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Ecology
Tepco Detects Nuclear Fission at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Station
Bloomberg News
Tokyo Electric Power Co. detected signs of nuclear fission at its crippled Fukushima atomic power plant, raising the risk of increased radiation emissions. No increase in radiation was found at the site and the situation is under control, officials said.
The company, known as Tepco, began spraying boric acid on the No. 2 reactor at 2:48 a.m. Japan time to prevent accidental chain reactions, according to an e-mailed statement today. The detection of xenon, which is associated with nuclear fission, was confirmed today by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the country's atomic regulator said.
"The World After Fukushima" Event Series
New York City, October 21-26, 2011
A 4-day event series in NYC, October 21-26, 2011
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics at CUNY and Todos Somos Japon present:
1) Symposium – “The World After Fukushima 3/11”
Friday Oct. 21 6pm
@ CUNY Graduate Center (Skylight Room: #9100)
365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Although information has been coming in from Japan since 3/11, there is a huge gap between what the people in Japan are actually experiencing, doing and thinking after the Fukushima nuclear accident, and what the people in the US know and think about it. We are inviting three intellectuals/activists from Japan to share their first hand experiences and thoughts with us here in the US, and to discuss together the significance of the situation, the question of our human survival and the global struggles for it.
The Peak Oil Initiation
John Michael Greer
I sometimes wonder what historians of the far future will think as they
pore over what's left of the records of our own time. It's unlikely that
they'll have a great deal more to go on than, say, Renaissance scholars
had when they started to piece together the story of Rome's decline and
fall; our civilization produces a much greater volume of records than
Rome did, to be sure, but most of them are in much more transitory
forms; parchment lasts for many centuries if it's kept dry and not
handled much, while a few decades at most - and in the case of the
internet, a few seconds of power loss - is enough to silence most of our
current information media forever.
Life and Labor in the Era of Climate Justice
Andrew Ross
As radicals, it is our job to respond to the very newest political formations, and few have presented themselves with the urgency of the tendencies that have sprung up to address and combat the climate crisis. For the purposes of this talk, let me outline four of these tendencies
1) The first is the emergence of the carbon calculus as an overriding measure of our ability to meet the crisis. If we cannot afford to allow atmospheric carbon levels to rise to 450ppm, should we hold the threshold at 400ppm or demand a reduction to 350ppm? For some climate activists, this is the only important question, and, for those who favor the quickest form of emissions reduction, we must proceed by any means necessary, even if it involves following pathways that are undemocratic. But the most everyday manifestation of this new calculus is the growing habit of assessing the carbon footprint of every product and every personal movement, including acts of labor. Indeed, quantifying the world’s energy throughput on the microlevel of personal conduct is becoming a pseudopolitical obsession. In some ways, it is a perverse spin on the statistical tyranny of the GDP, reducing our actions and our use of material things to a data-set––the outcome of which is a moral assessment of our thermodynamic performance. Carbon-Neutral Man is the goal, a model of ascetic behavior that is the obverse of the wasteful hyperconsumer.
What does Resistance Look Like? The Niger Delta Model
by Ray Boudreaux
When black plumes of oil began gushing forth from the silent bottom deep in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20th, everyone in South Louisiana reverted to the crisis mode we have all lived in for periods of time since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Our first question became “What can we do to help save our wetlands?” Thousands of willing Louisianians signed up to volunteer in the protection and cleanup efforts, and people began planning to carpool down the road to the coast to help out.
Like a mine explosion, an outbreak of smallpox, or a chestnut blight, BP’s oil spill looked like just another disaster, a tragic mistake made by benevolent capitalists. But like those past tragedies, this oil spill is a predictable consequence of an industrial civilization where risks are not calculated by those who will face the consequences should something go wrong. There was no doubt a deepwater oil spill could rob people of their landbase and their ability to feed themselves, but that consequence was considered an acceptable risk by those who do not live in South Louisiana: those affected by a spill could just move to the city and work for money to buy their food if something did happen. As is always the case, the people weighing these risks were not those who would be denied the ability to feed themselves; they were lawyers, CEOs, and businessmen in corporate offices, where shrimp cocktail plates and grilled fish greet their conference room meetings exactly at 12:30pm every day.
Massive Chevron Ad Campaign Derailed, Media Slapstick Follows
Yes Men
News outlets, citizens duped by web of deceit - but whose?
A day-long comedy of errors began Monday morning when the Yes Men, supported by Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch, pre-empted Chevron's enormous new “We Agree” ad campaign with a satirical version of their own. The activists' version highlights Chevron's environmental and social abuses - the same abuses they say Chevron is attempting to “greenwash.”
Hundreds of UK Climate Activists Blockade Oil Refineries
Today hundreds of climate activists taking part in the Crude Awakening day
of action have successfully blockaded the Coryton and Shell Haven oil
refineries in Essex, including the UK's busiest oil refinery and
distribution centre.
Capitalism The 'Real Culprit Behind Climate Change'
Faranaaz Parker
“The best thing about Copenhagen is its failure. What I most dread about Copenhagen is that the public relations apparatus will manage to patch together propoganda or some sort of token agreement,” says Joel Kovel, a proponent of eco-socialism.
For Kovel and others, including top climatologist James Hansen, who referred to Copenhagen as a “disaster track”, the negotiations – which stalled primarily over emission reduction targets and financing for developing countries -- are a forgone conclusion.
“There really is no answer to this process because [countries] are not interested in saving the planet. They want to make money and they want to keep their power. So Copenhagen has got to fail because it’s inevitable but also because it will reveal to the world the need to get to the next stage.” That next stage, according to Kovel, is a world without capitalism.
Up to 200 Arrested in Christiania Police Raid
ekstrabladet
Police have, according to ekstrabladet.dk, stormed Christiania/Freetown, which is happening right now, mass arrests are made inside the area.
150-200 persons have been held up for administrative detention, said the police press spokesman Johnny Lundberg to ekstrabladet.dk.
There has been trouble since 22:30 o'clock in the context of a great celebration for the people who attended today's demonstration, which was dissolved for dinner in Christiania. 500 people were in a circus tent, which held a concert.
A climate activist told TV2 News that police threw tear gas into the party in the hall after the city was stormed. The police can neither confirm nor deny.
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