There’s going to be a protest on the ‘Net the 24 hours starting at midnight EST involving a number of major sites going dark for 24 hours. These include English language Wikipedia, Boing Boing, Reddit and others. Here’s an ABC News article on the subject.

Logo for Wikipedia blackout Wednesday.

Many other organizations are supporting the action, though not necessarily going dark. (Planet Waves is discussing the issue and will make a decision in the morning what to do at least for part of the day Wednesday. Your comments are welcome.) Here is what Sue Gardner, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation had to say about the action:

Here’s the issue as I understand it. The powers that be — in this case, the entertainment industry, its lobbyists who buy time influencing Congress, and the lawmakers themselves (it’s no longer appropriate to call them “representatives”) — are raising an objection to internet piracy. However, measures that would be used to prevent copyright infringement open the door to other forms of censorship in the name of protecting intellectual property — though without actually doing so.

Continue Reading »

The end is written in the beginning.
– Tao Te Ching

Twenty years ago this month, the Hudson Valley experienced one of its most terrifying days ever: the chain-reaction explosions of PCB transformers that contaminated the SUNY New Paltz campus on Dec. 29, 1991. On that day, four dormitories, a theater and a science building were contaminated by some of the most extreme toxins known to science. Today, 1,300 students still live in those dorms, which are as contaminated as they were the days they were re-opened.

Cleanup crews with independent air supply (level B protection) working outside Bliss Hall in January 1992. Photo by Eric Francis for Student Leader News Service.

Recently I was digging around my old document collection from that story. Among the piles of scientific studies and stacks of notebooks was the recording of a campus news conference from Dec. 31, 1991, the second day after seven transformers exploded and campus buildings were contaminated with PCBs and dioxins. On that day, guys dressed like astronauts were spread out over the campus, filling waste drums in the first days of a long, expensive and controversial cleanup.

The toxins released in the incident are the chemical equivalents of plutonium, measured in concentrations as low as parts-per-trillion. Exposure is associated with immune system damage, hormone disruption, reproductive issues, birth defects and cancer. Ingesting even trace levels can cause lifelong health problems. Of particular concern were four dormitories: Bliss, Capen, Gage and Scudder halls, what I now call the Dioxin Dorms.

In that news conference, Alice Chandler, then president of the college, took the podium and said that health officials and their contractors were especially concerned about ”channels which may have served as conduits for smoke.”

That may have been the last honest assessment she offered the community before the rationalization, posturing and denials set in.  Though I didn’t remember her statement till I heard the tape, I spent many years investigating contamination in the heating and ventilation systems, pipe chases and the electrical systems in the four dorms. Though the state and its spokespeople would issue many denials of these specific problems, Chandler had admitted the single most serious issue right up front — then she put students back into the dorms without any investigation or cleanup of the “channels which may have served as conduits for smoke.”

Continue Reading »

That title is a reference to some thoughts by Eric’s friend Eric Traub in today’s subscriber issue. Whichever category the speech below falls in, I found it moving as hell. What follows is the address by Anjali Appadurai, from the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, to the COP-17 UN Conference on Climate Change. She spoke on behalf of youth non-governmental organizations. The chairperson who introduces her states afterward, “And on a purely personal note, I wonder why we let not speak half of the world’s population first in this conference, but only last.” You can read the full rush transcript at Democracy Now! — but I encourage you to watch the video clip there, to get the full force of her passion. – amanda

I speak for more than half the world’s population. We are the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not on the table. What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money? You’ve been negotiating all my life. In that time, you’ve failed to meet pledges, you’ve missed targets, and you’ve broken promises. But you’ve heard this all before.

We’re in Africa, home to communities on the front line of climate change. The world’s poorest countries need funding for adaptation now. The Horn of Africa and those nearby in KwaMashu needed it yesterday. But as 2012 dawns, our Green Climate Fund remains empty. The International Energy Agency tells us we have five years until the window to avoid irreversible climate change closes. The science tells us that we have five years maximum. You’re saying, “Give us 10.”

