Collective Continuity of Dissonance

As I look back over the last 20 years of my "environmentalism," I cannot help but think that at least those years were not wasted in vain. Every now and then, I feel like I am wasting my time, advocating our very delicate, and sensitive issue to certain major environmental groups that seem to turn off the moment we tell them we are not going to allow ourselves to be part of a fund raising campaign. This is so as this stance respect both the dead and the dying. But that doesn't matter, at least they know; that since this has happened to us, it will happen to them (whether this motivates them to introspection is not our concern nor is seeking their pity).
Several years ago I described to my elders the experiences I enjoyed, sharing our tragedy with several environmental groups and that relief soothing my anguished soul, knowing their ears are mine for that moment. The elders ask, "How come they don't do anything? There is more than one group fighting for the environment? They don't seem to be working together, joining forces with other groups? There must be more than one environment for them to be fighting alone." That always amazes me, when they say that, it reminds me of traffic jams, honking horns, yelling drivers.
I tell them, "That is the way they were raised, they seek individuality before they seek community; when they seek community, that search always leads to others just as lost, not knowing that community always means more than just a group of people coming together at a point in time, it means blood stretched through time---the essence of spirit also known as the soul. They are scared of being forgotten, so they clamber over each other, screaming, deriding each other until one comes out on top, then they too get stepped upon back into the mud."
And now again, I'll be going back to the simpler things on the reservation, breathing relatively clean air for a few days, and pausing my rat race to enjoy life and our ceremonies. And again, I'll share with my elders what I've seen, heard and also what I read happening on the Internet. The Internet fascinates them as it resembles smoke signals, but in bytes and bits; millions of people talking all at once, like a strong breeze blowing through autumn cottonwood trees.
I'll have to tell them about the BP oil disaster, the flooding, the exploding nuclear stations and how it created this buzzing sound of bees, then fades out to silence until the next catastrophe happens. As long as everyone is in it for themselves, singing their our swan song; the catastrophes are sure to come to listen.

Criticizing the Work of Others Doesn’t Make You Green

The other day I read “The End of Magical Thinking”, an article hosted on Foreign Policy and authored by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger.

Overall the article was totally a waste of my time, I found it boring from the moment the authors started playing the same blame game over the cap and trade baloney.  The moment I lost complete interest is the point in the article where they state we need federal subsidies in clean coal, and nuclear power (I share their support of a solar credit tax). Then as if cooing like love-struck bunny rabbits with big doe eyes would help their article, they even give a full run-down of Secretary of Energy Chu: this added even more to their copycat lameness but at least they made me laugh (to think people actually send these people their hard-earned money for their Rush Limbaugh style commentary).

In other words, bashing others behind their backs is much like your grandmother twisting your cheeks at XMAS. Get away from that computer and start cleaning up your own backyard, keep your paws out of mine, because you might try to say that after I clean it up, that you did all the work by being my cheerleaders.

Now the problem is that most environmental groups, like the authors decry, take the easy road out when it comes to climate change: they copy the slogans, the chants and even take credit of the awesome work of others who risk their freedom opposing the dirty energy industry. Talk about magical thinking, doing this is magical thinking and does nothing to protect our world from our pollution!

The real groups actively opposing dirty energy are out there, they are doing wonderful work, they are changing attitudes, one polluting person at a time. I wish I could say the same about the magical thinking article but I can’t. All I can say is:

NO NUKES

NO COAL

NO KIDDING

Astonishing tower collapse screams "No New Nukes!!"

August 27, 2007

A cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power plant has collapsed.

A broken 54" pipe there has spewed 350,000 gallons per minute of contaminated, overheated water into the Earth. "The river water piping and the series of screens and supports failed," said a company spokesman. They "fell to the ground."

The public and media were barred from viewing the wreckage for three days. But when a Congressional Energy Bill conference committee takes up Senate-approved loan guarantees for building new nukes this fall, what will reactor backers say about this latest pile of radioactive rubble?

This kind of event can make even hardened nuke opponents pinch themselves and read the descriptions twice. Who could make this up?

Vermont Yankee has been in operation---more or less---since the early 1970s. Its owner is Entergy, a multi-reactor "McNuke" operator that last year got approval to up VY's output by 20%.

Required inspections revealed worrisome cracks and other structural problems. Entergy dismissed all that, but was forced to issue a "ratepayer protection policy" against incidents caused by the power increase. The guarantee expired earlier this month, not long before the collapse.

The tower came down amidst angry negotiations between Entergy and plant workers. A strike was barely averted, but VY's labor troubles are by no means over.

The reactor's output has now been slashed 50%. A public battle is raging over whether it can dump water even hotter than usual into the Connecticut River. Reactors in Alabama, France and elsewhere have been forced shut because the rivers that cool them have exceeded 90 degrees.

Yankee's cooling system, vintage 1972, centers on 22 (now 21) wood, fiberglass and metal towers that stretch for 300 feet, and are 50 feet high and 40 feet wide. The company calls this giant rig a "rain forest."

Operators admit to hearing "strange sounds" coming from its fans last week, but say Tuesday's collapse was unexpected.

Nuclear opponents who warned about such an event have been scorned by Entergy and its supporters. That something as apparently absurd as the spontaneous collapse of an entire cooling tower could actually occur underlines America's Keystone Kops reality of atomic operation and regulation. "We need to understand what happened," explains the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Diane Screnci.

So does Congress. A definitive Conference Committee battle will be fought after Labor Day over an Energy Bill that includes taxpayer guarantees for $50 billion and more to build new nukes.

Meanwhile Vermonters will pay for this latest pile of radioactive reactor rubble. Maybe a "fall foliage" field trip to the Green Mountain State would do the Congress some good.

--
Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA: OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is available at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and senior editor of Freepress.org, where this article first appeared.

Vermont Yankee cooling tower catastrophic failure

The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
Ruling out sabotage, I wonder if the NRC and Homeland Security will consider Entergy to be managed by fools and termites lol

This is serious, nuclear catastrophic accidents shouldn't be left for hindsight...why aren't the regulatory authorities investigating the entire nuclear industry...because they rely on self-reporting by the nuclear industry...that is like asking the fox in the henhouse, how many chickens he ate...