Dawn of a new Armageddon | Cynthia Lazaroff
▻https://thebulletin.org/2018/08/dawn-of-a-new-armageddon
This threat of nuclear attack is not a scenario, not a video game. Here this morning we experienced it personally, felt the terror. Now it is in my gut. I want our leaders to experience that same visceral awareness of how our lives – our lives – are at stake. Those 38 minutes made the unimaginable tangible, real. Source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
How fast is the Arctic ice retreating? Just listen to it melt. | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻https://thebulletin.org/how-fast-arctic-ice-retreating-just-listen-it-melt11878
for a melting glacier, you just hear a constant cacophony of sound. There are so many bubbles released to the water at the same time that you cannot just distinguish between individual pulsations.
But when there is an iceberg, you can actually hear the individual popping sound, of individual bubbles being released into the water. For example, listen to this iceberg recording.
On l’ajoute à la troisième compilation :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/680147
#effondrement #collapsologie #catastrophe #fin_du_monde #it_has_begun #Anthropocène #capitalocène
Decades in the making: The Iranian drone program | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻https://thebulletin.org/decades-making-iranian-drone-program11185
This summer, Iran’s drone program became the latest component of the country’s defense sector to make headlines. In August, an unarmed Iranian drone reportedly came within 100 feet of an American fighter jet in the Persian Gulf. Earlier in the summer, the United States downed two Iranian drones, which it said, were flying in close proximity to US-backed ground forces in Syria. In June, Pakistan too stated it had shot down an Iranian drone flying in its airspace.
These incidents put the Iranian drone program on Western observers’ radars as a new potential threat associated with the Islamic Republic. But Iran’s drone program actually started decades ago and serves a number of military and civil purposes. As Tehran deploys its drones more regularly, for more purposes and in more locations, policy-makers will have to understand the program’s nature, scope, strengths, and limitations if they want to effectively respond to it.
#drones #iran #syrie #israël #bombardement
#آمریکا_هیچ_غلطی_نمی_تواند_بکند
America can’t do a damn thing against us
Ayatollah Khomeini, Qôm, 7 novembre 1979
(au tout début de la crise des otages)
(traduction libre me semble-t-il)
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_can%27t_do_a_damn_thing_against_us
AI and climate: On the “bleeding edge” with a pioneering researcher | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻https://thebulletin.org/ai-and-climate-%E2%80%9Cbleeding-edge%E2%80%9D-pioneering-researcher115
The nuclear threat in 2017 | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻https://thebulletin.org/nuclear-threat-201711381
https://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/bombs-dropping.jpg 
https://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Figure-1-Postol-new_4.jpg?itok=yB4RdZMK It was a year stained by the epithets “little rocket man” and “dotard” and full of all-too-many nuclear threats. Beyond the confrontation between North Korea and the United States over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, in 2017 the strained US-Russia relationship, the Iran nuclear deal, nuclear modernization programs around the world, the India-Pakistan nuclear arms race, and even the mental state of the US president dominated world headlines. On a positive note (at least as seen by supporters of nuclear disarmament), the UN overwhelmingly adopted a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. But because the countries with nuclear weapons steadfastly refused to support the ban, it received a relatively dismissive reception in the United States—until the leaders of the treaty effort received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work.
Running out of time | John J. Hamre - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻https://thebulletin.org/running-out-time11368
I am dismayed by our rhetoric in Washington. We are talking like frightened little rabbits, afraid of a wolf in the forest. We have nothing to be afraid of, and the more we act like frightened little critters, the more we reward North Korea for pursuing a dead-end strategy. We tried a policy of dissuasion for the past 15 years, and it has failed. But a strategy of deterrence has worked and will continue to work.
(John J. Hamre was elected president and chief executive officer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in January 2000. Before joining CSIS, he served as the 26th US deputy secretary of defense.)
North Korea’s “not quite” ICBM can’t hit the lower 48 states | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/north-korea%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cnot-quite%E2%80%9D-icbm-can%E2%80%99t-hi
[...] the Western press apparently did not know one crucial fact: The rocket carried a reduced payload and, therefore, was able to reach a much higher altitude than would have been possible if it had instead carried the weight associated with the type of first-generation atomic bomb North Korea might possess. Experts quoted by the press apparently assumed that the rocket had carried a payload large enough to simulate the weight of such an atomic bomb, in the process incorrectly assigning a near-ICBM status to a rocket that was in reality far less capable.
