Let's Join Japan and Junk New Nukes

Published on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

Let's Join Japan and Junk New Nukes

by Harvey Wasserman

Japan will build no new nuclear reactors. It's a huge body blow to the global industry, and could mark a major turning point in the future of energy. (Photo: Toru Namayaka/Getty Images)
Says Prime Minister Naoto Kan: "We need to start from scratch… and do more to promote renewables."
Wind power alone could--and now probably will--replace 40 nukes in Japan.
The United States must join them. Axing the $36 billion currently stuck in the 2012 federal budget for loan guarantees to build new reactors could do the trick.
Wind potential alone between the Mississippi and the Rockies could produce 300% of the nation's electricity. That doesn't include solar, geothermal, ocean thermal, sustainable bio-fuels and the many more renewable sources poised to re-shape the Amercian energy future once the prospect of new nukes is discarded.
Japan was set to build 14 new nukes before Fukushima. Six of Japan's total of 55 reactors were shut by the earthquake and tsunami. Three at Kashiwazaki remain shut from the seven that were hit by an earthquake less than five years ago. Kan wants three more closed at Hamaoka, also in an earthquake/tsunami zone.
Japan's reactor fleet remains the world's third-largest, behind the US and France. The General Electric and Westinghouse nuclear divisions, builders of nearly all the commercial reactors in the US, are at least partly controlled by Japanese companies. Reactor Pressure Vessels and other major components are built there.
Four California reactors also sit in earthquake zones vulnerable to tsunamis. San Onofre, between Los Angeles and San Diego, has 7.5 million people living within a 50-mile radius. Its two operating and one dead reactor sit less than a mile from the high tide line.
Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, sits near a series of earthquake faults, including one newly discovered less than two miles from the two reactor cores there.
Numerous other US reactors are perilously close to earthquake faults, including two operating at Indian Point, 35 miles north of Manhattan. The Perry reactor, on Lake Erie east of Cleveland, was damaged by an earthquake in January, 1986.
Massive quantities of heat have poured into the global eco-system from the multiple explosions, partial melt-downs and spent fuel fires at Fukushima, contributing significantly to global warming.
Highly radioactive fallout has been found miles from the site. Millions of gallons of extremely contaminated water have poured into the ocean.
Radioactive fallout has also been detected in rainwater, milk and on vegetables throughout the United States, threatening the health of millions of Americans, especially small children and embryos in utero.
Now Fukushima Unit Four appears to be on the brink of physical collapse. Fission may be continuing in at least one spent fuel pool, and possibly in one or more cores. Radiation levels are high enough at the site to guarantee certain near-term death to workers, many of whom have come to consider work at Fukushima to be a virtual suicide mission. A definitive end to the disaster could be years away.
Kan's decision to shut Hamaoka and then to cancel future nukes came as a shock. Widely criticized for weakness in the wake of Fukushima, he has now redefined Japan's energy future.
Though dependent on imported fossil fuels, major Japanese corporations have substantial investments in wind, solar and other Solartopian technologies. This will push them to the forefront of Japan's energy future.
Likewise Germany. In the wake of huge public demonstrations and a major electoral defeat, Prime Minister Angela Merkel has shut seven old reactors and says ten more will go down by 2020, making Germany nuke-free. For decades Germany has been pushing wind, solar and other green technologies harder than any other industrial nation, with enormously profitable results.
In the US, renewables are also booming, while the reactor industry has been taking hard hits. Just this week a major French-operated component factory proposed for Virginia has been pushed back two years--which means likely cancellation. A $5 billion taxpayer-funded facility in South Carolina to produce plutonium-based Mixed Oxide reactor fuel faces a lack of customers, and growing doubts about the project's viability or real purpose.
Overall, Fukushima has complicated an already dark financial picture. A Texas project meant for Japanese financing is now all but dead. So, too, is one proposed for Maryland by the French.
While the Obama Administration continues to push for those $36 billion in loan guarantees, it's unclear what reactor projects are in credible shape to accept them.
Meanwhile ferocious battles to shut old reactors in Vermont, New York, New Jersey and elsewhere are heating up. With roughly two dozen of similar design to Fukushima Unit One now operating in the US, the public demand for more shut-downs continues to escalate.
We need to finish the job and get to a green-powered Earth.
Nuclear power makes global warming worse, and spells economic as well as ecological doom.
The industry can't get private financing, can't get meaningful liability insurance, can't deal with its wastes, can't compete in the marketplace, can't guarantee us we won't suffer a Fukushima of our own, can't provide a reliable energy supply into the future.
What lies before us once we kill these loan guarantees is a Solartopian reality powered by the sun, wind, tides, waves, earth's heat and more.
Those countries like Germany, Denmark and now Japan that head definitively toward a nuke-free future are in the process of turning toward survivability and prosperity.
Let's kill that loan guarantee package, shut the dying nukes like Vermont Yankee and Indian Point, and join them in truly green-powered future.

