Dependence on fossil fuels leads us toward a hostile climate
Paul Fieber: Dependence on fossil fuels not the answer http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/mailbag/paul-fieber-dependence-on-fossil-fuels-not-the-answer/article_a1fd743e-f3c7-11e1-b413-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz25R89T9rx
2 Sept 12, Should America make reducing oil imports a top goal and work hard to achieve it?
I don’t think oil independence is the answer. A switch to domestic sources trashes our environment but doesn’t reduce carbon emissions.
With 5 percent of the world’s people, the United States is already spewing about 20 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide.
We must listen to established climate scientists who agree that our current path leads to an incredibly hostile and deadly planet, with a likely temperature increase of 11 degrees F through this century.
Our top goals should be energy efficiency, conservation and ending barriers to broad use of proven solar and wind technologies. We should leave most of the fossil fuel in the ground.
To help support sustainable energy goals, we can recapture and reinvest the billions in subsidies flowing to the global fossil fuel industry. In the United States alone, between 2005 and 2010, five major oil companies pocketed $4 billion a year in tax subsidies. This is outrageous.
But there’s good news, too. European nations such as Denmark and Germany use renewable energy for much of their electricity. According to the New York Times, San Francisco aims to be 100 percent renewable by 2020. These and other worldwide efforts led Canadian activist and author Naomi Klein to say the world seems to have reached “a no kidding around moment.” Let’s do it!
Aging activists defending the planet against aging nuclear plants
Civil disobedience BY KENNETTE BENEDICT | 9 AUGUST 2012″……….I was struck by the image of three white-haired activists from a movement that began in the early 1980s at the height of the Cold War. Some might find it odd that an 82-year-old nun and her companions — aged 63 and 57 — are protesting nuclear weapons. In a way, though, the weapons themselves are just as odd these days. They are aging, too. But, unlike the protesters, nuclear weapons are no longer relevant, and they need to be quietly laid to rest. Instead of creating new materials to renovate old warheads, it is time to let them go gently into that good night. In other words, it is time for nuclear weapons to retire and, in time, to be buried.
And who better to bury them than those who grew up with them? Aging baby-boomers are also Cold War babies. We remember civil defense drills in school, the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear bomb shelters, and the fear of a nuclear war from which no one could hide. We still have memories that stir horror and a sense of helplessness.
Before we too go gently into that good night, perhaps Cold War boomers should make sure nuclear weapons go with us to the grave. For those of us in our 60s and 70s, still active and with time on our hands, the abolition of nuclear weapons is a worthy goal. We claim to have ended the Vietnam War with our protests and our marches. Perhaps we have one last act of social justice in us. Perhaps we could bring about the end of nuclear weapons and remove the prospect of nuclear war for our children and grandchildren. http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/kennette-benedict/civil-disobedience
“multiple system failures on many levels” US nuclear weapons plant safety audit
Weapons Plant Security Issues Are Described in U.S. Audit, NYT, By MATTHEW L. WALD, August 31, 2012 WASHINGTON — The contractors in charge of guarding the national stockpile of bomb-grade uranium in Tennessee knew well before an 82-year-old nun and two other pacifists broke through three barriers this summer that a lot of the security equipment was broken, and government managers knew it too, according to an internal audit of Energy Department operations at the weapons facility. The inspector general’s investigation found “troubling displays of ineptitude.” The intruders used ordinary bolt cutters to penetrate as far as the uranium storage building before dawn on July 28, and then went undiscovered until they approached an officer in his vehicle and surrendered, according to the audit. The officer failed to draw his gun or even secure his gun from seizure, “and permitted the trespassers to roam about and retrieve various items from backpacks they had apparently brought into the area,” the report said.
The three antiwar protesters — Sister Megan Gillespie Rice, of Las Vegas; Michael R. Walli, 63, of Washington; and Gregory I. Boertje-Obed, 57, of Duluth, Minn. — have been charged with felonies in connection with damage to the building. They said they had brought bread and candles for a Christian ritual.
The guard told The Knoxville News that he was being used as a scapegoat, and that it was obvious that the trio posed no threat.
Internal communications at the weapons plant, Y-12, near Oak Ridge, Tenn., were generally so poor that security officers told the auditors that it was not unusual for roofers or utility repair personnel to show up unannounced, and that when they heard the trespassers banging on the exterior wall of the storage building with hammers, they assumed it was maintenance workers.