#missiles #nucléaire #Corée_du_nord #incompétence ou #malhonnêteté #MSM #Etats-Unis
Hit delete on the “right” to nuclear energy in new weapons ban, by Ray Acheson (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
▻http://thebulletin.org/hit-delete-right-nuclear-energy-new-weapons-ban
The so-called right to nuclear energy is already enshrined in the existing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and reflects an outdated understanding of the technology’s risks. It is part of an ill-conceived bargain designed to convince countries that don’t already have nuclear weapons not to develop them.
We know that nuclear energy increases proliferation opportunities. All nine nuclear-armed states have used nuclear reactors to create plutonium for their nuclear weapons. In the United Kingdom and France, civilian nuclear energy and military programs overlapped. North Korea and India acquired nuclear weapons through supposedly “peaceful” civilian nuclear programs. Fears about Iran’s nuclear energy program drove a major diplomatic effort to limit its ability to develop nuclear weapons.
(…) The ban treaty may not be able to curb nuclear energy, but it must not give any legitimacy to this failed and destructive technology.
Alert! Radioactive boars on two continents | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/alert-radioactive-boars-two-continents10606?platform=hootsuite
As Reuters reports, when human beings evacuated the exclusion zone, boars descended from their mountain homes. In typically porcine fashion, they began to eat whatever could be swallowed, including lots of “radioactive vegetation.”
(…) In the Czech Republic—as reported, again, by Reuters—radioactive boars are injecting a hint of danger into the consumption of goulash. The problem is that Czech boars eat false truffles. False truffles contain cesium-137, which traveled west on the wind during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
(…) In recent years, a full 47 percent of boars tested—and they all must be tested—were judged too radioactive for inclusion in hearty, regional stews.
#sangliers_radioactifs #nucléaire #fukushima #tchernobyl #it_has_begun
Who will have the AI edge? | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/who-will-have-ai-edge10497
[Mary] Cummings argues that companies like Google and Facebook could outpace militaries when it comes to the science of artificial intelligence, which in turn could lead to potentially dangerous technologies going into use before they have been properly tested.
Intéressant.
Là ou Cummings laisse sous-entendre que les militaires sont plus rigoureux dans les tests avant de lancer quelque chose :
It’s unclear where all this this will lead, but Cummings worries about two outcomes in particular—governments coming to rely on private industry for their AI know-how and autonomous systems going into the field without the safeguards and testing that national militaries usually insist upon.
...Eric Schmidt dit un peu l’opposé, à savoir que la recherche en IA devrait se faire plutôt par les Google et Facebook que les militaires :
Eric Schmidt : AI research needs to be done in the open, not in military labs
▻http://www.zdnet.com/article/eric-schmidt-ai-research-needs-to-be-done-in-the-open-not-in-military-labs
The industry should be thinking of ways to convince governments to agree to not militarize the internet with machine learning technologies
Global nuclear power : the interactive - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/global-nuclear-power-database
Our new datavisualization puts a wealth of information on 60 years of nuclear power plant startups and shutdowns at your fingertips
une petite #cartographie interactive conçue et réalisée par @visionscarto et ►http://www.worldnuclearreport.org
#nucléaire #énergie #électricité #industrie_nucléaire
référence Visionscarto : ▻https://visionscarto.net/global-nuclear-power-database
(y) encore très classe :) mais pourquoi tant de pfff ? ^^
le sommaire du numéro :
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists : Vol 73, No 1
▻http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rbul20/73/1?nav=tocList
Special Issue: Should nuclear power be a major part of the world’s response to climate change
Introduction: Nuclear power and the urgent threat of climate change
John Mecklin
What role could nuclear power play in limiting climate change?
Robert Rosner & Alex Hearn
Kerry Emanuel: A climate scientist for nuclear energy
Dawn Stover
Wasting time: Subsidies, operating reactors, and melting ice
Peter A. Bradford
The incredible shrinking nuclear offset to climate change
Sharon Squassoni
Can North America’s advanced nuclear reactor companies help save the planet?
Elisabeth Eaves
Safety first: The future of nuclear energy outside the United States
Michael M. May
The case for American nuclear leadership
Daniel B. Poneman
Nuclear Notebook
United States nuclear forces, 2017
Hans M. Kristensen & Robert S. Norris
Editor’s note
Lucien Crowder
Managing nuclear risk in South Asia
Jayita Sarkar
Managing nuclear risk in South Asia
Rabia Akhtar
Managing nuclear risk in South Asia
Mario E. Carranza
Daily chart : Construction of most nuclear-power reactors is behind schedule | The Economist
▻http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/01/daily-chart-22
On a eu le plaisir de voir notre graphique de l’histoire de la construction des réacteurs nucléaires repris par The Economist.