Harvey Wasserman's Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and writes regularly for www.freepress.org. He and Bob Fitrakis have co-authored four books on election protection, including Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election?, As Goes Ohio: Election Theft Since 2004 , How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008, and What Happened in Ohio

Related articles

• Japan's Hamaoka Nuke Plant to Halt Operation (abcnews.go.com)
• Japan to halt 3 nuke reactors over quake concerns (seattlepi.com)
• Japan evacuees briefly let back into nuke zone (cbsnews.com)

Health and the Nuclear Gamble

Image via Wikipedia

Published on Sunday, March 27, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

Health and the Nuclear Gamble

by Robert Dodge

The world has anxiously watched the events in Japan unfolding this past two weeks after the horrific earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster. The feelings are magnified out of a sense of helplessness in aiding the victims in Japan mixed with concerns for potential effects and implications to our own health and communities. In assessing the devastating effects of natural disasters, we must pause as we consider the potential for catastrophic effects of man made disasters, specifically from nuclear power plants.
The radiation effects of this disaster are unknown at the present time with greatest concern for the firefighters and those workers and people in the immediate vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Unfortunately the news has gotten worse on a daily basis and has not been entirely forthcoming or transparent. We have moved from reassurance of no leakage to a small fissure in the containment chamber to the leaking of critical water from the cooling pools with variable releases of highly radioactive isotopes to the probability of a breech of the containment vessel that houses the nuclear core. The latter posses the greatest threat.
Fortunately the risk and radiation detected at our shores appears nominal at the present time. However our own National Academy of Sciences has stated that any exposure to radiation increases a person’s risk of cancer. There is no safe level of radiation exposure. The amazing fact is not that the radiation that reaches our shores is described low level at the present time but that it reaches us at all traveling 5000 miles from Japan. This underscores the interconnectedness of our planet and energy decisions made anywhere in the world. With nuclear power and all of its safeguards, it remains imperfect and with the fragility of human technology there always exists the possibility of a nuclear accident with its risk of radioactivity release.
These invisible radioactive isotopes are intensely toxic to humans. Our bodies when exposed to them incorporate them into our cells as though they were life giving molecules. This is coupled with their extended half lives where they can persist for years promoting health risks. Thus far Iodine 131 and Cesium 137 have been the 2 isotopes confirmed at present. Iodine 131 has a half life of 8 days and is taken up by the thyroid gland where it emits radioactivity increasing the risk for thyroid cancer. Cesium 137 with its half life of 30 years is handled by the body like potassium which is rapidly disseminated throughout our entire bodies where it can cause burns, radiation sickness, cancer particularly of the soft tissues and death.
The other isotopes of concern are Strontium 90 and Plutonium 239. Strontium 90 with its half life of 29 years is utilized by the body like calcium depositing it in teeth and bone where it can cause cancer of the bone, bone marrow and soft tissues around the bone. Finally Plutonium 239 is the most dangerous isotope. Its cancer causing ionizing radiation risk can be either as an external hazard from outside the body or internal hazard by ingestion or inhalation where it is presents a significant lung cancer risk. Once it circulates through the body, it exposes the blood, kidneys, liver, and spleen to its cancer causing alpha particles.
At the present time, Iodine 131 has been found in the drinking water in Tokyo at levels 200% above the allowable for infants and children who are the most vulnerable to its cancer causing effects. Milk and food within the region are showing radioactive contamination. The water within the Reactor 3 which is a mixed oxide fuel reactor of plutonium and uranium has shown radiation levels 10 thousand times that typically seen.
As physicians our ability to respond to these potential toxins is woefully inadequate focusing mainly on supportive care and comfort measures while observing for the delayed effects of these agents. As with most serious illnesses in medicine, prevention is the best practice. As physicians, it is our obligation to do whatever we can to prevent illness.
If there were to be a meltdown, there is the potential for an astonishing release of radioactive material. We are talking about the radiation potential of about 1000 Hiroshima bombs in only one core. Chernobyl was comparable to 400 Hiroshima’s.
As the world grapples with this latest complex compound disaster, a serious reflection and reconsideration of our own nuclear power industry is in order. Nuclear energy is too risky, dirty and too expensive. Are these risks to the health of our children and community ones we are willing to take? We need investment in safer energy sources in particular renewable sources. As long as nuclear power plants exist, prevention of nuclear accidents is paramount. We also must have local disaster preparedness efforts and make ourselves aware of them.

