Japan quake 2011

Resilient Tokyo: commuters learn to love the bike

There’s more of this in Tokyo these days.Photo: Byron Kidd Shortly after last month’s disastrous earthquake and tsunami in Japan, we posted a dispatch from Tokyo by Bike blogger Byron Kidd (@tokyobybike) about how more people were biking to work in the quake’s aftermath. Today, The New York Times has a story about how the […]

The Fukushima nuclear disaster just keeps getting messier and scarier

An anti-nuclear protestor in Japan gets creative.Photo: Matthias LambrechtThis post was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. Last Monday, Yukio Edano, chief cabinet secretary, defended the Japanese government’s response to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, insisting that the plant complex is in “a stable situation, relatively speaking.” That’s somewhat […]

Japan cannot catch a break

Did Japan do something to anger the universe? (Don’t answer that, Jerry Falwell.) After a massive offshore quake, a devastating tsunami, and a nuclear crisis, the beleaguered country is now being treated to aftershocks that would make most quakes feel silly. As for the nuclear status … who knows? It probably isn’t good. Aftershocks ruin […]

It’s time to rethink Japan’s energy future

Nearly four weeks after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan, emergency personnel are still struggling to stabilize the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Beyond the immediate need to minimize further radioactive leakage and protect public health, the government is beginning to reconsider its long-term plans for nuclear power expansion. International media coverage […]

The earthquake kit: How to unpack for a disaster and survive the unexpected

What’s in your earthquake survival kit? And what’s not?Photo: Global XThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. The first American responses to the triple calamity in Japan were deeply empathetic and then, as news of the Fukushima nuclear complex’s leaking radiation spread, a lot of people began […]

The safest place in Japan right now might be inside a nuke plant

Just 75 miles from where workers try to stave off nuclear disaster at Fukushima, another nuke plant is doing double duty as a tsunami shelter. The nuclear facility at Onagawa is currently home to 240 people displaced from the local town, who are hanging around watching TV and making phone calls while they wait to […]

How the 'peaceful atom' became a serial killer

Replacing coal and oil with nuclear power is like trading heroin for crack.

Germany continues breaking clean energy records

A German wind farm.Photo: Dirk Ingo FrankeAs the nuclear reactor accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant continues to dominate the world’s attention, Germany has quietly broken more renewable energy records. The conservative government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, struggling to stay ahead of public attitudes toward nuclear power in the run-up to regional elections, issued its […]

The Climate Post: Trace radiation isn’t the only global fallout from Fukushima

As Japan’s nuclear disaster stretched into its second week, traces of radiation from the stricken power plants showed up in several U.S. states, and as far away as Iceland. With the reactors and uranium fuel rods still proving difficult to bring under control, the disaster could be the “death knell” for nuclear power, some analysts said. Countries around the […]