Month: June 2011

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Politics

Guest Blog by Paul Rogat Loeb

Following the weather is beginning to feel like revisiting the Biblical plagues. Tornadoes rip through Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma-even Massachusetts. A million acres burn in Texas wildfires. The Army Corps of Engineers floods 135,000 acres of farmland and three million acres of bayou country to save Memphis and New Orleans. Earlier in the past year, a 2,000-mile storm dumped near-record snow from Texas to Maine, a fifth of Pakistan flooded, fires made Moscow’s air nearly unbreathable, and drought devastated China’s wheat crop.  You’d think we’d suspect something’s grievously wrong.
But media coverage rarely connects the unfolding cataclysms with the global climate change that fuels them. We can’t guarantee that any specific disaster is caused by our warming atmosphere. The links are delayed and diffuse. But considered together, the escalating floods, droughts, tornadoes, and hurricanes <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=warning-flooding-ahead>fit all the predicted models. So do the extreme snowfalls and ice storms, as our heated atmosphere carries more water vapor.  So why deem them isolated acts of God-instead of urgent warnings to change our course?
Scientists are more certain than ever, from the National Academy of Science and its counterparts in every other country to such “radical groups” as the American Chemical Society and American Statistical Society. But the media has buried their voices, giving near-equal “point/counterpoint” credence to a handful of deniers promoted by Exxon, the coal companies and the Koch brothers. Fox News’s managing editor <https://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46409.html>even prohibited any reporting on global climate change that didn’t immediately then question the overwhelming scientific consensus. The escalating disasters dominate the news, but stripped of context. We’re given no perspective to reflect on their likely root causes.
Meanwhile, leading Republicans who once acknowledged the need to act, like <https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/tim-pawlenty-will-steger-climate-change>Tim Pawlenty, disavow their previous stands like sinners begging forgiveness.  A Tea Party Congress insists that they know better than do all the world’s scientists, dismissing decades of meticulous research as Ivory Tower elitism. Even Obama has fallen largely silent, as if he can’t afford an honest discussion.
As a result, too many Americans still don’t know what to believe. We can’t see, smell or taste the core emissions that create climate change. The industrial processes that create the crisis are so familiar we don’t even question them, no more than the air that we breathe. And if we’re not getting hammered by the weather, the world still seems normal, particularly on a lovely summer day. Plus we’re told that in the current economic crisis we can’t afford even to think about climate change or any other urgent environmental issue, even though the technologies that provide the necessary alternatives are precisely those our country will need to compete economically. Add in a culture of overload and distraction, and it’s easy to retreat into denial or self-defeating resignation.  It’s as if <https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/28/gallups-public-opinion-on-global-warming-dead-last/>half our population was diagnosed with life-threatening but treatable cancer-visited the world’s leading medical centers to confirm it–and then decided instead to heed forwarded emails that assure them that they can freely ignore the counsel of the doctors and simply do nothing.
The antidote to denial and the forces that promote it is courage. And as Egypt and Tunisia remind us, courage is contagious. We need to act and speak out in every conceivable way, and demand that our leaders do the same.  We need to engage new allies, like religious evangelicals who’ve recently spoken out to defend “God’s creation,” from best-selling minister Rick Warren to highly conservative organizations like the Christian Coalition. We need to work with labor activists who link this ultimate issue with the renewal of American jobs. A recent <https://www.bluegreenalliance.org/about_us/organizations>BlueGreen Alliance conference, for instance, brought together leaders of major unions like the United Steel Workers, SEIU, Communications Workers of America, United Auto Workers, Laborers’ International, and American Federation of Teachers, with environmental groups like the Sierra Club, National Resource Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation and Union of Concerned Scientists, all speaking about the need to invest in an economy where both ordinary workers and the planet are respected.  We need to join with these allies and others to voice our outrage at those risking our common future for greed. We need to find creative ways to do this until America’s political climate comes to grips with the changing climate of the earth. Here’s hoping the mounting disasters will finally teach us to turn off The Weather Channel and begin taking action.
Paul Loeb is author of Soul of a Citizen, with 130,000 copies in print including a newly updated second edition. He’s also the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. See <a ahref=”https://www.paulloeb.org/”>www.paulloeb.org</a>  To receive Paul’s articles directly please email <a href=”mailto:sympa@npogroups.org”>sympa@npogroups.org</a>  with the subject line:  subscribe paulloeb-articles

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government

Here’s the latest installment in the Associated Press’s very disturbing report on nuclear power plant safety.