On avait oublié de traduire en français la présentation
►https://visionscarto.net/reacteurs-nucleaires-en-construction
Naomi Klein: Climate change makes for a hotter and meaner world | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/naomi-klein-climate-change-makes-hotter-and-meaner-world
BAS: One of the shocking things to read in your book was that all these trade agreements essentially say that free trade trumps everything else, including environmental concerns. Economic growth always comes first; climate second.
Klein: And we’re seeing a flurry of these new trade deals, with the United States and China, and with Europe and the United States, to name just a few of the larger partnerships. There is this fundamental contradiction between what governments are negotiating in trade summits and what they’re negotiating at climate summits. There’s seemingly very little desire to reconcile the two.
It’s like they’re on these two parallel tracks and don’t communicate with each other.
Twenty years ago the trade lawyers could plead ignorance and say that they weren’t really up on climate change. But that’s not true anymore. It’s really a willful compartmentalization, because it’s hard to reconcile that kind of trade with a radical carbon reduction agenda.
The Okinawa missiles of October 1962 | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/okinawa-missiles-october8826
The story begins just after midnight, in the wee hours of October 28, 1962, at the very height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then-Air Force airman John Bordne says he began his shift full of apprehension. At the time, in response to the developing crisis over secret Soviet missile deployments in Cuba, all US strategic forces had been raised to Defense Readiness Condition 2, or DEFCON2; that is, they were prepared to move to DEFCON1 status within a matter of minutes. Once at DEFCON1, a missile could be launched within a minute of a crew being instructed to do so. (...) By Bordne’s account, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Air Force crews on Okinawa were ordered to launch 32 missiles, each carrying a large nuclear warhead. Only caution and the common sense and decisive action of the line personnel receiving those orders prevented the launches—and averted the nuclear war that most likely would have ensued.
American #violence from #Ferguson to #Fallujah | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/american-violence-ferguson-fallujah8220
US policing [...] is increasingly seen by the police themselves as a form of counterinsurgency, designed to control hostile populations whose lives lack value. As if they were operating in Iraq or Afghanistan, US police infiltrate and spy on adversary networks, stop and search people at will, and bust down doors in the middle of the night with guns drawn. Recently the Guardian revealed that Chicago has been operating “the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site”—a detention facility where arrestees, some of them minors, are held off the books, with no recourse to legal advice, and are often shackled for long periods and even beaten during interrogation. Just as US soldiers have killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians for not stopping at checkpoints—which are often poorly marked—so Scott lost his life for running away from a traffic stop.
For people of color and the poor, the United States is becoming a war zone. Anyone skeptical should consider the numbers. Estimates of how many insurgent and civilian foreigners the United States has killed by drone vary; the highest estimate, roughly 5,241 over 13 years, comes from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. That is 403 deaths a year. In the United States, a recent government report revealed that over eight years (2003 through 2009 plus 2011), police killed an average of 928 people each year. That’s more than twice as many as the highest estimate of drone deaths in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan combined. (Details of individual deaths can be found at Killedbypolice.net.)
The four American security contractors working for Blackwater Worldwide, who were just sentenced by a US federal judge for randomly killing 14 innocent civilians in Baghdad, claimed to be acting in self-defense, until their story broke down. Likewise, after North Charleston, South Carolina police officer Michael Slager shot Scott in the back as he ran away, Slager reported that they had struggled and that he was acting in self-defense. Had a witness not made a video of Slager shooting Scott in the back as he ran away, we would not have known the truth.
But the people at ground zero, African-Americans at home and Muslims abroad, don’t need videos to know the truth. The truth is that the American deployment of violence has gone badly off the rails. Violence is always described in carefully crafted official statements as discriminate or unavoidable; wrongful deaths as regrettable and unusual errors of judgement. The truth, though, is that violence is now often the first resort. Acting under cover of law, weaponized Americans have become a lawless force.
