Environment
The year 2012 has opened with news that Fukushima's radioactive cloud may already have killed some 14,000 Americans, according to a major study just published in the International Journal of Health Services.
Some 100 million tons of tsunami trash---much of it radiated by Fukushima fallout---has begun contaminating the beaches of our west coast.
Germany and Japan, the world's third and fourth largest economies, along with numerous others countries, have definitively turned away from the "Peaceful Atom."
But it hasn't yet been buried. That's up to us. And 2012 is the year to do it.
We are already very close. The mythical "Nuclear Renaissance" has been gutted by Fukushima, low gas prices and the escalating Solartopian revolution in green energy. Solar panels, wind turbines, sustainable bio-fuels, geo-thermal, ocean thermal, increased efficiency and much more have simply priced atomic energy out of the market.
Some 100 million tons of tsunami trash---much of it radiated by Fukushima fallout---has begun contaminating the beaches of our west coast.
Germany and Japan, the world's third and fourth largest economies, along with numerous others countries, have definitively turned away from the "Peaceful Atom."
But it hasn't yet been buried. That's up to us. And 2012 is the year to do it.
We are already very close. The mythical "Nuclear Renaissance" has been gutted by Fukushima, low gas prices and the escalating Solartopian revolution in green energy. Solar panels, wind turbines, sustainable bio-fuels, geo-thermal, ocean thermal, increased efficiency and much more have simply priced atomic energy out of the market.
It seemed like the afterthought in the payroll tax cut extension fight, a small consolation prize to the Republicans on what should have been the easiest of bi-partisan votes. But the two-month clock is now ticking on whether Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s environmentally disastrous tar sands. If we want him to make the right decision and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations. Of course we need to keep pressuring Obama. The bill’s deadline precludes anything close to the kind of comprehensive environmental review that he called for after rallies and civil disobedience at the White House led him to delay approval for a year. But why not also go after the oil companies whose influence led the Republicans to hold the rest of the unemployment and payroll tax bill hostage to the fast-track requirement. Exxon/Mobil has long been the dirtiest of the dirty among these companies. This makes them a logical target.
Richard Grossman passed away on Tuesday, November 22. The movement we know today to end never-intended constitutional rights for corporations as a step toward real self-governance was birthed, grew and developed to a great extent by this remarkable, complex human being with a deep passion and love for nature, humanity and justice. He influenced and inspired thousands directly, an incalculable number more indirectly.
Richard and Ward Morehouse started the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) in 1994, a combined think tank and breeding ground for activist experimentation to challenge corporate rule.
His work in this field originated with the publication of Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation, which he co-authored with Frank Adams in 1993.
Richard and Ward Morehouse started the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) in 1994, a combined think tank and breeding ground for activist experimentation to challenge corporate rule.
His work in this field originated with the publication of Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation, which he co-authored with Frank Adams in 1993.
The Ohio Division of Forestry (DOF) and Ohio State Parks (OSP) are asking for comments on their proposed plans to log state parks. We suggest that you submit comments by December 3rd; however, OSP has stated that it will take comments beyond that date.
The budget bill recently passed by the General Assembly gives OSP the ability, for the first time ever, to commercially log state park lands under the guise of “implement[ing] sustainable forestry practices.” As a result of this new grant of authority, DOF has unveiled 5-year management plans for four state parks. Links to the plans are provided below. Two of the parks, Forked Run and Tar Hollow, have timbering scheduled to occur this fiscal year.
Talking Points:
· The offered plans fail to disclose how much timber will be cut – neither board feet nor acreage figures are provided to the public. This is the most basic and important aspect of a public logging plan – the agencies need to disclose to the public just how much timber they intend to log on a yearly basis.
The budget bill recently passed by the General Assembly gives OSP the ability, for the first time ever, to commercially log state park lands under the guise of “implement[ing] sustainable forestry practices.” As a result of this new grant of authority, DOF has unveiled 5-year management plans for four state parks. Links to the plans are provided below. Two of the parks, Forked Run and Tar Hollow, have timbering scheduled to occur this fiscal year.
