Martin Mittelstaedt asks in today’s Globe and Mail how much a reactor operator should be required to pay out to victims in case of a nuclear accident. The Harper government doesn’t think much. It wants to short change Canadians and require less industry compensation than other western countries - just $650 million.
Why should we trust the nuclear industry when it doesn’t trust itself? That’s the underlining question of a Greenpeace report released this week.
The Harper government has tabled the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act in Parliament. The bill would, if passed, artificially cap the liability of a nuclear operator for accidents at $650 million – a miniscule fraction of the likely actual cost of a nuclear disaster. Why?
After 39 years “in hiding”, today Greenpeace released “Amchitka: the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace”, a 2-CD recording of the pivotal benefit concert that started a movement.
the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace
On Oct 16th 1970, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Phil Ochs played a benefit concert in Vancouver, BC that funded the first voyage of Greenpeace. Nearly four decades later, the artists and family have generously donated their music to help the environment again – all proceeds of the CD will go to Greenpeace.
This rare recording is a piece of Greenpeace history, a piece of Canadian history and unexpectedly, a rare musical gem.
The album captures a young Joni Mitchell surfing the acclaim of “Ladies of the Canyon” and about to release her landmark “Blue” album. James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James” album has just gone platinum – that night. And Phil Ochs provides a political edge fitting to the evening.
Never before released tunes…Joni Mitchell performing soon-to-be classics (not yet committed to vinyl)…and an amazing Joni and James duet capture the magic of the evening.
You’ll be able to purchase a downloadable digital copy of the album within the next …
We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road – the one less traveled by – offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of our earth.
-Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
In 1994 at the age of 60, a wildly successful businessman named Ray Anderson radically changed the path of his multinational company, Interface. After twenty odd years of engaging in destructive environmental practices (that complied with US law, he’s keen to point out), Anderson’s vision for his carpet tile company underwent a complete turnaround within about 24 hours. It seems like the main driving force behind this change of attitude wasn’t just about saving the earth – it was about beating out Interface’s fierce competition! You may recognize Anderson from his roles in The Corporation and The 11th Hour – he’s become a pretty familiar face in environmental circles for his stance on ‘industrial ecology’ (is that an oxymoron?). After reading Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce and, most notably, a passage about how an overpopulation of reindeer led to the destruction of St. Mathew Island, Anderson made the connection between Interface’s destructive practices and the bleak future he was leaving his grandchildren.
A nuclear power station in Austria now uses clean, safe nuclear energy — the sun!
Greenpeace isn’t usually invited to hang banners from nuclear stations, but the Austrians asked us to do just that. And how could we refuse? It was to mark the conversion of Zwentendorf nuclear plant solar power plant.
