EcocentricEnergy
In 2007, four elder U.S. statesmen wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.” Former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, one-time Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) had, at various times in their careers, been deeply immersed in the nuclear …
EcocentricUncategorized
On Feb. 25, I posted a blog arguing that nuclear weapons are the most important and urgent environmental threat today—even more important than climate change caused by greenhouse gasses. I received quite a bit of feedback from environmentalists—many of whom took umbrage with my thesis.
EcocentricOceans
Europe’s fishing quotas are designed to protect European waters from over-fishing. They are imperfect instruments, however, and one of their unintended consequences is that they often force fishermen to dump huge amounts of dead, excess fish back into the ocean.
EcocentricWeather
Environmentalists: Wake up! There is a greater and more urgent threat to the climate than even global warming: the threat posed by nuclear weapons.
Why are nuclear bombs an environmental problem? We have long known that a large-scale nuclear war would lead to a sudden change in climate—called a nuclear winter—that could …
EcocentricEnergy
This week I wrote a piece for the magazine on what many energy analysts believe to be the future of the nuclear industry: small modular reactors.
These mini reactors, which generate up to 300 megawatts compared to 1500 megawatts for traditional large nuclear power plants, are all the rage because they are versatile and cheap. …
EcocentricForests
Here at Ecocentric, we’ve been covering the British government’s plans to sell of national forests—and the huge public backlash to the plans. Today, David Cameron backed down, as his Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman announced to MPs in the House of Commons that she was halting public consultation into proposals to sell 650,000 …
EcocentricWaste
Even if you love nuclear power (gee whiz, it’s carbon free!), you have to admit there’s a problem with using the energy that binds atoms as a source to power cities: nuclear waste. Fission produces isotopes that remain radioactive for thousands of years. And no one wants the waste anywhere near them. In December, the U.S. …
EcocentricForests
EcocentricForests
The originally published version of this story incorrectly stated that a joint Finnish-Russian forest conservation project in Russia includes a Russian NGO with five employees who have a combined salary of 300,000 euro a month. In fact, each employee earns around 300 euro a month.
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EcocentricEnergy
A neat press release popped into my inbox this week announcing the development of a solar power technology capable of generating electricity on see-thru glass.