Dr. Robert Dodge is a family practice physician in Ventura, California. He became active in the peace movement as a college student at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the 1970′s where he majored in molecular, cellular and developmental biology. He is a Board Member and Nuclear Ambassador of, Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles (www.PSRLA.org),and Board Member of Beyond War (www.beyondwar.org).

Related articles

• Tiny amount of Japan radiation reaches Las Vegas (cbsnews.com)
• No, the Amount of Radiation Released from the Japanese Nuclear Reactors is NOT "Safe" (ritholtz.com)
• Little definitively known about effect of radioactive food on humans (cnn.com)
• Developments in Japan's disasters, nuclear crisis (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Effect of radiation on humans still harbors mysteries - CNN International (news.google.com)
• Japan nuclear plant released half as many radioactive isotopes as Chernobyl: data (calgaryherald.com)
• Charles Choi's dispatches from Chernobyl (boingboing.net)
• Japan's radiation reaches Nevada (search.japantimes.co.jp)

Opeyemi Parham on Dealing With Radiation

Image via Wikipedia

HOLISTIC Approaches to Radiation fears for Mind, Body and

 SOUL: Pass them on!

Hello everyone. I have been posting information that I believe is helpful to maintaining balance and centeredness during these challenging times. what A blessing to have this information simply flow to me, through links, and blogs, and other web pages.

Here is some valuable information, posted through the H2O program (see http://www.h2opportunities.net/)

From Dori Midnight:

 

As you've probably heard, there may be some radiation moving across the

pacific in the next weeks heading towards the west coast from Japan. To keep

going, be alive, and not shut down, we need courage, nourishment, and

support - make a pot of soup!

1. SEAWEED: eat nori, put wakame, kombu, and hijiki in your soups and stews.

The iodine in kelp helps draw out the radiation and protect your thyroid

from radioactive uptake.

 

2. MISO: good medicine full of live cultures, amino acids, minerals, and

protein. I'd recommend making a big pot this week, having a bowl everyday

and feeding it to all your friends- recipe follows.

3. MUSHROOMS: strengthen your immune system with some shitake mushrooms,

sauteed or in soups.

 

4. Eat vegetables, especially DAIKON radishes and BURDOCK root- stick them

in your soup too or make a shredded salad (recipe below). Daikon has been

used for drawing out radiation, post nuclear fall out- it's cooling and

detoxifying.

5. BATHS in epsom salt and baking soda (1 lb of salt, with a bit of baking

soda 2x week)

 

6. DRINK lots of WATER

7. IMMUNE support: do the things you know boost your immune system- sleep

well, eat garlic and Vitamin C rich foods, and go easy on the sugar.

 

8. LOVE: send prayers, love, healing thoughts for those who need it most.

Instead of freaking out or shutting down, let your anger, fear, and grief

flow- it's what makes us human and feel connected to what's going  on in the

 world right now. Crying is a potent way to detox, friends. (emphasis mine)

9. HERBS: if you want to get herbal, some great allies are nettle tea,

cilantro (eat a lot of it or take a tincture- it helps draw heavy metals out

), and milk thistle (helps your liver process toxins). Also Yarrow

Environmental Essence from FES is a beautiful formula to support the body in

environmental disasters.

 

RECIPES:

Magical Medicinal Miso Soup

Saute one onion, sliced thin, til translucent. Add water, seaweed of choice

(I like Kombu and Wakame), shitake mushrooms (dried or fresh), burdock root,

carrots, and any other hearty roots you like. Simmer for 25 minutes.

I like to add shredded or sliced ginger near the end, so it's strong, and

some garlic, which I like really strong. You can also add greens, like kale

or spinach. Simmer another 5 minutes.

Because you don't want to boil your miso, I usually put a large dollop of

miso paste in my bowl and then pour the broth on top to dissolve it.

