Tag: ecology

Only Ed

On By southwerkIn business ethics

“Only Ed” is the web site of Ed Mortimer. (It is subtitled – News and views on Environmental Sustainability.) He is an amazing blogger. He posts often and well. Mr. Mortimer is also topical and passionate about the issues. I constantly have to avoid the temptation to re-blog everything he puts up. Like me, he often includes posts of things that interest him off the path of his usual issues. I appreciate that. I often worry that my occasional attempts at humor and general interest stories damage my credibility. Nothing I have seen of his posting detracts from his general message. I hope my postings manage that as well.

Here are his last five postings –

1. Located here, the title link takes you to the news article.

Environmental Justice and Quality for All: Baldwin Hills Victory

Agreement Reached to Reduce Urban Oil Drilling in Los Angeles
Settlement Provides Greater Protections to Residents, Drilling Restrictions

2. Located here, the title link takes you to a news article.

Indigenous resistance is the new ‘terrorism’

In Ecuador, protesting for the rights of the Earth and trying to preserve natural resources may make you a “terrorist”.

3. Christian young people to be trained for eco-justice action

4.   Birds may show Japan nuclear disaster’s global effects

And 5.  Women, Poverty and The Environment in Latin America

It might be wise for many of you to favorite this site and maybe even subscribe. Of course, you may not share his environmental concerns, but even if this is the case, the news stories are from all over and are unlikely to be seen without his assiduous pursuit of them.

James Pilant

Urban permaculture (via Only Ed)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Permaculture is a relative recent concept (1960’s) but it has developed nicely in concert with our increasing curiosity into the advantages of living with nature as opposed to being in conflict with it.

This post offers some links to other sites with more information. If permaculture is something you have heard about or are curious about interesting concepts, this is an excellent starting point.

James Pilant

Urban permaculture Posted 27 April 2011, by Staff, Little City Farm, littlecityfarm.blogspot.com I’ve been doing more reading on urban permaculture, and getting wholly inspired by what is possible in cities and urban areas.  Urban permaculture design and initiatives are the next step beyond what is already taking place in the vastly expanding urban agriculture movement – permaculture addresses not just food production, but also sustainability, co … Read More

via Only Ed

Chernobyl Stalkers (via L’appel de Fukushima)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I had heard that the Titanic disaster and the First World War were both predicted by novels, but this is the first that I’ve heard that Chernobyl was predicted by a film.

I pity the poor souls who feel obligated to make a living by stealing high radiation scrap from a nuclear dead zone.

On the other hand, the future may hold that kind of existence for many millions.

James Pilant

Chernobyl Stalkers The people most affected by the explosion of Reactor Number Four on the morning of April 26,1986, soon learned that the event known as Chernobyl was predicted by a feature film made seven years earlier. Stalker, by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, explored the limits of our technical explanatory power against the backdrop of a mysterious force that can only be approached on foot, by forest “stalkers” who have learned to accept its risky gifts. … Read More

via L’appel de Fukushima

Media has moved on, but not Japanese (via News and Brews)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is the only beer related post having to do with the disasters in Japan that I have found. It’s not bad.

I do agree the Japanese have not moved on. The disaster continues there as recovery is handicapped by the ongoing nuclear problems. American media has a tawdry interest in current events however inconsequential. So, in America, it may well appear that the crisis is over.

No, not for quite some time.

James Pilant

Media has moved on, but not Japanese The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on Mar. 11 has mostly disappeared from the collective conscious of American mainstream media. Many news outlets have shifted focus to Syria or Yemen–both very important stories in their own right. However, Japan is still recovering from the natural disasters that struck their shores over a month and a half ago. It severely damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power P … Read More

via News and Brews

TVA plant’s old design brings fresh worries | The Tennessean | tennessean.com (via In Frog Pond Holler)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

It’s definitely true that the old designs need a new look in the aftermath of Fukushima. I’m curious to see how the utility is going to handle this.

