Environment
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated, allied, aligned, or connected with
the Transformative Studies Institute, the Institute for Critical Animal
Studies, Anthony Nocella II, or Richard Kahn. While I am a press officer for
the North American Animal Liberation Press Office and am an associate of
Jerry Vlasak and Steve Best, I am penning this piece independently of NAALPO
and all of my allies. This essay is philosophical in nature and is not
intended to incite or encourage illegal or violent acts.
Immersion in an emotionally intense experience impacts the human psyche in a poignant and profound way. Marginalized as we are by the war my fellow activists and I are waging against the dominant culture, it's an elating and uplifting experience to meet and engage those fellow activists, comrades, and allies. My six days of nearly constant interaction with similar-minded individuals and the chanting, shouting, and raging at primate torturers and their enablers at the nexus of the UCLA vivisection wars in a raucous, vociferous, militant demonstration served both as a cathartic outlet and a source of potent spiritual and intellectual inspiration.
Immersion in an emotionally intense experience impacts the human psyche in a poignant and profound way. Marginalized as we are by the war my fellow activists and I are waging against the dominant culture, it's an elating and uplifting experience to meet and engage those fellow activists, comrades, and allies. My six days of nearly constant interaction with similar-minded individuals and the chanting, shouting, and raging at primate torturers and their enablers at the nexus of the UCLA vivisection wars in a raucous, vociferous, militant demonstration served both as a cathartic outlet and a source of potent spiritual and intellectual inspiration.
he accolades are still pouring in for departed anchorman Walter Cronkite. Few mention his critical "that's the way it is" reporting on the atomic melt-down at Three Mile Island.
Yet Cronkite and TMI are at the core of today's de facto moratorium on new reactor construction---which the industry's new champion, Senator Lamar Alexander, now wants to reverse through the proposed federal Climate Bill.
Technicians who knew what was happening shook with terror as Cronkite opened his March 28, 1979, newscast with "the world has never known a day quite like today. It faced the considerable uncertainties and dangers of the worst nuclear power plant accident of the Atomic Age. And the horror tonight is that it could get much worse.." ( http://www.examiner.com/x-14272-70s-Culture-Examiner~y2009m7d18-Walter-Cronkite-reporting-on-Three-Mile-Island ) .
Yet Cronkite and TMI are at the core of today's de facto moratorium on new reactor construction---which the industry's new champion, Senator Lamar Alexander, now wants to reverse through the proposed federal Climate Bill.
Technicians who knew what was happening shook with terror as Cronkite opened his March 28, 1979, newscast with "the world has never known a day quite like today. It faced the considerable uncertainties and dangers of the worst nuclear power plant accident of the Atomic Age. And the horror tonight is that it could get much worse.." ( http://www.examiner.com/x-14272-70s-Culture-Examiner~y2009m7d18-Walter-Cronkite-reporting-on-Three-Mile-Island ) .
If you are a parent or grandparent it's important to be aware of the following facts. I was
shocked & disgusted. We've got to use our voices & get them to stop using pesticides.
We are killing ourselves!
IMPORTANT FACTS:
* The average child gets 5+ servings of pesticides in his/her food and water every day.
* The pesticide Atrazine is so toxic it is banned in Europe, but it is used so widely in the US that it is found in 71% of the U.S. drinking water.
* Currently, over 400 pesticides can be legally used in the U.S. For example, apples can be sprayed up to 16 times with 36 different pesticides. None of these chemicals are present in organic foods.
* According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, organophosphate pesticides (OP) are now found in the blood of 95% of Americans tested, and the levels are twice as high in blood samples taken from children. Exposure to OPs is linked to hyperactivity, behavior disorders, learning disabilities, developmental delays and motor dysfunction.
IMPORTANT FACTS:
* The average child gets 5+ servings of pesticides in his/her food and water every day.
* The pesticide Atrazine is so toxic it is banned in Europe, but it is used so widely in the US that it is found in 71% of the U.S. drinking water.
* Currently, over 400 pesticides can be legally used in the U.S. For example, apples can be sprayed up to 16 times with 36 different pesticides. None of these chemicals are present in organic foods.