Drink and offer bowls to all your loved ones and neighbors, kiddos and pets,

family and friends.

Get your Daikon

Easy Shredded Salad

Shred carrot and daikon radish (2-3 roots)

Mix with sesame oil and a little umeboshi vinegar (also a great medicine!),

sesame seeds, whatever fresh herbs you've got on hand (I love mint or

cilantro), and a little tamari. Eat and feel alive and well thanks to the

plants, the sun, the water and the farmers.

 

Dori Midnight

community folk healing + magic + apothecary

www.dorilandia.com <http://www.dorilandia.com/>

http://midnightapothecary.blogspot.com/

<http://midnightapothecary.blogspot.com/>

 

And, this meditation from a channel for the Hawthors:

(see http://tomkenyon.com/who-are-the-hathors)

A Hathor Planetary Message Through Tom Kenyon

 

Medicines of Light:

Protection and Healing from Radiation Poisoning, Neurotoxins, Bacteria and

Viruses.

With the earthquake in New Zealand, followed by the earthquake in Japan, it

is clear that you have entered a more complex phase of the Chaotic Node.

 

We wish to impart a method for protection and healing from radiation

poisoning as well as other physical conditions. We call this Medicines of

Light.

This is obviously related to current events unfolding in Japan, however, as

future earth changes unfold, you may face similar challenges in your near

future from other locations around the world.

 

This method will assist you to both protect and heal yourself from exposure,

not only to radioactivity, but also to neurotoxins and to mutating forms of

bacteria and viruses. From our perspective you can expect to see an increase

of these in your near timeline.

The method involves connecting to your Celestial Soul, the BA. This action

is to connect to the realms of light that are a part of your being.

 

Everything that exists in your cosmos can be viewed as a qualification or

energetic expression of light—even your densest forms of matter are

essentially a form of light.

In this method you connect to your Celestial Soul, holding the intent and

expectation that it will impart to you an energetic that protects and/or

heals you. You send this intent to your Celestial Soul with the emotional

vibration of appreciation or gratitude. This is simply the vibrational

resonance that activates this higher aspect of your being.

 

Once you send this intent conjoined with appreciation or gratitude to your

BA, you shift your awareness into your heart chakra, receiving the energetic

of healing or protection into the heart chakra. You might experience this

energetic as a form of light, or as geometric patterns, or you may feel the

sensation of a descent of energy. You may also experience this energetic

simply as a thought/feeling.

Once the energetic is received in the heart chakra, it is ready to send.

 

For this phase you will need some pure water, since water holds this type of

information extremely well. Holding a container of water in your hands,

through intent, you send this energy that is in the heart chakra down the

arms into the hands and through the chakras that are in the center of each

palm. The energetic enters the water through this pathway.

We suggest you amplify this energetic by repeating the procedure three

times, for a total of three times—two more times in addition to the first.

You then drink the water. The water permeates the water element of your

body, and the healing and protective qualities eventually enter every cell.

 

Through this action you are qualifying light, causing it to descend through

the central pathway of your body into your heart and sending it into the

water element. The consciousness of the water receives this energetic, and

when you drink it, the body receives it.

If you find yourself in a situation where you have been exposed to

radioactivity you would engage this procedure as we have described it,

qualifying the energy that descends from the BA to protect and heal you from

any possibility of radiation poisoning. If you have other means to protect

yourself, you should obviously engage these as well, but even if you are

left with nothing but the tools of your own consciousness, you can protect

and heal yourself.

 

If you have been exposed to neurotoxins you would do the same. If you are in

the midst of an epidemic that involves bacterial or viral infections, we

advise you to do the same.

As you collectively enter more deeply into this more complex and intense

phase of the Chaotic Node, bacteria and viruses will mutate faster. This

method will allow you to protect and heal yourself from these mutating life

forms.

 

It is important to understand that you are creating the protection and

healing through the powers of your own consciousness. You have direct access

to your own light realms. You have the sovereign right to engage the light

realms on your own behalf and on the behalf of your loved ones.

If you find yourself in one of these difficult situations we have described,

we suggest you take the Medicine of Light—which is the water that you have

charged—several times a day, as your intuition guides you.

