EcocentricOil
While the world’s attention has been fixed on the nuclear crisis in Japan, we’re fast coming upon the one-year anniversary of another major environmental disaster: the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Though opinions are still divided on just how much damage the spill has caused—and may continue to cause—the Gulf community is …
EcocentricUncategorized
Though some of you have expressed a desire to see Ecocentric move past the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, we’re not quite there yet. The good news is that crews have begun to restore power to the reactors, which should help accelerate the efforts to restore cooling to the still hot—and radioactive—nuclear fuel. Elevated …
EcocentricUncategorized
John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” probably the definitive account of the atomic bombing of Japan and its aftermath, caused a sensation when it was published in the New Yorker (and later as a book) in 1946. What shocked most readers was not only the destructive potential of the bomb–the eradication of entire cities by airborne ordnance was …
Video recently surfaced of a dog who refused to leave behind an injured hound amid the devastation in Japan. Animals have often shown bravery in extraordinary circumstances. TIME takes a look at some of history’s most courageous animals
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Day by day, it seems, emergency workers are moving closer to bringing the Fukushima nuclear crisis under control. On Monday, IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano said he had “no doubt that this crisis will be effectively overcome”.
But each day, too, seems to carry a reminder of how serious the situation remains: on Monday, workers were
…
EcocentricUncategorized
It’s worth stating at the outset: while more than 10,000 people have almost certainly died in the March 11 quake and tsunami in northeastern Japan, not a single person has been killed in the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. As Abrahm Lustgarten reported in ProPublica yesterday, most experts believe that even in the …
EcocentricEcocentric
America is a great country, but we do tend to make other people’s dramas our own. You know that uncle who comes over to Thanksgiving dinner, hears about another relative who recently had a heart attack and spends the rest of the meal asking everyone at the table if they think the chest pain he had last week is serious too? Well, to rest …
EcocentricEcocentric
From the beginning, the Japanese response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster has been a constant improvisation. After the double blow of a quake and a tsunami knocked out power to the plant, officials have desperately tried to keep nuclear material at active reactors and spent fuel pools cool, to prevent overheating and more …
EcocentricEcocentric
With four busted reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi site, engineers and rescue workers have plenty to do just to keep all their plates spinning. But over the past few days, there always seems to be one reactor causing them more headaches than others. Yesterday it was reactor 4, with its coolant pool empty of water and the spent fuel rods …
EcocentricUncategorized
There is a very important report out today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on the performance of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)—the government agency that enforces safety regulations for U.S. nuclear reactors in the hope of preventing a catastrophe such as is occurring in Fukushima. The report looks at 14 …
