Archive for the 'Environment' Category
Japan: Kan Considered Evacuation of Tokyo in Wake Nuclear Disaster, but Feared Chaos and Collapse of the State
September 30th, 2011Via: ABC: Japan’s former prime minister Naoto Kan has revealed he contemplated evacuating as many as 30 million people from Tokyo and surrounding areas during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Speaking to Japan’s Kyodo News, Mr Kan, who was prime minister during the nuclear crisis, said evacuations on such a scale may have led to Japan […]
A Japanese Response to Nuclear Disaster: The Smartphone that Measures Radiation
September 30th, 2011Via: Telegraph: A mobile phone that doubles as a radiation detector? If there is one country that can pull off (and sell) such a device, it’s Japan. A leading Japanese telecommunications company will unveil a smartphone next week that also acts as a radiation dosimeter to help users detect potential contamination. In Japan, it’s a […]
U.S. Secretly Asked Japan to Help Dump Nuclear Reactors at Sea
September 29th, 2011Via: Asahi: The United States secretly sought Japan’s support in 1972 to enable it to dump decommissioned nuclear reactors into the world’s oceans under the London Convention, an international treaty being drawn up at the time. Countries working on the wording of the pact wanted to specifically prohibit the dumping of radioactive waste at sea. […]
India Files Biopiracy Lawsuit Against Monsanto
September 28th, 2011France24 Video: India vs. Monsanto: Seeds of Discord Via: Global Research: Representing one of the most agriculturally bio-diverse nations in the world, India has become a primary target for biotechnology companies like Monsanto and Cargill to spread their genetically-modified (GM) crops into new markets. However, a recent France 24 report explains that the Indian government […]
Michigan: Palisades Nuclear Power Plant Venting “Low” Level Radioactive Steam
September 27th, 2011Via: Michigan Messenger: Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant near South Haven is venting radioactive steam into the environment as part of an unplanned shutdown triggered by an electrical accident. This shutdown, which began Sunday evening, came just five days after the plant restarted from a shutdown that was caused by a leak in the plant’s cooling […]
Japan: Radioactive Zone Bigger Than That Left by Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
September 27th, 2011Via: Bloomberg: Beyond the police roadblocks that mark the no-go zone around Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, six-foot tall weeds invade rice paddies and vines gone wild strangle road signs along empty streets. Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate village to retrieve her car. Beside her house is an empty cattle […]
Japan: 500 Becquerels Per Kg Found in Nihonmatsu City Rice Sample
September 24th, 2011Via: Reuters: Japan found the first case of rice with radioactive materials far exceeding a government-set level for a preliminary test of pre-harvested crop, requiring thorough inspection of the rice to be harvested from the region, the farm ministry said late on Friday. The ministry said radioactive caesium of 500 becquerels per kg was found […]
Nanoparticles Cause Brain Injury in Fish
September 21st, 2011Via: Science Daily: Scientists at the University of Plymouth have shown, for the first time in an animal, that nanoparticles have a detrimental effect on the brain and other parts of the central nervous system. They subjected rainbow trout to titanium oxide nanoparticles which are widely used as a whitening agent in many products including […]
Japanese Government to Invite Foreigners Who Have Large Facebook and Twitter Networks to Tohoku So That They Can Tell Their Followers “Japan Is Safe”
September 19th, 2011Do they get to bring their own dosimeters? Via: EX-SKF: Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have started to make preparations for inviting people from overseas who disseminate information via the social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as part of the countermeasures against “baseless rumors” that have damaged sales of Japanese agricultural products and tourism […]
U.K. Researchers to Test “Artificial Volcano” for Geoengineering the Climate
September 15th, 2011Via: Scientific American: Next month, researchers in the U.K. will start to pump water nearly a kilometer up into the atmosphere, by way of a suspended hose. The experiment is the first major test of a piping system that could one day spew sulfate particles into the stratosphere at an altitude of 20 kilometers, supported […]
