Category: renewable

Agenda 21: Sustainabilty or buckets of Greenwash??

Here in Spain local right wing council’s are competing to declare support for Agenda 21, Sustainability, Environmental awareness, etc. All good citizens are urged to take part, and the response is good.   Because everyone knows by now that  we’re destroying the life supporting mechanisms of the planet.

Okay it’s super necessary that we all take part, but without touching the rampant consumption that is the base of capitalism, we are all pissing against a gale force wind.

Suddenly AGENDA 21 is all the fashion, nobody mentions that it was first agreed in 1992 at the Rio Summit, and has taken almost 20 years to get off the drawing board. Meanwhile every field of environment, climate and biodiversity crises have been taking giant steps backwards.

It seems like Agenda 21 may  be used by corrupt business and politicos as one more LOAD OF GREENWASH and even an excuse to CUT SERVICES in the name of sustainability. No reason not to support the idea, I support it, while exposing the hypocritical cant of those profiting from destroying our planet.

” The world’s leading ozone destroyer takes credit for leadership in ozone protection. A mammoth greenhouse gas emitter professes the precautionary approach to global warming. A major agrichemical manufacturer trades in a pesticide so hazardous it has been banned in many countries, while implying it is helping feed the hungry. A petrochemical firm uses the waste from one polluting process as raw material for another hazardous process, and boasts of an important recycling initiative. Another giant multinational cuts timber from virgin rainforest, replaces it with monoculture plantations and calls the project “sustainable forest development.”

”Welcome to the world of GREENWASH, where transnational corporations (TNCs) are preserving and expanding their markets by posing as friends of the environment and enemies of poverty. Greenwash takes many forms: from the pious concern for the environment expressed in expensive advertising campaigns, to the “continuous improvement” ballyhooed in voluntary codes of conduct; from the creation of benign-sounding corporate front groups, to the participation of TNCs in environmental conferences and events. All these efforts share the goal of avoiding national and international sanctions on dirty TNC operations, which are at the root of many global environmental crises.”

Fukushima fallout nears Chernobyl levels –

Radioactive Japanese reactors

Japan’s damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima has been emitting radioactive iodine and caesium at levels approaching those seen in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Austrian researchers have used a worldwide network of radiation detectors – designed to spot clandestine nuclear bomb tests – to show that iodine-131 is being released at daily levels 73 per cent of those seen after the 1986 disaster. The daily amount of caesium-137 released from Fukushima Daiichi is around 60 per cent of the amount released from Chernobyl………..

….Iodine is rapidly absorbed by the thyroid, and leaves only as it decays radioactively, with a half-life of eight days. Caesium is absorbed by muscles, where its half-life of 30 years means that it remains until it is excreted by the body. It takes between 10 and 100 days to excrete half of what has been consumed.

While in the body the isotopes’ radioactive emissions can do significant damage, mainly to DNA. Children who ingest iodine-131 can develop thyroid cancer 10 or more years later; adults seem relatively resistant. A study published in the US last week found that iodine-131 from Chernobyl is still causing new cases of thyroid cancer to appear at an undiminished rate in the most heavily affected regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Caesium-137 lingers in the environment because of its long half-life. Researchers are divided over how much damage environmental exposure to low doses has done since Chernobyl. Some researchers think it could still cause thousands of new cases of cancer across Europe.

via Fukushima radioactive fallout nears Chernobyl levels – health – 24 March 2011 – New Scientist.

Wind Turbines Survive Earthquake

It’d be very difficult to exaggerate the scale of damage caused by the Japanese trifecta disaster of earthquake-tsunami-nuclear power plant crisis, but in the middle of it all there’s one small bright spot: Japan’s wind turbines have survived it all unscathed, with operators being asked to step up operations where possible to help with electricity shortfalls.

via Japan’s Wind Turbines Survive 1,000 Year Earthquake Unscathed : TreeHugger.