London Mining NetworkBriefings | London Mining Network

Rio Tinto: are they telling us the whole truth?

admin — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:30:01 +0000

People from communities directly affected by Rio Tinto’s activities around the world, people who work with those communities, and experts on the operations of the company, have contributed to a background report which London Mining Network has produced ready for the 14 April Rio Tinto plc AGM in London.

You can read the report by clicking the link below.

Rio Tinto Background Information

CORE publishes briefing on UK company reporting

Richard — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:00:32 +0000

Over the last six years, developments in UK law on company non-financial reporting requirements have proven particularly challenging to follow. Beck Wallace has just produced for CORE a short briefing which attempts to provide an accessible summary of recent changes and current debates across Whitehall and the EU.

See http://corporate-responsibility.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/reporting_timeline.pdf.

An introduction to coal mining

Richard — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:59:14 +0000

London Mining Network has produced an introductory briefing on coal mining, dealing with its impacts on farming communities, Indigenous Peoples, water, air and human health.

It calls for a just, planned transition away from coal and the creation of alternative livelihoods for the very many people reliant on coal mining.

This briefing does not deal with the issue of climate change.

To read the briefing, click on the link below.

Introduction to coal

Everything you wanted to know about nukes but were afraid to ask

Richard — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:20:05 +0000

Anti-Nuke Fact Sheets Galore

Nukes and Climate Change
Radioactive Waste
Radiation
Alternatives
And much more!

See http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/fctsht.htm.…
Read more

BankTrack calls on banks to stop funding nuclear power

Richard — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:16:18 +0000

BankTrack, in cooperation with a number of working partners, today (26 May 2010) launches http://www.nuclearbanks.org, a new website mapping the involvement of 45 leading commercial banks in funding nuclear power projects and companies active in the nuclear sector. These banks include British-based Barclays, HSBC and RBS.

BankTrack considers nuclear energy a grave danger for people and planet. The renewed interest in nuclear energy also poses a severe obstacle to achieving a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.

See http://www.banktrack.org/show/news/banktrack_calls_on_banks_to_stop_funding_nuclear_power.

To coincide with this launch, London Mining Network has published a technical briefing on the health and environmental hazards of uranium. See http://londonminingnetwork.org/2010/05/briefing-on-the-health-and-environmental-hazards-of-uranium-mining/.

Introduction to Anglo American plc

Richard — Wed, 26 May 2010 09:53:03 +0000

This website contains links to a large number of articles about Anglo American plc, which can be viewed at http://londonminingnetwork.org/tag/anglo-american/.

The related Mines and Communities website (http://www.minesandcommunities.org/) contains a much larger number of articles on the company, which can be found at http://www.minesandcommunities.org/list.php?r=44.

London Mining Network’s Introduction to Anglo American gives a brief background to the company and the concerns about its impacts around the world. If you are unfamiliar with the company, it may be helpful to read this introduction before searching for further information.

To download the six page Word briefing, click on the link below:

Introduction to Anglo American

Briefing on the health and environmental hazards of uranium mining

Richard — Wed, 26 May 2010 09:37:28 +0000

This technical briefing by Inge Lindemann summarises the impacts of uranium mining on human health and the environment and makes a compelling case for leaving uranium in the ground.

To download the twelve page Word briefing, click on the link below:

Health and Environmental Hazards of Uranium April 2010

A longer version of this paper is available at http://www.uranium-network.org/images/pdfs-u-rad-health/inge_namibia_beitrag_28.03.2010.rs1.pdf.

Clean Coal? It’s an illusion!

Richard — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:15:18 +0000

“Carbon capture and storage” (CCS) is one of the prime “end of pipe” solutions being peddled around the world, supposedly to cope with the egregious impacts of burning coal. However “clean” may be a consignment of coal before entering a power plant, refinery or smelter (by treating it beforehand to remove its dirty contents of mercury, radioactive metals, sulphur, nitrous oxide and methane), carbon dioxide emissions will still get blown into the sky. Suppose then, that you’re able to confine that burden of carbon, then transform it into something that can be safely buried in the ground or under the sea? That’s what CCS aims to do. In theory, this seems a good fix. In practice, however, the technology hasn’t been properly tried or tested and there are few practical applications of it on which to draw.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9756.

Carbon Trading: how it works and why it fails

Richard — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:13:40 +0000

Report from Carbon Trade Watch

Carbon trading lies at the centre of global climate policy and is projected to become one of the world’s largest commodities markets, yet it has a disastrous track record since its adoption as part of the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon Trading: how it works and why it fails outlines the limitations of an approach to tackling climate change which redefines the problem to fit the assumptions of neoliberal economics. It demonstrates that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the world’s largest carbon market, has consistently failed to ‘cap’ emissions, while the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) routinely favours environmentally ineffective and socially unjust projects. This is illustrated with case studies of CDM projects in Brazil, Indonesia, India and Thailand. See http://www.dhf.uu.se/pdffiler/cc7/cc7_web.pdf.

Video

Also see short video using cartoons to illustrate the points: http://storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/. This is a simple, easy to grasp critique of cap-and-trade from Annie Leonard, the woman who made the ‘story of stuff’ animation (http://www.storyofstuff.com/).