Grunge Rock… Green???

Navicula to campaign for orangutan, tropical rainforest in Canada

Navicula – Grunge Rock band from Indonesia

The orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), one of Indonesia’s most endangered species, deserves and requires attention from all parties in the country as they are facing a variety of threats that could lead to their extinction.

Navicula is one of the most concerned groups of young musicians in the country. The grunge rock band is actively launching campaigns to protect and preserve the rare animal through their musical endeavors.

“The orangutan’s habitat in Sumatra and Kalimantan has been gradually destroyed by the expansion of palm oil plantations,” the band’s guitarist, Gede Robi Supriyanto, said.

The massive development of palm oil plantations has also degraded tropical rainforests on both islands.

“Forest destruction is the most crucial environmental issue we are now facing,” he said.

To launch their campaign internationally, the band will perform a song entitled “Orangutan” at the international music festival Envol et Macadam, one of the most prominent annual alternative rock, punk, grunge and metal music festivals in the world, in Quebec, Canada, on Sept. 7 and 8.

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Warning: Some of the images in this video clip are a little disturbing.

Now grunge rock is not entirely my ‘thing.’ In fact, it is about as far removed from being my ‘thing’ as is possible.

But the band is to be applauded for its conscious awareness on this issue.

Good luck at the music festival!

Good luck di musik festival yang!

Monday Moaning

Consider this…

Chernobyl on steroids

We all know how how much damage Chernobyl did; even if we don’t you cannot managed to have escaped it in the news, and it was in the news for a long time.

More recently you will have heard about Fukushima in Japan after the damage by earthquake and tidal wave.

The news is pretty quiet about it now, the initial fuss has died down and the mainstream media has moved on to other important issues like village idiots running for Republican nominee and Obama gearing up for the next presidential race.

But, stop, has the Fukushima issue blown over?

Just because it’s not in the news doesn’t mean a thing. The chances are the mainstream media have been told to play it down.

The Fukushima issue is hotter than a damaged cooling pool full of spent rods… literally.

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Fukushima Fuel Pools Are an American National Security Issue

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by WashingtonsBlog

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“After visiting Fukushima, Senator Ron Wyden warned that the situation was worse than reported and urged Japan to accept international help to stabilize dangerous spent fuel pools. An international coalition of nuclear scientists and non-profit groups are calling on the U.N. to coordinate a multi-national effort to stabilize the fuel pools. And see this.Fuel pool number 4 is, indeed, the top short-term threat facing humanity. Anti-nuclear physician Dr. Helen Caldicott says that if fuel pool 4 collapses, she will evacuate her family from Boston and move them to the Southern Hemisphere. This is an especially dramatic statement given that the West Coast is much more directly in the path of Fukushima radiation than the East Coast. And nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen recently said(at 25:00): “There’s more cesium in that [Unit 4] fuel pool than in all 800 nuclear bombs exploded above ground… But of course it would happen all at once. It would certainly destroy Japan as a functioning country… Move south of the equator if that ever happened, I think that’s probably the lesson there.”This week, Wyden said that the spent fuel is a national security threat to the U.S.: AlterNet asked Sen. Wyden if he considers the spent fuel at Fukushima Daiichi a national security threat. In a statement released by his office, Wyden replied, “The radiation caused by the failure of the spent fuel pools in the event of another earthquake could reach the West Coast within days. That absolutely makes the safe containment and protection of this spent fuel a security issue for the United States.”

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Robert Alvarez – a nuclear expert and a former special assistant to the United States Secretary of Energy- agrees, saying, “My major concern is that this effort to get that spent fuel out of there is not something you should be doing casually and taking your time on.” Yet Tepco’s current plans are to hold the majority of this spent fuel onsite for years in the same elevated, uncontained storage pools, only transferring some of the fuel into more secure, hardened dry casks when the common pool reaches capacity.Why are American nuclear authorities ignoring this threat? Well, they are totally captured by the nuclear industry, and: Nuclear waste experts charge that the NRC is letting this threat [of the Fukushima fuel pools] fester because acknowledging it would call into question safety at dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants around the U.S., which contain exceedingly higher volumes of spent fuel in similar elevated pools outside of reinforced containment. In an interview with AlterNet, Alvarez said that the Japanese government, Tepco and the U.S. NRC are reluctant to say anything publicly about the spent fuel threat because “there is a tendency to want to provide reassurance that everything is fine.” “The U.S. government right now is engaged in its own kabuki theatre to protect the U.S. industry from the real costs of the lessons at Fukushima,” Gunter said. “The NRC and its champions in the White House and on Capitol Hill are looking to obfuscate the real threats and the necessary policy changes to address the risk.”

