‘Green News Report’ – October 15, 2015

6 Comments on “‘Green News Report’ – October 15, 2015”

1. after months of begging for a Democratic debate cnn has changed it’s mind about allowing bernie tv to air the entire debate video online

   do the airwaves belong to we the people are not?

   it is not like this is entertainment that working people have a right to make a profit from…this is information the electorate needs to make an informed decision

2. Two points in response, Karen:

   1) While the airwaves DO belong to we the people, cable television is not “the airwaves”. It’s cable. Thus, there are different rules for what they can and cannot do, according to the FEC. (For whatever that distinction is worth.)

   2) You are correct. It is news, not entertainment, in theory. BUT, the news outlets have figured out how to “sponsor” these debates and, thus, claim copyright on them. I think it’s ridiculous, to be frank, but that’s how they have long been operating. It used to be that anybody could air any debate. But, now, the news channels have figure out how to “own” them.

3. “The Gulf Between Democrats And Republicans On Climate Change And National Security (Climate Progress)”

   There is no gulf between national security and climate change.

   They are inextricably entwined (The Extinction of Philadelphia, The Extinction of Washington, D.C., The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports).

4. Why aren’t any candidates talking about Fukushima? That and the very high probability of additional nuclear disasters is orders of magnitude more of a threat to life on earth than climate change, guns, or anything else that is on the radar. This really pisses me off.

   It should be given at least equal attention as climate change in the national consciousness, but we basically get nothing. No politician, no leader, no agency, no news, very few scientists or people in general talking about this issue.

   The crown jewel in this mutating shit-show crown: the EPA stopped (publicly) monitoring Fukushima radiation in the Pacific a few months after the disaster and the government doesn’t test for radiation in Japanese or Pacific food products. That is batshit fucking crazy in the worst way. Talk about wingnuttery, this is like Darth Vader status wingnuttery. This is death star status.

   Allegedly, Hillary Clinton agreed with Japan (as secretary of state) to continue to import potentially (i.e. almost certainly) contaminated food products to the US with no testing when many other governments banned such imports. Who gives a shit about the “fake” scandals when Clinton may have been complicit in helping to usher in an unimaginable public health disaster; misery and suffering and eventual painful death for millions of people who eat this garbage. Seriously, anyone who believes anything this vile reptile says must love to be shit on. But even if this isn’t true, the fact remains that we aren’t testing much, if any, of it to this day.

   This willful obfuscation by the EPA and our leaders is more destructive and insane than the worst climate change denier shill bastard’s actions that you could imagine. This is worse than BP, Exxon and every other oil company disaster combined. I actually find it hard to find a metaphor to describe the U.S. government’s complete abdication of its mandate to protect us that isn’t so offensive that the mere thought makes me want to curl into a ball and cry, or vomit, or both.

   If you trust your government about anything at all, if you believe that all of these agencies exist to constructively regulate and protect a complex society and economy, if you believe our top government and corporate leaders care about anyone except the .01%, you are almost certainly wrong.

   There is no doubt that radioactive substances kill life. There is no debate, manufactured or otherwise. I have read maybe one or two BS talking points to suggest that radiation isn’t that bad or Fukushima radiation wont be a big issue, but even a non-scientist could see how laughable these assertions are. Fear of radioactive substances is stamped indelibly on our collective psyche the world over, and rightly so.

   At this very moment, the Pacific ocean is dying. In the very near future, unless something dramatic changes, it will be dead and we can be sure that the primary catalyst for this wasn’t climate change but radiation. I just saw a story about a 2 headed whale that washed up in Baja. I have read stories about MASSIVE bird die offs due to starvation. There is no food for them in the ocean, or, if there is they aren’t eating it for some odd reason. In fact, the mainstream national and local news sources that cover this, as well as most of the scientists studying them, rarely mention radioactive contamination. Almost NEVER! It is always “we are confused, this is unprecedented, we are looking for a reason. Maybe it is a virus, no it is a bacteria, no it is this or that blah blah,” but never even consider as a potential catalyst the radiation.

   I guess the take away is that you are ultimately responsible for yourself, because no one in charge of any powerful institutions seems to care. Certainly, none of the candidates in either party thinks this is an issue worth discussing, if they are even aware of it.

   A few links:

   http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/14/fukushima-radiation-in-pacific-reaches-west-coast/

   http://enenews.com/unpublished-govt-map-shows-massive-plume-fukushima-radioactive-material-west-coast-north-america-radiation-levels-quadrupled-recent-months-scientist-starting-penetration-cesium-offshore-coast-video

   http://enenews.com/mind-blowing-die-seabirds-underway-california-alaska-experts-unprecedented-theyre-dying-im-baffled-every-bird-starving-death-basically-withering-away-catastrophic-molting-observed-due-unknown

   http://www.examiner.com/article/radiating-americans-fukushima-rain-clinton-s-secret-food-pact

   http://www.examiner.com/article/experts-fukushima-off-scale-lethal-radiation-level-infers-millions-dying

   It’s not just Fukushima either. At least this one is getting some coverage in the media.

   http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/08/world/st-louis-girds-catastrophic-event-underground-fire-burning-since-10-get-near-cold-war-nuke-waste-cache

5. SH – thanks for taking the time to comment. I think the reason that Fukushima specifically and nuclear energy in general are not discussed as much as climate change is because the global nature of climate change impacts have the potential to induce species extinction across the entire planet, whereas the impacts of nuclear energy are primarily regional (not exclusively, but primarily), and do not have the same magnitude of global impacts on as many planetary systems. This is not to minimize your valid concerns about nuclear energy, but to clarify the probability and extent of risk. The evidence accumulated so far indicates that the risk and probability of global climate change impacts occurring is higher than the probability of the nuclear scenarios that you mention. Again, nuclear energy and all of its impacts must be addressed. So my understanding is that the global scientific community is prioritizing and directing its focus to climate change because that reflects their understanding of the relative risks, probability, and unprecedented global nature of climate change impacts across multiple planetary systems.