James Pilant

Critics argue that safety and reliability issues are raised by the old design, the deterioration of work already done, the cannibalizing of plant parts and a failure to keep tight controls over the site. Some also question the need for another TVA nuclear plant. In the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis, TVA staff delayed asking for a board vote for funding to complete Bellefonte. Still, more than 500 workers are busy on the site with engineering, as … Read More

via In Frog Pond Holler

Fukushima: Japan’s meta-tragedy – Sandhya Jain (via Bharata Bharati)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I very much enjoyed this and, in particular, I want to call attention to Wikileaks participation in the continuing controversy over both nuclear power and corruption. This story hardly exists in the United States but has generated considerable press in India.

This backstory is fitted into its place in the larger story of nuclear power in this article. I appreciate that.

However, there is a lot of other material here. This is not the kind of material that the pronuclear press likes to see, they prefer the squishy soft claims of possible radiation damage down the road. These claims they can dismiss as ill founded because it takes years to manifest. This article cites facts and history. That gives it some heft. I hope it gets wider circulation.

James Pilant

Fukushima: Japan’s meta-tragedy - Sandhya Jain Fukushima reinforces the threat posed by the scientific arrogance that the Human Race can create structures more powerful than Nature; Chernobyl was a loud warning after nearly 150 significant radiation leaks at n-stations throughout the world were hidden by the secretive nuclear power industry. – Sandhya Jain The tragedy of the earthquake-tsunami induced failure at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, eerily close to the 25th anniversary of th … Read More

via Bharata Bharati

Viewpoint: We should stop running away from radiation (via BBC)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

From BBC –

More than 10,000 people have died in the Japanese tsunami and the survivors are cold and hungry. But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died – and is unlikely to.

Modern reactors are better designed than those at Fukushima – tomorrow’s may be better still

Nuclear radiation at very high levels is dangerous, but the scale of concern that it evokes is misplaced. Nuclear technology cures countless cancer patients every day – and a radiation dose given for radiotherapy in hospital is no different in principle to a similar dose received in the environment.

What of Three Mile Island? There were no known deaths there.

And Chernobyl? The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll – 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer – which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan). And in each case the numbers are minute compared with the 3,800 at Bhopal in 1984, who died as a result of a leak of chemicals from the Union Carbide pesticide plant.

This is the hopeless nonsense I have to read day by day, hour by hour, trying to stay on top of the crisis.

It is utterly typical. Here you see a very, very careful parsing of the facts along with some cute phrasing – “Nuclear technology cures countless cancer patients every day – and a radiation dose given for radiotherapy in hospital is no different in principle to a similar dose received in the environment.” – meant to impress the yokels. The deaths in Chernobyl were artificially kept low by the Soviet Union. Deaths among the “liquidators” is now reported to be in the thousands.

Very carefully not mentioned are the 10,800 square miles of land no one can live on. That 10,800 square mile figure demonstrate simply and more eloquently than my poor skills the intellectual bankruptcy of this man’s ridiculous argument.

A portion of the surface of the earth cannot be safely lived on by mankind but since there are few reported deaths, it’s not that big a deal.

But let us cut through some more nonsense. The dangers of a situation cannot be intelligently measured by how many people have died so far. Six reactors came dangerously close and may yet meltdown destroying thousands of square miles that will be uninhabitable for generations.

The radiation levels in the area, measured in the thousands and in some places hundreds of thousands of times the recommended dose, are going to cause harm for generations.

This is also not that big a deal as far as our bold author is concerned.

Apparently, unless nuclear power takes the gloves off and whacks people left and right dropping them right here, right now, it’s not a big deal.

Well, I disagree.

James Pilant

Greenpeace Says Evacuation Area Near Fukushima Needs to be 20 km Wider (via flying cuttlefish picayune)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

Here’s another reblog from our friend, “flying cuttlefish picayune.” (If anybody knows if when referring to a web blog and the title isn’t capitalized, if I should capitalize it, let me know.)

It’s nice to know that other bloggers are working the problem.

James Pilant

From Greenpeace – Call to widen evacuation area around Fukushima Blogpost by Brian Fitzgerald – March 27, 2011 at 19:40 Our team of radiation specialists in Japan brought back their findings for the day. The press release says it all: Fukushima, March 27, 2011:       Greenpeace radiation experts have confirmed radiation levels of up to ten micro Sieverts per hour in Iitate village, 40km northwest of the crisis-stricken Fukushima/Daiichi nuclear p … Read More

via flying cuttlefish picayune