* According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, organophosphate pesticides (OP) are now found in the blood of 95% of Americans tested, and the levels are twice as high in blood samples taken from children. Exposure to OPs is linked to hyperactivity, behavior disorders, learning disabilities, developmental delays and motor dysfunction.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated, allied, aligned, or connected with the Transformative Studies Institute, the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, Anthony Nocella II, or Richard Kahn. While I am a press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office and am an associate of Jerry Vlasak and Steve Best, I am penning this piece independently of NAALPO and all of my allies.
Years of introspection and profound soul searching—intrepidly trekking the seemingly infinite number of unexplored, untamed, thorny and treacherous paths winding circuitously through my psyche—led me to naively conclude that I’d sketched out a nearly complete map of who I am, my worldview, and my purpose.
Years of introspection and profound soul searching—intrepidly trekking the seemingly infinite number of unexplored, untamed, thorny and treacherous paths winding circuitously through my psyche—led me to naively conclude that I’d sketched out a nearly complete map of who I am, my worldview, and my purpose.
Job-starved southern Ohioans are being promised a shiny new nuclear plant. But the announcement has come with a cruel reminder, and the scent of a desperate hoax.
Using the gargantuan corpse of the shuttered Portsmouth-Piketon uranium enrichment plant as his backdrop, U.S. Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) punctuated his enthusiastic endorsement the new nuke by proclaiming that, with his support, the US government has paid thousands of Ohio workers hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the health damage they suffered from being irradiated while working there.
What was he thinking?
Just north of the Ohio River, Portsmouth-Piketon was a mainstay of the nuclear power/weapons complex dating back to 1954 (it shut in 2001). Generations of workers and their progeny suffered a devastating plague of radiation-related diseases from the facility's radioactive fallout, inside and around the plant boundaries. It took decades of brutal, grinding grassroots campaigning to win even a modicum of compensation.
Using the gargantuan corpse of the shuttered Portsmouth-Piketon uranium enrichment plant as his backdrop, U.S. Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) punctuated his enthusiastic endorsement the new nuke by proclaiming that, with his support, the US government has paid thousands of Ohio workers hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the health damage they suffered from being irradiated while working there.
What was he thinking?
Just north of the Ohio River, Portsmouth-Piketon was a mainstay of the nuclear power/weapons complex dating back to 1954 (it shut in 2001). Generations of workers and their progeny suffered a devastating plague of radiation-related diseases from the facility's radioactive fallout, inside and around the plant boundaries. It took decades of brutal, grinding grassroots campaigning to win even a modicum of compensation.
As the prospective price of new reactors continues to soar, and as the first “new generation” construction projects sink in French and Finnish soil, Republicans are introducing a bill to Congress demanding 100 new nuclear reactors in the US within twenty years. It explicitly welcomes “alternatives” such as oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and “clean coal.” Though it endorses some renewables such as solar and wind power, it calls for no cap on carbon emissions.
According to the New York Times, this is the defining GOP alternative to a Democratic energy plan headed for a House vote later this month.
But niggling questions like who will pay for these reactors, who will insure them, where will the fuel come from, where will waste go and who will protect them from terrorists are not on the agenda. Given recent certain-to-prove-optimistic estimates of approximately $10 billion per reactor, the plan envisions a trillion-plus dollar commitment to a newly nuke-centered nation.
With this proposed legislation the GOP makes atomic energy the centerpiece of its strategy to deal with climate change.
According to the New York Times, this is the defining GOP alternative to a Democratic energy plan headed for a House vote later this month.
But niggling questions like who will pay for these reactors, who will insure them, where will the fuel come from, where will waste go and who will protect them from terrorists are not on the agenda. Given recent certain-to-prove-optimistic estimates of approximately $10 billion per reactor, the plan envisions a trillion-plus dollar commitment to a newly nuke-centered nation.
With this proposed legislation the GOP makes atomic energy the centerpiece of its strategy to deal with climate change.
This visionary conversation between Ernest Callenbach, author of the legendary ECOTOPIA (1974), and Harvey Wasserman, author of SOLARTOPIA (2007), about our green-powered future was filmed by EON and can be viewed at blip.tv and
youtube.
