Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard presents the aftermath of the first atomic bomb through the remarkable drawings and stories of surviving Japanese school children who were part of an extraordinary, compassionate exchange with their American counterparts after the war.
In 1995, a parishioner of the All Souls Church in Washington, D.C., discovered a long-forgotten box containing dozens of colorful drawings made by Japanese children from the Honkawa Elementary School in Hiroshima just two years after their city was destroyed. The surprisingly hopeful drawings were created and sent to the church nearly 50 years earlier in appreciation for much-needed school supplies received as part of the church’s post-war humanitarian efforts.
The Honkawa school was just 1100 feet from ground zero on August 6, 1945. Nearly 400 children died in the schoolyard that fateful morning. Surviving students and teachers describe the horror of that day and reflect on their difficult lives amidst the rubble of their decimated city, as well as the hope they shared through their art.
Classes resumed soon after in the window-less concrete shell of the remaining Honkawa school building to provide some sense of normalcy. The film features recently found archival footage that shows what life was like in the weeks and months after the bomb fell and how Hiroshima gradually recovered.
The rediscovered drawings were restored by members of the All Souls Church, who several years later embarked on an emotional journey to Japan to exhibit the artwork at the Honkawa school and reunite the surviving artists for the first time with the drawings they created as children.
The artists and church members reflect on the lessons that resulted from a compassionate exchange nearly 70 years ago between American and Japanese children following a bitter and devastating World War.
The film is produced by Shizumi Shigeto Manale and written and directed by Bryan Reichhardt. More information here.
THE WORLD AWAITS http://soundviewmediapartners.com/the-world-awaits/ It’s a matter of time…A Don Haderlein Film A documentary film on the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Noted philosopher Noam Chomsky, world renowned physician, author and activist Helen Caldicott, MD, and founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation David Krieger come together through interwoven interviews to create a narrative that addresses one of the most urgent needs of our planet:
The modern dangers of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear terrorism in the world today.
“The World Awaits” is a documentary feature depicting the effects of nuclear weapons and the urgent need for the nuclear states to reduce and eventually eliminate these highly destructive weapons of mass destruction. The narrative presents the dangers of these weapons, including recent close calls and almost
attacks we’ve had had over the 70 years since the first use of nuclear weapons in August of 1945.
The film also explores the current threat of nuclear terrorism and the dangers of nuclear power plants in our world today. The three core interviews are interwoven with archival footage of presidents Barack Obama, John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman.
“The World Awaits” makes a strong argument for never using these weapons again and how these outdated arms and power sources should be abolished in the best interests of the survival of humanity and our planet.
North Korea prompts US cities to prepare for a nuclear attack, SMH, Ralph Vartabedian and W.J. Hennigan, 29 July 17, Fleets of big black trucks, harbor boats and aircraft, equipped with radiation sensors and operated by specially trained law enforcement teams, are ready to swing into action in Los Angeles for a catastrophe that nobody even wants to think about: a North Korean nuclear attack.
American cities have long prepared for a terrorist attack, even one involving nuclear weapons or a “dirty bomb,” but North Korea’s long-range missile and weapons programs have now heightened concerns along the West Coast over increasing vulnerability to a strike………
The civil defence work done by Ventura County is exceedingly rare, said Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear weapons historian and assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.
There has been little public discourse since the Cold War about the consequences of nuclear threats, he said. As a result, an entire generation has grown up with little awareness of the danger posed by nuclear weapons.
This month, Wellerstein and other researchers launched Reinventing Civil defence, a nonprofit project that over the next two years will examine how best to reeducate the American public on the nuclear threat – one that never went away. It is being funded by a $US500,000 ($626,000) grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York……..
Wright, the nuclear weapons expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said North Korea’s most recent missile test demonstrated a two-stage rocket that could reach Anchorage and Guam. But he expects that within one to two years North Korea will have enough reach to hit Seattle, 7900 km away, and then Los Angeles, 9300 km from its launch sites……
The main responsibility would lie with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which declined to provide an official to discuss the issue and did not answer written questions.
Some arms control experts say it would be a mistake to launch a full-scale civil defence effort in response to North Korea. Wright, the expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said such a response would send the wrong message that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has put a dent in US confidence.
Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, said Kim presents the same threat that existed throughout most of the last century. “He’s ruthless, but he’s not crazy,” Lewis said. “There’s reason to be cautious. But it’s not a reason to start digging bomb shelters.”
