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Beyond ecological imperialism Climate change isn't just a battle between rich and poor - it shows how an obsession with economic growth is a dead end o guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 December 2009 12.30 GMT So the Copenhagen summit did not deliver any hope of substantive change, or even any indication that the world's leaders are sufficiently aware of the vastness and urgency of the problem. But is that such a surprise? Nothing in the much-hyped runup to the summit suggested that the organisers and participants had genuine ambitions to change course and stop or reverse a process of clearly unsustainable growth. Part of the problem is that the issue of climate change is increasingly portrayed as that of competing interests between countries. Thus, the summit has been interpreted variously as a fight between the "two largest culprits" - the US and China - or between a small group of developed countries and a small group of newly emerging countries (the group of four - China, India, Brazil and South Africa), or at best between rich and poor countries. The historical legacy of past growth in the rich countries that has a current adverse impact is certainly keenly felt in the developing world. It is not just the past: current per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world are still many multiples of that in any developing country, including China. So the attempts by northern commentators to lay blame on some countries for derailing the result by pointing to this discrepancy are seen in most developing countries as further evidence of an essentially colonial outlook. But describing this as a fight between countries misses the essential point: that the issue is really linked to an economic system - capitalism - that is crucially dependent upon rapid growth as its driving force, even if this "growth" does not deliver better lives for the people. So there is no questioning of the supposition that rich countries with declining populations mu

Beyond ecological imperialism Climate change isn't just a battle between rich and poor - it shows how an obsession with economic growth is a dead end o guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 December 2009 12.30 GMT So the Copenhagen summit did not deliver any hope of substantive change, or even any indication that the world's leaders are sufficiently aware of the vastness and urgency of the problem. But is that such a surprise? Nothing in the much-hyped runup to the summit suggested that the organisers and participants had genuine ambitions to change course and stop or reverse a process of clearly unsustainable growth. Part of the problem is that the issue of climate change is increasingly portrayed as that of competing interests between countries. Thus, the summit has been interpreted variously as a fight between the "two largest culprits" - the US and China - or between a small group of developed countries and a small group of newly emerging countries (the group of four - China, India, Brazil and South Africa), or at best between rich and poor countries. The historical legacy of past growth in the rich countries that has a current adverse impact is certainly keenly felt in the developing world. It is not just the past: current per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world are still many multiples of that in any developing country, including China. So the attempts by northern commentators to lay blame on some countries for derailing the result by pointing to this discrepancy are seen in most developing countries as further evidence of an essentially colonial outlook. But describing this as a fight between countries misses the essential point: that the issue is really linked to an economic system - capitalism - that is crucially dependent upon rapid growth as its driving force, even if this "growth" does not deliver better lives for the people. So there is no questioning of the supposition that rich countries with declining populations mu

"Work could begin this summer to start building a cover over closed portions of private company US Ecology's waste disposal trenches at Hanford. The Washington State Department of Ecology plans a public meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesdayto provide information about the plan and hear comments. It will be at the state office at 3100 Port of Benton Blvd., Richland. US Ecology and its predecessors have been disposing of commercial waste since 1965 on 100 acres of land leased to the state of Washington and subleased to US Ecology. During those 45 years, environmental regulations have changed significantly, said Larry Goldstein, contract manager for closure of the commercial low-level radioactive waste disposal site."

An Idaho company has accused Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. of cutthroat tactics, using two front groups to derail its bid to clean up a Missouri radioactive waste site. American Ecology Corp. filed a complaint Thursday with the Idaho elections office against Harold Skamser, a veteran lobbyist working for the week-old nonprofit group Citizens for a Clean Idaho. The group is headed by former Utah developer Stephen Loosli, whose new Idaho company, okosphare, is paying Skamser and "fronting for EnergySolutions," American Ecology says in its complaint. EnergySolutions and the Idahoans deny any ties with one another. But American Ecology President Steve Romano said his company's two-year effort to win approval for slightly radioactive waste has had community and political support until now.

Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko has approved the programme of a gradual dismantle of the Chernobyl atomic power plant. According to the plan it will take over 50 years to make the Chernobyl an ecologically safe place, clean of radioactive contamination. Starting from January 1 next year, Ukraine will begin pulling the plant down, a process divided into four phases. Ukraine plans to spend 4.075 billon grivna (over $US 620 million) of its budget and about $US 48 million of international financing just for the startup of the project, which involves certain urgent technical and ecological measures.

To stop the nuke, we organized throughout our region on economic, ecological and political grounds. In February, 1974, a member of our commune named Sam Lovejoy toppled a weather tower at the site of the nuke. it was a great protest, memorialized in the award-winning "Lovejoy's Nuclear War" from Green Mountain Post Films (gmpfilms.org). When the cost of the nuke started to skyrocket, there were riots in Connecticut against rate hikes meant to pay for the plant. Facing increasingly stiff local and financial opposition, Northeast Utilities canceled the plant. Skyrocketing costs and fierce resistance led to the cancellation of scores of reactors across the US in the 1970s and '80s. Our demonstrations and interventions made a huge difference. Had there been no resistance, no one would have heard a word about Three Mile Island, which put a serious nail in the industry's plans. However, with the attempted "renaissance" of this murderous, suicidal technology, we will have to restart our movement.

To stop the nuke, we organized throughout our region on economic, ecological and political grounds. In February, 1974, a member of our commune named Sam Lovejoy toppled a weather tower at the site of the nuke. it was a great protest, memorialized in the award-winning "Lovejoy's Nuclear War" from Green Mountain Post Films (gmpfilms.org). When the cost of the nuke started to skyrocket, there were riots in Connecticut against rate hikes meant to pay for the plant. Facing increasingly stiff local and financial opposition, Northeast Utilities canceled the plant. Skyrocketing costs and fierce resistance led to the cancellation of scores of reactors across the US in the 1970s and '80s. Our demonstrations and interventions made a huge difference. Had there been no resistance, no one would have heard a word about Three Mile Island, which put a serious nail in the industry's plans. However, with the attempted "renaissance" of this murderous, suicidal technology, we will have to restart our movement.

Nuclear waste from France has been sent to Siberia for storage. According to news reports, over 100 tons of uranium were transported to Seversk. France's ecology minister has called for an investigation into the case. According to the French daily newspaper Liberation and Franco-German television broadcaster Arte, France's electricity company EDF has sent 108 tons of uranium to Siberia since the mid-1990s. About 13 percent of France's nuclear waste is stored in open-air parking lots near a nuclear plant in Seversk, said reports on Monday. EDF said it sends uranium left over from nuclear plant production in France to Russia to be treated so that it can be used again.

Nuclear waste from France has been sent to Siberia for storage. According to news reports, over 100 tons of uranium were transported to Seversk. France's ecology minister has called for an investigation into the case. According to the French daily newspaper Liberation and Franco-German television broadcaster Arte, France's electricity company EDF has sent 108 tons of uranium to Siberia since the mid-1990s. About 13 percent of France's nuclear waste is stored in open-air parking lots near a nuclear plant in Seversk, said reports on Monday. EDF said it sends uranium left over from nuclear plant production in France to Russia to be treated so that it can be used again.

Increased toxins likely as energy companies seek oil, gas, uranium When the Colorado River emerged as an important piece of his coverage, Lustgarten started working with The San Diego Union-Tribune's David Hasemyer, who has written about uranium mining's impact on the waterway for more than a decade. Together, they looked at the potential environmental and water-use consequences of increased mining and drilling in the river's watershed. The Colorado River has endured drought, large-scale climate changes, pollution, ecological damage from dams and battles by seven states to draw more water. Now the life vein of the Southwest faces another threat: Energy companies are sucking up the Colorado's water to support increased development of oil, natural gas and uranium deposits along the river's basin. The mining and drilling will likely send more toxins into the waterway, which provides drinking water for one out of 12 Americans and nourishes 15 percent of the nation's crops along its journey from Wyoming and Colorado to Mexico.

