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The so-called Clean Power Rule (CPP) being imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires cutting “carbon” emissions and will result in shuttering many coal-fired electrical generating stations. This is said to produce climate benefits by reducing atmospheric CO₂, and health benefits by reducing small particulates (“PM2.5s”), as in soot and diesel exhaust.

Last week’s ruling from Judge Hollis Hill of the King County Superior Court in Seattle, Washington, is said to be a landmark precedent for the government’s authority to impose such rules. The court held for eight child petitioners, one of whom said, “we have a right to a healthy atmosphere, and the government can’t allow it to be harmed.” Continue reading “Clean Power Rule Is a Corrupt, Health-Damaging Power-Rationing Rule, Says Physicians for Civil Defense”

Last week, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister in charge of the defense industry, called for reviving the old Cold War practice of training civilians on how to respond in the event of a large-scale nuclear attack. Recreating civil defense would mean that the population “could avoid colossal losses” if “subject to that kind of aggression.”

During the Cold War, Russia built—and still has—an extensive system of bomb shelters. Compulsory civil defense training for the population, including schoolchildren, was discontinued under Gorbachev. Continue reading “Russian Military Spending Surges as Revived Civil Defense Training Called for, Says PCD”

As the nation appears to be on the brink of nuclear war, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is reprinting its 50-year-old message in the New England Journal of Medicine. It claims that the existence of nuclear weapons is an “existential threat to humanity,” and that there is an urgent need to abolish them.

It is of course true that nuclear weapons effects are devastating. However, the “nuclear winter” theory that Physicians for Social Responsibility still cites was debunked and discredited long ago, as explained by Michael Crichton in a 2003 lecture at Caltech. Continue reading “Activist Doctors Still Disseminating Flawed, Dangerous Advice on Nuclear Weapons, Says PCD”

U.S. and Russian aircraft could literally be on a collision course in Syria, as the two countries have not agreed on flight safety rules in Syrian airspace. U.S. pilots are under orders to change their flight path if a Russian plane is within 20 nautical miles, according to a CNN report.

Americans who lived through the Cold War may recall the novel Alas, Babylon, in which a worldwide nuclear conflagration resulted from an accident caused by a low-level military officer. At that time, people were knowledgeable about nuclear weapons effects, and the U.S. had a civil defense program, notes Physicians for Civil Defense president Jane M. Orient, M.D. Today, there would be millions of avoidable casualties. Continue reading “Could Americans Face Nuclear Attack Because of Syria, Asks PCD”

While the press is preoccupied with the Iran deal, nuclear threats from other sources also build. A German reporter embedded with the Islamic State (ISIS) revealed that the jihadist terror group plans to bring nuclear annihilation across the globe, according to a report in Israel National News.

ISIS intends to get its hands on nuclear weapons, says Jurgen Todenhofer, calling the group a “nuclear tsunami preparing the largest religious cleansing in history.” He writes that “the terrorists plan on killing several hundred million people. The west is drastically underestimating the power of ISIS.”

A nuclear arms race in the Middle East, involving Iran and rival states such as Saudi Arabia, could lead to nuclear proliferation that increases the chance of weapons falling into the hands of ISIS. Continue reading “Nuclear Threat May Be Imminent; U.S. Unprepared, States Physicians for Civil Defense”

In the run-up to international climate change talks in Paris, and with pressure from the Pope to help “smoke out” Congress on “climate change denial,” the press celebrates a study purporting to show 3 million premature deaths per year globally from air pollution.

The most important component of pollution is said to be small particulates—smoke and dust, along with ozone. Cutting CO₂ emissions would incidentally cut down on these particulates (PM2.5s) and allegedly postpone 3 million deaths from stroke, heart attack, chronic obstructive lung disease, acute lower respiratory infection, and lung cancer. The study was published in the Sep 17 issue of the prestigious British journal Nature.

Complicated mathematical models are used to extrapolate conclusions from small epidemiologic studies to the entire globe, notes Physicians for Civil Defense. They assume that all particles are equally deadly, no matter their composition, and that tiny exposures over time can be as bad as or worse than a big exposure all at once. They ignore other possible explanations for different rates of diseases in different locations. Continue reading “Dust Does Not Cause 3 Million Strokes, Heart Attacks, or Other Deaths a Year, States PCD”

The “Bomb Boat” is ferry workers’ nickname for the MV Sankaty, which carries fuel tanker trucks. It docks next to the passenger ferry Island Home, which can carry up to 1,000 passengers, according to Stephen Jones, Special Projects Director of Physicians for Civil Defense.

Jones has investigated what he considers unsafe conditions on the Martha’s Vineyard Steamship Authority ferries. His sources are senior ferry workers and personal observation. He has also met with eight members of the Steamship Authority and with county emergency manager Chuck Conior. Continue reading “The “Bomb Boat” of Martha’s Vineyard: Travelers’ Warning from Physicians for Civil Defense”