What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above midtown Manhattan? | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/what-would-happen-if-800-kiloton-nuclear-warhead-detonated-above-midtow
This article is adapted from “City on Fire” by Lynn Eden, originally published in the January 2004 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
(encore plus fort qu’@obsarm avec sa centrale nucléaire qui explose à Lyon)
Déjà, ça ferait fondre la banquise autour de New York #bonne_nouvelle
Le scénario lyonnais : ►http://seenthis.net/messages/227749
Did Israel steal bomb-grade uranium from the United States? | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-united-states7056
Last month the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), the nation’s highest classification authority, released a number of top-level government memoranda that shed additional light on the so-called NUMEC affair, "the story that won’t go away—the possibility that in the 1960s, Israel stole bomb-grade uranium from a US nuclear fuel-processing plant.”
The evidence available for our 2010 Bulletin article persuaded us that Israel did steal uranium from the Apollo, Pennsylvania, plant of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC). We urged the US government to declassify CIA and FBI documents to settle the matter. In releasing the current batch—the release being largely due to the persistent appeals of researcher Grant Smith—the government has been careful to excise from all the released documents the CIA’s reasons for fingering Israel. Despite this, the documents are significantly revealing. For one thing, the excisions themselves are a backhanded admission of the persuasiveness of the CIA’s evidence. (Why these excisions are legally justified is not apparent—after nearly 50 years, the “sources and methods” issues have long ago dissipated.)
While we still don’t know exactly what the CIA told high government officials, we do know from the released memoranda that top officials thought the CIA’s case was a strong one. Also, as described in our earlier article, one of us was present at the CIA’s February 1976 briefing of a small group at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). At that session Carl Duckett, then-CIA deputy director for science and technology, told the NRC group the CIA believed the missing highly enriched uranium ended up in Israel.
The newly released documents also expose government efforts, notably during the Carter administration, to keep the NUMEC story under wraps, an ironic twist in view of Jimmy Carter’s identification with opposition to nuclear proliferation.
Threatened pandemics and laboratory escapes: Self-fulfilling prophecies | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/threatened-pandemics-and-laboratory-escapes-self-fulfilling-prophecies7
The risk of a manmade pandemic sparked by a laboratory escape is not hypothetical: One occurred in 1977, and it occurred because of concern that a natural pandemic was imminent. Many other laboratory escapes of high-consequence pathogens have occurred, resulting in transmission beyond laboratory personnel. Ironically, these laboratories were working with pathogens to prevent the very outbreaks they ultimately caused. For that reason, the tragic consequences have been called “self-fulfilling prophecies.”
Modern genetic analysis allows pathogens to be precisely identified, and because all circulating pathogens show genetic changes over time, the year that a particular example of a pathogen emerged can generally be determined, given a sufficient database of samples. If a pathogen appears in nature after not circulating for years or decades, it may be assumed to have escaped from a laboratory where it had been stored inert for many years, accumulating no genetic changes; that is, its natural evolution had been frozen.
(...)
These narratives of escaped pathogens have common themes. There are unrecognized technical flaws in standard biocontainment, as demonstrated in the UK smallpox and FMD cases. Inadequately inactivated preparations of dangerous pathogens are handled in laboratory areas with reduced biosecurity levels, as demonstrated in the SARS and VEE escapes. The first infection, or index case, happens in a person not working directly with the pathogen that infects him or her, as in the smallpox and SARS escapes. Poor training of personnel and slack oversight of laboratory procedures negate policy efforts by national and international bodies to achieve biosecurity, as shown in the SARS and smallpox escapes.
It is hardly reassuring that, despite stepwise technical improvements in containment facilities and increased policy demands for rigorous biosecurity procedures in the handling of dangerous pathogens, potentially high consequence breaches of biocontainment occur nearly daily: In 2010, 244 unintended releases of bioweapon candidate “select agents” were reported.
Not all secrets are alike | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://www.thebulletin.org/not-all-secrets-are-alike
When it comes to national security, there are two kinds of secrets. One is the strict military secret. ...
The second kind of secret is what anthropologists call the “public secret.” These are denied yet known.
...
Often the state’s greatest rage is directed at those who reveal public secrets, not military secrets. ...
Even before he was found guilty, Manning has been punished harshly. The United Nations special rapporteur on torture complained that Manning—held for months in solitary confinement, often naked, and deprived of sleep—had been subjected to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture.”
...
... there is a reason the top leadership of Al Qaeda has communicated for years by personal courier, and it would be a terrorist or insurgent with a very short life expectancy who would communicate by cell phone or unencrypted email. Snowden’s real crime was to reveal incontrovertibly what some already guessed and others might prefer not to know: The US government has secretly created a massive apparatus of domestic surveillance on the edge of the law.
...
“If you want a secret respected,” said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the country’s greatest commentators on secrecy, “see that it’s respectable in the first place.”