But Levin, the Ventura County health director, argues that doing nothing is equally wrong. The key point of the Ventura plan is to ask residents not flee, but to “get inside and stay inside” immediately after a detonation…..http://www.smh.com.au/world/north-korea-prompts-us-cities-to-prepare-for-a-nuclear-attack-20170727-gxkdu2.html
Chinese military displays conventional, nuclear missiles at parade, Economic Times, Jul 30, 2017, BEIJING: Chinese military today showcased five models of its homemade conventional and nuclear missiles in a massive military parade, marking the 2.3-million strong People’s Liberation Army’s 90th founding anniversary.
Also on display were two types of solid-fuel inter- continental strategic nuclear missiles, which rumbled on top of long-bed missile launchers, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The equipment and soldiers driving the mobile launch vehicles came from the PLA’s Rocket Force, which was established in December 2015 as part of the PLA’s extensive military structural reform. …
Besides Doklam, China is also concerned by the situation in North Korea and the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile by the US in South Korea much to the opposition of Beijing. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/chinese-military-displays-conventional-nuclear-missiles-at-parade/articleshow/59831588.cms
PUTIN WARNS U.S.-RUSSIA NUCLEAR WAR WOULD LEAVE NO SURVIVORS, Newsweek 6/7/17Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the idea that the U.S. would claim victory in a conflict with Russia, noting that “nobody would survive” such a clash.
The Putin Interviews | Vladimir Putin & Oliver Stone Discuss NATO
Speaking to U.S. movie director Oliver Stone for The Putin Interviews, a four-part series on Showtime, Putin shared a negative view of U.S. military action and its NATO alliance. “NATO is a mere instrument of U.S. foreign policy,” Putin says in a clip of the interview, aired by the Showtime channel. “It has no allies, it has only vassals. Once a country becomes a NATO member, it is hard to resist the pressures of the United States.”
http://www.fairewinds.org/newsletter-archive//press-release-radioactively-hot-particles-in-japan 7/27/17 Contact: info@fairewindsenergy.org
Today, the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment (STOTEN) published a peer-reviewed article entitled: Radioactively-hot particles detected in dusts and soils from Northern Japan by combination of gamma spectrometry, autoradiography, and SEM/EDS analysis and implications in radiation risk assessment. Co-authored by Dr. Marco Kaltofen, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education, the article details the analysis of radioactively hot particles collected in Japan following the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdowns.
Based on 415 samples of radioactive dust from Japan, the USA, and Canada, the study identified a statistically meaningful number of samples that were considerably more radioactive than current radiation models anticipated. If ingested, these more radioactive particles increase the risk of suffering a future health problem.
“Measuring radioactive dust exposures can be like sitting by a fireplace,” Dr. Kaltofen said. “Near the fire you get a little warm, but once in a while the fire throws off a spark that can actually burn you.”
The same level of risk exists in Japan. While most people have an average level of risk, a few people get an extra spark from a hot particle. According to Dr. Kaltofen, “The average radiation exposures we found in Japan matched-up nicely with other researchers. We weren’t trying to see just somebody’s theoretical average result. We looked at how people actually encounter radioactive dust in their real lives. Combining microanalytical methods with traditional health physics models,” he added, “we found that some people were breathing or ingesting enough radioactive dust to have a real increase in their risk of suffering a future health problem. This was especially true of children and younger people, who inhale or ingest proportionately more dust than adults.”
Fairewinds’ book Fukushima Dai-ichi: The Truth and the Way Forward was published in Japan by Shueisha Publishing, just prior to the one-year commemoration of the tsunami and meltdowns. “Our book,” Mr. Gundersen said, “which is a step-by-step factual account of the reactor meltdowns, was a best seller in Japan and enabled us to build amazing relations with people actually living in Japan, who are the source of the samples we analyzed. We measured things like house dusts, air filters, and even car floor mats. Collecting such accurate data shows the importance of citizen science, crowd sourcing, and the necessity of open, public domain data for accurate scientific analysis.”
Fairewinds Energy Education founder Maggie Gundersen said, “We are very thankful to the scientists and citizen scientists in Japan, who sought our assistance in collecting and analyzing this data. We will continue to support ongoing scientific projects examining how people in Japan and throughout the world experience radioactive dust in their daily lives.”
The complete peer reviewed report and project audio description by Dr. Kaltofen are available here at the Science of the Total Environment website.
Interactive data and the supporting materials are available here at the Fairewinds Energy Education website.
The Invisible War On American Soil, Topic, 29 July 17 Photographs by Nina Berman
War is a dirty, dirty business. Beyond the damage inflicted on the battlefields themselves, every part of a military operation marks the earth. From munitions factories to massive supply lines, collateral costs abound.GIVEN THE SIZE OF OUR DEFENSE BUDGETS, it should come as no surprise that the United States military is one of the planet’s most prolific and chronic polluters. Perhaps more surprising is that this impacts life within the U.S. as well as overseas. Vast stretches of the American landscape are contaminated by the business of war and armed aggression; it’s littered with unexploded ordnance, toxic chemicals, depleted uranium, radioactive particles, and more.
