pedy relate how mining engineers there tested the dust as "hot", and a friend of mine in the Flinders Ranges related that his Geiger counter started 'acting up' as the dust came through. "From September 22 to 24, 2009, Australia's worst dust storm in 70 years carried debris from the continent's interior into the coastal cities, including Sydney, and onwards, on Sept. 24-25, to New Zealand. The storm was about 1,000 km long and 500 km wide. A second dust storm hit Syndey early on September 25 and Brisbane by evening of September 26 - it was smaller than the first storm and measured about 200 km wide. The winds from both storms may have carried plutonium particles¹ and there were speculations in the blogosphere that even other radioactive substances, like uranium from open mines and DU from military operations, were lofted from the interior. An article by news.com.au on Sept. 25 titled 'Are the dust storms radioactive? Australian scientists study Aussie dust from New Zealand' mentioned that a team of scientists had assembled to determine if uranium dust from South Australia's massive Olympic Dam uranium mine might have ended up in the red dust that coated the Australian east coast and New Zealand. (Filmmaker David Bradbury told the Coober Pedy Regional Times on Sept. 25 that the red dust from the storms likely contained plutonium from the Maralinga test site and uranium dust and radon from BHP Bilton's Olympic Dam, which is currently planning to expand into an open-cut mine larger than Adelaide, which Bradbury says 'will be one of the, if not THE most environmentally criminal act of any mining company in the history of Australia.')" READ THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE... http://www.idealist.ws/australia.php And check this out excerpted from an email to Bradbury from Middle East Consultant Peter Eyre: "On the issue of uranium mining, as Leuren has already pointed out to you, the ongoing secondary contamination is forever once urainum is unlocked from its natural state. Leuren knows first hand the long term health issues of the American Indians and the gross contamination of their land.......no doubt the Australian Government would be more than happy to do the same to the original dwellers of our land. Unfortunately as Leuren and others will tell you.....these aerosols are indiscriminate and therefore go wherever the wind takes them.

I have attached a wind flow chart that I did and you can see that even with this chart one could very easily create a huge dust storm.....its shows an area of low pressure in the Bight and a very strong high level jet stream running over the top from West to East...thats how easy it is.......add to this huge stock piles in the NT and the Dam area and one can see the fate that awaits our once pristine environment......"Australia the lucky country".

Finally the question of the 20 year contract with the US and other nations to practice live firings at many locations in Oz is an absolute joke. As an example pre the "Shock and Awe" attack on Baghdad...Lancelin was used by US forces to practice for that event.....as you already know we have also looked at a bomb/missile blast on Raymond Island that definately is not a conventional explosion and I also sent a photograph of an Oz F111 carrying a bunker buster etc etc......then you have the Government saying that they have given the US permission to import DU weapons but not to use them.....doesnt that in itself raise concern. Most of todays weapons contain uranium components either by Penetrator, Shaped Charge Liner or as a counterballance." And this from Friends of the Earth: "Up to 18 kilograms of potentially deadly radioactive plutonium has gone missing from the former British nuclear weapons test sites in South Australia.

(442.4371) WISE Amsterdam - Scientists preparing for the clean-up of the sites say their best guess is that the plutonium, which has a half-life of about 24,000 years and can pose a grave cancer risk, was blasted into tiny particles and scattered across the continent during non-nuclear "safety trials". Australian officials did not know that the plutonium was unaccounted for until the recent completion of a huge mapping program to identify how much rehabilitation was needed at the Maralinga test area.

In 1968 the authorities thought there would be about 2 kg of plutonium out there in the soil and the area surrounding the test sites, and about 20 kg of radioactive material in burial pits and otherwise under control. Now it is clear that those proportions are in effect reversed.

Britain told Australia that all but about two kilograms plutonium had been either removed or buried but British records of what went into the buriel pits are vague. Britain left "souvenir-sized" lumps of plutonium on the ground at Maralinga, with millions of more hazardous pinhead-sized particles scattered around three explosion sites. Plutonium-contaminated dust is the major health risk: if inhaled, it poses a serious lung cancer risk, and if it enters the bloodstream it greatly increases the risk of bone or liver cancer.

550,000 tonnes of contaminated soil will have to be dug up from areas at the Taranaki site, Wewak (DB notessites around SA I think..) and a third site called 'TM100/101'. The dust further afield is considered to be too widely dispersed and each grain too small to be of concern. After the clean-up, the land will be handed back to its traditional owners, the Maralinga-Tjarutja community.

The Maralinga site, 1,000 km north-west of Adelaide, was the site of the English tests between 1953 and 1963.

Sources: Pacific News Bulletin, July 1993 and Sept. 1995

http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/442/4371.html

In summary, the nature and potential effects of these dust storms are very similar to the problems that have been created in places like Iraq, Yugoslavia and Lebanon by the use of DU (depleted uranium), which is mine-tailings mixed with high-level waste from reactors, made into bullets and artillery shells. When fired they vaporize into clouds of radioactive nano-particles and spead on the wind. OK...enough for now. Will keep you posted as more unfolds. cheers jeff FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE THE FOLLOWING:

"NUCLEAR AUSTRALIA: IN SUPPORT OF CANCER, TERRORISM, AND DEPOPULATION" Jeff Phillips, 16 July 2009

http://synthaissance.blogspot.com/2009_07_16_archive.html

"Populations Exposed to Environmental Uranium: Increased Risk of Infertility and Reproductive Cancers" Leuren Moret, July 2008

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2008/Uranium-Populations-Moret1jul08.htm
"The Aishah Ali Interview With Geoscientist Leuren Moret"
Madame Chair Magazine (Malaysia), v.VIII, 1 August 2007 http://www.activistmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=776&Itemid=143