30 Jun, 2023 17:15

EU warns against selfish geoengineering

Spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere may cool one area of the Earth, but studies show it risks heating others even more

The European Commission has warned the bloc’s lawmakers that geoengineering –large-scale technological interventions to mitigate climate change – is fraught with potential “unintended consequences.”

The EU executive body said in a statement released on Wednesday that deploying technologies like solar radiation modificationwithout sufficient understanding of the potential dangers– either for Europeans or populations elsewhere in the world – could be devastating.

“These technologies introduce new risks to people and ecosystems, while they could also increase power imbalances between nations, spark conflicts and raises a myriad of ethical, legal, governance and political issues,” the statement continued, adding thatthere were no existing rules to ensure such technologies were deployed safely, and that any serious efforts must engage the EU and UN.

“Nobody should be conducting experiments alone with our shared planet,” EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans told reporters earlier this week, calling for any proposed experiments to be “discussed in the right forum, at the highest international level.”

It’s the latest sign of global concern over climate interventions. Billionaire Microsoft co-founder andBill Gates attempted to bring his Harvard geoengineering teamand theirsun-dimming experiment to the north of Sweden in 2021, only to meet withferocious oppositionfrom the indigenous Saami population and Swedish NGOs, forcing them to return to the US.

Gates has invested heavily in stratospheric aerosol injection, a type of geoengineering in which finely powdered rock is released into the atmosphere to block some of the sun’s rays. Indigenous leaders warned the experiment would create a “moral hazard,” destroying any incentive to reach net zero carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the US – and the rest of the world – would be locked into a geoengineering sequence permanently, as halting the process would result in a sudden rebound of heating.

Critics have also pointed to studies showing that geoengineering setups like Gates’s could destabilize areas of the world in which they are not deployed, worsening the effects of climate change elsewhere by as much as 9%, even as they cooled whichever wealthy country could afford to deploy them.

Mexico banned geoengineeringexperiments in January after a startup called Make Sunsets tried spraying sulfur particles into the air “without any public engagement or scientific scrutiny,” according to MIT Technology Review. The university condemned that experiment, but has remained bullish on geoengineering, recently suggesting it “might be our final and only option.” The UN released a report in March backing the idea.

The European Commission included its concerns in a document reimagining what it called “the climate and security nexus.” The bloc’s leaders argued that climate change posed a greater threat to national security than ever – not just with biodiversity and resource depletion, but with a surge in migrant populations, more interactions with disease-carrying animals, and potentially runaway technology.

https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2023.06/l/649f0d1a85f54006b4448de1.jpeg

Our government and Arms companies are incompetent, stupid and wasteful

30 Jun, 2023 16:49

Raytheon hiring pensioners to build Stinger missiles

The arms manufacturer’s current employees don’t know how to make the Cold War-era launchers

Raytheon has lost the knowledge necessary to build Stinger anti-air missiles and is enlisting retired employeesto restart production, the company’s president said in a recent interview. With production halted since 2003, Raytheon is struggling to meet Ukraine’s demands.

“Stinger’s been out of production for 20 years, and all of a sudden in the first 48 hours [of the conflict in Ukraine], it’s the star of the show and everybody wants more,” Wes Kremer, the president of Raytheon’s missile division, told Defense One in an interview published on Wednesday.

Raytheon began building shoulder-fired FIM-92 Stinger missile launchers in 1978, based on a design by General Dynamics. Production ended in 2003, with the last Stingers delivered to the Pentagon the following year.

Stinger missiles were among the first American weapons sent to Ukraine following the launch of Russia’s military operation last February. More than 1,700 Stingers have been taken from US stocks and sent to Kiev since then, accounting for more than 13 years’ worth of production, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said in December.

The Pentagon awarded a $624 million contract to Raytheon last summer, ordering 1,700 Stingers for delivery by 2026. However, Kremer toldDefense One that it will take 30 months before the first missiles start rolling off the production line, as the company’s current employees don’t know how to make them.

“We were bringing back retired employees that are in their 70s … to teach our new employees how to actually build a Stinger,” he said. “We’re pulling test equipment out of warehouses and blowing the spider webs off of them.”

Hayes warned last year that many of the electronic components used in the Stinger are now obsolete. Kremer said that the company is “redesigning circuit cards [and] redesigning some of the componentry” to get around this problem, adding that this process “just takes a long time.”

https://www.rt.com/news/578999-raytheon-hiring-retired-stinger/

30 Jun, 2023 17:27

Ukraine sues Iran over 2020 downed plane

Kiev says it has filed a lawsuit to ensure Tehran is held accountable for shooting down flight 752

Ukraine has filed a lawsuit against Iran at the UN’s International Court of Justice for the 2020 downing of a civilian airliner, Kiev’s Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.

According to a statement published on the ministry’s website, Ukraine, along with other members of the International Coordination Group for Assistance to the Victims of Flight PS752, which comprises Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the UK, are demanding that Tehran be held accountable for the incident.

The ministry noted that “no agreement has yet been reached between Iran and the Coordination Group to organize arbitration under Article 14 of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts aimed against the safety of civil aviation.”

On January 8, 2020, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Ukraine International Airlines was en route from Tehran to Kiev. Shortly after take-off from Imam Khomeini International Airport, the aircraft exploded in mid-air, killing all 176 people on board. The victims included citizens of Ukraine and Iran, along with nationals of the UK, Germany, Canada, Sweden and Afghanistan.

A week later, the Iranian military admitted that they had mistakenly shot down the Boeing, which was flying near a military facility, after confusing it for an “enemy target.” The incident occurred at a time when Iran was bracing for a potential US retaliation for ballistic missile strikes on American military bases in Iraq. Tehran ultimately blamed the incident on a string of human errors, as well as a trigger-happy operator of the air defense system.

In April this year, a military court in Iran handed down prison terms to ten defendants over the tragedy. The commander of the air defense system received 13 years, while nine others – the defense system’s crew, a Tehran military base commander, an officer at the regional operations control center and a regional Air Defense commander – were sentenced to between one and three years behind bars.

Iran also pledged to pay $150,000 dollars to the families of each victim, in addition to compensation payments ordered by the court, and announced in January 2022 that it had started transferring the funds.

Kiev, however,accused Tehranfor failing to take full responsibility for the incident or ensure that such tragedies do not happen again.

there’s always a grift going on in Ukraine

(I thought all the scientists on board were Iranians)

https://www.rt.com/news/578998-ukraine-sues-iran-plane-downing/