 

The physical ramifications of the earthquake activity in Japan and the

resulting tsunami are very difficult to deal with. But we wish to shift our

attention from the physical to the mental, emotional, and spiritual effects

created by such a disaster,

Due to the fact that you are in a Chaotic Node and energies from deep space

conjoined with solar flare activity are affecting your energy bodies, you,

as a collective, are more affected. What we mean by this is that witnessing

the suffering of your fellow humans shatters the heart. There is a

recognition that their predicament could easily be yours. This recognition

can create an opening in your heart, and it is through the heart—your

heart—that higher states of consciousness are realized, and so the

earthquake in Japan is, in many ways, an earthquake of the collective heart.

 

The times before you are not easy. From our perspective, increased earth

changes are upon you. But one result of such events is that you are shaken

to your roots and the mass hypnosis pauses for a moment.  And in such utter

and surrealistic devastation, many of you see very clearly that your

civilization rests on tenuous grounds. We mean this both literally and

figuratively.

And so our advice for this phase of the Chaotic Node is to learn and master

the ability to create Medicines of Light for yourself, so that when the time

arises, you know how to engage this power of protection and healing that you

possess in your very nature.  And we suggest you navigate through these times

not only with your minds, but with your hearts—and let your hearts be

touched, for it is through your hearts that you will ascend the spiral

pathway to your own greatness (emphasis mine).

 

--
                       Opeyemi  413-336-1291
                        P.O. Box 264

                        Hadley, MA. 01035  (www.ceremonyheals.com)         buy Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World 

it will INSPIRE and encourage you!     http://www.hopebeneathourfeet.com   

                                                         

Related articles

• Miso Soup (veggielover99.wordpress.com)

Entombing Fukushima?

Image via Wikipedia

Published on Thursday, March 17, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

Entombing Fukushima?

Last Defense Not Being Used as Possible Meltdown Approaches

by Gary Houser

As all other methods fail to stop the tragic slide toward full meltdown, physicist Dr. Michio Kaku emphatically exclaimed in an interview on ABC News that the "Chernobyl option" must now be employed.  This was the use of military helicopters to "entomb" and seal the reactor by dropping massive amounts of sand and concrete. Here is a brief two minute clip of Kaku explaining why the time has come to utilize this last ditch maneuver.      

Kaku describes this as the last "ace card" we can play in the desperate fight to fend off catastrophe. Yet the Japanese government and power company continue to flail with irrational strategies such as dumping water from helicopters, most of which - by their own admission - is being diverted off target by cross winds. Due to multiple reactors, it would be a huge logistical challenge to get the sand and concrete dropped in time. But the sooner the decision is made to mobilize, the greater the chance of success. Precious time to avert disaster is slipping away while the last best preventative step is not even being utilized.   

 

What must be acknowledged by all parties is that those supervising the battle against meltdown are not only physically exhausted human beings but also very likely reeling and emotionally drained from the earthquake and massive tsunami. It does not appear that rational decisions are being made. It is a time when other parties not subject to such  duress need to step in and offer more clear strategies.  Citizens everywhere should be LOUDLY INSISTING that the Japanese government act responsibly and employ the last ditch Chernobyl option.  NOW is the only chance to act preventatively and prevent what could become a massive cesium and strontium poisoning of hundreds of thousands of people and a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean ecosystem.

Dr. Marvin Resnikoff is a career specialist in the management of nuclear waste who worked for the state of Nevada in estimating radiation levels involved in the storage of radioactive material at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. In his piece published on Huffington Post, he uses the concept of "Hiroshima equivalents" to make the immense levels of radiation more comprehensible to the public:  "If Unit 4 operated for 35 years and produced 30 tons of irradiated fuel per year and each ton is equivalent to 24 times the amount of cesium-137 produced by the Hiroshima bomb, then each fuel pool could contain on the order of 24,000 times the amount of cesium-137 produced by the Hiroshima bomb, if all the produced irradiated fuel remains in the fuel pool." (emphasis mine)
  

It will be claimed that any publication of such numbers is the act of an irresponsible alarmist. In fact the opposite is true. In order to take the appropriate step with the greatest chance of preventing a harm from manifesting, one first needs to have a clear view of the level of danger. From this clarity, wiser decisions can be made.   

 

In a global emergency like this, many feel powerless - as if the scale is simply too large to even try to do anything to prevent the worst from happening.  But it is essential to break through that sense of passivity. We must empower ourselves to call out to our own public officials to act responsibly and intervene in a positive way in the Japanese situation before it is too late.  