"In late January, Dmitry Dmitriyenko, governor of Russia's Far Northern region of Murmansk, on the Kola Peninsula, met with representatives of the region's public organisations, ethnic and cultural groups, and members of the Public Chamber. Altogether, Dmitriyenko heard some 20 people - but not an environmentalist among them. Below is an opinion piece by Alexei Pavlov, Director of Bellona's St. Petersburg offices. Alexey Pavlov, 16/02-2010 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya For those who have observed the situation, however, the meeting hardly came as a surprise. As soon as Dmitriyenko took the reins in March 2009, replacing Yury Yevdokimov at the post of Governor of Murmansk Region, environmentalists found themselves struggling to get the new governor's attention. Dmitriyenko's predecessor used to meet with environmentalists regularly and would listen to their opinions even if they were contrary to his own. Dmitriyenko, by contrast, never responded to the meeting request extended last year by Severnaya Koalitsiya (Northern Coalition), a group uniting five environmental non-for-profit organisations: Bellona-Murmansk, a WWF branch operating in the Barents region, Murmansk's Priroda i Molodyozh (Nature and Youth), the Kola Centre for the Protection of Wildlife, and the Kola Ecological Centre Gaea. Last May, a couple of months after the governor took office, the coalition asked for a meeting to discuss the Kola Peninsula's most pressing environmental problems, but never received an answer. "

The last containers of 6,700 tons of Kuwaiti sand at the Port of Longview contaminated with low levels of depleted uranium have been loaded onto trains bound for Idaho, said Chad Hyslop, spokesman for the disposal company American Ecology.

Unlike most fish stories, this isn't about the one that got away. No fish were getting away Thursday. Department of Energy contractors began a project that will eliminate the entire fish population - tens of thousands of fish - in three ponds near the former K-25 uranium-enrichment plant. It's part of an overall plan to restore and "ecologically enhance" the ponds that were historically contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls and other pollutants.

"The Yakama Nation has filed a lawsuit challenging the state of Washington's actions to start construction of a cover over closed portions of private company US Ecology's waste disposal trenches at Hanford. Heart of America Northwest Research Center has joined the Yakamas in the lawsuit filed in Yakima County Superior Court. The state believes it has acted properly and that the Yakama Nation does not have a valid case, according to the Washington State Office of the Attorney General. The state has a lease from the federal government for 100 acres on the Hanford nuclear reservation subleased to US Ecology for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste from organizations such as universities, hospitals, biotech firms and electric utilities in western states. The plaintiffs maintain that the landfill contains at least 220 pounds of plutonium 239 plus irradiated fuel segments and other spent nuclear fuel. It also may contain two high-level radioactive fuel rods disposed of at the site around 2003, the plaintiffs said."

A story covered by the Idaho Statesman, New West online magazine and the local Associated Press - but apparently few others - was listed by Time magazine as one of the most underreported news stories of the year. Back in May, about 6,700 tons of radioactive waste was shipped from a U.S. military base in Kuwait to a US Ecology waste storage facility west of Grand View in Owyhee County. The waste had been created by a 1991 fire at U.S. Army Camp Doha, which ignited military vehicles and munitions containing depleted uranium used in armor-piercing shells. The shell fragments were removed and disposed in the United States by the U.S. Army in 2005, and the waste that came to Idaho was what was left of the contaminated soil from which the fragments were removed. New West broke the story before the shipments came.

Background: Decades of improper disposal of uranium-mining wastes on the Navajo Nation has resulted in adverse human and ecological health impacts as well as socio-cultural problems. As the Navajo people become increasingly aware of the contamination problems, there is a need to develop a risk-communication strategy to properly inform tribal members of the extent and severity of the health risks. To be most effective, this strategy needs to blend accepted riskcommunication techniques with Navajo perspectives such that the strategy can be used at the community level to inform culturally- and toxicologically-relevant decisions about land and water use as well as mine-waste remediation.

"Riverkeeper has petitioned the state Department of Environmental Conservation urging the agency to uphold its decision not to grant certification to Entergy on the grounds that its Indian Point nuclear power plant does not meet state water quality standards. Entergy needs that certification as part of its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew the plant's licenses for another 20 years. Riverkeeper's petition supports DEC's decision that continued operation of the power plant would violate state clean water standards and continued use of the once-through cooling system would lead to ongoing harmful impacts to the Hudson River's ecology and aquatic species, said staff attorney Deborah Brancato."