Talking Points:
· The offered plans fail to disclose how much timber will be cut – neither board feet nor acreage figures are provided to the public. This is the most basic and important aspect of a public logging plan – the agencies need to disclose to the public just how much timber they intend to log on a yearly basis.
For the pro-frackers in Athens county and probably many who are undecided, the lure of jobs and other "benefits" from shale gas mining are significant considerations in favor of letting the gas companies commence the mining process. Those who favor this position contend that there will be jobs directly created in the mining operations themselves, along with a ripple effect generating jobs in other local businesses and regional industries. This is the job creation argument. The response from our side, the opposition, has largely been that these operations won't create as many jobs, especially jobs for local people, as the industry maintains. Among other studies and reports, Food and Water Watch recently released a report that contests the inflated job claims of the shale gas industry.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Worsening floods, which killed 506 people, are inundating more of Bangkok, prompting warnings about how to avoid disease, electrocution, crocodiles and other dangers in the infectious, garbage-strewn water which thousands of people are wading through to reach food, work, hospitals and transportation.
The government is unable to stop sabotage by angry residents who are punching holes through some dikes, sluice gates and sandbag walls to drain deep, stagnant water from their neighborhoods which are on the wrong side of Bangkok's barriers.
"If the government cannot control the protesters...all districts will be flooded," said Bangkok's deputy governor Thirachon Manopaipibul.
Since July, one-third of this Buddhist-majority, Southeast Asian nation has suffered from storm-fed floods which have swelled above people's waists, and at some locations over their heads.
Foul-smelling, brownish-black water has also been moving south across Bangkok at about one mile a day.
The government is unable to stop sabotage by angry residents who are punching holes through some dikes, sluice gates and sandbag walls to drain deep, stagnant water from their neighborhoods which are on the wrong side of Bangkok's barriers.
"If the government cannot control the protesters...all districts will be flooded," said Bangkok's deputy governor Thirachon Manopaipibul.
Since July, one-third of this Buddhist-majority, Southeast Asian nation has suffered from storm-fed floods which have swelled above people's waists, and at some locations over their heads.
Foul-smelling, brownish-black water has also been moving south across Bangkok at about one mile a day.
I've seen a lot of sick stuff in my career, but this was sick on a new level.
Here was the handwritten log kept by a senior engineer at the nuclear power plant:
Wiesel was very upset. He seemed very nervous. Very agitated. . . . In fact, the plant was riddled with problems that, no way on earth, could stand an earth- quake. The team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could "completely and utterly fail" during an earthquake.
"Utterly fail during an earthquake." And here in Japan was the quake and here is the utter failure.
The warning was in what the investigations team called The Notebook, which I'm not supposed to have. Good thing I've kept a copy anyway, because the file cabinets went down with my office building ....
WORLD TRADE CENTER TOWER 1, FIFTY-SECOND FLOOR
NEW YORK, 1986
[This is an excerpt in FreePress.org from Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Fraudsters, to be released this Monday. Click here to get the videos and the book.]
Here was the handwritten log kept by a senior engineer at the nuclear power plant:
Wiesel was very upset. He seemed very nervous. Very agitated. . . . In fact, the plant was riddled with problems that, no way on earth, could stand an earth- quake. The team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could "completely and utterly fail" during an earthquake.
"Utterly fail during an earthquake." And here in Japan was the quake and here is the utter failure.
The warning was in what the investigations team called The Notebook, which I'm not supposed to have. Good thing I've kept a copy anyway, because the file cabinets went down with my office building ....
WORLD TRADE CENTER TOWER 1, FIFTY-SECOND FLOOR
NEW YORK, 1986
[This is an excerpt in FreePress.org from Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Fraudsters, to be released this Monday. Click here to get the videos and the book.]
