Charles Perrow on the Fukushima Reactors

Picture: Smoke rising from the Fukushima Reactor in Japan

Below is a link to a piece written by Charles Perrow on the background and situation at the nuclear plants in Japan. It came through the Envirosoc listserver. He is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology and an expert on the sociology of risk.

He wrote "The Next Catastrophe" and "Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies". (Note: Now both on my list of books to read).

As I noted in a recent book, The Next Catastrophe (Princeton, 2011), we continue to populate our planet with systems that have catastrophic potential. We have vulnerable concentrations of populations, economic power, and hazardous materials. The most fearful concentrations of hazardous materials are in nuclear power plants.

We have yet to face up to the enormous risks of nuclear power plants. Japan is the current case in point. Known risks were run regarding earthquakes, plant layout, and engineering design, all assuming that the “worst case” event would be a rare outlier. I will take each in turn.

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More here


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Social Science posts

Readings in Sustainability Science and Technology

Kates, Robert W., ed. 2010. Readings in Sustainability Science and Technology. CID Working Paper No. 213. Center for International Development, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, December 2010.

Abstract: This Reader is one possible set of materials for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students of sustainability science. It consists of links to 93 articles or book chapters from which appropriate readings and internet sources can be chosen. Many of these can be downloaded, others need to be sought through University libraries. These are organized around three major domains of sustainability science: Part 1: an overview of sustainable development; Part 2: the emerging science and technology of sustainability; and Part 3: the innovative solutions and grand challenges of moving this knowledge into action.

The Readings begins with the history of sustainable development and its many concepts. Among these are the dual goals of sustainable development—the promotion of human development and well-being while protecting the earth’s life support systems. Thus, the current status, long-term trends, and impacts of nine essentials for human well-being and seven of the essential life support systems are examined. Part 1 concludes with the interactions of human society and the life support systems as these have been sketched—simply, realistically, and imaginatively.

Part 2 of the Reader focuses on what, why, and how to do sustainability science and technology. It begins with three essential qualities of the emerging science: its use or needs orientation, focus on human-environment systems, and goal of integrated understanding. As a science in support of a sustainability transition, it is clearly value-driven and a second section of this Part considers the science of identifying and analyzing values and attitudes. The third and fourth sections examine the current practice of the science, the analyses undertaken, and the distinctive methods and models used.

 

Professor William C. Clark

Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development
Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University

** If you enjoyed this post please also check out:

More Science posts here

More Social Science posts here

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So please, tell us what you think!

Obama on a 'clean energy future' for the United States

Here is what President Obama said during his State of the Union address:

We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology — an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.

Already, we're seeing the promise of renewable energy. Robert and Gary Allen are brothers who run a small Michigan roofing company. After September 11th, they volunteered their best roofers to help repair the Pentagon. But half of their factory went unused, and the recession hit them hard. Today, with the help of a government loan, that empty space is being used to manufacture solar shingles that are being sold all across the country. In Robert's words, "We reinvented ourselves."

That's what Americans have done for over 200 years: reinvented ourselves. And to spur on more success stories like the Allen Brothers, we've begun to reinvent our energy policy. We're not just handing out money. We're issuing a challenge. We're telling America's scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we'll fund the Apollo projects of our time.

At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they're using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if — I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's.

Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they're selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources.

Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all — and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.

It is interesting that Obama includes nuclear power as a clean energy source. The main challenge for him will be to get these ideas (e.g. such as "eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies") through the Congress, given the increased number of Republican politicians in it. However, he does speak of the creation of 'green' jobs (also protecting the planet and US energy security) with this 'clean energy' investment and given the political need for job creation in the United States, it may get some traction. We will have to wait and see how it all plays out.  

** If you enjoyed this post please also check out:

Six Americas - which one are you?

Americans and climate change

New Green jobs??

Splitting jobs versus the environment

An Open Letter from Scientists in the United States on the IPCC

Comments always welcome!

Please tell us what you think.

King Parrot in the wild

Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting

Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting

Male Australian King Parrots are the only Australian parrots with a completely red head.

This King Parrot was photographed in Killcare (Central Coast, New South Wales).

** If you enjoyed this post please also check out:

Saving the Superb Parrot

Orange Bellied Parrot

Australia's Biodiversity and Climate Change

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Comments are always welcome, so please leave a comment!

Random Man on Planet Earth reaches 10,000 hits

Random Man on Planet Earth would like to have a look back at some of the highlights over the life of this blog which started back on the 20th of March 2007.

See the first 'Welcome post' here

Anyway, here are some of the most popular posts (in no particular order).

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Psychology and Climate Change
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Six Americas

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Synthetic trees?

Arne Naess 'father of deep ecology'

The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity (by Allan Schnaiberg)

Biodiversity
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxPhoto: PAJ Environmental Consulting
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If you enjoyed this post, please check out the Random Man Top 10

Hopefully, there will be many more hits to come on Random Man on Planet Earth!!!

**Please leave a comment!

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Some lizards from Cuba

Here is a selection of the different lizards found in Cuba.
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If anyone knows more about these wonderful lizards please let me know.
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Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting

Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting
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Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting
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Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting .

**If you enjoyed this post, please check out:
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Orangutans of Kuta Kinabalu
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2010 International Year of Biodiversity
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Polar Bear
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Comments always welcome!
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Bill McKibben on Letterman

Here is Bill McKibben speaking with David Letterman about:

• his new book Eaarth,
• 350.org and
• his campaign to get the Whitehouse to reinstall solar panels on 10/10/10.

I have another post on Bill McKibben (available here); from when I went to see him speak in Sydney, last year.

Comments always welcome!

United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany

The conference runs from Monday, 2nd August to Friday, 6th August 2010.

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Christina Figueres (UNFCCC Executive Secretary) stated that governments can build on progress in five key areas:

1. they need to resolve what to do with their public pledges to cut emissions
2. governments seem on track to agree to a comprehensive set of ways and means to allow developing countries to take concrete action
3. industrialized nations can turn their funding pledges into reality
4. countries want to see that what they agree with each other is measured, reported and verified in a transparent way
5. governments agree that pledges need to be captured in a binding manner but they need to decide how to do it

Click here for more information on the conference (including reports and background readings).

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**If you enjoyed this post, please check out:

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Conferences

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Comments and questions always welcome!

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Humpback whales off Sydney Harbour

Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting

Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting

Photo supplied by: PAJ Environmental Consulting

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Here are some photos taken of some Humpback whales that were heading north - past Sydney Harbour - for the breeding season.

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**If you enjoyed this post, please also check out:

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2010 International Year of Biodiversity

King Parrot in the Wild

Some Lizards from Cuba

Orangutans of Kota Kinabalu

Australia's Biodiversity and Climate Change
.

Comments always welcome!

Climate Change Indicators suggest a warming world

The annual State of the Climate Report has just been released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the year 2009. Over 300 scientists from 48 countries were involved. The report examines data for ten indicators of a warming world (as seen below).

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Of these ten indicators, seven are expected to increase in a warming world (Air Temperature Near Surface (Troposphere), Humidity, Temperature Over Oceans, Sea Surface Temperature, Sea Level, Ocean Heat Content, and Temperature Over Land). The data for each of these indicators does trend up, suggesting we are living in a warming world.

Finally, three indicators are expected to decrease in a warming world (Snow Cover, Glaciers and Sea-Ice). The data for each of these indicators does trend down, suggesting we are living in a warming world.

Conclusion: Climate change is "unequivocal".

Both the full report and an easy to read 10 page summary of the report is available here.

Reference:

Arndt, D. S., M. O. Baringer, and M. R. Johnson, Eds., 2010: State of the Climate in 2009. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 91 (6), S1-S224.

The 2007 IPPC report was released in April 2007 in Paris. It is available at:

IPCC (WG2) Climate Change Report 2007

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Reframing climate change into a public health issue

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New research carried out by Maibach et al (2010) from George Mason University suggests that framing climate change in terms of a public health issue - rather than an environmental issue - helps a wider spectrum of people to see climate change as personally relevant, understandable, and significant.

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"Re-defining climate change in public health terms should help people make connection to already familiar problems such as asthma, allergies and infectious diseases, while shifting the visualisation of the issue away from remote Arctic regions and distant peoples and animals."

A better healthier future for everyone is a positive framing that may help to better engage the public with climate change.

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"Many leading experts have suggested that a positive vision for the future, rather than a dire one is precisely what has been missing from the public dialogue on climate change so far."

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For the press release for this research see here

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Or for the full paper see here

For more on this, please check out:

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Six Americas - which one are you?

Americians and climate change

Splitting jobs versus the environment

Comments always welcome!.

Please tell us what you think.

An Open Letter from Scientists in the United States on the IPCC

Here is the start of the letter:

Many in the popular press and other media, as well as some in the halls of Congress, are seizing on a few errors that have been found in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in an attempt to discredit the entire report. None of the handful of mis-statements (out of hundreds and hundreds of unchallenged statements) remotely undermines the conclusion that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Despite its excellent performance for accurately reporting the state-of-the-science, we certainly acknowledge that the IPCC should become more forthcoming in openly acknowledging errors in a timely fashion, and continuing to improve its assessment procedures to further lower the already very low rate of error.

It is our intention in offering this open letter to bring the focus back to credible science, rather than invented hyperbole, so that it can bear on the policy debate in the United States and throughout the world. We first discuss some of the key messages from climate science and then elaborate on IPCC procedures, with particular attention to the quality-control mechanisms of the IPCC. Finally we offer some suggestions about what might be done next to improve IPCC practices and restore full trust in climate science.

More here

** If you enjoyed this post please also check out:

The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report

Climate change in Australia: website and report

Estimated cost of adapting to climate change

Overcoming barriers to beat climate change

COMMENTS ALWAYS WELCOME !!

So please, tell us what you think!

Green or Greenwash?

Today's Sydney Morning Herald had a front page story on how two of LG Electronics fridges were found to be not as energy efficient as they claimed. In fact the story suggested that they had installed a devices that activates an energy saving mode when the fridge detects room conditions similiar to those of a test laboratory.

