07 Health – Page 138 – Public Intelligence Blog

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. also acknowledged that one of the factors contributing to a rapid meltdown of reactor cores was the failure to keep emergency batteries safe from the tsunami, preventing a key emergency cooling system from performing its intended function.

Meanwhile, Tepco said one of the key causes of a rapid meltdown at Unit No. 1 was the failure of two emergency cooling mechanisms—the suppression pool and the isolation condenser—to perform their intended functions.

PAKISTAN: Pakistan's nuclear surge exposed

Indian slam, satellite and video, 100% jump by 2021.

sweden storage — Click on Image to Enlarge

SWEDEN: Sweden's Holding Tank For Nuclear Waste

“We have here about 2,000 tons that you are looking (at), and you can stand here as long as you want to,” she tells me before quickly adding, “If we take one of these bundles out of the water I will give you 20 seconds to leave this room alive.”

USA: US reactor outages 50 pct above late-spring average

USA: U.S. Nuclear Output Falls as Entergy, Progress Shut Reactors

Twenty- five of the nation’s 104 reactors were offline.

USA: 75% of Americans Have Never Heard of Climate-Gate, Study Reveals

Prior Updates, Graphics, and Original Overviews Below the Line

Continue reading “Nuclear/Climate Change: CLOSED 17 May 2011”

2011/05/142011/05/14

USG on Oil: Doing the Wrong Thing Righter….

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, True Cost

Obama says ‘Drill, baby, drill.' Will new oil policy ease gas prices?

President Obama used his weekly address to announce steps to promote greater domestic oil production and reduce the burden of high gas prices. Republicans say it's not enough.

Big Oil's Political Ploy

Whatever else we might say about Big Oil in the United States, we have to give the industry credit for one thing: it has mastered the art of scamming us with a perfectly straight face.

Freshmen challenge energy subsidies

Pompeo and Labrador were joined by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and Mike Needham of Heritage Action Fund. The two organizations joined a coalition of conservative groups in March, including Americans for Prosoperity, in a letter calling for an end to energy subsidies.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Phi Beta Iota: US politicians have substituted ideology for intelligence (decision-support) and borrowing for thinking. There is nothing intelligent in US energy policy, because there is no policy–just a long string of subsidies and hand-outs and tax exemptions. The oil drilling decisions are an example of doing the wrong thing righter, instead of the right thing (Russell Ackoff). The “policy” decisions are also hypocritical because nothing being decided today will have substantive effect in less than ten years. Here's what an intelligent government would use to think about energy futures…and everything else, all together.

2011/05/112011/05/11

Worth a Look: Sick Fish in the Gulf of Mexico

03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Health, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Earth Intelligence, Worth A Look

Sick fish in Gulf are alarming scientists

Unusual number a ‘huge red flag' to scientists, fishermen

pnj.com, May 8, 2011

Red snapper with abnormal stripes caught by a local commercial fisherman. Scientists are seeing a growing number of Gulf fish with lesions and other health problems and are conducting tests to determine whether they are related to the BP oil spill. / Special to the News Journal

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: If we spent just half of the current US secret intelligence budget of $80 billion a year on monitoring the Earth and creating a real-time grid for establishing the true cost of all products, services, and events (such as the Gulf oil disaster), we would be much more likely to create a prosperous world at peace. The militarization of “security” may well be–along with the industrialization of agriculture–two of the greatest crimes against humanity in modern times.

2011/05/112011/05/11

Worth a Look: Soldiers Breathing Bioactive Metals

07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Earth Intelligence, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Worth A Look

What harmful element were found in war-zone dust

USA Today, 11 May 2011

Sand is made up of pure silica, but deserts also include minerals that have been deposited by long-gone lakes, ground water, wind and pollution. Navy Capt. Mark Lyles' research team found 37 elements in samples of dust from Iraq and Kuwait, including 15 bioactive metals that are known to cause or have been linked to serious health effects with short- and long-term exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Lyle's team measured settled dust, which servicemembers breathe when it rises into the air during a dust storm. Though the government has standards for air pollution that can contain the following elements, there are no standards for exposures to toxic elements in settled dust. The metals Lyle's team found include:

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Soldiers Breathing Bioactive Metals”

2011/04/282011/04/28

The Library of Utility

01 Agriculture, 01 Poverty, 02 Diplomacy, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Education, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 08 Proliferation, 11 Society, 12 Water, Earth Intelligence, History, Threats, Uncategorized

“I imagine a library atop a remote mountain that collects the essential information needed to re-learn practical knowledge essential to civilization. This depot, open to anyone who journeys there, is the cultural equivalent of the Svalbard seed bank, a vault on the Arctic Circle that holds frozen seeds of crop plants from around the world. The utilitarian documents in this vault would be the seeds of culture, able to sprout again if needed. It would be the Library of Utility, and it would serve as civilization’s backup.”

Kevin Kelly – Author of What Technology Wants.

Read the article The Library of Utility on the Blog of the Long Now Foundation.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Conscious, Evolutionary, Integral Activism & Goodness

2011/04/272011/04/27

Reference: Five Major Trends Into the Future Include Severe Weather (More Severe, Frequent, & Costly)

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Earth Intelligence

Trocaire reports severe weather as global trend

ThePost.IE 20 March 2011 By John Burke

An increase in severe weather incidents has been identified as one of the five major trends in global development aid.

The trends, which also include shifting geopolitical alliances, urban poverty, demand for natural resources and widening inequality, are contained in a new report by Irish aid organisation Trocaire.

The report, which was compiled using interviews with more than 100 global aid and development experts, will be published on Tuesday at the Leading Edge 2020 Conference in Dublin city centre.

Read balance of short article….

Leading Edge 2020 Home Page

Download the report: Leading Edge 2020: Critical Thinking on the Future of International Development.

Biographies of Leading Edge 2020 Conference speakers

Phi Beta Iota: Severe weather trends are an act of man, not of God. Global warming is an important but by no means the sole or even the most important environmental degradation component.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Environmental Degradation (Other than Emissions)

2011/04/152011/04/15

Serious (Honest) Thinking About US Budget

03 Economy, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Military

Dear friends,

The three articles below describe major approaches to addressing the deficit — for health care, taxes and the military — that would have a greater impact on America's budget woes than ANYTHING being currently negotiated by Congress and the Obama Administration. Even better, these three things would, if implemented, actually improve the quality of life in the U.S., instead of degrading it, as so many of the current proposals would do. They give a taste of some excellent thinking emerging from the fringes of this “budget crisis” debate.

[After I wrote this I was alerted to another very interesting “People's Budget” recently released with little coverage in the mainstream media, which I recommend to those interested in alternatives.]

When I imagine a Citizens Jury, a Citizens Assembly, or any other randomly selected body of citizens convened to deliberate about the “budget crisis”, this is the kind of information I believe they should be exposed to. We don't need to undermine public health to create affordable health care. We don't need to undermine the wealth of the nation to have a reasonable tax system. We don't need to endanger American security to have a strong, affordable military.

We just need to think a bit outside of the boxes that most mainstream media, pundits, politicians and partisan activists (intentionally) put our minds in, and ask ourselves “What's the REAL problem here — and what would ACTUALLY solve it?”

How to Save a Trillion Dollars

Taxes on the Wealthy: New Top Brackets Needed for the Have Mores

Want to improve US national security? Cut the defense budget.

Continue reading “Serious (Honest) Thinking About US Budget”