Over the coming decades, we will be embroiled at a global level in a succeed-or-perish contest among the major forms of energy, the corporations which supply them, and the countries that run on them.
The Energy Landscape of 2041
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Environment
Postcard from…Soma
Situated on the east coast of Honshu 30 kilometers to the south of Sendai and 50 kilometers north of the Daiichi nuclear facility, Soma received the full brunt of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The tragedy there is ongoing; it is messy, and it is chaotic. Small streets crowded with homes, shops, and schools are simply gone. Digging through the sand I find photos, toys, and furniture, things that were cherished. They are now lumped into two piles: combustible, non-combustible. Tatami mats dotting the newly flat landscape mark where bodies were found once the water receded.
If She is Still There
One of the chief reasons for Western audiences to watch Up the Yangtze is its intimate portrayal of the aspirations and anguish of the Chinese citizens depicted in the film. With so much glib reductionism on offer by Western commentators, it is refreshing to hear Chinese voices expressing their own hopes and frustrations.
Raise Your Hand if You Think the Expansion of Our Nuclear-Industrial Complex Escapes Iran
The new nuclear-weapons complex that’s being built at Los Alamos is more seismically challenged than Fukushima and more expensive than Project Manhattan.
Fukushima Has Become the Sequel to “Groundhog Day”
Tepco is dealing with the same problems at Fukushima and in the same ways as immediately after the earthquake and tsunami.
Sans Insurance, a Nuclear Meltdown Can Become a Financial Meltdown
Since insurance companies refuse to provide more than minimal coverage for nuclear-power plants, the state must absorb the bulk of the costs of a disaster such as Fukushima.
WikiLeaks: Canada’s Harper Embodies American Right’s Worst Tendencies
Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose Conservative Party took a commanding majority in nationwide elections last week, has built his political success on a platform of his country’s supposed Arctic sovereignty, pro-business economics, and dodging action on climate change.
Tax Justice as Climate Justice
You don’t have to leave America to go to the Third World. I, for example, live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and here, as in all northern megacities, crushing poverty surrounds the comfortable precincts. I can’t call it “extreme” poverty, for of course it cannot compete with the despair endemic to, say, the North African drought zones. But when an organization like Remote Area Medical feels compelled to bring its traveling free clinic to The Oakland Coliseum (now, officially, the Oracle Arena), and when thousands stand for long hours to receive basic care they could not hope to afford, the problem is nonetheless clear. This last April, when the good folks at RAM pulled up stakes and left Oakland for their next stop, it was Haiti. The America they were leaving was not the “exceptional” America of the official dream.
U.S. and Japan Equally Shameless in Shuttling Officials From Regulatory Agencies to Nuclear Energy Industry
Both the U.S. and Japan suffer at the hands of government officials looking forward to jobs in the private sector.
Nuclear Energy Needs Handouts, Can’t Cut It in Free Market
Conservative proponents of nuclear energy need to acknowledge that it wouldn’t exist were it not for government hand-outs.