Worse to worser to horrific

Fukushima Apocalypse: Years Of ‘Duct Tape Fixes’ Could Result In ‘Millions Of Deaths’ 

At Fukushima, we have six top-floor pools all loaded with fuel that eventually will have to be removed, the most important being Reactor 4, although Reactor 3 is in pretty bad shape too. Spent fuel pools were never intended for long-term storage, they were only to assist short-term movement of fuel. Using them as a long-term storage pool is a huge mistake that has become an 'acceptable' practice and repeated at every reactor site worldwide. 

We have three 100-ton melted fuel blobs underground, but where exactly they are located, no one knows. Whatever 'barriers' TEPCO has put in place so far have failed. Efforts to decontaminate radioactive water have failed. Robots have failed. Camera equipment and temperature gauges...failed. Decontamination of surrounding cities has failed. 

We have endless releases into the Pacific Ocean that will be ongoing for not only our lifetimes, but our children’s' lifetimes. We have 40 million people living in the Tokyo area nearby. We have continued releases from the underground corium that reminds us it is there occasionally with steam events and huge increases in radiation levels. Across the Pacific, we have at least two peer-reviewed scientific studies so far that have already provided evidence of increased mortality in North America, and thyroid problems in infants on the west coast states from our initial exposures.

 We have increasing contamination of the food chain, through bioaccumulation and biomagnification. And a newly stated concern is the proximity of melted fuel in relation to the Tokyo aquifer that extends under the plant. If and when the corium reaches the Tokyo aquifer, serious and expedient discussions will have to take place about evacuating 40 million people from the greater metropolitan area. As impossible as this sounds, you cannot live in an area which does not have access to safe water.

The operation to begin removing fuel from such a severely damaged pool has never been attempted before. The rods are unwieldy and very heavy, each one weighing two-thirds of a ton. But it has to be done, unless there is some way to encase the entire building in concrete with the pool as it is. I don't know of anyone discussing that option, but it would seem much 'safer' than what they are about to attempt...but not without its own set of risks.

 And all this collateral damage will continue for decades, if not centuries, even if things stay exactly the way they are now. But that is unlikely, as bad things happen like natural disasters and deterioration with time...earthquakes, subsidence, and corrosion, to name a few. Every day that goes by, the statistical risk increases for this apocalyptic scenario. No one can say or know how this will play out, except that millions of people will probably die even if things stay exactly as they are, and billions could die if things get any worse.

Link via Steve Bates

Update 8/21: Definition of anomaly: We have no idea how bad it is.

Fukushima warning: danger level at nuclear plant jumps to 'serious' Japan's nuclear agency dramatically raises status after saying a day earlier that radioactive water leak was only an 'anomaly'

Update 8/23: Finally pleading for international help:

TEPCO, operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, admits it needs overseas help to contain the radioactive fallout, after 18 months of trying to control it internally. It comes after the latest leak at the facility was deemed a “serious incident. 

"Many other countries outside of Japan have experienced decommissioning reactors, so we hope we can consult them more and utilize their experience,” TEPCO’s vice president, Zengo Aizawa, said at a news conference on Wednesday night. 

"In that sense, we need support, not only from the Japanese government but from the international community to do this job." 

The call comes after one of the 1,060 temporary tanks used to store highly contaminated water sprang a leak on Wednesday, discharging as much as 300 tons of radioactive liquid containing large amounts of cesium. Further tests revealed excessive radiation levels elsewhere in the facility. 

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) rated the incident 3 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, which spans from 1 to 7.

Update: Just a little more than 200,000 tons of radioactive water.... that's all....

TOKYO — The operator of Japan’s tsunami-hit nuclear power plant sounded the alarm on the gravity of the deepening crisis of containment at the coastal site on Friday, saying that there are more than 200,000 tons of radioactive water in makeshift tanks vulnerable to leaks, with no reliable way to check on them or anywhere to transfer the water. 

The latest disclosures add to a long list of recent accidents, leaks and breakdowns that have underscored grave vulnerabilities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site more than two years after a powerful earthquake and tsunami set off meltdowns at three reactors. 