The Energy Department’s inspector general, Gregory H. Friedman, said in the report that the episode showed “multiple system failures on many levels.”…. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/science/earth/audit-finds-security-lapses-at-y-12-uranium-storage-plant.html?_r=1&smid=fb-share
A letter to President Putin from Kumi Naidoo (Greenpeace)
Blogpost by Kumi Naidoo – August 30, 2012
[…]
-
Dear Mr. President,
I write these lines to you on board the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise, as we leave the Russian economic zone waters north of the Kola Peninsula. You may be aware that for the last 5 days people from our ship were engaging in a peaceful protest against the planned start up of
drilling for oil on the Russian Arctic shelf by Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya platform. I want to personally assure you that these protests were in no way directed against the interests of Russia, of people working on the platform, or even against the company of Gazprom. These protests are
part of a global campaign that we have been carrying out for a number of years, protesting against oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean, from Greenland to Alaska.
Mr. President. It is my deeply held conviction that oil production in the Arctic is counter to the environmental and economic security of Russia. Two weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting with your minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr Donskoy. I presented him the
findings of the group of respected Russian scientists, who concluded that oil production even on a comparatively near- shore platform such as Prirazlomnaya, carries a high risk of severe contamination of the fragile Arctic marine and coastal environment, while the ability to clean up
such a spill is extremely low, due to the climactic and geographic conditions of the region.Mr. President, I would like to emphasize again, that this is not unique to Russia. Similar analyses have yielded similar results for oil production on the Greenlandic and US Arctic shelves.
The Minister also received from us a report presented earlier this year which analyses the economic feasibility of oil production on the Arctic shelf. It is clear that the production costs are so high as to make the venture unprofitable. Indeed, instead of contributing positively to the Russian economy, it is more likely to become a drain on Federal, and perhaps regional budgets.
Ironically, we are just now passing close to the Shtokman gas field – a project which has now hit what seems to be a final obstacle and is in the process of dissolution, testifying its economic unfeasibility.
Mr. President I want to be very clear, we are not calling for stopping the use of petroleum products today. However it is clear that global oil production will not be able to be maintained much longer at the current level. We will be forced to develop and implement alternative, sustainable sources of energy. Russia possesses an immense wealth of such sources – from wind and solar to biomass and geothermal, as well as a huge potential for energy conservation which can provide cheaper and quicker energy equivalents than it planned to obtain in the Arctic offshore – Russia is capable to become the LEADING country in the world for developing clean energy for the future.
Mr. President, I am deeply concerned that the decision to develop oil fields on the Arctic shelf risks devastating the environment, while closing the channels of investment towards renewable energysources. I completely support the sentiment you expressed at the congress of the All-Russian public organization “Business Russia” when you said: “It is obvious for us that the ambitious goals that we set for ourselves can only be achieved within the framework of a new model of economic growth, whose driver will be not the resource complex, but a powerful high
technology-based business…”Opening extremely expensive oil fields in Arctic offshore doesn’t help to stop the dependence of Russian national budget on oil and gas and on volatile oil and gas prices on the international market.
Mr. President, one other aspect needs to be mentioned. The climate crisis that the scientific community has been warning about for years is upon us. The data released 3 days ago by scientists from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) clearly shows that the extent of the Arctic ice cover is at its all-time minimum – frightening proof of the fact that the geophysical profile of our planet is undergoing rapid and violent changes, which threaten all of our futures, and indeed are already causing humanitarian catastrophes, both in my homeland, where droughts are devastating the African continent, as well as in yours, Mr. President, where we witnessed widespread forest fires two years ago. I am sure you agree with me, Mr. President, that it is not fair, that people of the developing world who have contributed least to carbon emissions are the ones that are already paying the first and most brutal impacts of climate change.
Part of the mission of Greenpeace is to bring to the public eye the destruction that our planet is suffering. Our ship will now proceed to the edge of the Arctic ice north of the Norwegian coast where together with representatives of the scientific community and representatives of the global public we will document and bear witness to the reality of the disappearing of the Earth’s ice shield.
Mr. President, I am reminded of your words in the interview to a Canadian newspaper in 2000. You said “I’ve always admired people who devote their lives to environmental problems, I’ve watched with astonishment as a group of people on a little boat oppose a military or industrial ship. I must say it inspires only sympathy.” Mr. President, I hope that you understand that our protest at Prirazlomnaya was done with the spirit of taking personal action that you say you admire. In the same spirit I would like to extend an invitation to you. I would be honored if you joined us on board the Arctic Sunrise in the upcoming trip to the retreating edge of the Arctic ice, so you could see for yourself the beauty of this remarkable region, the risk that it is exposed to, and hopefully be inspired to use your position to protect it against destruction.
