PATRICK J. KIGER, - National Geographic News
Stephan: I have looked at a spectrum of Fukushima stories and this is a solid middle of the road assessment of what is going on. There really is nothing in human history like it. Chernobyl, as bad as it has been, is not on the same scale. it is now a planetary catastrophe which is only getting worse.
Tensions are rising in Japan over radioactive water leaking into the Pacific Ocean from Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a breach that has defied the plant operator’s effort to gain control.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday called the matter ‘an urgent issue
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Stephan: Increasingly I am seeing more and more stories about the actual effects not only of climate change, but of the carbon energy industry that is the source of much that is driving climate change, as well as nuclear energy which creates such catastrophes when something goes wrong. I see almost no good news. Today's edition is a partial selection of just the stories I have seen over the past two days. I have dedicated today's edition of SR to this single topic to give you some sense of the dimension of what I see.
The impact of our bad choices is growing not in a linear way, but exponentially. That our government continues to support these bad choices, or to ignore the issue altogether is going to prove one of the worst mistakes in human history. The only thing that is going to change the trajectory of these trends is citizen outcry and voting. Always remember, Nature bats last and is undeterred by polemics.
-- Stephan
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KILEY KROH, - Climate Progress
Stephan: The effects of climate change are already observable well underway. Here's what's happening in California.
California is already feeling the dramatic effects of climate change, according to a new report released Thursday by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.
The study, written by 51 scientists, tracked a variety of indicators and found widespread evidence of the toll climate change is taking across the across the state, including more frequent and intense wildfires, rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, warmer lakes and oceans, and hotter temperatures. These ripple effects of these changes threaten communities, industry, public health, and the state’s prized natural resources.
‘Climate change is not just some abstract scientific debate,
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Thursday, August 8th, 2013
NATASHA LENNARD, Assistant News Editor - Salon
Stephan: What kind of democracy operates in this way? No other country in the world has this kind of arrest rate, nor anything approaching our incarceration rate. We have five per cent of the world's population and 25 per cent of the world's prisoners.
Most of this arises from our insane War of Drugs. We are destroying our country and don't seem to even realize it, or to care.
According to new statistics released by the FBI, one in 25 Americans was arrested in 2011 (the most recent year for which there are complete statistics). It’s a startling figure, especially considering the fact that most of those arrests can be attributed to America’s ongoing and ill-thought ‘War on Drugs,
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Thursday, August 8th, 2013
SARAH STILLMAN, - The New Yorker
Stephan: Here is some more on the rise of the American police state, and the corruption of our judicial system. I find all of this deeply unAmerican.
On a bright Thursday afternoon in 2007, Jennifer Boatright, a waitress at a Houston bar-and-grill, drove with her two young sons and her boyfriend, Ron Henderson, on U.S. 59 toward Linden, Henderson’s home town, near the Texas-Louisiana border. They made the trip every April, at the first signs of spring, to walk the local wildflower trails and spend time with Henderson’s father. This year, they’d decided to buy a used car in Linden, which had plenty for sale, and so they bundled their cash savings in their car’s center console. Just after dusk, they passed a sign that read ‘Welcome to Tenaha: A little town with BIG Potential!
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