BBC News – What have we learned from Fukushima?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24332346
30 September 2013 Last updated at 20:06 ET
By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC News

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes recently made a second trip inside the crippled plant at Fukushima

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Since moving to Japan in 2012, I have reported on the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster – speaking to experts, visiting the site and watching the clean-up. For the Editors, a programme which sets out to ask challenging questions, I consider what I have learned.

Firstly, Fukushima was not an unavoidable natural disaster. For many outside Japan it is easy to draw the conclusion that Fukushima is unique, as very few places experience such huge earthquakes and tsunamis as Japan. So, the logic goes, there are no real lessons to be learned for other countries.

Much the same was said after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine in 1986. Chernobyl was a bad design, a similar accident could not happen again. But it did.

Prof Kiyoshi Kurokawa chaired the Japanese parliamentary inquiry in to the Fukushima disaster and his conclusions are devastating. It was, he told me: “Man-made, and made in Japan.”

Tatsujiro Suzuki, the deputy head of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission, has also been damning.

“There were studies which showed a one-in-1,000-year probability of the Fukushima coast being hit by a 10m tsunami,” he said. “Unfortunately, those studies were dismissed. The nuclear industry didn’t think it would happen, so they didn’t prepare for it,” he said.

BBC News: The Editors features the BBC’s on-air specialists asking questions which reveal deeper truths about their areas of expertise

• The Editors

For me, this is the most revealing and shocking part of the Fukushima story. When the earthquake and tsunami hit on 11 March 2011 there was no plan for how to deal with such a large and complex disaster. How was this allowed to happen?

Prof Kurokawa blames what he calls “regulatory capture”, a process by which the nuclear power industry “captured” the bureaucracy that was supposed to regulate it.

…(read more).

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120
Nuclear

Ring of Fire 9/29/13

freespeechtv

Published on Sep 30, 2013

Farron Cousins, executive editor of The Trial Lawyer Magazine and contributing writer at DeSmogBlog.com, fills in for Mike Papantonio this week.

Investigative journalist Brad Friedman gives an update on the status of electronic voting in America.

Shane Farnan, co-host of Talking Left, joins for a discussion on the future of the progressive movement, and we’ll find out whether sustainable change is possible.

Attorney David TeSelle discusses the former DC insiders who are now raking in big cash with the Affordable Care Act.

Investigative journalist Steve Horn talks about a recently released report that shows fracking isn’t that bad, and exposes the corrupt players who sponsored the phony science.

Attorney Howard Nations will tell us about the trillions of dollars being given in handouts to corporate America each year.

Author Joshua Holland will tell us why the Tea Party thinks they’d be better off forming their own state.

And attorney Matthew Edling will discuss the Supreme Court’s actions to limit our access to the court system.

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

WFP: Who We Are, What We Do

World Food Programme

Published on Sep 30, 2013

The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. In emergencies, we get food to where it is needed, saving the lives of victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters. After the cause of an emergency has passed, we use food to help communities rebuild their shattered lives. WFP is part of the United Nations system and is voluntarily funded.

Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120
Food-Matters http://Food-Matters.TV

Organizing to Combat the Global Water Crisis

YaleUniversity

Published on Sep 12, 2013

Talk Title: Organizing to Combat the Global Water Crisis
Fourth Annual YCEI Conference: Water | The Looming Crises

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

The Social Impacts of Changing Water Patterns

YaleUniversity

Published on Sep 13, 2013

Talk Title: The Social Impacts of Changing Water Patterns
Fourth Annual YCEI Conference: Water | The Looming Crises

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Planning for the Future of Water

YaleUniversity

Published on Sep 13, 2013

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Hurricanes and Storms in a Warmer World

YaleUniversity

Published on Sep 18, 2013

Kerry Emanuel, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT, gives the talk entitled, “” at the Fourth Annual YCEI Conference, Water: The Looming Crisis.

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change

YaleUniversity

Published on Sep 18, 2013

Andrew Guzman discusses his new book Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change, which explores the real-world consequences of climate change.

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

The Global Challenges of Water and Energy

YaleUniversity

Published on Sep 30, 2013

From the conference “Water: The Looming Crisis”, this lecture entitled, “The Global Challenges of Water and Energy” was delivered by William DiCroce, Veolia President & CEO.

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Climate After Growth

http://www.postcarbon.org/report/1882095-climate-after-growth
Rob Hopkins Asher Miller
Published Sep 30, 2013
In this provocative paper, PCI Executive Director Asher Miller and Transition Movement Founder (and PCI Fellow) Rob Hopkins make a convincing case for why the environmental community must embrace post-growth economics and community resilience in their efforts to address the climate crisis.

executive summary | download (9MB)
Executive Summary

The nearly ubiquitous belief of our elected officials is that addressing the climate crisis must come second to ensuring economic growth. This is wrongheaded—both because it underestimates the severity of the climate crisis, and because it presupposes that the old economic “normal” of robust growth can be revived. It can’t.

In fact, we have entered an era of “new normals”—not only in our economy, but in our energy and climate systems, as well. The implications are profound:

• The New Energy Normal. The era of cheap and easy fossil fuels is over, leading the industry to resort to extreme fossil fuel resources (tar sands, mountaintop removal coal mining, shale gas, tight oil, and deepwater oil) to meet demand. Unfortunately, these resources come with enormous environmental and economic costs, and in most instances provide far less net energy to the rest of society. They also require much higher prices to make production worthwhile, creating a drag effect on the economy. As a result, high energy prices and economic contraction are likely to continue a back-and-forth dance in the coming years.
• The New Climate Normal. Climate stability is now a thing of the past. As extreme weather events grow in severity, communities are increasingly adopting strategies that build resilience against the effect of these and other climate shocks. At the same time, we must take dramatic steps if we hope to avoid raising global temperatures more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. According to Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre, this would require a 10% reduction in CO2 emissions per year, starting now—a rate so significant that it can only be achieved through dramatic reductions in energy use.
• The New Economic Normal. We’ve reached the end of economic growth as we’ve known it in the US. Despite unprecedented interventions on the part of central banks and governments, the so-called economic recovery in the US and Europe has been anemic and has failed to benefit the majority of citizens. The debate between stimulus and austerity is a distraction, as neither can fully address the factors that spell the end of economic growth—the end of the age of cheap oil, the vast mountains of debt that we have incurred, the diminishing economic impacts of new technologies, and the snowballing costs of climate change impacts.

These fundamental changes in our energy, climate, and economic systems require unprecedented (and previously politically untenable) strategies. Yet this new reality is still largely unrecognized. As long as our leaders’ predominant focus remains on getting back to the days of robust economic growth, no national or international climate policies will be enacted to do what is required: cut fossil fuel use dramatically.

….(read more).

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120