In this essay, we examine seven such sites of environmental damage wrought by the nation’s military and its weapons contractors. The places range from sites in New Mexico, where nuclear weapons have been produced, to the Passaic River in New Jersey, where dioxin from Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War has poisoned the riverbed. As the technology of warfare changes, so has its impact, with current contamination coming from the skies—such as on Whidbey Island, Washington, where Navy testing of EA-18G Growler planes might be making residents ill.
Acid Canyon; Los Alamos, New Mexico……
Trinity Site; White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico……
Haystack Mine; Haystack Mountain, New Mexico……
White Sands Missile Range Museum; New Mexico……
Luis Lopez Cemetery; New Mexico……
San Antonio, New Mexico…….
Fort Wingate, New Mexico …..
Whidbey Island, Washington…..
Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge; Madison, Indiana…..
Near the Starmet Superfund site; Concord, Massachusetts…..
Passaic River; Lyndhurst, New Jersey…..
Tularosa, New Mexico….. https://www.topic.com/the-invisible-war-on-american-soil
Piketon, DOE spar over proposed on-site waste site, ChillicotheGazette, PIKETON – As those involved with cleanup operations at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon celebrate the most recent funding allocated for work to create an on-site waste disposal facility, officials within Piketon’s village government are stepping up efforts to prove that work should be stopped.
Rocky Flats dam removal dredges up contamination concerns, Boulder Weekly ,By Josh Schlossberg -June 29, 2017, The City of Broomfield and the Woman Creek Reservoir Authority (WCRA), a political subdivision and public corporation of the State of Colorado, are opposed to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) plan to breach a dam on a pond collecting surface water flowing from Rocky Flats, the former nuclear weapons facility site 10 miles south of Boulder.
DOE has contended that the dam on Pond C-2 is “no longer necessary to site operations” and wants to remove it sometime between 2018-2020 to return surface water flow to Woman Creek, thereby enhancing streamside wildlife habitat and encouraging wetlands. Removal would cause “no significant impact,” as determined by an environmental assessment conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Getting rid of the dam would also cut DOE costs related to inspection, reporting and upkeep, which WCRA estimates to be around $17,000 per year.
Yet according to a 2016 document prepared for WCRA by Boulder-based Hydros Consulting Inc., removal of the dam would “represent an irreversible loss of an effective contingency to protect downstream water quality” in Standley Lake, the drinking water supply for Westminster, Northglenn and Thornton, also used for irrigation, fishing, boating and water skiing.
Alan King, director of public works for the City and County of Broomfield, wrote in his June 2010 correspondence with DOE that the breach would “clearly increase the potential for uncontrolled releases of contaminated surface water off-site that would negatively impact downstream watersheds and expose downstream communities to additional risks.”
Pond C-2 is located on the border of the former Rocky Flats facility site 1.25 miles upstream of the Woman Creek Reservoir, the latter of which was built in 1996 to capture Rocky Flats runoff and keep it from reaching Standley Lake. The pond is currently operated in “batch-and-release mode,” where it is allowed to fill to roughly half capacity, and then discharged up to two times per year, according to DOE’s Environmental Assessment.
“Significant [plutonium] and [americium] contamination remains in surface soils on the DOE-retained land in the Woman Creek drainage, particularly on the 903Pad Hillside, with [radioactive] mass loading to Pond C-2 comparable to pre-closure conditions,” Hydros Consulting documented.
The 903Pad is an area of Rocky Flats where more than 5,000 buried barrels of liquid radioactive waste leaked, contaminating an estimated 261,000 square feet of soil before they were removed, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE).
GS51 is a surface water sampling location within the former facility site just south of the 903Pad and upstream of a ditch which DOE says flows “quite infrequently” into Pond C-2. On October 4, 2013, a month after the flood of 2013, GS51 “recorded elevated levels of plutonium in excess of the applicable standard,” according to a September 2015 memo from the Town of Superior Trustees to the Rocky Flats Stewardship Council.
King noted that Pond C-2 also receives runoff from several other areas that have “residual contamination.”
“Elevated readings for uranium have been recorded in this pond, and DOE-LM acknowledges that it is not 100 percent natural uranium,” wrote King.
On April 4, 2016, water samples collected on Woman Creek reached 0.313pCi/L (picocuries per liter) for plutonium and 0.17pCi/L for americium, “the first sample over 0.15pCi/L in more than 20 years of sampling…” according to Hydros Consulting.