We need global leadership to ensure that the Arctic is declared a global sanctuary and I appeal to you to step forward to provide it.
With deep respect,
Kumi Naidoo
Executive Director Greenpeace International
[…]
Born in 1965 and hailing from South Africa, Kumi Naidoo has been Greenpeace’s International Executive Director since November 2009.
Follow Kumi on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/NaidooKumi
Russia announces enormous finds of radioactive waste and nuclear reactors in Arctic seas
Watch: It’s official, people who stayed in Fukushima are guinea pigs (VIDEO)
A You Tube bloggers perspective, from Henri in Sendai-Japan
(click on the enenews link for video)
http://enenews.com/horrible-official-people-stayed-fukushima-guinea-pigs-japan-resident-video
Published: September 1st, 2012 at 1:12 pm ET
By ENENews
Japan government officially making study on kids in Fukushima
Published by aristoman007
Published on Aug 31, 2012
Transcript Summary by Enenews
[…]
At 0:25 in
- I was completely shocked by the news I saw today… the Japanese gov’t to makeresearch and study of radiation effects
- So now it’s official, all those things we heard about people staying behind in Fukushima being Guinea pigs.
- They just completely confirmed officially.
- For me this is morally unbelievable.
- Of course these people need some attention, but they don’t need study or research on them.
At 1:50 in
- This is completely bullshit for me.
- I don’t think any of those people that stayed behind is asking for research on their kids.
- They don’t need the gov’t making research on them, I believe.
At 3:15 in
Lawyer for Assange detained at Heathrow and told she was on a ‘secret watch list’
By ABUL TAHER
PUBLISHED: 00:33, 2 September 2012
[…]
Ms Robinson said that she could not understand why she was on the list as she had never done anything controversial or criminal.
She had only represented clients around the world, one of whom was Mr Assange.
She added that under Australian law, a citizen does not need special clearance when returning to their own country, regardless of whether they are on any watch-lists.
Although WikiLeaks supporters believe that the ‘inhibited person list’ may be a secret US or British watch-list that monitors the international movements of certain individuals, both governments have denied they operate such a database.
[…]
and heres an earlier RT report
NAFTA, where has all Japans radiation gone?
Published nuclear-news.net
Date 2 September 2012
Author arclight2011
Secret food sampling in Japan, findings concur with Greenpeace findings.
MIRMC a collection of nuclear and health related professionals that have access to a spectrometer have been double checking food contamination.. Their findings concur generally with Greenpeace findings they say!
MIRMC Report 1. Comparison with Greenpeace
Published on Aug 12, 2012 by guardianofmiyagi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXn4euEh9Xo
and a link here to the Greenpeace information
Greenpeace puts pressure on Japan to tighten radiation restrictions after more than half of tested seafood shows up positive for radioactive cesium
Monday, October 31, 2011
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034017_Greenpeace_radiation.html#ixzz23LPYOmOy
And here is a falsified report that was leaked to the alternative media that blamed contamination on American grown Pistachios. Greenpeace may have done a deal with the supermarkets to check for radiation in their products. According to this report the supermarkets are just falsifying the data with old measurement reports. The sell buy date of the can of pistachios is 2001 and the test must have been before then..
(the comments show the possible links to who might have been involved and Aeons involvement with Greenpeace and a hint at manipulation of the alternative media by Ogilvy and Mather and their affiliates)
However, I think Greenpeace have been helping residents test for radiation in the food too I presume, though they have not been very public about it, nor have they released any reports since December 2011 on japan as far as I am aware.
As Greenpeace and everyone are looking for the contaminated food and not finding it, I thought I might have a look around to see where it might have gone to?
More below.
How corporations manipulate the Internet
Russia’s natural resource oversight body to keep mum on catastrophes from now on Anna Kireeva, Charles Digges, 16/08-2012 […] Now, all information requests sent to Rosprirodnadzor’s press service will be subject to scouring by the special commission before it is released to the public – a decision greeted by some of Kirillov‘s subordinates as anti-democratic and needlessly complex.
Rosprirodnadzor is one of the Russian government’s most important sources of information about environmental conditions in Russia
How to manipulate the Internet by arclight2011 1 September 12, Below, are quotes from some articles that are looking at issues of internet blocking and manipulation of searches etc..