[Based on a tip from some guy floating in the Caspian Sea in Central Asia, we take off for Baku, Azerbaijan, the "Islamic Republic of BP." Stopping in London, the deathly ill MI6 double-agent Leslie the Bagman lays out the history of the coup d'etat, hooker-bait and the $30 million "sweetener" paid by Lord Browne to the oil nation's "president"—and suggests we find his old spy-mate, Natasha.
In the middle of this Byzantine maze, I'm looking for the real reason for the Deepwater Horizon explosion, not the bullshit seen on CNN. I get the goods, film it, get arrested for filming it, get film confiscated ...except for the film in the little Austin Powers camera-in-a-pen that has to find its way out of the country.]
From Chapter 2: "Lady Baba-land."
But we're not leaving.
That's when we find out the Security Ministry called our hotel and told them to seize our passports. Our passports with the visa stamps that allowed us in and, more importantly, allow us out.
In the middle of this Byzantine maze, I'm looking for the real reason for the Deepwater Horizon explosion, not the bullshit seen on CNN. I get the goods, film it, get arrested for filming it, get film confiscated ...except for the film in the little Austin Powers camera-in-a-pen that has to find its way out of the country.]
From Chapter 2: "Lady Baba-land."
But we're not leaving.
That's when we find out the Security Ministry called our hotel and told them to seize our passports. Our passports with the visa stamps that allowed us in and, more importantly, allow us out.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's new prime minister is suffering criticism for her failures while tackling massive floods which killed 356 people, knocked out U.S. and other foreign factories, and rendered thousands of people homeless, but three months of thunderstorms and decades of poor preparations are mostly to blame.
The public may be convinced that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra inherited Thailand's traditionally weak funding to prevent floods, and allow her government to survive.
But foreign investors may consider moving their wrecked factories to locations that are higher in elevation, or to other countries.
The floods, which swamped one-third of the country, dissolved Mrs. Yingluck's seemingly superficial, heavily scripted, can-do image.
Her officials repeatedly offered contradictory statements, assuring people they were safe, and then advising them to flee for their lives.
Despite her poor management of the monsoon-swollen rivers, Mrs. Yingluck is not solely to blame because she heads a lackluster cabinet and a coalition of squabbling parties.
The public may be convinced that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra inherited Thailand's traditionally weak funding to prevent floods, and allow her government to survive.
But foreign investors may consider moving their wrecked factories to locations that are higher in elevation, or to other countries.
The floods, which swamped one-third of the country, dissolved Mrs. Yingluck's seemingly superficial, heavily scripted, can-do image.
Her officials repeatedly offered contradictory statements, assuring people they were safe, and then advising them to flee for their lives.
Despite her poor management of the monsoon-swollen rivers, Mrs. Yingluck is not solely to blame because she heads a lackluster cabinet and a coalition of squabbling parties.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Floods have smothered much of Thailand, killing at least 317 people and prompting Bangkok to surround itself with makeshift walls, leaving those outside the perimeter to suffer from diverted water, reminiscent of medieval times when people dug moats and sealed off their fortress cities against plague, war and other calamities.
"We have been doing everything we can, but this is a big national crisis," Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters on Wednesday (Oct. 19).
"I'm begging for mercy from the media here," she said, after heavy criticism for her poorly coordinated response to the floods.
Bangkok is now a virtual island under siege from a relentless flow of brown water, strewn with garbage and chemicals, after three months of widespread monsoon rains and increasingly swollen rivers, all flushing alongside the capital and draining into the nearby Gulf of Thailand.
"We have been doing everything we can, but this is a big national crisis," Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters on Wednesday (Oct. 19).
"I'm begging for mercy from the media here," she said, after heavy criticism for her poorly coordinated response to the floods.
Bangkok is now a virtual island under siege from a relentless flow of brown water, strewn with garbage and chemicals, after three months of widespread monsoon rains and increasingly swollen rivers, all flushing alongside the capital and draining into the nearby Gulf of Thailand.