They come two weeks after the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, promised that his government would take a more active role in the site’s cleanup, raising questions over how seriously he has taken that pledge. Mr. Abe’s government has continued to push for a restart of the country’s nuclear power program, and he heads to the Middle East on Saturday to promote Japanese exports to the region, including nuclear technology.

WHY does John Yoo have a teaching job?

At UC Berkeley no less.

Torture Advocate John Yoo Justifies Need For Radical Legal Paradigm By Citing Death Toll Of Terrorist Attacks

Listening to him justify horrific inhumane torture in that calm smarmy voice just set my teeth on edge.

*Update* TPM has all three sections of his conversation with John Stewart.

Do people really want him to educate their college students? Really?

Balance what Yoo claims were just treatments of Gitmo prisoners to this ex-Gitmo guard (my bold):

The journey of reconciliation began almost a year ago in Huntsville, Texas. Mr Neely, 29, had left the US military in 2005 to become a police officer and was still struggling to come to terms with his time as a guard at Guantanamo.

He felt anger at a number of incidents of abuse he says he witnessed, and guilt over one in particular.

Highly controversial since it opened in 2002, Guantanamo prison was set up by President George Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to house suspected "terrorists". But it has been heavily divisive and President Barack Obama has said it has "damaged [America's] national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al Qaeda".

Mr Neely recalls only the good publicity in the US media.

"The news would always try to make Guantanamo into this great place," he says, "like 'they [prisoners] were treated so great'. No it wasn't. You know here I was basically just putting innocent people in cages."

Watch the two videos and read the full story to get an inkling of what the 'legalized' use of torture has done to us as a nation. Thanks to the work of John Yoo.

Bangladesh's cyclone aftermath

BARGUNA, Bangladesh (AP) -- The death toll from Thursday's cyclone in Bangladesh is now more than 3,100, and officials say that number could reach 10,000 once rescuers get to outlying islands. Rescuers are struggling to reach thousands of survivors, and relief items have been slow to reach many. Survivors grieved and buried their loved ones Monday as they waited for aid to arrive.

The death toll from the Thursday cyclone reached 3,113 after reports finally reached Dhaka from storm-ravaged areas which had been largely cut off because of washed-out roads and downed telephone lines, said Lt. Col. Main Ullah Chowdhury, a spokesman of the army coordinating the relief and rescue work.

Relief Web has this:

As of 18th November, the disaster management control room reported death of 2,300 people in 23 districts due to the Cyclone Sidr. It is also reported from different sources that nearly 4,000 people are seriously injured. Thousands are still missing and it is unofficially forecasted that the dead and missing will be over 5,000. It is estimated that the cyclone has affected 887,000 families of 103 upazilas, killed 242,000 livestock and destroyed crops on 23,000 acres of land and flattened nearly three million houses.

And:

DHAKA (AFP) — Experts said Sunday they feared for the wildlife and ecology of the world's biggest mangrove forest after a deadly cyclone tore through the Sunderbans -- home to the endangered Royal Bengal tiger.

Zunayed Kabir Chowdhury, a Dhaka-based mangrove expert, said he feared thousands of deer as well as many tigers and wild boar had been swept away by the massive tidal wave triggered by cyclone Sidr last Thursday.

"The eye of the cyclone hit the part of the Sunderbans which is known to be the most important habitat of the tigers and other wildlife," he said.

The nests of many birds would also have been destroyed, he added.

"Wildlife is vulnerable to this sort of natural disaster and much would have been washed away by the strong surge," said Shanti Ranjan Das of the government's livestock department.

"The cyclone has inflicted an ecological disaster," he added.

This is just the beginning of constant news about inundations along the coastlines, about huge losses of life. Too many people trying to find areas to live in are forced into danger zones.

Nice to think there are still people who deny global warming and insist that birth control is evil....

Update:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its report that evidence of climate change is "unequivocal."

It said the trend could lead to "abrupt" changes to the planet, cause human suffering and threaten some species with extinction.