Surface water samples “indicate that solids transported in runoff … have, at times, been above the Site closure cleanup target for surface soils” of 50pCi/g (picocuries per gram), occurring “in four out of five of the most recent years,” mostly attributed to plutonium.
Playing with fire
Typical events aside, the City of Broomfield and WCRA fear that a wildfire or landslide in contaminated areas within Rocky Flats may result in further downstream contamination…….http://www.boulderweekly.com/news/breach-of-trust/
Scotsman 31st July 2017, A growing number of people in Scotland want to see stronger action on
climate change, according to a poll. Results from a survey by WWF Scotland
show an increase in the percentage of those calling for more investment,
renewable energy sources and a reduction in emissions.
The data comes as a new Climate Change Bill is out for public consultation, and around 1,000
Scots were surveyed in May and June for the WWF study. More than
three-quarters, 76 per cent, of respondents said the Scottish Government
should reduce climate change emissions by “investing more in improving the
energy efficiency of homes across Scotland”, up from 67 per cent in 2016.
Atotal of 68 per cent said they want the Government to invest in projects
that reduce emissions, up from 59 per cent in 2016. There were 72 per cent
who believe more should be d one to help people heat their homes from
renewable sources. Only 59 per cent thought so in the previous year.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/poll-finds-more-scots-want-stronger-action-on-climate-change-1-4517962
Public deserves truth about nuclear bailout http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/
Commentary-Public-deserves-truth-about-nuclear-11717763.php, By Blair Horner, July 29, 2017
It’s been one year since Gov. Andrew Cuomo quietly foisted an estimated $7.6 billion electric utility rate hike on the people of New York to bail out three aging, upstate nuclear power plants. Since then, we’ve learned a lot about how bad that deal was, but we still don’t know much about how the administration cooked it up.
Here’s what we know: The deal is the result of an astonishingly secretive process. True, some hearings were held, but on a proposed bailout ranging from $59 million to $660 million. After the process wrapped up, the administration jacked up the price into the billions, without any meaningful public process to debate its merits.
The Cuomo administration didn’t release an estimate for the entire cost of the 12-year plan, so the independent Public Utility Law Project crunched the numbers and found it could be as much as $7.6 billion. That stunning transfer of wealth to the single corporation owning the plants may well be the largest in New York’s history.
The first two years of the bailout are estimated to cost ratepayers $964,900,000, an average of more than $1.3 million per day.
Since the bailout hit utility bills on April 1, New Yorkers have paid nearly $163 million extra to prop up these plants. That’s a huge amount of money in a state like New York, already burdened with some of the highest utility rates in the country, and where 800,000 ratepayers are behind on their utility bills.
Included in that $163 million is close to $10 million in extra charges being footed by Niagara Mohawk residential ratepayers, based on the PULP analysis.
Albany County, for example, is slated to pay up to $225,543 more per year for the bailout. Albany’s school district may pay up to $87,552 more per year and Albany Medical Center up to $537,843 per year.
Despite the massive scale of the bailout, New Yorkers still don’t know what alternatives the Cuomo administration considered to meet our energy needs. But there are clearly other paths to study. For example, the analysis released this month by energy expert Amory Lovins, which criticizes the growing trend toward subsidizing costly, uneconomical nuclear power plants.
Lovins, once named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, found that bailouts like the kind New York just implemented could be avoided by closing unprofitable nuclear plants and reinvesting their operating costs into energy efficiency, such as better insulation, windows, and appliances.
Because energy efficiency reduces demand and is so much cheaper per kWh than the energy produced by a nuclear plant, it could replace the power generated by the nuclear plant and replace some of the power generated by coal or gas, all for the same price as one kWh of nuclear energy.
Lovins’ independent analysis contradicts the Cuomo administration’s assertions that the bailout is the only way New York can reduce carbon emissions and meet its energy needs.
To “celebrate” the one-year anniversary of the bailout, let’s hope the administration finally conducts a comprehensive public review of all the alternatives to spending billions to keep old, unprofitable nuclear power plants running.
It’s not too late to reverse course and invest in 21st-century, clean, efficient power sources. New York ratepayers deserve to have their money bankroll job-creating technologies that help attack the problem of energy pollution, not kick the can 12 years down the road.
Blair Horner is executive director the New York Public Interest Research Group.
This government’s record on energy has been incompetent to the point of
derision or despair, depending on how much you care about it. But suddenly,
a ray of sunshine emerges from Greg Clarke’s Department of Business, Energy
and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Greg wants to unleash the power of the
market on our broken energy system.