Green fridge labelled a fraud

LG Electronics has agreed to compensate potentially thousands of consumers after two of its fridges - models L197NFS and P197WFS - were found to contain an illegal device that activates an energy-saving mode when it detects room conditions similar to those in a test laboratory.

It is the third time LG Electronics has been caught making false claims about the environmental credentials of its products. In 2008, it had to repay $3 million after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ruled it had inflated the energy-efficiency star rating of five models of air-conditioner. Source (SMH)

I wondered what other greenwash had been 'discovered' in Australia. After a very quick google search, I found the following:

GreenPower retailer led investors astray: ACCC

Global Green Plan Ltd, using the name GreenSwitch, was deregistered from the national GreenPower program in September 2008 for failing to buy enough renewable energy certificates, but it continued to trade through its website until November. The company will now have to buy 4000 renewable energy certificates to make up the shortfall. ''The ACCC investigated the GreenSwitch activities and found the numbers didn't match up,'' the acting chairman of the ACCC, Michael Schaper, said. ''To take money from customers and not use it as it was intended is simply unacceptable.''    Source (SMH)

          Greenwash: company guilty of misleading claims

A carbon credits company, Prime Carbon, has been found guilty by the Federal Court of Australia of making misleading green claims. Prime Carbon is a private company that produces and trades carbon credits created through soil enhancement and carbon sequestration programs.  Source (SMH)

Regulator demands muscle on 'green' ads

Graeme Samuel, the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said a sharp rise in complaints about green advertising claims - from almost none two years ago to about 500 since early 2008 - was ''very unusual''.

''Five hundred suggests there's more than a moderate problem,'' Mr Samuel said. ''It's a new area and in some cases marketers don't understand - but in most cases marketers do understand and they are overselling.''   Source (SMH)

ACCC warns about 'green' marketing
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said as companies push to appear greener, it's becoming difficult to find products that do not promise some kind of environmental benefit. "Companies risk breaching the Trade Practices Act if they give an overall impression to consumers their product is environmentally friendly when it isn't," ACCC deputy chair Louise Sylvan said in a statement.   Source (SMH)

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I also found this:

The Six Sins of Greenwash

In December 2007, TerraChoice, an environmental marketing company in North America , released the findings of a study titled 'The Six Sins of Greenwashing'. The company, a leader in green marketing, found that 99% of the 1018 common 'environmentally friendly' consumer products randomly surveyed for the study were guilty of greenwashing. The findings of the report were alarming and from it the company created the six sins of greenwashing, which it believes will help equip consumers with the tools to figure out the truth about environmentally friendly products. They define the six sins as:

Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off: eg, 'Energy-efficient' electronics that contain hazardous materials.

Sin of No Proof: eg, Shampoos claiming to be 'certified organic', but with no verifiable certification.

Sin of Vagueness: eg, Products claiming to be 100% natural when many naturally occurring substances are hazardous, like arsenic and formaldehyde.

Sin of Irrelevance: eg, Products claiming to be CFC-free, even though CFCs were banned 20 years ago.

Sin of Fibbing: eg, Products falsely claiming to be certified by an internationally recognised environmental standard like EcoLogo, Energy Star or Green Seal.

Sin of Lesser of Two Evils: eg, Organic cigarettes or 'environmentally friendly' pesticides.

Source (www.Sustainabilitymatters.net.au)

So the message is very clear.

Beware of making 'greenwashed' claims for your products or you may end up on the front page of a major newspaper!!

That would not make good business sense.

If anyone finds any more examples of this type of thing, please let me know and I will add the company to the list of shameful behaviour. It is great to see people are making complaints when they see this type of thing ("from almost none two years ago to 500 complaints since 2008").

** If you enjoyed this post please also check out:

ACCC probing more 'green' ad claims

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So please, tell us what you think.

Climate change in Australia: website and report

The Climate change in Australia website was developed by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) in partnership with the Australian Greenhouse Office through the Australian Climate Change Science Program.

Climate change in Australia is based upon international climate change research including conclusions from the IPCC's fourth assessment report. It also builds on a large body of climate research that has been undertaken for the Australian region in recent years.
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Climate change in Australia provides essential tools for government, industry and the community to understand the likely magnitude of climate change in Australia and the possible impacts.

The Climate Change in Australia report is available for download from the Technical Report page of their website.

Figure 1: Trends in annual mean Australian temperatures (left) and rainfall (right) since 1950.
Source: Summary brochure (page 2)

If you are short on time, I would suggest you at least check out the Summary brochure of the Climate change in Australia Report.

Well worth a read!


** If you enjoyed this post please also check out:

The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report

Changing finance - Financing change

Overcoming barriers to beat climate change

New Green Jobs ??

Top 10 Environmental Posts

COMMENTS ALWAYS WELCOME !!

So please, tell us what you think.

Orangutans of Kota Kinabalu

Please don't forget biodiversity!

** If you enjoyed this post please also check out:

2010 - International Year of Biodiversity

United Nations Year of the Gorilla 2009

Australia's Biodiversity and Climate Change

Blue tongue lizard

Polar Bear Begs

Penguin Protest

COMMENTS ALWAYS WELCOME !!