Adding to the previous reports’ deep concerns about neglected maintenance and regulators who scale back requirements rather than enforce them, the newest installment demonstrates that regulators have basically ignored massive population growth in many areas around  nuclear power plant sites.

Part of the “safety planning” (such as it was) for nuclear plant siting was to place the plants in relatively remote areas (still far too close to major population centers, but usually 20-50 miles away). But suburban/exurban infill has changed the picture dramatically. Evacuation plans designed to move out a rural population have in most cases never been upgraded to deal with the new realities.

As one of many examples cited in the study, a 10-mile radius around Florida’s two-reactor Saint Lucie complex had only 43,332 residents in 1980; now, the population is 202,010 (more than 4-1/2 times as large).

Following the Fukushima accidents, the US government recommended that its citizens living closer than 50 miles evacuate. If there were a 50-mile evacuation at Indian Point, 24 miles north of New York City, 17 million people in three different states would be affected. Ever try to get out of NYC at rush hour? This would be far worse. Even the 268,906 who live within 10 miles of the plant would be quite challenging to evacuate.

HOW have we allowed this madness to continue?

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , ,

Here is the smoking gun—the clear, hard evidence that the nuclear industry AND its regulators care nothing about our safety.

The Associated Press spent a year investigating nuclear power plant safety. And found something really scary: when regulators encounter problems, instead of shutting the plants to make repairs, the regulators relax their standards. Double-plus ungood, as George Orwell would say.

In a long bylined story by investigative reporter Jeff Donn, the respected journalism group lays out a harrowing picture of deferred maintenance, aging parts, reactor licenses renewed without any semblance of adequate investigation, and a “regulatory” agency whose response to problems is to say, oh, we didn’t mean to be so tough, sorry, go right on risking the public safety:

Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased…

The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety…

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed — up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised…

Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes…could escalate dangers in the event of an accident.

To name one of many examples cited in the article: valves that were allowed to leak up to 11.5 cubic feet per hour each (there are four, so total permissible leakage was 46 cubic feet per hour per plant) could not meet that standard, so the NRC bumped the limit all the way up to 200 cubic feet per hour for the set of four—that’s more than 500% over the original standard. Even this was not enough, however; one Georgia plant admitted releases of 576 cubic feet per hour.

In short, not only have we experienced a whole lot of radiation releases as these parts age, but the risk of catastrophic accident is far higher than most of us would have imagined. Especially since the plants were only designed with a 40-year lifespan in mind, and yet the NRC is granting 20-year license renewals in a way that seems almost like a pro forma rubber stamp.

And speaking of radiation releases, Donn posted a new article June 21, documenting that…

Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping

Under the best of circumstances, nuclear power is an extremely risky, energy-intensive operation where human error and mechanical failure can combine to create massive catastrophe. And this is far from the best of circumstances; this is playing Russian roulette not with a single individual but with the lives of thousands or even millions, all around the country.

This is a game with no winners.

It is time to demand from Washington the leadership it should have shown all along. It is time to shut down every operating nuclear power plant and take steps to stabilize the infrastructure so serious accidents won’t happen even after the plants are no longer generating power. The stakes are unacceptably high.

Read those two stories all the way through—and let’s think together about action!

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By Posted on Posted in Peace and War, Politics Tagged with , , ,

I’m not used to this: John Boehner said something I agreed with. Which is that Obama’s action in Libya needs approval under the War Powers Act. While I’m glad he’s holding Obama up to this very important law, I do wonder where he was when the handful of peaceniks in Congress were criticizing George W. Bush’s two far more extensive illegal wars. Mr. Boehner, I hope in the future that you hold Republican presidents as well as Democrats to the standard.

It’s less surprising that I occasionally agree with Ron Paul (not that I’d ever vote for him, as I think many of his domestic policies are a disaster). Here’s something brilliant Ron Paul said at the GOP debate the other day:

I served five years in the military. I’ve had a little experience. I’ve spent a little bit of time over in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area, as well as in Iran. But I wouldn’t wait for my generals. I’m the commander-in-chief. I make the decisions. I tell the generals what to do. And I’d bring them home as quickly as possible. And I would get them out of Iraq, as well. And I wouldn’t start a war in Libya. I’d quit bombing Yemen. And I’d quit bombing Pakistan. I’d start taking care of people here at home, because we could save hundreds of billions of dollars. Our national security is not enhanced by our presence over there. We have no purpose there. We should learn the lessons of history. And the longer we’re there, the worse things are, and the more danger we’re in, as well, because our presence there is not making friends, let me tell you.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Green Marketing Tagged with , , ,

One of the most exciting things about the green movement lately is the way it’s become so mainstream. After some 40 years in this movement, I am deeply gratified that every company I can think of is taking steps toward sustainability. Some, like Marks & Spencer in the UK and believe it or not, Walmart in the US (and worldwide)—a company not exactly swarming with treehuggers—have practically made it into a religion.

