The National Energy Institute (NEI) is launching a massive pro-nuke campaign. The false claims that nuclear energy is clean, safe and green will be made yet again.
Please contact your local public radio station and ask them to run this PSA. If they are unaware of the problems with nuclear power direct them to http://RadiationTruth.org, or to your other favorite sites.
Published in CounterPunch on September 28th and written by MICHAEL LEONARDI
As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Industry, and Obama administration continue to push nuclear energy as safe and clean, a grassroots insurgency is growing from the awakening depths of the growingly vociferous American maelstrom. Fukushima’s three meltdowns continue to emit over a billion bequerels of radioactivity a day into the environment and that radiation is spreading. The international media and all Atomic regulatory agencies around the world have been complicit in keeping the reality of this catastrophe silent. In the United States of America, despite reports of a decrepit, failing and unsafe nuclear program from the pages of CounterPunch to the Associated Press, CBS News and beyond, most Americans remain quiet and numbed on this issue. Much of this country’s union leadership, beholden to a broken and corporate owned Democratic Party and the monstrous energy giants that provide them jobs, have a slave plantation mentality toward their Radioactive, Oil Extrapolating and Gas Fracking bosses. The promise of a Green revolution based around economically viable, RENEWABLE and truly safe energy sources seems to be bound and shackled by a ball and chain mentality, but signs of a breaking point have finally begun to surface!
A truly grassroots insurgency is underway and is introducing itself to the world on October 1st with actions across North America. The Coalition Against Nukes has mobilized for the past several months to begin a no nuke uprising that won’t stop until ALL of our nuclear power plants are shut down and our future generations can look forward to a Nuke Free World. Isn’t it enough that we are leaving our future generations with the legacy of millions of gallons of nuclear waste and thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel to monitor and control for thousands of years? A part from Governor Perry’s idea of nuking Texas — which we might want to consider — there is no solution to ridding ourselves of this extremely toxic and highly radioactive waste piling up in hotspots around the globe. Enough is Enough!
The time has come to look beyond the lies and propaganda of our so-called world leaders and see them for what they are. We are being led down a path of destruction by criminal governments running a global system of mafia wars, rape and pillage as they take more and more from us all while poisoning and desecrating our air, land and water beyond any natural recognition. Our children are suffering now from respiratory illnesses and disease and the search for a cure for cancer lies in eliminating the industrial pollutants that cause it not in a research laboratory. As of yesterday the Palisades Nuclear power plant on the shores of Lake Michigan was venting radioactive steam. The amounts are minimal and harmless say the NRC and Entergy spokespeople, THEY ARE LYING as they always do and this is the essence of their existence.
Look to the lessons we are learning from Japan. If there is a serious nuclear accident this is what we can count on from our governments, the United Nations, the World Health Organization and those “in charge”. They will lie to us for months, they will abandon us to die and they will act like nothing is happening. This is what is unfolding in the Crime Against Humanity devastating the 3 million residents and mainly the children that have been left in areas 5 times more radioactive than the areas of the Ukraine evacuated until this day after Chernobyl. Try and get your minds around how callous and utterly disdainful our governments have become toward their populations. Our governments represent the Inhumane Capitalist Engine and we are all disposable. Let us die our cancerous deaths while we are told that we have nothing to fear is the stark reality we are facing not tomorrow but today.
The alarm bells are ringing as Wall Street becomes the target of a global revolt. As C.A.N. organizer Remy Chevalier put it “It is time to zero in on Entergy, Exelon, Constellation, Dominion… all the sick nuclear power companies run by thugs.” These are just a few and I’d broaden that to include all of the Energy, Chemical and Biological Mutating giants that are hell bent on destroying the life affirming forces this beautiful planet has offered our species.