Continue Reading »

By Keith Olbermann for Daily Kos

I’m cross-posting this from our Current website because, well, because.

And because the Murdoch Phone-Hacking Scandal may have just metastasized.

Arctic Slush: glaciers melting at the Arctic Circle. Photo courtesy of CItizens for Global Solutions.

The so-called “Climate-Gate” controversy – in which e-mails about Global Warming were stolen from researchers at Britain’s University of East Anglia in November, 2009 – now turns out to bear the stamp of Neil Wallis, one of the key figures in Murdoch’s hacking of the phones, voicemails, and other electronic communications of thousands of people.

Wallis is unique in this scandal. He had been the Executive Editor of Murdoch’s “News Of The World” when hacking was at its peak. Yet in 2009 he wound up being hired by the police as a public relations consultant, while the police investigated the hacking scandal – and he wound up spying for Murdoch’s people on what Scotland Yard was investigating.

Wallis was, as the New York Times put it:

“…reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case.”
More over, while Wallis was keeping Murdoch’s organization apprized of what and whom the police were investigating, the police were trying to convince other news organizations not to cover the story – a suppression of evidence that benefited both the police and Rupert Murdoch.

As the British newspaper The Guardian reported last Friday:

“Scotland Yard’s most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis…”
It was neither exaggerated nor incorrect. Last Thursday, Neil Wallis was arrested.

Last night, it was revealed that while acting as a double-agent for Scotland Yard and Murdoch, Wallis was also consulting Conservative Party Leader David Cameron during the 2010 election that saw Cameron rise to become the nation’s Prime Minister.

Now, as chronicled by the good work of Joe Romm at Climate Progress, bobbing up to the surface through this vast ocean of ethical filth, comes Neil Wallis’s role in “Climate-Gate.”

Continue Reading »

By Karl Grossman

What is NASA’s future now that Atlantis has landed and the shuttle program is over? If NASA persists in using nuclear power in space, the agency’s future is threatened.

Artist's concept of Juno in orbit around Jupiter. A much more comforting image than a plutonium disaster a mile above the Earth's surface. Photo: NASA.

Between November 25 and December 15 NASA plans to launch for use on Mars a rover fueled with 10.6 pounds of plutonium, more plutonium than ever used on a rover. The mission has a huge cost: $2.5 billion. But if there is an accident before the rover is well on its way to Mars, and plutonium is released on Earth, its cost stands to be yet more gargantuan.

NASA’s Final Environmental Impact Statement for what it calls its Mars Science Laboratory Mission says that if plutonium is released on Earth, the cost could be as high as $1.5 billion to decontaminate each square mile of “mixed-use urban areas” impacted.

What‘s the probability of an accident releasing plutonium? The NASA document says “the probability of an accident with a release of plutonium” is 1-in-220 “overall.”

If you knew your chance of not surviving an airplane flight — or just a drive in a car — was 1 in 220, would you take that trip?

Continue Reading »

Today,В in a coincidence interesting enoughВ to make me suspectВ someone in theВ White House reads Planet Waves,В President Obama has signed an executive order overturning the Bush Administration’s policy on stem-cell research. The president signsВ the order whileВ the Full MoonВ overhead is conjunct Saturn inВ the sign of VirgoВ and Uranus conjuncts the Sun in Pisces. Pluto in Capricorn, the sign of big government witnesses the signing.

If ever there was a day for government to right the wrongs committed against the sciences governing human health and healing of life on the planet, this is it. By signing this bill, the President has spared the country from another year of the manipulation of science for political gain — also known as the politicization of science which isВ second only to the global war on terrorВ as the most damaging in repercussions to life on the planet as we know it.В  Today, in signing the executive order on stem-cell research, the Obama Administration will also issue a statement insulating science from political influence.