I live in the UK, and recently discovered that Uk government requests to access peoples personal data was much lower than other countries. This was because laws passed last year allow authorities to hack anyone of interest…..
they do not need to apply to the courts any more, they have to put them on the recently renamed DOMESTIC EXTREMIST DATABASE (DED) office. The DED now have no name so as to deter data protection requests from a concerned public. As you will see below, other countries also censure/manipulate data to suit local needs and some countries are more open than others..
I wanted to cover censorship and manipulation in Japan and the USA after the Gulf Oil Spill and Fukushima tragedy but the PR company (OGILVY and MATHER, WPP) that smoothed over the disasters would need its own article.
For now here are some examples of how the manipulation works.
Irradiated Russian region moves to manipulate its Internet image Charles Digges, 29/07-2011[…] Authorities in Chelyabinsk have announced that they will pay the equivalent of $13,000 in order to try to alter the region’s “online footprint” so that people looking for information on Chelyabinsk on the internet read “positive or neutral evaluations of the ecological situation” there. Continue reading
Japanese online summary tampers with radiation report
The significance of this difference of expression relates to the fact that dose ranges below 0.20 Gy (200 mSv) are being ignored.
Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) “alters” a Japanese summary of their research paper http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/radiation-effects-research-foundation.html
Japan’s nuclear industry in the grip of the criminal yakuza

The Nuclear Mafia Derails Democracy in Japan Dissident Voice, by Richard Wilcox / August 31st, 2012
End of the day, factory whistle cries, Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
– Bruce Springsteen, “Factory”
Bring us the living dead. People no one will miss.
– Fukushima official’s request to Yakuza
TEPCO’s involvement with anti-social forces and their inability to filter them out of the work-place is a national security issue … Nuclear energy shouldn’t be in the hands of the yakuza. They’re gamblers and an intelligent person doesn’t want them to have atomic dice to play with.
– Japanese Senator1…. The exploitation of labor at nuclear plants depends on the tools of social engineering, of government, mass media and schools. This is the hidden and shameful side of today’s materialist society and belies our complicity in a criminalized culture.Inefficient and corrupt employment practices at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) are prolonging the disaster. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) outsources 90 percent of the work to subcontractors, mainly utilizing Japan’s criminal syndicates, “the Yakuza.” Japan is still a middle class society and most people will not volunteer for nuclear work. Japan risks running out of workers who have not exceeded their legal radiation limits.
Considered to be “Japan’s largest organized crime group” — who are on the radar of the US Treasury Dept. (another big crime group) — the Yakuza offer a service to society by sopping up its losers and giving them a dodgy occupation….. These short video interviews offer a useful introduction into how the Yakuza operate. Tepco’s relationship with the Yakuza is a cesspool of corruption from the highest to the lowest levels in its organization. “A senior National Police Agency officer, speaking on grounds of anonymity said, ‘TEPCO has a history of doing business with the yakuza that is far deeper than just using their labor.’ Continue reading
Nuclear power and its threat to fresh water supplies
According to a 2011 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, water withdrawals vary widely from one type of power plant to another: “On average in 2008, plants in the US nuclear fleet withdrew nearly eight times more freshwater than natural gas plants per unit of electricity generated, and 11 percent more than coal plants.
When water efficiency is factored into the equation, alternative energy sources, like wind turbines and solar cells, compare more favorably to coal, gas, and nuclear power.
Treading water, BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC
SCIENTISTS, BY DAWN STOVER | 22 AUGUST 2012 In 1954, Lewis Strauss, then chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, gave a speech in which he famously predicted that “our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.” Whether he was talking about fission reactors or a secret fusion project is unclear, but he was wrong in either case. What did turn out to be too cheap to meter, however, was water.
Unless you have a private well or spring on your property, you probably don’t enjoy free water in your home. But it’s a different story if you’re running a power plant or drilling for oil: The biggest water consumers pay the least for every gallon, and most power plants pay almost nothing at all. Perhaps that’s why so little research and funding is devoted to saving water — far less than is spent on energy efficiency.
This year’s drought, however, is a painful reminder that water is not an unlimited resource. According to the National Climate Data Center, moderate to exceptional drought currentlycovers 64 percent of the contiguous United States. A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change predicts that severe and widespread droughts will continue during the coming decades……
A June 2012 report from the watershed-protection group River Network found that, for every gallon of water used in an average American household, five times as much water is used to provide that same home with electricity.