This is a call to action and the time to act is now. Not on facebook, not with letters and petitions, but in the streets and parks across the land on October 1st and beyond. The Coalition Against Nukes has pulled together rallies across the US and Canada on October 1st. The rally in New York will have a powerful list of speakers including CounterPunch contributors Helen Caldicott, Harvey Wasserman, Kevin Kamps, Karl Grossman and more. In downtown Toledo, Ohio congressmen Dennis Kucinich will join us in a rally calling for the shut down of Davis Besse and Fermi 2! Dennis is bucking the Democratic Party trend and as he has always done by saying No to Nukes! He will be joined by two Democratic council members, Green Party activists and more. In Virginia activists will target the state capital in a state that wants to bring back Uranium Mining. In California, Chicago, New Jersey, Florida, and Washington State NO NUKES will be the message. They will be drumming Against Nukes in Toronto Canada and as we voice our solidarity with the people of Japan and cry out NEVER AGAIN! The Japanese will be standing up to say no more nukes! In India they are marching and hunger striking to ban nukes. Italy banned nukes with a successful grassroots storm. Germany will be Nuke Free by 2022. It is time for this movement to rise up in United Sates too! NO NUKES ! ! ! Please visit the C.A.N. website at www.coalitionagainstnukes.org/ and join a rally near you or do something creatively anti-nuclear on October 1st and spread the word.
Michael Leonardi is a C.A.N. organizer and writer living for now between Toledo, Ohio and Italy. He is currently working for the Service Employees International Union to repeal the attack on collective bargaining in the State of Ohio. He can be reached at mikeleonardi@hotmail.com
News reports have depicted Solyndra's bankruptcy as the end of solar power in the U.S. Coming to this conclusion without any kind of analysis is ridiculous. All growing technologies have their growing pains.
The Vote Solar Initiative puts it this way: "[it is] like saying there is no future for the internet because Netscape went out of business." The same could be said for the early days of electricity, computers and cars. All of these industries had their failed companies, yet the industry went on to great success.Reports of Solar's Death are greatly exaggerated.
Here in the US, we derive 3.2 % of our total electricity from wind power. Just adding the new design, called a wind lens, would increase the power produced by wind to 9.6% of the total. The new design would also make wind power cheaper than coal and nuclear power, sans subsidies.
Read all about it in the Earthy Report
Reuters has reported that 20 nuclear reactors are in danger. See complete list
From south to north Beyond Nuclear recommends that the following reactors be shut down:
In addition many other reactors, just inland, are also at risk from Hurricane Irene. The electrical grid could be damaged by high winds, this could force nuclear power plants onto emergency generators, known to have a high failure rate.
Gary Null's film on the dark and deadly world nuclear experiment appears to be exciting, powerful and infomative.
Will report more after attending the premiere in NYC in early August.
“We will aim to bring about a society that can exist without nuclear power,” said Japan's Prime Minister Nato Kan on Wednesday in a televised address to Japan's citizens.
He continued, “Through my experience of the March 11 accident, I came to realize the risk of nuclear energy is too high. It involves techology that cannot be controlled according to our conventional concept of safety."
35 of Japan's 54 reactors are offline at the moment. They include reactors damaged or stopped by the earthquake and tsunami, as well as those closed for routine repairs. If reactors that continue to come offline for maintenance are not restarted, Japan has the potential to be off nuclear power by April 2012.
From the Washington Post
The nuclear industry would like to pretend Fukushima never happened. Bills are arriving in the Senate to spend more of our money on new nukes. The industry is still calling it "clean power". Call them out on their lie and demand your Senators do the right thing. Contact your Senators via Democracy in Action or
Directly at senate.gov.
This is big news: the amount of energy produced from renewables has surpassed nuclear energy production for the first quarter of 2011.
Renewables include hydroelectric power and biomass energy production, two forms of energy production many environmentalists find objectionable. However, the greenest energy technologies, solar, wind and geothermal, are gaining in percentage. Forbes 7/7/11
Nearly 80 percent of the world's energy supply could be generated by truly safe renewables by mid 21st century according to latest report released by the UN Intergovernmental panel on Climate change. Politics and public policy will determine whether this transformation will take place.
Remember what the historian Howard Zinn said " We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,can transform the world. "