 

Children would be the most vulnerable to the terrible impact of the radiation. Elevated and potentially massive rates of cancer would infect their youthful years, bring much suffering, and cut short their lives. Do we not owe it to these untold numbers of children to be able to say that we at least tried everything in our power to prevent this horrific tragedy from occurring ?  As of this moment in time - with the Japanese authorities flailing and squandering precious time by pursuing inadequate and irrational strategies - such a statement cannot be accurately made. 

Gary Houser is a long time public interest columnist with several articles and commentaries published on nuclear power. He has also acted as intervenor against the licensing of reactors. Can be reached at:  mountainmist8@yahoo.com

Related articles

• Experts Knock Notion of Burying Japanese Reactors (abcnews.go.com)
• In Chernobyl's shadow: Japanese nuclear crisis stokes fears (calgaryherald.com)
• Is it time for the Chernobyl option? (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
• Fukushima: How To Avoid A Potential Chernobyl? (businessinsider.com)
• Experts knock notion of burying Japanese reactors (sfgate.com)
• One week in, Japan pins hopes on power cable (cbsnews.com)
• Experts knock notion of burying Japanese reactors (salon.com)
• Fukushima Power Plant, Japan-US Disagree on Crisis (rightpundits.com)

Are The Magnetic Poles Flipping?

Image via Wikipedia By Opeyemi Parham



Wow. "Waving Overwhelming Wonder". That is the skill that I am honing as I bear witness to a world in chaos.
What May Be Coming Next has many possibilities.
In El Mundo Bueno *, the Japanese continue to demonstrate awe-inspiring interpersonal connection, and political transparency in dealing with the disaster as it continues to unfold. In el Mundo Bueno we all move forward together with a clear and powerful warning, regarding the dangers of nuclear energy. The entire world begins to move away from such deadly technologies.
In El Mundo Malo, the problematic nuclear reactors have escalating issues. Perhaps more damage, as aftershocks of 5 and 6 (we call those earthquakes elsewhere) continue. Perhaps a meltdown. Perhaps (this being el MUCHO mundo malo) a meltdown, followed by another tsunami, and contamination of the ocean, with radiation.
I do not speak these possibilities as a fear monger, but as an oracle.
With Katrina, we were offered to possibility of looking at our emergency preparedness, our classism, and racism in this country. Did we learn our lessons?
With Haiti, we marveled at the resiliency of a people with the spirit to be dancing on the beaches the night of their catastrophe. Then we sent aid that introduced cholera and worsened their suffering.
With BP Oil, we felt panic as raw crude bled into the gulf waters. We are chafing at the bit to begin drilling again, as gasoline prices soar to $3.50 a gallon, and the corporate villains in that scandal plot new ways to avoid paying damages.
With Haiti, we marveled at the resiliency of a people with the spirit to be dancing on the beaches the night of their catastrophe. Then we sent aid that introduced a Southeast Asian cholera and worsened their suffering.
FACT: the magnetic poles are shifting, possibly preparing for a "flip":
"The last time the poles switched was 780,000 years ago, and it's happened about 400 times in 330 million years. Each reversal takes a thousand years or so to complete, and it takes longer for the shift to take effect at the equator than at the poles. The field has weakened about 10% in the last 150 years. Some scientists think this is a sign of a flip in progress"
from http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/question782.htm
FACT: we have no idea what this might look like, feel like or how it will affect humans, other than the likelihood of a period of time when the earth loses it's protection from solar radiation for an unspecified period of time. Maybe minutes. Or hours. Or days.
Learning more about how to protect ourselves from radiation exposure seem EXACTLY RIGHT, right now.
BY THEIR DIETS AND LIFESTYLE, THE JAPANESE ARE WELL EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH RADIATION EXPOSURE, relative to other parts of the world (like the Ukraine or Three Mile Island)) where radiation exposure has happened; I still trust that the biosphere/Gaia/Mother Earth is being as gentle as possible with us 7 billion humans...
She is saying "wake up, and STAY AWAKE"
My personal response to my own fears and anxieties is to remind myself to breathe, to inform and to share actual facts with as many as will listen. I  listen to that calm, still voice inside of me that is telling me what to do and how to refuel my heart with awe for the magic in my day to day world. I don't believe that the answers are on-line, or in the world of science. We must find them in co-created ways, for ourselves. We must use right and left brains, hearts, and souls to be with all of this change.
I will post the messages that I receive from Spirit, after I go and sweat my prayers for Japan and the World on Sunday, March 13.
                            In love and light-- OPEYEMI (eternally grateful)
* a phrase used by Starhawk in the novel "The Fifth Sacred Thing
--
                       Opeyemi  413-336-1291
                        P.O. Box 264