It takes water to make energy. Coal, gas, and nuclear power plants generate electricity using steam-driven turbine generators. They withdraw surface water from rivers, lakes, or other bodies and use it to cool the steam. Thermoelectric power production has been the largest category of water use in the United States since 1965, and it is currently the fastest-growing user of freshwater. Continue reading
USA voters like Obama’s renewable energy policies, not Romney’s renewable rejection
Voters Favor Obama over Romney on Energy http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Voters-Favor-Obama-over-Romney-on-Energy.html By Jen Alic, 28 August 2012 US voters apparently favor President Barack Obama’s energy policy over the energy independence plan unveiled by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to two new polls conducted this week.
According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, 49% of registered voters surveyed preferred Obama’s energy policy, while 41% preferred Romney’s. Voters were specifically asked who they trust more to come through with a successful energy policy.
In the same poll that considered adults who are both registered voters and non-registered voters, 49% chose Obama’s energy plan, while 37% chose Romney’s.
In a separate poll conducted by USA Today/Gallup, 53% of those surveyed preferred Obama’s energy plan, to 40% for Romney. This particular poll was conducted before Romney unveiled his energy independence plan.
On Thursday, Romney unveiled his much-talked-about energy plan, a 21-page white paper that focuses on drilling and makes no mention of climate change and only a vague mention of renewable energy efforts.
Obama’s policy is nearly the flip side, focusing on supporting renewable energy at the expense of fossil fuels, though it is described as an “all-of-the-above” strategy to expand domestic energy production.
‘I saw rebels beheading men for religion’ – Syrian cleric
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iogH78kXccU&feature=player_embedded
Published on Aug 30, 2012 by RussiaToday
RT talks to Mother Agnes Mariam, founder of monastery in Qara in Syria and witnessed what the people went through when the first sparks of trouble ignited the war.
Syrian Christians living in fear and insecurity
Thursday, August 16th, 2012
[…]
The Melkite Greek-Catholic Carmelite was in Dublin to meet the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown on Sunday as well Bishop Noel Treanor in Belfast, and representatives of the Bishops Council for Justice and Peace. She warned that the insurgents are targeting religious minorities and executing moderate Sunnis such as journalists, researchers, doctors and engineers in order to pressure their families and communities into supporting an Islamist state.
Mother Agnes Mariam warned that this campaign of violence is, “destroying the delicate religious and ethnic balance,” in Syria. She appealed to the international community to stop supporting these violent militias, which she said are linked to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups, and are guilty of, “atrocities,” against innocent Syrian civilians.
[..]
‘Politically motivated’ IAEA report timed to derail Iranian influence’
http://rt.com/news/iran-iaea-report-suspicious-082/
Published: 31 August, 2012, 23:02
Edited: 01 September, 2012, 04:22
Qoute..
Seyed Mohammad Marandi: Yes, because the Iranians are producing enriched uranium at 20 per cent, for facilities in Tehran, which then produce medical isotopes. Roughly 800,000 to 900,000 people in Iran need this medicine; many of them are cancer patients. And the fact that the United States and the Europeans tried to prevent Iran from obtaining the fuel in the past meant that they were taking Iranian cancer patients hostage, which was, in the eyes of Iranians, inhuman.
The Iranians felt they were forced to produce their own uranium at 20 per cent. The irony here is that the Iranians at the beginning had no intention to produce uranium at 20 per cent and then produce nuclear fuel. But the Americans and the Europeans, by taking Iranian citizens and ill people hostage, forced Iranians to take that step.
Iran has dismissed as “politically motivated” a recent IAEA report accusing it of ramping up uranium enrichment. The director of the University of Tehran’s Institute for North American and European Studies told RT the report’s timing is no surprise.
Iranian lawmakers were quick to reject the highly critical International Atomic Energy Agency report – released Thursday – which was published just as Tehran was hosting representatives from some 120 nations for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. Iranian lawmaker Kazem Jalali said the report was intended to “overshadow the meeting in Tehran.”
“It seems that this report is a scenario for psychological warfare, because Iran was able to show its authority and international position at the NAM summit,” Jalali, a member of Iranian Parliament’s national security and foreign affairs committee, added.
The IAEA report says Iran’s stockpile of uranium that’s been enriched to 20 per cent – the threshold for “weapons-usable” quality – has jumped from 159 pounds to 255 pounds since May.
Breaking-Iran’s Bushehr power plant fully operational
Published: 01 September, 2012, 00:02
(RT)
[…]
Iran’s first nuclear power plant is now operating at full capacity. The unique project demanded equipment and buildings originally made by Germany to be refitted for Russian nuclear technology.
“The reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant’s Unit 1 was brought up to 100 per cent of its projected capacity at 18:47 local time on August 30,” Atomstroyexport, an engineering company within Russia’s Rosatom, said Friday. Continue reading
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