But this isn’t just the same old, same old rhetoric exhorting consumers switch from one of the much-maligned big
energy suppliers to another. No, Greg is talking about nothing less than
the coming revolution in energy, one that has become evident to many of us
working in the renewables sector, but has until now been just a little too
far over the horizon for the politicians to ‘get’.
A combination of key technologies – solar, wind, and energy storage coupled with a real-time
energy market driven by information technology are maturing and the impact
will be extraordinary. Solar panels and wind turbines have a complementary
output profile and a combination of both will even out seasonal energy
production in northern climates such as the UK.
Energy will be stored in and released from large batteries – including those in electric vehicles –
to meet shorter term peaks in demand and troughs in supply. Real-time
electricity pricing will allow internet enabled appliances to turn on or
regulate down following pricing signals to smooth out demand to better
match supply.
What we’re looking at is a fundamental shift from an energy
system based on resources to one founded on technology. Our current energy
system has been built on extracting resources (coal, gas, oil) from the
planet’s crust and setting fire to them. The energy system of the near
future will be based on technology that converts the energy derived from
the sun (daylight and wind) into electricity.
The key point is that whereas natural resources get more expensive as you use more of them, technology
becomes ever cheaper and more efficient. The inflexion point is coming and
it’s now no longer a question of whether the oil age will end, but how soon
it will come.
Solar power portal 27th July 2017
https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/blogs/the_uk_government_is_suddenly_showing_signs_that_it_gets_it
Guarantee may not be enough to save troubled V.C. Summer nuclear project, Jul 27, 2017, John Downey,Charlotte Business Journal Toshiba Corp. has agreed to pay S.C. Electric & Gas and Santee Cooper almost $2.2 billion in guarantees for their spending on the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station expansion.But that will not be enough to cover the expected increase in costs for completing the troubled project, the two utilities say. So while observers call the settlement encouraging, there are deepening questions about whether it will be economically feasible to finish the expansion.
That decision — which now appears to involve a more-than-$16-billion question — could come as early as next week…….
it is also clear that the costs to complete the project are going to be very high. The joint statements says “the additional cost to complete both units … will materially exceed prior (Westinghouse) estimates as well as the anticipated guarantee settlement payments from Toshiba.”
If the price is beyond the $14 billion estimate in 2015 and the $2.2 billion in the guarantees, it puts the total cost north of $16 billion.
In order for the companies to decide to complete the project, they will need to determine that it would cost more to abandon the project now and build an alternative power plant (or plants) to replace the electricity that would have been produced by Summer.
The joint statement also notes that the utilities stand to lose an important tax break — which makes a $2 billion difference in costs to customers —if the projects are not completed by Jan. 1, 2021.
“At this point, the project owners believe that the units could not be brought online until after this date,” the companies say…..https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/07/27/toshiba-guaranty-may-not-be-enough-to-save-the.html
Can the World Defend Itself from Omnicide?, Common Dreams, by Ralph Nader, 27 July 17, Notice how more frequently we hear scientists tell us that we’re “wholly unprepared” for this peril or for that rising fatality toll? Turning away from such warnings may reduce immediate tension or anxiety, but only weakens the public awareness and distracts us from addressing the great challenges of our time, such as calamitous climate change, pandemics, and the rise of a host of other self-inflicted disasters…….Negotiations are not even underway for a cyberwarfare treaty among nations. The sheer scale and horrific implications of this weaponry seems to induce societies to bury their heads in the sand. 
Former ABC TV host of Nightline, Ted Koppel, discusses this emerging threat in his recent, acclaimed book, “Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared”:
Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director, Leon Panetta, says Koppel’s book is “an important wake-up call for America.” Yet neither he nor the enormous military-industrial complex, of which he remains a supportive part, are doing much of anything about this doomsday threat to national security. The big manufacturers are too busy demanding ever more taxpayer money for additional nukes, aircraft carriers, submarines, fighter planes, missiles and other weaponry of an increasingly bygone age………
Our present educational systems – from Harvard Law School, MIT to K-12 – are not rising to these occasions for survival. Our mass media, wallowing in trivia, entertainment, advertisements and political insults, is not holding the politicians accountable to serious levels of public trust and societal safety. Time for new movements awakening our best angels to foresee and forestall. Do any potential leaders at all levels want to be first responders? https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/27/can-world-defend-itself-omnicide
Let’s keep radioactive waste away from our river!
Nuclear Power? -Never again
(Switzerland –https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/handeln/atomkraft-nie-wieder/+)
PETITION – Close Down the Monticello Nuclear Reactor on the Mississippi River!
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
nuclear-news 