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Mascots and Motor Trends
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
 Check out Der Spiegel's shrine to Knut the polar bear cub, who shares the US cover of Vanity Fair this month with Leo DiCaprio, but who, in Germany, gets it all to his fuzzy little self. The Berlin Zoo has apparently been mobbed with folks who want to see the little guy in his (un)natural element. Indeed, he's become a sort of de facto mascot of Earth Day 2007.
But while folks in Deutschland love the little guy, they also love their cars -- emissions from which are not helping to assure the future survival of Knut's wild brethren. Not only were recent proposals to put speed limits on the famous autobahn met with heavy public resistance, but, according to Der Spiegel, SUV sales have risen by 45 percent in Germany over the last 3 years. Even putting SUVs aside, the general trend in Germany is toward higher horsepower, not higher mileage. Witness the demise of VW's 80-mpg Lupo. The company killed it after painfully slack sales.
So what gives? DaimlerChrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche calls it a case of eco-schizophrenia. Whatever the diagnosis, it does not bode well for Knut's kind.
posted by pat joseph
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Mississippi Nukes
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Port Gibson, Mississippi is home to one of the first post-Three Mile Island nuclear plants to apply for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission - the so-called "Grand Gulf" nuclear plant. We call it "Grand Goof." A coalition of companies called NuStart has received a federal subsidy of $260 million, as part of the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Power 2010 program, just to cover the cost of applying for a construction and operating license at the Grand Gulf site. (This is the entire annual budget for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory).
Today we filed a claim with the Atomic Safety Licensing Board (a sub-unit of NRC) demanding that they take a hard look at the risks from a possible terrorist attack on this facility when they evaluate its environmental impacts. The NRC has, until recently, refused to look at terrorism risks, calling them "speculative." That was until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in another one of our cases (teaming up with the organization Mothers for Peace) taking the NRC to task for refusing to look at terrorism risks. We are asking that NRC do the right thing and look at the possible terrorism risks associated with the Grand Gulf plant.
You don't have to be a CIA agent to know that nuclear power plants are natural targets. People have a right to know the potential dangers they face in their own neighborhoods. That’s not only common sense; it happens to be the law.
posted by Pat Gallagher
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