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High Risk Energy Sources

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The earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan raised new concerns about the risk of another nuclear reactor disaster.  The explosion of the FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT gives our citizens cause to re-examine the risk assumed by the public. At this writing, the full extent of the damage to the plant, the community, and the environment is unknown - it will take years.

At the same time concerns over the high risks associated with extracting natural gas and as noted in a Financial Times article is "energy that comes from the same place as our drinking water. Extracting it had better be safe. The political fault lines over hydraulic fracturing (hence the term fracking) have been easy to predict for anyone paying attention to the controversies over climate change and genetically modified organisms. France’s national assembly voted to ban fracking while in the US its been full steam ahead in 32 states. These are high risk alternative energy sources. 

 

Curated by mokiethecat

The Beginning of the End of Nuclear Weapons (trailer)

On the 7th of July 2017, 122 countries voted in favour of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Countries that don’t have nuclear weapons but live under their threat voted for a ban. Without the knowledge of most of their citizens, the governments of the world’s nuclear powers didn’t vote, and yet the ban went ahead. Something new is happening. This documentary film about efforts to bring a nuclear weapon ban treaty into international law and the role of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, is told through the voices of leading activists from several different organizations and countries and the president of the negotiating conference. This 56 minute documentary film takes the viewer through a brief history of the bomb and the anti-nuclear activism that has pushed to eliminate them ever since their invention. It moves into a consideration of the humanitarian initiative that successfully challenged the dominant security narrative and the historic steps taken since 2010 to turn the treaty from a dream into a reality. Finally, the film shows what can be done by anyone to help bring the treaty into force and to stigmatise nuclear weapons until they are finally eradicated. Extracts of fourteen interviews are woven into the story that will leave you feeling inspired