In my talks and interviews, I almost always mention Walmart, because that company is heavily driven by the profit motive—and has found it extremely profitable to lower expenses by paying attention to sustainability, and at the same time create new profit centers. For instance, Walmart is selling truckloads of organic food to people who would never set foot in a Whole Foods. While I still have many other issues with the company, ranging from labor practices and supplier policies to siting and closed-store-reuse, on sustainabiity, I have only praise.

And if  bottom-line-driven, NON-treehugger company like Walmart can build a green path to prosperity, what holds the rest of us back?

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By Posted on Posted in Shel's Personal Life

Havent had time to blog much, because there’s just too much going on at the Horowitz/Friedman homestead:

  • 3 days in Boston because my son had, on successive days, an orchestra rehearsal, his final orchestra concert before they go on tour in Europe (190 high school kids!), and another rehearsal
  • A house concert and -pre-event featuring Swami Beyondananda that I organized and sold out on two weeks’ notice (fortunately, at someone else’s air-conditioned house, since it turned out to be the hottest day of the year), with the Swami sleeping over here
  • My son graduating high school one day after the concert, and the consequent arrival of my father, my wife’s parents (for a three-day visit), and my daughter (my mother and stepfather—a stunning visual artist, BTW—already live locally)
  • The failure of our refrigerator, discovered the morning of graduation (which was the morning after the concert)—and which cost $100 to find out it wasn’t fixable—at six years old! I am still of the opinion that appliances should last 20 years or so, but in the last decade, we’ve had a number of newish appliances fail (grrrr!)

So I think I have an excuse for not blogging over-much lately. Hopefully I’ll get back to normal next week.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, General Commentary, Green Business, Peace and War, Politics, poverty Tagged with , , , , ,

While the GOP lines up to see who can be more crazy and out-of-touch and unintelligent than their competitors, the Left is strangely quiet. Haven’t even heard rumblings of candidacy from Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who has set the bar for leftist challenges in the past two presidential elections.

And this is odd, because Obama has failed the Left, despite being elected on a platform—dare I say a mantra—of “change.”

Yes, he can claim a number of significant accomplishments—one blogger found Obama’s legislative accomplishment rate was an astonishing 96 percent—but on most of the issues that really matter, his record does not inspire:

WAR:

We’re still in Iraq, where five US soldiers lost their lives this week. And we’re way deeper in Afghanistan than we were, with about 100,000 troops on the ground. And we’ve deployed in Pakistan and Libya. The only real move toward peace was Obama’s recent speech on the Israel-Palestine conflict

HEALTHCARE:

All that energy into the pathetic and complicated Obamacare compromise! Not only was single-payer not “on the table,” but even the wimpy public option was taken off the table. What was left?  A gift to the insurance industry and not much else. I want a candidate who will propose a one-sentence health reform bill: “All US citizens and legal residents are eligible for Medicare from birth.” If we need to phase it in, start by moving eligibility to age 55, then 40, then 20, then zero over a period of years.

ENERGY/ECONOMY/ENVIRONMENT

I lump these three together because the solution integrates across the disciplines: A massive, Marshall-plan-style initiative to get OFF fossil and nuclear energy sources in ten to twenty years, replacing them with sources that are both clean and renewable (with special attention to deep conservation that reduces the need for energy by 50 percent or more). We’d use government loans to jumpstart the effort, bring the price of conversions down, and front the money for homeowners, tenants, farmers,  and business owners to get systems in place—with the loans repaid out of the energy savings. This would boost the economy, create hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of jobs, get people out of poverty, put them back to work, remove our biggest reason for starting wars—and drastically reduce our carbon footprint, all at once!

The candidate who can articulate this vision, who can claim the unfinished mandate that Obama promised and didn’t deliver, has a pretty good shot at galvanizing the American people—if they can be convinced that these changes are actually possible.

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