There are 31 G.E. Mark I and Mark II boiling water reactors (BRWs) in the U.S., the type used at Fukushima. All of these reactors, which comprise just under a third of all nuclear reactors in the U.S., store their spent fuel in elevated pools located outside the primary, or reinforced, containment that protects the reactor core. Thus, the outside structure, the building ostensibly protecting the storage pools, is much weaker, in most cases about as sturdy, experts describe in interviews with AlterNet, as a structure one would find housing a car dealership or a Wal-Mart. Remember that American nuclear power plants are storing much more nuclear fuel rods in highly-vulnerable pools than even Fukushima.

Source: Running ‘Cause I Can’t Fly Read more

Opinion:

It appears blatantly obvious that we, the people, are being kept in the dark. I don’t profess to be an expert, but I have a damned good idea when someone is trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

The whole issue is still very much alive, but certain parties (government, vested interests, etc) don’t want the story kept alive. Because there are some very difficult questions that need answering…. and they haven’t got the answers.

If there is another earthquake in the reactor area, and the chances of that happening are extremely high (remember Japan is one of the most earthquake prone areas in the world), the No. 4 cooling tank will collapse, not maybe, not possibly – WILL.

Consider that the amount of spent material is 85 times more than Chernobyl…

Sorry people, the northern hemisphere has just become uninhabitable.

The people on the west coast of America and Canada have days, not even a week, to get out. The time frame is unknown, it could be next week, month, year… who knows.

My moan today is WHY AREN’T THE PEOPLE DEMANDING ANSWERS?

Pollution doesn’t matter anymore; recycling doesn’t matter anymore; NOTHING matters anymore in the northern hemisphere.

Oh, and the nice thing is that the southern hemisphere doesn’t have habitable room for everybody.

Canada is Going to Lose

so like a truculent child its going to take its toys and go home…

Canada condemned at home and abroad for pulling out of Kyoto treaty

China calls Canada’s decision ‘preposterous’, while Greenpeace says the country is protecting polluters instead of people

The Canadian environment minister, Peter Kent, said meeting the country's Kyoto treaty obligations would cost each family $1,600. Photograph: Fred Chartrand/AP

Canada has been condemned at home and abroad as “irresponsible” and “reckless” for pulling out of the Kyoto climate treaty, just a day after committing to a future legally binding deal at a major UN climate summit.

“I regret Canada’s withdrawal and am surprised over its timing,” said the UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. “Canada has a moral obligation to itself and future generations to lead in the global effort.” China, which agreed for the first time to legal limits on its emissions at the summit in Durban, denounced Canada’s decision as “preposterous” in its state media and called it “an excuse to shirk responsibility” in tackling global warming.

The domestic reaction was equally fierce with the announcement by Canada’s environment minister, Peter Kent, described as “shameful” and “a total abdication of our responsibilities”. Under the Kyoto protocol, Canada was committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% by 2012, compared to its 1990 levels. But its actual emissions have risen by over 30%, making failure inevitable. Canada’s inaction was blamed by some on its desire to protect the lucrative but highly polluting exploitation of tar sands, the second biggest oil reserve in the world.

Kent claimed that Canada would have to pay billions to meet its Kyoto target in 2012: “To meet the targets would be the equivalent of … the transfer of CAN$14bn [£8.7bn] from Canadian taxpayers to other countries – the equivalent of $1,600 from every Canadian family – with no impact on emissions or the environment.” He was referring to the cost of buying carbon emission permits (AAUs) from other countries to compensate for Canada’s huge overshooting of its target.

Source: The Guardian Read more

Opinion:

Canada simply wants to have its cake and eat it too. It doesn’t matter whose toes you tread on in business.

Canada made a promise, signed the Kyoto agreement, it should be held binding.