The tragedy of the killings in Newtown Connecticut on December 14th is unspeakable. What could be more chilling than the intentional killing of innocents? You are shocked and appalled, shaken to your core. Remember this feeling and do not let it go.
Think of your own children sitting in their classrooms, think of your neighbors' kids waiting at the bus stop, think of the millions of children throughout the country who will be returning to school on Monday. Get inside their heads and their hearts.
Think about the world you want them to see–and think about how painfully far we are from that world at this moment. If you are against violence and for peace this is your moment. This is your time to come forward, to step up, to sound out and make yourself seen and heard. Do not be dissuaded or deterred, stand tall, stand proud. Shout loud and long. Don't stop shouting. You will not be alone. You will not be alone... See entire blog item
The Department of Energy wants to give the Southern Company a nuclear power loan guarantee at better interest rates than you can get on a student loan. And unlike a home mortgage, there may be no down payment. Why? The terms DOE is offering the builders of the Vogtle atomic reactors have only become partially public through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. ... See entire blog item
The future of nuclear power now hangs on a single decision by President Obama---and us.
His Office of Management and Budget could cave to the unsustainable demands of reactor builders who cannot handle the standard terms of a loan agreement.
Or he could defend basic financial procedures and stand up for the future of the American economy.
You can help make this decision, which will come soon.
It's about a proposed $8.33 billion nuke power loan guarantee package for two reactors being built at Georgia's Vogtle. Obama anointed it last year for the Southern Company, parent to Georgia Power. Two other reactors sporadically operate there. Southern just ravaged the new construction side of the site, stripping virtually all vegetation.
It's also stripped Georgia ratepayers of ever-more millions of dollars, soon to... See entire blog item
By Frank Joseph Smecker and Derrick Jensen, Truthout | Op-Ed
Let's expose the structure of violence that keeps the world economy running.
With an entire planet being slaughtered before our eyes, it's terrifying to watch the very culture responsible for this - the culture of industrial civilization, fueled by a finite source of fossil fuels, primarily a dwindling supply of oil - thrust forward wantonly to fuel its insatiable appetite for "growth."
Deluded by myths of progress and suffering from the psychosis of technomania complicated by addiction to depleting oil reserves, industrial society leaves a crescendo of atrocities in its wake.
A very partial list would include the Bhopal chemical disaster, numerous oil spills, the illegal depleted uranium-spewing occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, mountaintop removal, the nuclear meltdown of Fukushima,... See entire blog item
By Richard Heinberg
Media reports often fail to connect recurring demonstrations in Greece and Spain with those in the Middle East and North Africa (Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain). After all, the MENA demonstrations are ostensibly about democracy, while European countries already have functioning electoral systems. Protestors in Greece and Spain are instead decrying austerity programs resulting from governmental efforts to rein in deficits and debt burdens.
At the core, though, all of these uprisings are about the simultaneous failure of modern economics and modern politics—even though systems differ somewhat from country to country. People in all of the nations mentioned have one thing in common: crushed expectations. Economists and politicians have promised jobs and growth, but instead citizens are seeing spreading unemployment, rising food and... See entire blog item
In the wake of the apocalyptic nightmare at Fukushima, the multi-trillion-dollar global nuclear power industry is looking over the abyss at a long-overdue extinction.
But the issue is far from decided. Japan's horrifying catastrophe has sent the industry's spin machine into overdrive. Hell-bent on minimizing the dangers of this unprecedented disaster, we've been shown the script of what reactor-backers are willing to say and do to save themselves.
It is not a pretty picture. It focuses on the assertion that there are safe doses of radiation, and that atomic energy has harmed few, if any. Three Mile Island "hurt no one." There were few casualties at Chernobyl. And Fukushima's long-term damage will be minimal.
Atomic apologists argue that only nuclear... See entire blog item
There's never been a death because of radiation ... in a civilian nuclear power plant. ... In Texas, if there's any kind of a serious earthquake or natural disaster, I want to be in the control room at Comanche Peak [nuclear power plant] because that is the absolute safest place to be.
Because it relates to the failed efforts so far to change environmental policy, as well as to implement true economic reform and healthcare policy reform, it is time to state the obvious:
Barack Obama is a fine gentleman, and has excellent self-control, but is lacking as a leader.
This lack of leadership has had the effect of allowing defeats, with only very slight improvements, in the three major policy... See entire blog item
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.
Five things are certain about solar panels going back on the White House roof:
Fossil Fuel