Harvey Wasserman: It's an honor to be with the author of Ecotopia, which inspired me and so many others to become active on environmental issues.
It also inspired me to write Solartopia, What I’d like to talk about is getting from Ecotopia, the first vision of an ecological society, to Solartopia, a vision of a totally green-powered Earth. Yours is the first realized vision of an ecological society and thirty years later I’ve tried to write a companion or follow-up piece with a vision of a solar-powered society.
I read Ecotopia in the early seventies and I just re-read it, and what’s amazing and shocking and gratifying about it to me, as I’m sure it is to you, is how much of it came true.
Ernest Callenbach: Not enough.
Harvey Wasserman: It's an honor to be with the author of Ecotopia, which inspired me and so many others to become active on environmental issues.
It also inspired me to write Solartopia, What I’d like to talk about is getting from Ecotopia, the first vision of an ecological society, to Solartopia, a vision of a totally green-powered Earth. Yours is the first realized vision of an ecological society and thirty years later I’ve tried to write a companion or follow-up piece with a vision of a solar-powered society.
I read Ecotopia in the early seventies and I just re-read it, and what’s amazing and shocking and gratifying about it to me, as I’m sure it is to you, is how much of it came true.
Ernest Callenbach: Not enough.
In a devastating pair of financial reports that might be called "The Emperor Has No Pressure Vessel," the New York Times has blazed new light on the catastrophic economics of atomic power.
The two Business Section specials cover the fiasco of new French construction at Okiluoto, Finland, and the virtual collapse of Atomic Energy of Canada. In a sane world they could comprise an epitaph for the "Peaceful Atom". But they come simultaneous with Republican demands for up to $700 billion or more in new reactor construction.
The Times's "In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble" by James Kanter is a "cautionary tale" about the "most powerful reactor ever built" whose modular design "was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build" as well as safer to operate.
But four years into a construction process that was scheduled to end about now, the plant's $4.2 billion price tag has soared by 50% or more. Areva, the French government's front group, won't predict when the reactor will open. Finnish utilities have stopped trying to guess.
The two Business Section specials cover the fiasco of new French construction at Okiluoto, Finland, and the virtual collapse of Atomic Energy of Canada. In a sane world they could comprise an epitaph for the "Peaceful Atom". But they come simultaneous with Republican demands for up to $700 billion or more in new reactor construction.
The Times's "In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble" by James Kanter is a "cautionary tale" about the "most powerful reactor ever built" whose modular design "was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build" as well as safer to operate.
But four years into a construction process that was scheduled to end about now, the plant's $4.2 billion price tag has soared by 50% or more. Areva, the French government's front group, won't predict when the reactor will open. Finnish utilities have stopped trying to guess.
On May 19th, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called on "Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM (genetically modified) foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks."[1] They called for a moratorium on GM foods, long-term independent studies, and labeling. AAEM's position paper stated, "Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food," including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. They conclude, "There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation," as defined by recognized scientific criteria. "The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies."
We hear it all the time. Nuclear reactors produce 80% of the electricity in France. Their reactors are “safe” and that means the U.S. should build new reactors.
This is the sound byte. But are reactors truly “safe” as advertised? After studying the facts, the answer is an emphatic “no.”
In France, politics has overwhelmed science in defining “safe.” For nearly 30 years after French reactors began operating, not one medical journal article was published on cancer rates near reactors. Intimidated by the power of the nuclear industry, French health officials didn’t dare look for dirty laundry, even though over 100 radioactive chemicals – the same in atomic bomb fallout - were routinely being released into the air and water.
This is the sound byte. But are reactors truly “safe” as advertised? After studying the facts, the answer is an emphatic “no.”
In France, politics has overwhelmed science in defining “safe.” For nearly 30 years after French reactors began operating, not one medical journal article was published on cancer rates near reactors. Intimidated by the power of the nuclear industry, French health officials didn’t dare look for dirty laundry, even though over 100 radioactive chemicals – the same in atomic bomb fallout - were routinely being released into the air and water.