6. Thank you Desi for the thoughtful response.

   I saw this article written by Cynthia McKinney in RT which brought up a lot of the same points I mentioned in my original comment. Good read.

   https://www.rt.com/op-edge/319053-fukushima-fallout-radioactive-japan/

   I do not agree that climate change is more of a threat, at least in the near term, than nuclear fallout. Even one of the worst case scenario in the regular links you provide above does not rival the danger of several more Fukushima events happening over the next hundred years, which they undoubtedly will unless all power nuke plants are decommissioned. I mean the nuclear people say 1 in a million chance of a Fukushima type event, when we have had multiple such events on larger and smaller scales over the last fifty years. Not to mention the need to store all the waste products stored in a geologically safe place until we can figure out how to shunt all this poison to space and send it flying into the sun. (Just look what is happening in St. Louis!)

   Our world is already hopelessly polluted from over five hundred nuclear bomb detonations and tens of nuclear power plant leaks and meltdowns. Even properly functioning plants constantly release radiation.

   Fukushima should have been a wake up call since it is perhaps the most dramatic and catastrophic man made disaster in history. Perhaps Chernobyl did not have the same far ranging effects as Fukushima even if more radiation was ultimately released. However, I would hardly call what is happening throughout the Northern Pacific a “regional” issue. This half of the Pacific ocean constitutes about 1/6 of the worlds total surface area. It is larger than the entire continent of North America. If the entire biosphere of the North American continent died it would be hard to characterize this as a regional effect.

   Furthermore, the fallout is not limited to the Pacific. Signature Fukushima isotopes have been detected all over. And cesium 137 has a half life of 30 years and is water soluble, meaning it will likely spread to the southern pacific as Japan takes another 40 years (probably much longer) to finally deal with the plants.

   The take away is that even after rampant industrialization for over one hundred years, massive amounts of fossil fuel burning, massive amounts of trash and chemical waste dumped into the Pacific (not to mention previous nuclear bomb tests), we did not see the same effect as five years of constant radioactive releases from Fukushima.

   Whether or not climate change ultimately poses a greater threat to life on earth than nuclear power is not really the point. There is no excuse for the utter lack of interest by scientists and activists in the dangers of nuclear power. If climate change is the all consuming focus of environmentalists and scientists to the detriment of other important issues, we are going to regret it big time in the coming years.

   If even 15% of the money and attention were devoted to raising awareness of the dangers of nuclear power as the dangers of climate change, we would see a massive impact. Also, fossil fuels are much more essential to the global economic system than nuclear power, so it should be fairly uncontroversial to stop using nuclear power and replace it with sustainable energy generation.

   It is estimated that it will take literally tens of billions of dollars of investment to revamp old nuke plants to make them at least as safe as they were when they started running, not to mention the cost of building new ones. Instead, if we devoted 40 billion dollars to installing renewable power generation for each plant we decommission, we could replace nuke power and gain all the benefits with none of the almost inconceivable risk.

   What is worse is that nuclear supporters, and perhaps some genuine environmentalists, use the climate change threat to tout the benefits of nuclear power as some kind of “green” power. As if CO2 were more dangerous than the cocktail of fission materials produced in nuclear plants, many of which are operating well beyond their recommended life cycle.

   I am pretty cynical about government and corporate leadership. I do not think they have our interest in mind. Whether or not the threat of climate change is as dire as some of the scarier predictions describe, the only reason I can see why any government cares about climate change, as opposed to some of the other massively important environmental issues, is because it allows the government to consolidate greater control over people while simultaneously allowing the corporate masters to do whatever the hell they want. If this control is consolidated globally through treaties and supranational institutions, all the better for the masters of the universe.

   That is why carbon trading is a joke. Wall street loves the idea, it is salivating thinking about the fees that will be generated by a carbon exchange, which is quite literally trading hot air. Believe me, it will not be a non-profit government run exchange, people will make a fortune on this skimming profits that would more properly be put to use building a sustainable infrastructure.

   Even with solid caps and no exchanges, do you or anyone with even cursory knowledge of how pretty much every political system around the world works think that there will not be a massive amount of fraud and favoritism? GM literally killed over 100 people and it had to pay a measly fine, no one went to jail. No banker has been jailed for massive fraud in the US. No one at BP went to jail for the oil spill. George Bush stole 2 elections and no one went to jail for it. Even if Hillary Clinton is found to have definitively broken the laws with that email server, the same laws that landed whistle blowers in jail, do you think she will actually be prosecuted? How many of those crony Republicans in Congress during the George Bush era were prosecuted during or after George Bush’s reign?

   I just think we will end up paying more taxes, which is not a bad thing if these funds are used wisely to build sustainable infrastructure and not merely as a deterrent to people’s consumption, but the biggest offenders will never be held accountable.

   Anyway, there is no way China and India are going to get on board to reduce CO2 emissions absent a truly transformative clean energy source emerging. That or a massive economic depression that severely curtails industrial activity for the next hundred years.

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