A new report is recommending three of Hanford's oldest buildings that once were used to hold irradiated nuclear fuel be torn down and the soil beneath them be dug up. That's the most protective and costly cleanup plan studied in a engineering evaluation of cleanup of the 212-N, 212-P and 212-R buildings that was prepared for the Department of Energy. DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology have been taking comments on the proposal before a decision is made on how the buildings should be cleaned up.

The question of a controversial law's constitutionality could halt new nuclear reactors in Georgia, such as the proposed Plant Vogtle. A group opposed to reactors on environmental grounds is using a legal challenge to the financing mechanism granted to Georgia Power during the last legislative session as a way to prevent what it considers to be an ecological mistake. Senate Bill 31 violates the state and federal constitutions on several points, argue lawyers for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. The group, which is based in Tennessee but has members and offices in Georgia, has often spoken out against nuclear power and in favor of solar and wind power. Sara Barczak, of the group's Savannah office, relied on environmental arguments in December when she testified against the plant before the Public Service Commission. "Downstream communities should be concerned about project water consumption at the proposed Vogtle site because consumptive water loss, especially during low river flows, can pose significant negative impacts to water quality and aquatic resources," she said.

A Russian political expert has told RIA Novosti that the international community is not paying enough attention to the threat of an imminent nuclear catastrophe. "Today we are rightly worried about problems such as the possible development of the economic crisis, a H1N1 pandemic, and ecological safety. However, humanity is not paying attention to the increasing potential for a nuclear catastrophe," said Vladimir Kulagin, professor of global politics at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He also said that the peaceful use of nuclear energy had increased massively following a fall-off after the Chernobyl disaster, and that its further growth would "invariably" lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

No matter what we're led to believe, the world's worst polluter is not your cousin who refuses to recycle or that co-worker who drives a gas guzzler or the guy down the block who simply will not try CFL bulbs. "The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined," explains Lucinda Marshall, founder of the Feminist Peace Network. Pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange, solvents, petroleum, lead, mercury, and depleted uranium are among the many deadly substances used by the military. What does this mean for us? To start with, it can help illustrate how to best foment a green revolution. As Derrick Jensen reminds us: "Even if every single person in the United States were to change all their light-bulbs to fluorescent, cut the amount they drive in half, recycle half of their household waste, inflate their tire pressure to increase gas mileage, use low flow shower heads and wash clothes in lower temperature water, adjusts their thermostats two degrees up or down depending on the season, and plant a tree, it would result in a one time, 21% reduction in carbon emissions."

"Scientists, researchers and other experts warn that the United States is entering an era of water scarcity. Back in 2003, the US General Accounting Office (now known as the US Government Accountability Office or GAO) projected that 36 states, under normal conditions, could face water shortages by 2013. However, those shortages were realized in 2008 -- five years sooner than predicted. Current forecasts suggest that climate change will only exacerbate the challenges of managing and protecting water resources. Water scarcity has widespread implications for our nation. As a recent New York Times (Global Edition) article notes, water scarcity is increasingly a major constraint for the production of electricity. But what, in particular, does this mean for the nation's fleet of nuclear power plants? Generating electricity with nuclear power is extremely water intensive, which is why nuclear plants are typically built on the shores of rivers, lakes and oceans. Many plants rely on submerged intake pipes to draw water -- hundreds of millions to a few billion gallons per day -- for use in cooling and condensing steam after it has turned the plants' turbines."

As the global population expands, demand for water for agriculture and personal use will increase dramatically, but there could be a solution that will produce clean drinking water and help reduce carbon emissions as well. That process is nuclear desalination. Many areas of the world are suffering from a water crisis - and it's not just arid, developing countries that are suffering. The Western US is particularly vulnerable and its water crisis is getting more severe by the day.

As the global population expands, demand for water for agriculture and personal use will increase dramatically, but there could be a solution that will produce clean drinking water and help reduce carbon emissions as well. That process is nuclear desalination. Many areas of the world are suffering from a water crisis - and it's not just arid, developing countries that are suffering. The Western US is particularly vulnerable and its water crisis is getting more severe by the day.