Japan quake 2011
-
The Climate Post: The aftermath in Japan
Japan’s been through a lot in just one week.Photo: Matthew BradleyLast Friday, Japan was rocked by a magnitude 9.0 quake — its most powerful earthquake on record, and the strongest anywhere in the world in the past 140 years — with its epicenter off the coast, creating a 30-foot-high tsunami that swallowed up whole towns and killed more than 5,000 people. […]
-
Cost, not Japan crisis, should scrub nuclear power
Please ignore this image.Photo: GlobovisionThe plumes of smoke rising from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor create a visceral reaction. But the crisis should not persuade Americans to abandon nuclear power. Instead, Americans should abandon nuclear power for its prohibitive and uncompetitive costs. The wildly escalting costs of nuclear plants under construction in the U.S. are […]
-
If President Obama calls it safe, watch out
Pondering whether “safe” means what he thought it meant.Photo: The White HousePresident Barack Obama is a good fellow at work in a difficult era, to say the least. So this post is not intended to be a slam on the president. Still, it is a good idea for Obama to be much more cautious when […]
-
Forget the gloom — new ways of living and organizing our economy are flourishing
Despite a flurry of bad news recently, good things are spouting up.Photo: Judy Merrill-SmithThe last couple of days have been gloomy ones. I kept checking in with the vague and dire reports from the nuclear-power bleeding edge in Japan. For part of the time I was also immersed in a post about truly awful things […]
-
If Rush Limbaugh’s heart fell out of his chest and into a bowl of raisins, you wouldn’t spot it
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.1011853&w=620&h=511&fv=config%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fmediamatters.org%2Fembed%2Fcfg3%3Fid%3D201103150020] Rush Limbaugh is laughing at Japan’s earthquake refugees. “They’ve given us the Prius. Even now, refugees are recycling their garbage.” Here, he began to laugh, continuing, “and yet, Gaia levels them! Just wipes them out!” h/t John Rennie for the headline Read more: “Rush Limbaugh Mocks Japan Quake Refugees [VIDEO],” The Huffington Post
-
Con: Nuclear power is expensive, risky, and some of its proponents are kind of annoying
Today, many outlets report that it’s very likely that the #2 reactor at Daiichi is in full meltdown. There is a strong possibility that rising radiation levels from other sources (such as a pool of spent nuclear fuel rods that is heating up) will force the 50 remaining workers at the plant to evacuate. That […]
-
Pro: Japan’s terrible disaster is no reason to stop building nuclear power
Japan is now facing a worst-case scenario for its Daiichi nuclear power plant. But that’s no reason to stop building new nuclear power plants, say a bevy of pundits. Their reasons are myriad. Some, like one Wall Street Journal editor, make the economic argument that all human endeavors are fraught with risk, so this one […]
-
So much for all that new nuclear energy we were going to build
Photo: Joost J. Bakker The possibly-impending meltdown of three very shaky nuclear reactor cores at the Daiichi plant in Fukushima, Japan, isn’t doing much for the public image of nuclear power, a source of energy about which fans of planet Earth are divided. Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones‘ enviro reporter on the Hill, speculates on Twitter […]
-
Talking with Andy Revkin about climate communication [VIDEO]
Last Friday I did an episode of bloggingheads.tv with Andy Revkin of The New York Times and Pace University. Here it is (try not to be distracted by my constant nodding): If you don’t want to watch the entire thing, you can watch individual chapters: The three things Japan has going for it (02:46) Fighting […]