If you live in Orange or San Diego County, hopefully you’re aware that San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has been turned into a nuclear waste dump for the foreseeable future. If you live on planet earth, you’re wise to be tracking domestic and foreign moves to increase reliance on nuclear energy. The United States ushered in the atomic age in 1945 by dropping a…
The decommissioning of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has been riddled with controversies since it was shuttered in 2013, undermining public confidence in Southern California Edison’s management of highly radioactive nuclear waste which will be stored on-site for the foreseeable future. In 2018 for example, a whistleblower exposed how a 54-ton canister loaded with radioactive waste nearly plummeted 18 feet because of a design flaw…
I’ve wasted too much time lately combing the news for an answer to a crucial question about pandemics like Covid-19: Are they inevitable? Newscasters and the scientists, doctors and politicians they interview rarely venture beyond daily counts of the stricken to explain why we have pandemics. I suspect it’s because the answer is harder to stomach than the horror of the pandemic itself. Animals humans…
This is a followup to an article of mine published on 12/13/18, and was inspired by a recent measurement of the likely ingestion of microplastics by typical Americans through diet and inhalation. The findings are of real concern, given the risky chemicals associated with plastics and new data showing that, once microplastics get into our tissues, they can translocate to other organs and are even showing…
Two recent scandals confirm that public safety is not top priority of either the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) or SoCal Edison as they lurch forward with a faulty engineering design for removing spent nuclear waste from cooling pools and loading into dry storage at the now shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. In August 2018, a conscience-driven whistle blower exposed how, because of a system…
The next U.S. presidential election is being transformed because children everywhere, watching in disbelief as grownups fail to address the climate crisis, are launching their own climate movements. In contrast to the 2016 election – where exactly zero questions about global warming were posed during the general election debates – the lineup of presidential candidates are already being pressured to do something about the climate…
But it needs your support. It’s hope-inspiring that a bipartisan bill was introduced in the House of Representatives in January which could save our children and grandchildren from what scientists tell us is an ongoing and growing climate disaster. The evidence is incontrovertible that the climate is in crisis and that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause. A recognized global authority on climate change has warned…
What do beer, oysters, table salt, air & tap water have in common? They’re all ways humans are ingesting microplastics, tiny bits of plastic waste ubiquitous in oceans, lakes and rivers and even soil and air. Wildlife as diverse as whales, seabirds, fish and zooplankton are polluted by ingesting plastic debris. It’s naïve to assume that humans, sharing the same global environment and eating at…
Mankind has only 12 years left to make unprecedented cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if we want to stave off unimaginably catastrophic effects of runaway global warming. This is the warning detailed in October’s report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the recognized global climate authority which represents the investigations of hundreds of climate scientists and 195 participating nations. A…
What to do with the 3.6 million pounds of highly radioactive waste at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station by Camp Pendleton remains an epic problem, pitting concerned citizens against Southern California Edison, the California Coastal Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). San Onofre’s seaside nuclear reactors were permanently shut down in 2013, following steam generator malfunction. Edison operates San Onofre while the Coastal Commission…