                        Hadley, MA. 01035  (www.ceremonyheals.com)
         buy Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World 

it will INSPIRE and encourage you!     http://www.hopebeneathourfeet.com   

                                                         

Related articles

• Nervous Japan quake evacuees scanned for radiation exposure - Reuters (news.google.com)

Dean Baker Column

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Published on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 by Huffington Post

The Budget Deficit Crisis: The Blame Is Bipartisan

by Dean Baker

The country is being bombarded with stories claiming that record budget deficits threaten our children's future and jeopardize the credibility of the dollar. These stories are a serious problem -- they have hugely confused the public about the nature of the country's economic crisis. And both parties share the blame.
Starting with the reality behind the scare stories -- trillion-dollar deficits are really huge relative to the money that any of us will ever see in our lifetime. But this is an absurd measure. The United States is a country with more than 300 million people. It doesn't matter that a trillion dollars is a huge amount to any of us individually. What matters is the size of the deficit and the debt relative to the size of the economy.
Only people who want to deceive the public would talk about the deficit or debt in "trillions" of dollars. This is a very simple lie-detector test since honest economists and policy analysts always refer to these sums relative to the size of the economy.
Relative to the size of the economy, the deficits that we are running are large and the debt that we are projected to incur is substantial, but the deficit level is still not coming close to the levels hit in World War II. Nor is the debt level projected to reach post-war peaks or the levels sustained by countries like Italy and Japan. The idea that we are near some debt-driven crisis is absurd on its face.
The United States had the strongest period of growth in its history in the three decades following World War II. This undeniable fact should put to rest the idea that our debt levels will threaten the prosperity of future generations. We hand our children a whole economy and society. If we give them a bad education, a decayed infrastructure, a ruined environment, then we will be jeopardizing our children's economic well-being. However, the debt levels we are currently projecting aren't even large enough to make it to the list of serious problems.
The claim that the dollar faces an imminent crisis because of the budget deficit or national debt is readily refuted by the example of Japan. Japan already has a debt to GDP level that is far larger than we are projected to have by the end of the next decade. In spite of this debt burden, investors are willing to hold ten-year Japanese government bonds at just a 1.5 percent interest rate. If these debt burdens are supposed to make Japan a high risk, someone forgot to tell the people who are putting billions of dollars on the line by holding Japanese government bonds.
There is another side of this Japan story that makes the idiocy of the deficit scare stories even more apparent. According to the deficit fear mongers, the dollar has been falling in recent months because investors are becoming increasingly worried about the U.S. government's ability to pay off its debt. But one of the currencies that the dollar has fallen against is the yen. Are investors who are worried about the U.S. government's ability to pay off its debt selling dollars to buy the bonds of the Japanese government, which has an even higher debt burden?
Let's face it: The deficit hawks will say anything to advance their agenda. Even worse, the media will print it.
This deficit nonsense should have been put to rest long ago, but both parties have hyped it to advance their ends. Currently, the Republicans are making headway in the polls by blaming the Obama administration for a deficit that is primarily the result of economic mismanagement during the Bush years.
But Republicans don't have a monopoly on demagoging the deficit. During the Bush years, many Democrats spoke of the Bush deficits in cataclysmic terms. This was absurd. The deficits were larger than was desirable during part of the Bush administration (large deficits in 2002 and 2003 were helpful in boosting the economy), but they were not hugely out of line. There is certainly no story that can pass the laugh test in which these deficits are responsible for the collapse of the housing bubble and subsequent recession.
There were plenty of grounds to attack President Bush for the economy's performance under his watch. Most importantly, he let an $8 trillion-dollar housing bubble grow unchecked, and giving big tax cuts to the wealthy is not the way to create an educated workforce and a modern infrastructure.
But the Democrats often hyped the deficit -- it was the easiest way to score political points. That helped to give us a situation in which tens of millions of people somehow think the deficit is the cause of the economy's problems when in reality it is the only thing keeping it afloat. In short, the Democrats are paying the price of their own political opportunism. Unfortunately, so is the rest of the country.

© 2009 Huffington Post

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer ( www.conservativenannystate.org) and the more recently published Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of The Bubble Economy. He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.