From pharmaceuticals to climate change, science policies over the last eight years under the Bush Administration was at times so unbelievable we had to suppress our incredulity to cope. It was quite literally a war waged on knowledge. Here are some of the highlights: Continue Reading »

In response to pressure from Oregon residents and the state’s Congressional delegation, the Navy has agreed to extend the deadline for public review and comment on the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for expansion of its Northwest Weapons Training Range Complex (NWTRC) along the Pacific NW coast.

Planet Waves originally broke the story about the Navy’s plans two weeks ago Monday, and we have been following it since.

However, instead of a 60-day extension for public comment requested by Oregon’s congressmen, the Navy proposed to extend the deadline by only 30 days to March 11, 2009.

Last Friday, Feb. 13, 2009 Oregon’s congressional delegation sent a follow-up to its first letter to the Secretary of the Navy. The delegation again reiterated sixty days was needed for public review, and called the Navy on a lie. The full text follows, and italics and boldface are alterations made by Planet Waves, they’re not from the original text.

February 13, 2008

The Honorable Donald C. Winter
Secretary of the Navy
1000 Navy Pentagon
Washington, DC 20350-1000

Dear Secretary Winter:

In our February 6 letter regarding the draft Environmental Impact Statement/Overseas Environmental Impact Statement (EIS/OEIS) for the U.S. Navy’s expanded use of the Northwest Training Range Complex (NWTRC) off the Oregon coast we asked you to extend the public comment period and hold additional public meetings in Oregon.

On February 10, several Navy representatives, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy Don Schregardus, gave our offices a briefing on the draft EIS/OEIS and answered a number of questions. Unfortunately, it appears that some of those answers contained inaccurate or incomplete information.

Continue Reading »

Update: Thanks to news alerts and phone calls, the Driftwood Library in Lincoln City, Oregon has located the EIS and placed it in their reference section. This is an example of public records access. We’re all busy — but we need to take the time to seek and look at actual documents on issues that affect our communities. Over the years, my work with Carol, the author of our Oregon Firing Range series, involve learning how to collect and analyze documents. This whole series was based on Carol’s discovery of an EIS — an environmental impact statement, which is a public document. And voila, the truth comes out. — efc

by CAROL VAN STRUM

Last Thursday, Feb. 5, we reported on conflicting claims to Pacific coastal waters by the US Navy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, specifically citing FERC’s surprise permit for a 17-square-mile wave energy project off the coast of Newport, Oregon, smack in the middle of the Navy’s proposed target practice range.

Cannon Beach, Oregon. Photo by Rachel Asher.

Following that article, Friday, Feb. 6, was a red-letter day. The Oregon Congressional Delegation wrote Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter, demanding an extension of the comment period on Navy plans until April 11. While this is an important and welcome event, it is significant only if Secretary Winter agrees to the demands.

In this regard, a Congressional investigation of the Navy’s plans and its inadequate notice to the public may be paramount. Planet Waves learned that the notice provided by the Navy of its proposed plans and EIS was even worse than the Navy itself admitted. The Navy EIS asserts that its notice of availability of the EIS – and notice of public meetings — were placed in the (Lincoln City) News Guard, the only Oregon newspaper mentioned.

According to Allyson Longueira, the editor of the News Guard, however, “We didn’t find out about the (Jan. 30) meeting until it had already been held,” and only learned of it through a colleague who found reference to it online on Feb. 2. Furthermore, according to a Driftwood Library (Lincoln City) librarian, the only hard copy of the Navy EIS in the state was indeed sent to that library, but is to this date un-catalogued and unavailable to the public because it was sent undated, without any cover letter explaining its content or significance.

