Archive for the 'Environment' Category
People Who Live Downwind of Alberta’s Oil and Tar Sands Operations Are Getting Blood Cancer
October 30th, 2013Via: Think Progress: A new study has found that levels of air pollution downwind of the largest tar sands, oil and gas producing region in Canada rival levels found in the world’s most polluted cities. And that pollution isn’t just dirtying the air — it also could be tied increased incidence of blood cancers in […]
Another Google Barge Spotted on East Coast
October 29th, 2013If there was a list of Cryptogon axioms, #1 would probably be: No collapse due to energy scarcity. I’ve gone into why for many years, so feel free to look through the archives. Terawatts of untapped energy are just swirling around out there in the oceans, waiting to turn the gears of fascism. It was […]
China: ‘Unprecedented’ Policy Changes Ahead
October 28th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: Chinese Politburo member Yu Zhengsheng said reforms to be discussed at a Communist Party meeting next month will be unprecedented, adding to signs that leaders are resolved to spur far-reaching policy changes. Yu’s comments, made in a speech at a forum to promote relations with Taiwan, were reported by the official Xinhua News […]
7.3 Magnitude Earthquake Off Coast of Japan
October 26th, 2013Via: Independent: The operators of Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant said there was no further damage caused to the wrecked plant early on Saturday, despite a magnitude 7.1 to 7.3 earthquake striking offshore and triggering a small tsunami. An earthquake official with the Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake was an aftershock of the magnitude […]
Help Wanted in Fukushima: Low Pay, High Risks and Gangsters
October 25th, 2013Via: Reuters: Tetsuya Hayashi went to Fukushima to take a job at ground zero of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. He lasted less than two weeks. Hayashi, 41, says he was recruited for a job monitoring the radiation exposure of workers leaving the plant in the summer of 2012. Instead, when he turned up […]
Fukushima Readies for Dangerous Operation to Remove 400 Tons of Spent Fuel
October 24th, 2013Via: Russia Today: Fukushima operator TEPCO is getting ready for its toughest and the most dangerous clean-up operation. In November it will try to remove 400 tons of spent fuel from plant’s Reactor No. 4. But even a little mistake may result in a new nuclear disaster. The operation is scheduled to start in the […]
Not Round Up Ready: El Salvador Votes to Ban Glyphostate
October 23rd, 2013Via: GM Watch: El Salvador has voted to ban glyphosate, the pesticide that most GM crops are designed to be grown with, along with 52 other chemicals.
The Sixth Stage of Collapse
October 23rd, 2013Dmitry We’re-Fucked-No-Matter-What Orlov outlines how the light at the end of the civilization tunnel is the train. Via: Club Orlov: A solution for avoiding the sixth stage must be found, but I don’t know what that solution would look like. I do find it unsafe to blithely assume that collapse will simply take care of […]
The Rise of Geoengineering
October 22nd, 2013Via: Independent: Geoengineering technologies are the stuff of Hollywood disaster movies. Researchers have suggested sending a giant glass sunshade into space to reflect light; the eruption of artificial volcanoes, or spraying of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere; dissolving mountains and putting remains in the sea; and, least dramatically, perhaps, filing the ocean with iron filings […]
China: Smog Emergency Shuts City of 11 Million People
October 20th, 2013Via: Reuters: Choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China’s largest cities on Monday, forcing schools to suspended classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport, in the country’s first major air pollution crisis of the winter. An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), reached a reading […]