On Friday, two major impediments to FERC’s plans emerged. First, the legality of FERC’s permits for wave energy projects in Pacific coast waters was challenged by Fishermen Interested in Safe Hydrokinetics (FISH). The FISH Committee’s “Motion to develop comprehensive plan and to deny or hold in abeyance preliminary permit application for the Green Wave Mendocino Project” (the FERC project described in Planet Waves article “Navy Coup Update – Navy vs. Fed” ) asks that FERC develop a comprehensive plan for hydrokinetic energy development in the Pacific Ocean as required by the Federal Power Act, and that FERC delay or deny the Green Wave project until such a comprehensive plan is completed.

FERC, the FISH motion asserts, has been authorizing numerous hydrokinetic energy projects in the Pacific Ocean off California, Oregon, and Washington on an ad hoc basis without the comprehensive plan required by law. Such a plan would require FERC to 1) collect baseline environmental data and furnish it to the permittees; 2) include uniform study criteria and guidelines in preliminary permit articles; and 3) require permittees to conduct studies to provide data by which cumulative impacts of proposed projects can be assessed.

Continue Reading »

Editor’s Note: As part of Planet Waves’ series on the Navy’s proposed use of the NW coast as aВ target practice range, today’s column provides an historicalВ accountВ of anВ actual Navy weapons testing site,В its environmental impactВ and citizen efforts toВ shut itВ down. — efc

Dear Friend and Reader:

On April 19, 1999, David Sanes Rodrigues, a citizen of Vieques, Puerto Rico was working for the Navy as a security guard at its Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facilities (AFWTF) when the Navy dropped two errant Mk-82 bombs 100 yards away from his post, killing him instantly. Sanes Rodrigues’ death sparked a series of protests and demonstrations that drew a global cross-section of celebrities, politicians and religious leaders who brought visibility to the Navy’s weapons-testing activities and ultimately ended its nearly 60-year’s presence on the island.

FromВ 1941-42, В 2/3 of the island (22,000 acres) of Vieques was purchased by the NavyВ as an extension toВ Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on the Puerto Rican mainland. Vieques wasВ planned asВ a safe haven for the British fleetВ ifВ Great Britain fell to Nazi Germany.В  In 1947, with the onset of the Cold War, the US switched from a policy of disarmament to perpetual armed competition, and the Navy announced its desire to use Vieques for training. InВ 1948 bombing exercises began, and continued for the next 55 years.

The eastern half of Vieques was used for bombing practices, the western half for weapons storage. Vieques was bombed an average of 180 days per year. In 1998, the last year before protests interrupted maneuvers, the Navy dropped 23,000 bombs on the island, the majority of which contained explosives.В Over the course of US Navy occupancy, nearly 22 million pounds of military and industrial waste, such as oils, solvents, lubricants, lead paint, acid and 55 US gallonВ  drums, were deposited on the western portion of the island. The extent of leaching is unknown.

The Navy’s use of Vieques has long been a point of contention between Puerto Rico and the US, causing political unrest over US presence. Aside from effectively endingВ Vieques’ local agricultural economy, the environmental impact of weapons tested and their effect on public health — specifically the rising rate of cancer among Viequans, added heat to Puerto Rico’s simmering resentment toВ our naval presence.

Continue Reading »

Google Earth, the computer program that can provide visuals of anywhere in the world, released its latest version this week. Previously, the program offered satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS 3D only for areas above sea level: bodies of water, particularly the oceans, were either blank or looked like cheap blue filler.

But now, Google Earth 5.0 explores the ocean to its deepest depth: the Marianas Trench, and includes famous underwater footage like Jacques Cousteau’s torch divers. New features also include historic imagery, where you can view up to 60 years of photographs from a single location to track changes over time, and tour recording, allowing the user to document points of interest and send the map to other users.

The biggest advance in the Google Earth project was announced on Wednesday, Feb. 2: Google Mars. It currently includes three types of data from the Red Planet: Elevation, Visible and Infrared. Google is currently working with NASA to advance Google Mars so it can be used similarly to Google Earth. There is a 3-D mock-up, made by Arizona State University, to show what it will look like. You can view it here.